Yolanda's, Tuna, Alzheimer's, And Laetrile

Put a wash in before breakfast, then went back and forth with Julie and Vera about the possibility of our Soaring Spirits lunch tomorrow. However, Vera said "headquarters"--i.e., the main leadership--is still not recommending gathering; she suggested we just meet for lunch as friends. Julie and I will go and, I'm happy to report, we'll meet at Yolanda's where we did when I moved here and joined the group six years ago. Great--I much prefer that to Surf Fire Grille. 

I made tuna fish sandwiches for lunch and put out grapes and almonds. When Jim got here--as we agreed, at 12:30--I suddenly remembered he doesn't like tuna. I asked to be sure, he doesn't, so having some Swiss cheese, I made him one with that. Showed him the two books I just bought Philosophy/An Illuminating Guide to History's Greatest Thinkers and Factfulness and we had good discussions about the ideas in both. 

Jim also mentioned a book by a professor at UCLA that promotes a particular diet and supplements to not only prevent, but cure Alzheimer's.  An odd coincident is that the guy who wrote it is the founder and CEO of Apollo Health, through which one gets the treatment, and naturally, profits from sales of the book, The End Of Alzheimer's. That's funny, isn't it? But of course, that doesn't mean he's a charlatan and a fraud, does it? It's just a coincidence.

Jim and I had a heated exchange about this. Alzheimer's has robbed me of the person I've known since I was born--in this case, "literally" is valid to use--and whom I love dearly. Its ravages are as tragic as death itself--in some ways, more so, because the physical presence is still there while the mind becomes a rotting corpse of decay. It infuriates me that desperate people might invest large sums to save their loved ones, when the science behind this is so poor and the writer is trying to get rich on other people's misery.* Here's one review, more for the non-medical, but I've plowed through several others by contemporaries of the writer:    

https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/05/417431/pricey-protocol-not-proven-prevent-or-reverse-alzheimers-says-ucsf-neurologist

Anyway, poor Jim was the recipient of my furious tirade--I even disparaged UCLA, calling it a rinky-dink school in a provincial state--and later, I e-mailed him to apologize. One of these days, I'll learn to keep my mouth shut.

Note: I've been sleeping very poorly over the last few nights. The gruesome new pattern I've developed is that I go to sleep at my usual 9:30 or 10:00, awaken three hours later for the usual, have a hard time getting back, then awake at about 4:00. I hope I can shake this.

*It reminds me of the Laetrile "cure for cancer" from years ago. It was made from apricot pits, I understand. Poor Betty actually sent to Mexico and paid a large sum to get some for her dying husband, so now Wes is alive and well. 

Not.