AlphaMale

Dr. Oz talks about Alpha-1

The subject was cancer on the Dr. Oz show today.

In an answer to a question from a woman in the audience about lung cancer running in her family, Oz and his on-stage experts mentioned smoking, the obvious risk factor, then radon gas, then asbestos, an environmental factor growing less and less common.

Then Oz brought up a genetic risk factor, and explained it pretty clearly: Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency.

I wish the topic had been COPD, rather than cancer, but it was great anyway.

Hitting me up for a buck

That's what they're doing.

And everybody should do it this well.

You've come a long way, baby

In 1968, Philip Morris marketed Virginia Slims cigarettes to women with an advertising strategy showing canny insight into the importance of the emerging women's movement. The slogan "You've come a long way, Baby" later gave way to "It's a woman thing" in the mid-1990s, and more recently the "Find your voice" campaign featuring women of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. The underlying message of these campaigns has been that smoking is related to women's freedom, emancipation, and empowerment.

COPD used to be considered an old man's disease.

Think of smoker's cough. It's easy to see the old coot getting up in the morning, lighting one up even before he gets dressed, and coughing his way to the bathroom.

Today, more women have COPD than men.

That's almost certainly because smoking for women became very, very cool in the decade following 1968.

We're all suckers for whatever we think is cool

How do we encourage young people to feel that smoking isn't cool at all?

The Number 3 Killer

For 50 years, strokes have been the third leading cause of death in the United States, after heart disease and cancer.

We've been told that COPD -- lung diseases -- would take over the third spot by the year 2020. Now we're told COPD, a condition that most of us Alphas share, rushed into third place 12 years early -- in 2008.

Thanks to the smoking boom 30-40 years ago, especially among women, lung disease is rising fast as a killer. But did it suddenly speed up?

No. Turns out, we're just counting differently. David Mannino is among the lung specialists who say deaths from COPD have been under-counted for many years. He's quoted here.

The unadoptables

Ever raise a child?

Then one of the things you know, down to your bone marrow, is how much work it is to do this job well. That's true of any child, including a reasonably healthy kid facing all the usual challenges of growing up.

How do you feel about adopting a child? Let's say a child with brain damage, severe physical problems that will require medication for a lifetime, and emotional problems caused by rejection and neglect.

Here's how I feel: Overwhelmed at the very idea.

This is why some children are usually considered unadoptable: Most people feel the way I do. But amazingly, not everybody.