Monthly Archives: July 2007

More on the myth of healthy long distance runners

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alberto%20salazar.jpgThis earlier post noted development of research indicating that long distance running over a long term may be hazardous to your health.
Thus, this article from earlier in the week about arguably the greatest American marathoner caught my eye:

Alberto Salazar, the former champion marathoner who collapsed over the weekend, had his condition upgraded Monday from serious to fair.
A cardiologist at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center said tests now indicate that Salazar had a heart attack while coaching distance runners Saturday at the Nike campus outside Portland, said Lisa Helderop, a hospital spokeswoman.
Salazar, who is alert and talking with his family, told a doctor at the hospital that he has a family history of heart conditions, Helderop said. [. . .]
Salazar, a University of Oregon graduate, won the New York City Marathon three straight years (1980-82) and the 1982 Boston Marathon. He has set six U.S. records and one world record. He is a longtime Nike employee and consultant who trains elite distance runners and has a building named for him on campus.

This recent University of Maryland Medical Center study addresses another health risk of long-distance running. And none of the foregoing even touches on the heightened risk of joint and ligament damage that results from long distance running. Take note, runners.

A 4th of July treat

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I don’t know about you, but I didn’t know that Kevin Spacey is almost as good an impressionist as he is an actor. Enjoy!

The rebranding of Nick Faldo

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Nick%20Faldo%20070307.jpgThis entire Nick Greenslade/Observer article on how Nick Faldo remade himself from a recalcitrant PGA Tour pro to an affable CBS commentator is quite interesting, but I no idea that Faldo is a valuable annuity for the family law bar. Toward the end fo the article, Greenslade summarizes Faldo’s three marriages and divorces:

Nick’s ladies
Melanie Rockall
‘We were happily married for eight months. Unfortunately, we were married for four-and-a-half years,’ Faldo has said of his first marriage, which began in 1979 when he was only 21. . .
Gill Bennett
‘Socially, he was a 24-handicapper,’ Bennett said of Faldo, whom she had met while working as his agent’s secretary when he was still married to Rockall. The couple married in 1986 and Bennett later revealed that the births of their three children, who now live with her in Ascot, Berkshire, had been induced to avoid any clashes with his playing schedule. . . .
Brenna Cepelak
College golfer Cepelak was 20 when she met Faldo, . . . ‘It’s always sad when these things end,’ [Faldo] said. Cepelak responded to the break-up by taking an iron to his Porsche. ‘It was a nine-iron or a wedge,’ recalled Faldo. ‘It was a very special car. It was so hi-tech, it was made of plastic. The club kept bouncing off. It wouldn’t leave a dent. I auctioned it off.’
Valerie Bercher
The third Mrs Faldo, whom he had first met at a tournament in her native Switzerland in 1997, lasted five years. . . . On learning of his son-in-law’s application for divorce last year, Bercher’s father said: ‘We are at a loss to explain. But it is not the first time he has changed his mind. He bought a Bentley recently, but once he had it he was bored with it after a month and got rid of it.’

Now, that’s a home office

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BattingCages1.jpgThe concept of the home office has been elevated to an entirely new level.

The Tyler Rose’s ordeal

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campbell_1955.jpgIn the late 1970’s, Earl Campbell ushered in a generation of outstanding running backs from Texas and he remains the standard by which power runners are evaluated. However, the pounding that Earl took during his playing career has taken a heavy toll. As Jay Christensen and Tom Dienhart report, the Tyler Rose is badly crippled despite the fact that he has just turned 50 years of age (a related Chip Brown/Dallas Morning News article is here).
Given Campbell’s condition, this recent Chronicle story looks even sillier than it did at the time it ran.

Will Houston learn from L.A.’s mistakes?

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Houston%20traffic3.jpgAs noted earlier here and here, the Houston metropolitan area shares many of the same characteristics of the Los Angeles metro area, albeit with far lower density of population. Although rail transit is typically inefficient in areas of relatively low density of population, that has not stopped Houston’s Metropolitan Transit Authority from spending enormous sums on inefficent light rail for Houston and proposing even more. One of the common rationalizations used by Metro for such boondoggles is that the transit lines will promote development of more densely-populated housing around the rail lines that will ultimately generate enough mass transit users to justify the enormous cost. Someday.
So, given the L.A. region’s greater density of population, has rail transit generated such housing along the rail lines there? Well, not according to this front page Los Angeles Times article entitled “Near the rails but still on the road — Research casts doubt on the region’s strategy of pushing transit-oriented residential projects to get people out of cars”:

In Los Angeles alone, billions of public and private dollars have been lavished on transit-oriented projects such as Hollywood & Vine, with more than 20,000 residential units approved within a quarter mile of transit stations between 2001 and 2005.
But there is little research to back up the rosy predictions. Among the few academic studies of the subject, one that looked at buildings in the Los Angeles area showed that transit-based development successfully weaned relatively few residents from their cars. It also found that, over time, no more people in the buildings studied were taking transit 10 years after a project opened than when it was first built.

To which USC urban economics professor Peter Gordon replies:

I could not have said it any better. Well actually, some of us did — over 30 years ago.
Yes, it is not pretty to say I-told-you-so. But the arrogant know-nothings inside LA’s beltway (including LA Times writers and including some who still hold public office) have been confused on this issue for years. Their plans have cost billions and, along the way, made traffic much worse. It was exactly the sort of fatal conceit that Hayek wrote about many years ago.
Yesterday, the same newspaper (front-page, below the fold) included “Will traffic-weary L.A. heed the toll call? … The land of the freeway is poised to become a little less free …”
What will they think of next?

Will Houston’s leaders listen? Incidents such as this do not make me optimistic that they will.

The search for a cure

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MD%20Anderson.jpgYale University School of Medicine neurologist Steven Novella, the editor of the Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine, provides this insightful NeuroLogica post that addresses the issue of why medical research has not discovered a cure for cancer despite the enormous resources dedicated to cancer research. In so doing, he clears up several common misconceptions about cancer and the incentives involved in finding a cure. He concludes as follows:

The overall reality is that the standard of scientific medicine is not a monolithic entity, controlled by any one institution, agency, or industry. It is a complex and dynamic set of many forces and interests. It is ultimately driven by science, which is a transparent and public process, and prevents any big brother type of control (this is partly why it is so important that healthcare be based upon science).
Cancer is a very difficult type of disease to treat, and the public has a very distorted view of the nature of cancer and of medical scientific progress in general. This has lead to unrealistic expectations of progress in curing cancer, which then in turn leads to thoughts that cancer research is somehow not working.
I find the same to be true in medicine in general ñ the public thinks of scientific progress in terms of dramatic ìbreakthroughs.î Media hype feeds this misconception. The reality is that medical scientific progress is largely a series of very small steps, with a cumulative effect of slow steady improvement in treatments. We have not cured Alzheimerís disease, ALS, Multiple Sclerosis Parkinsonís disease, and many other diseases as well. But treatments are slowly improving. Slow steady progress does not make good headlines, however, so the myth of miracle medical breakthroughs will likely continue to be promoted by the media.

Read the entire post. Hat tip to Sandy Szwarc.

An important distinction in the health care finance debate

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microscope.gifClear Thinkers favorite Arnold Kling, who appears to be everywhere these days in regard to discussions over reform of America’s health care finance system, reminds us in this Washington Times op-ed of an important distinction in the health care finance debate — despite the problems in health care finance, American medical care and research remains the hope of the world:

On one side of me at the graduation [of my daughter] sat [my wife], a breast cancer survivor. On the other side was my father, whose heart condition and blood pressure threatened to take his life before my daughter was ready to graduate kindergarten, much less college. Finally, there was my daughter herself, who since high school has had a chronic intestinal illness sufficiently contained that she could graduate on schedule.
None of these three stars would have been there without medical treatments that only became available since my daughter was born. New drugs played a significant role in each case. In fact, some pharmaceuticals critical for my daughter only were approved for her condition a few years before she was given them. Drugs in the pipeline are likely to play an important role in her future.
In other countries, would the same state-of-the-art medicines and equipment have been available to my father, my wife and my daughter? Perhaps. But it is a safe bet these technologies were not invented elsewhere.
Much of the medical innovation that the world enjoys comes from America. While as an economist I find much to criticize about our health-care system, America’s role in medical innovation is crucial not just for Americans, but for the entire world.

Read the entire op-ed.

Stros 2007 Season Review, Part Four

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Bidg%20acknowledging%20ovation.jpgSo, now that the Stros are done with that, where does the club go from here?
As the Stros (34-47) reached the halfway point of the 2007 season, that’s the question confronting the owner Drayton McLane and General Manager Tim Purpura. The club went 8-12 during the fourth 1/8th segment of the season after going 9-12, 11-9 and 6-14 during the first three (prior periodic season reviews here). That geneally abysmal performance removed any fleeting doubt that the Stros could compete for the National League Central division title. The Stros finished the first half of the season 13.5 games behind the division-leading Brewers (47-33), good for only fifth place in a mediocre six team division.
How has this happened to a club that is only a season and a half removed from a World Series appearance? As noted here earlier this season, some folks who cover the club on a regular basis don’t even know the answer to that question. However, it’s clear that the 2007 Stros have taken a major step backward because of an overall decline in pitching. Through 81 games, the Stros’ pitching staff has given up 65 more runs than a merely average National League club would have given up in the same number of innings (runs saved against average or RSAA, explained here) and an astounding 139 more runs than the best National League pitching staff (the Padres). The aggregate RSAA of the Stros’ staff is currently dead last in the 16 team National League, a startling development for a pitching staff that has been among the best in MLB over the past three seasons. The pitching staff’s performance is by far the worst by a Stros staff since the 2000 season, when a similar meltdown during the club’s initial season in Minute Maid Park resulted in a -69 RSAA and a disastrous 72-90 record, the only losing record for the Stros in the past 15 seasons until this season.
Meanwhile, the Stros’ hitting has actually taken an upswing recently after meandering below National League-average for the first 3/8ths of the season. Improved hitting from slugger Lance Berkman (12 RCAA/.386 OBP/.434 SLG/.820 OPS), continued excellent production from Hunter Pence (16/.358/.562/.920), and solid contributions from Mark Loretta (10/.410/.441/.851), Carlos Lee (6/.346/.514/.860), Mike Lamb (8/.365/.475/.840) and Luke Scott (4/.335/.465/.800) resulted in the Stros generating, through 81 games of the season, 18 more runs than an average National League club would have created using the same number of outs (runs created against average or RCAA, defined here) through the halfway point of the season. That’s good for 6th place in the National League, the best performance for Stros hitters since the 2004 club’s late season surge allowed the Stros to finish 7th in RCAA among the 16 National League teams.
Unfortunately, the Stros’ improved hitting does not come close to compensating for the Stros’ overall atrocious pitching. By adding a club’s overall RCAA and RSAA numbers, the sum provides a good measure for evaluating a club’s overall performance relative to an average National League club, which would have a combined RCAA/RSAA score of precisely zero. The Stros’ RCAA/RSAA deficit of -47 this season is a clear indication that the Stros are currently a far below-average National League team.
The season statistics for the Stros to date are below, courtesy of Lee Sinins‘ sabermetric Complete Baseball Encyclopedia. The abbreviations for the hitting stats are defined here and the same for the pitching stats are here. The Stros active roster is here with links to each individual player’s statistics:

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