Hasta La Gadget!

A new review of studies shows just how some substance use disorders and mental conditions affect lifespan —- and depending on the condition, the mortality risks are the same, if not higher, than heavy smoking.

“We found that many mental health diagnoses are associated with a drop in life expectancy as great as that associated with smoking 20 or more cigarettes a day,” study researcher Dr. Seena Fazel, of the Department of Psychiatry at Oxford University, said in a statement. Fazel noted that some possible reasons include the association between people with mental health issues and high-risk behaviors (such as drug and alcohol abuse), as well as potential barriers to proper health care for people experiencing mental health issues.

The review, published in the journal World Psychiatry, included 20 systematic reviews and meta-analyses that in turn included data from more than 1.7 million people with mental disorders, as well as more than 250,000 deaths. The researchers further examined 14 publications with data on life expectancy.

They found that the loss of years of life among heavy smokers is between eight and 10 years. Comparably, the loss of years of life is between nine and 20 years for people with bipolar disorder, between 10 and 20 years for people with schizophrenia, and between seven and 11 years for people with recurrent depression, according to the review.

The potential lost years of life for substance use disorders was even higher — between nine and 24 years for people with drug and alcohol abuse problems.

The rate of death from suicide was higher than the general public for some conditions, including borderline personality disorder, depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and opioid use, the review showed.

“Smoking has been an important target for prevention because it is so common and perceived to be so dangerous. Mental disorders are also relatively common when considered together, but the risk to life is not perceived in the same way,“ the researchers wrote in the study. “From a public health perspective, patients with serious mental illness should be designated as a high risk population for physical illness, given the substantial health disparities compared with the general population.”

Conventional wisdom tells us that we don’t move enough, but could it be that we sit too much? Is it the lack of time spent being active or the excess time spent being inactive? It’s more than likely a combination of the two, but research over the last six months makes a case for reducing our sitting time as much as we’re increasing our movement time.

Research from Kansas State University in 2013 concluded that those who sit four hours or more each day are at a significantly higher risk of developing cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. The interesting takeaway was that four hours of sitting wasn’t necessarily the cutoff for an increased risk. The likelihood of developing a degenerative disease continued to increase on a consistent curve from six to eight hours, and eight hours and beyond.

In February of this year, Northwestern University found that if you’re over 60 years of age, every additional hour spent sitting doubles your risk of becoming disabled. Surprisingly, the researchers found that any additional exercise had no impact on the disability risk. Suggesting that it’s not necessarily a question of active vs. inactive, but rather total time spent sitting.

One could argue that those who sit all day have poor eating and lifestyle habits (e.g., sleep). This is definitely understandable for those on the road and working night shifts, like truck drivers or police officers, and regrettably characteristic of many occupations that revolve around computers. However, it was clearly mentioned in the KSU study that the probability of chronic disease remained high regardless of body mass index. Meaning that the increased risk is not because of the specific lifestyle habits or other outside factors of the individual, but rather the actual practice of sitting. Perhaps the lead researcher from KSU, Richard Rosenkranz, says it best:

We know that with very high confidence that more physically active people do better with regard to chronic disease compared with less physically active people, but we should also be looking at reducing sitting.

We already know you can’t out-exercise a crappy diet, and it appears you can’t out-exercise a crappy desk job either. The key is avoiding chronic periods of sitting, as was outlined in a 2013 study from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Not only did Australian researchers find a 39 percent improvement in glucose and a 26 percent decrease in insulin from activity breaks throughout the day, but those who regularly stood up and moved around frequently were better off than those taking part in 30 minutes of exercise per day — by 37 and 18 percent!

Fortunately, we can all make an effort to increase our standing or walking outside of the hours we’re expected to sit. This could be as easy as walking around while we’re on the phone, taking the stairs, parking further away from the entrance on purpose, walking to a co-worker/employees desk instead of emailing them, or doing a lap of the office every few hours.

Stay Lean (and stand up)!

Coach Mike

William Inge is a dark chronicler of small-town Midwest lives. The roles of alcohol and sexual impropriety are familiar threads in his work — a striking contrast to the white-picket fence world of assumed propriety.

He wrote his four masterpieces — Picnic, Bus Stop, Splendor in the Grass and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs — in the 1950s. All demand a certain kind of acting; performers who can spin their emotions on a dime.

One of his last, and least heralded plays, A Loss of Roses, now off-Broadway at the Theatre at St. Clement’s, is a stronger work than credited at its 1959 debut. Roses is remembered mostly for securing Warren Beatty a Tony nomination for his single Broadway role, which closed after 25 performances.

But the play is solid, and the Peccadillo Theater Company has rightly revived it.

A Loss of Roses is an intimate story. Kenny Baird (Ben Kahre) is a
21-year-old with a job at a filling station; his widowed mother Helen (Deborah Hedwall) is a nurse. They both have jobs during the Depression, no small victory. It’s the 1930s, outside Kansas City.

Kenny refuses to leave home; he feels somewhat responsible for his mother’s well-being. She, in turn, wishes he was more independent, worried about his drinking and penchant for trashy girls. Kenny acts, in part, like a pseudo-husband; filling in for the father who died when he was young.

Into their lives comes Lila (Jean Lichty), a pretty, out-of-work actress whose past hints at misery and abuse. Helen, who helped Lila escape her family home in Oklahoma, now welcomes her as a guest. But like Blanche DuBois, Lichty’s sensuality and appeal aren’t her salvation.

However, her presence, like the mysterious stranger in Picnic, is a catalyst to shake up the Baird household.

Troubled families, sexual frustration, inchoate yearnings are an Inge specialty — and those elements are a potent mix in Roses. Harry Feiner’s sets and lighting are spot-on, as is Marianne Custer’s costume design. The acting is a bit more problematic. Hedwall is excellent as Helen, combining a no-nonsense approach to life with real empathy, while Kahre and Lichty’s push/pull attraction is heartfelt.

But the two are strangely restrained at times, and some of the most meaningful moments aren’t as fiercely emotional as the script suggests. Still, Inge’s least-known work deserves attention. It’s a stark reminder that the pathos of everyday life is just beneath a casual smile. Scratch the surface in Inge’s world and the darkness appears.

Photo: Michael Portantiere

On Thursday, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper signed into law a statute criminalizing “revenge porn.” As professors with expertise in constitutional and criminal law, we commend the legislature and governor for their actions and hope other states will follow suit.

Revenge porn–more accurately known as “non-consensual pornography“–is the distribution of intimate pictures of another person without that person’s consent. One common scenario involves an angry former partner who wishes to humiliate. But roommates, landlords, voyeurs, and hackers have likewise obtained and distributed intimate pictures without permission.

Victims of non-consensual pornography suffer devastating harm. Unwanted publication of one’s intimate pictures can damage employment prospects, destroy relationships, and exact an immense psychological toll. Many victims experience intense harassment and threats to physical safety–both online and offline–as a direct result of the publication of the pictures. Several victims have committed suicide.

In recognition of these harms, twelve states, most recently including Colorado, have already criminalized non-consensual pornography. Legislation is pending in several others and at the federal level.

The new Colorado law creates two misdemeanors. One applies when an individual posts intimate pictures to harass the victim by causing severe emotional distress; the other when the pictures are posted for monetary gain. Both offenses apply only to posting on social media either without consent or when the perpetrator should have known that the person depicted reasonably expected that the pictures would remain private. Neither applies to pictures related to a newsworthy event or to events related to public figures.

Some have questioned whether criminalizing non-consensual pornography infringes on protected expression. While this is an important concern, we believe that Colorado’s new law survives constitutional scrutiny. The First Amendment has never shielded all expression: the Supreme Court has held that the government can regulate certain unprotected categories of speech that, like non-consensual pornography, cause egregious harm and lack social value. Indeed, victims have already turned to civil remedies such as copyright law, which courts have repeatedly held constitutional. And the ACLU–typically critical of laws that infringe on expression–agrees that criminal laws can withstand constitutional scrutiny if they comply with requirements that the Colorado law meets.

It’s true that the Supreme Court has never explicitly addressed non-consensual pornography. But the Supreme Court had also never addressed obscenity until it addressed obscenity, nor had it addressed child pornography until it addressed child pornography. Technological developments enable both inspiring new forms of communication and awful new mechanisms of abuse. The First Amendment is subject to ongoing interpretation as the world it regulates continues to evolve. Non-consensual pornography closely resembles other forms of unprotected expression and should be categorized with them.

Others might object that non-consensual pornography–while repugnant–should not be criminalized because civil law provides adequate remedies. For example, copyright law allows some victims to sue for damages and have their pictures removed, and tort law permits suits for invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and similar claims. Such lawsuits play an important role, but they provide an incomplete remedy. Civil litigation is expensive, and not everyone can afford a lawyer. Copyright law only provides a remedy when the victim owns the copyright to the picture, which is often not the case if someone else took the picture. Some perpetrators of non-consensual pornography are insolvent, so victims would recover little or nothing. Most importantly, even large civil damages awards won’t solve the real problem. Once published online, non-consensual pornography is often downloaded and reposted innumerable times. Preventing initial posting is critical, and criminalization supplies an important deterrent.

The new Colorado crimes will be Class 1 misdemeanors, punishable by a maximum $10,000 fine and a year imprisonment. This category also includes such offenses as unlawful telemarketing practices, late payment of gambling taxes, and failure to present evidence of car insurance. The serious harm caused by publishing intimate pictures without permission deserves punishment at least as severe as these acts. Indeed, some states have made non-consensual pornography a felony.

The law is legally sound and good policy. We are glad to have it on the books in our state.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A cross-country fight had to make an unscheduled landing when a service dog pooped twice in the aisle, sickening passengers with the odor.

US Airways spokesman Andrew Christie said the May 28 US Airways flight from Los Angeles to Philadelphia had to make an unscheduled stop in Kansas City, Christie called the episode a “rare and unfortunate situation.” The flight continued after the mess was cleaned up on the ground. The passenger and service dog were rebooked on another flight.

Jim Kutsch, president at The Seeing Eye guide dog school in Morristown, New Jersey, tells The Philadelphia Inquirer that such incidents are rare, but that dogs occasionally get sick on planes, too.