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A recent study suggests that drinking diet soda may increase the risk of heart disease. Stock photo
Simple dietary changes can improve outcomes

By David Dunaief, M.D.

Dr. David Dunaief

Cardiovascular disease is anything but boring; what we know about it is constantly evolving. New information comes along all the time, which on the whole is a good thing. Even though cardiovascular disease has been on the decline, it is still the number one killer of Americans, responsible for almost 30 percent of deaths per year (1). However, not all studies nor all analyses on the topic are created equal. Therefore, I thought it apropos to present a quiz on cardiovascular disease myths and truths.

Without further ado, here is a challenge to your cardiovascular disease IQ. The questions below are either true or false. The answers and evidence are provided after.

1) Saturated fat is good for us, but processed foods and trans fats are unhealthy.

2) Fish oil supplements help reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and mortality.

3) Fiber has significant beneficial effects on heart disease prevention.

4) Unlike sugary sodas and drinks, diet soda is most likely not a contributor to this disease.

5) Vitamin D deficiency may contribute to cardiovascular disease.

Now that was not so difficult. Or was it? The answers are as follows: 1-F, 2-F, 3-T, 4-F and 5-T. So, how did you do? Regardless of whether you know the answers, the reasons are even more important to know. Let’s look at the evidence.

Saturated fat

Most of the medical community has been under the impression that saturated fat is not good for us. We need to limit the amount we ingest to no more than 10 percent of our diet. But is this true? The results of a published meta-analysis (a group of 72 randomized clinical trials and observational studies) would upend this paradigm (2).

While saturated fat did not decrease the risk of cardiovascular disease, it did not significantly increase the risk either. Also, results showed that trans fats increase risk. Of course, trans fats are a processed fat, so this is something that most of us would agree upon. And in the clinical trials portion of the meta-analysis, omega-3 and omega-6 polyunsaturated fats did not significantly reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Does this mean that we can go back to eating saturated fats with impunity? Well, there were weaknesses and flaws with this study. The authors only looked at the one dimension of fat. Their comparison was based on the upper-third of intake of one type of fat versus the lower-third of intake of the same type of fat (whether it was saturated fat or a type of unsaturated fat). It did not consider whether saturated fat was substituted with refined grains or unsaturated fatty acids. Also, what was the source of saturated fats, animal or plant, and did these sources also contain unsaturated fats as well, like olive oil or nuts which contain good fats?

Therefore, there are many unanswered questions and potentially several significant flaws with this study.

The meta-analysis also does not differentiate among plant or animal saturated fat sources. But in one that does, the researchers found saturated fats from animal sources increased cholesterol and the risk of cardiovascular disease (3). Also in another study, specifically using unsaturated fats in place of saturated fat reduced the risk of this disease (4, 5).

Fish oil

There is a whole industry built around fish oil and reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease. Yet the data don’t seem to confirm this theory. In the age-related eye disease study 2 (AREDS2), unfortunately, 1 gram of fish oil (long-chain omega-3 fatty acids) daily did not demonstrate any benefit in the prevention of cardiovascular disease nor its resultant mortality (6). This study was done over a five-year period in the elderly with macular degeneration. The cardiovascular primary end point was a tangential portion of the ophthalmic AREDS2. This does not mean that fish, itself, falls into that same category, but for now there does not seem to be a need to take fish oil supplements for heart disease, except potentially for those with very high triglycerides. Fish oil, at best, is controversial; at worst, it has no benefit with cardiovascular disease.

Fiber

We know that fiber tends to be important for a number of diseases, and cardiovascular disease does not appear to be an exception. In a meta-analysis involving 22 observational studies, the results showed a linear relationship between fiber intake and decreased risk for developing cardiovascular disease (7). In other words, for every 7 grams of fiber consumed, there was a 9 percent reduced risk in developing the disease. It did not matter the source of the fiber from plant foods; vegetables, grains and fruit all decreased the risk of cardiovascular disease. This did not involve supplemental fiber, like that found in Fiber One or Metamucil. To give you an idea about how easy it is to get a significant amount of fiber, one cup of lentils has 15.6 grams of fiber, one cup of raspberries or green peas has almost 9 grams, and one medium-size apple has 4.4 grams. Americans are sorely deficient in fiber (8).

Diet soda

A presentation at the American College of Cardiology examined the Women’s Health Initiative: The study suggests that diet soda may increase the risk of heart disease (9). In those drinking two or more cans per day, defined as 12 ounces per can, there was a 30 percent increased risk of a cardiovascular event, such as a stroke or heart attack, but an even greater risk of cardiovascular mortality, 50 percent, over 10 years. These results took into account confounding factors like smoking, diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity. This study involved over 56,000 postmenopausal women for almost a nine-year duration.

Vitamin D

The results of an observational study in the elderly suggest that vitamin D deficiency may be associated with cardiovascular disease risk. The study showed that those whose vitamin D levels were low had increased inflammation, demonstrated by elevated biomarkers including C-reactive protein (CRP) (10). This biomarker is related to inflammation of the heart, though it is not as specific as one would hope.

Beware in regards to saturated fat. If a study looks like an outlier or too good to be true, then probably it is. I would not run out and get a cheeseburger just yet. However, study after study has shown benefit with fiber. So if you want to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, consume as much whole food fiber as possible. Also, since we live in the Northeast, consider taking at least 1000 IUs of vitamin D daily. This is a simple way to help thwart the risk of the number one killer.

References:

(1) hhs.gov. (2) Ann Intern Med. 2014;160(6):398-406. (3) JAMA 1986;256(20):2623. (4) Am J Clin Nutr. 2009;99(5):1425-1432. (5) Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2012:5;CD002137. (6) JAMA Intern Med. Online March 17, 2014. (7) BMJ 2013; 347:f6879. (8) Am J Med. 2013 Dec;126(12):1059-67.e1-4. (9) ACC Scientific Sessions 2014; Abstract 917-905. (10) J Clin Endocrinol Metab online February 24, 2014.

Dr. Dunaief is a speaker, author and local lifestyle medicine physician focusing on the integration of medicine, nutrition, fitness and stress management. For further information, visit www.medicalcompassmd.com or consult your personal physician.

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By Peggy Olness

In 1968, the citizens of Suffolk County voted to adopt an amendment to the Suffolk County Charter that replaced the Suffolk County board of 10 town supervisors with elected legislators from the 18 legislative districts designated in the amendment. Among the major duties given to the Suffolk County Legislature was the duty of reviewing, amending and approving the annual budgets needed to allow Suffolk County to function.

A budget is a plan that looks at the revenue expected for the fiscal year and the best way to spend to provide the needed services during that fiscal year. The Suffolk County fiscal year runs from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31 of each calendar year. During each year the legislature must review, amend and adopt three budgets to allow the county to function during the next fiscal year. These budgets are:

•The capital budget covers major construction expenditures such as road and bridge repair and construction, most of which extend for periods of more than one year. The capital budget is reviewed during the spring and usually approved by May.

•The operating budget funds the day-to-day operations of the county departments and agencies and is reviewed in the fall and usually approved in November so that spending can begin Jan. 1 of the next fiscal year.

•The community college budget funds the county’s community college system and is reviewed during the summer and usually approved before the start of the community college fall semester. The college budget covers a period coinciding with the school year.

The operating budget generally receives most of the attention because it has the largest impact on our day-to-day lives and the services citizens receive. The operating budget process begins in the spring when the county executive tells the county departments and agencies what he expects the county financial situation will be in the next fiscal year and requests each department/agency head to submit a budget request for the coming fiscal year based on those expectations. 

The county executive’s budget staff reviews the requests and works with the departments/agencies to produce a budget with which the county executive’s office is comfortable. This budget request is then sent to the county legislature. Each legislator receives a copy, and the legislature’s Budget Review Office begins work on the review and evaluation of the facts and figures in the county executive’s budget request so that it can advise the legislators on any concerns or problems that may occur.

Suffolk County relies on sources of revenue to fund the county budget that are problematic. While the federal government and the states can tax incomes, the county is limited to sales taxes, property taxes and various fees such as the motor vehicle surcharge and the tax map certification. Unfortunately, both sales and property taxes are considered “regressive taxes.” When the economy is good, these taxes produce a sufficient amount of revenue. However, when the economy is bad such as during the recent Great Recession, the revenue from these tax sources is reduced and has not covered all the county’s expenses. 

There are limitations on the amount of revenue the county can draw from these sources. New York State caps the property tax increase each year (2 percent at present). To exceed this amount would require a 60 percent vote by the county legislature.

Currently, the sales tax provides about 60 percent of the general fund revenue. As a result of the sluggish economy, the county has been forced to borrow from several sources to balance the budget since 2008. These loans must now be paid back. Moreover, the sales tax revenue has not rebounded sufficiently to cover the budget. An underlying problem with the sales tax is the increase in internet sales at the expense of “brick and mortar” local store sales. These online sales do not return sales tax to Suffolk County.

In future columns, the League of Women Voters will review some of the problems Suffolk County faces in the future as a result of the changes in the local economy.

Peggy Olness is a board member of the League of Women Voters of Suffolk County, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that encourages the informed and active participation of citizens in government and influences public policy through education and advocacy. For more information, visit www.lwv-suffolkcounty.org, email [email protected] or call 631-862-6860.

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Begonia

By Kyrnan Harvey

I follow Logee’s Plants on Instagram and the other day photos of some of their old catalogs, a 1962-63, a damp-stained 1988-90 and a 1997, were posted. These latter sure looked familiar, oblong, tall-and-narrow, staple-bound. Logees’s greenhouses have been in existence since 1892, in northeast Connecticut, their first catalog in the 1930’s. They offered scores of different cultivars of geraniums, and of begonias,  and the old catalogs are great reference sources as well as interesting horticultural ephemera.

My mother was — and still is! — an amateur horticulturist. My architect father designed and built a house in the 70’s that was ahead of its time with open floorplan, cathedral ceiling, and a lot of glass. Plants flourished and a heated lean-to greenhouse was almost redundant. Through the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s my mother was active in a L.I. chapter of Hobby Greenhouse, as well as in the garden club. She and her friend Annette grew many orchids and begonias.

Above, the dancing bones cactus, aka drunkard’s dream prefers certain locations in the house to thrive. Photo by Kyrnan Harvey

I have my hands full March through November with my horticulture business, so it’s better to not accumulate many potted plants that require watering while summering outdoors. Unfortunatly I don’t heed my own advice. There is a 15-year-old Ficus benjamina ‘Variegata,’ grown as a standard (tree-form, not bushy), hugging a north-facing dining room window. In the kitchen a large drunkard’s dream (Hatiora salicornioides) cascades from open shelving, a poinsettia with white bracts recently purchased at Home Depot nestles against the espresso machine, and a pair of the very diminutive Sansevieria ‘Fernwood,’ spotted at Ikea, are on the sill with a tiny venus-flytrap.

A Stop&Shop Kalanchoe, over-summered a couple years and now large, is in full bloom on a stand in a south-facing living room window. At another drafty, albeit historically correct, window a flowering spike of a Phalaenopsis orchid, as yet unopened, is expanding.

Upstairs are a very old, dwarfed, jade plant, crammed into a square cinnabar-glazed ceramic container; my wife’s Kaffir lime tree, from Logee’s; a wild banana (Strelitzia nicolai) and an Alocasia ‘Polly’ that I bought, also at Ikea, to stage the open house for the sale of our Bushwick condo three years ago; a Sansevieria ‘Bantel’s Sensation,’ with vertically white-variegated leaves sourced at Hick’s a few years ago for a client’s wrought-iron urn; a lovely maidenhair fern (Adiantum raddianum) which is an offspring from mom’s defunct greenhouse; two agaves, one that is the straight-species of the century plant (Agave americana), an offset that Richie at Half Hollow Nursery gave me, and the other is A. americana ‘Mediopicta Alba,’ propagated by the legendary Mattituck plantsmen at Landcraft Environments.

Above, a vigorous fibrous begonia. Photo by Kyrnan Harvey

Also upstairs is a variegated myrtle, Myrtus communis ‘Variegata.’ This is the myrtle of ancient Mediterranean lore and has aromatic leaves, but it, like my agaves, gets scale, which I spray with insecticidal soap once or twice a year. There is a bonsai ficus in the north-facing upstairs bathroom window and a rooted cutting of the common heart-leaf Philodendron cordatum, tolerant of low-light, in an antique highball of water in the bathroom below.

Likewise, a neon pothos, with chartreuse leaves, grows downward from a vase I bought on the pottery island (Ko Kret) in the Chao Phrya river in Bangkok. This has grown in just water for about a decade, presumably nourished by the minerals in the clay.

There is a poorly heated wing to our house, a converted porch, in which I stubbornly overwinter a dwarfed lemon verbena, delightfully scented in summer, woody and gnarly at 20 years, and another true myrtle, M. communis ‘Boetica,’ also inherited from mom’s collection. Rounding out the census, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the 20 lantanas potted up from the garden and left dormant in the 50 degree basement.

But I still haven’t mentioned the begonias, the pictures of which in Logee’s old plant lists is what got me started today. Logee’s still mails out catalogs, now 8×10 and full-color glossy, but their website has many more rare, fruiting, and tropical plants listed.

Kyrnan Harvey is a horticulturist and garden designer residing in East Setauket. For more information, visit www.boskygarden.com.

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From left, Deyu Lu (sitting), Anatoly Frenkel (standing), Yuwei Lin and Janis Timoshenko. Photo from BNL

By Daniel Dunaief

What changes and how it changes from moment to moment can be the focus of curiosity — or survival. A zebra in Africa needs to detect subtle shifts in the environment, forcing it to focus on the possibility of a nearby predator like a lion.

Similarly, scientists are eager to understand, on an incredibly small scale, the way important participants in chemical processes change as they create products, remove pollutants from the air or engines or participate in reactions that make electronic equipment better or more efficient.

Throughout a process, a catalyst can alter its shape, sometimes leading to a desired product and other times resulting in an unwanted dead end. Understanding the structural forks in the road during these interactions can enable researchers to create conditions that favor specific structural configurations that facilitate particular products.

First, however, scientists need to see how catalysts involved in these reactions change.

That’s where Anatoly Frenkel, a professor at Stony Brook University’s Department of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering with a joint appointment in Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Chemistry Division, and Janis Timosheko, a postdoctoral researcher in Frenkel’s lab, come in.

Working with Deyu Lu at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials and Yuwei Lin and Shinjae Yoo, both from BNL”s Computational Science Initiative, Timoshenko leads a novel effort to use machine learning to observe subtle structural clues about catalysts.

“It will be possible in the future to monitor in real time the evolution of the catalyst in reaction conditions,” Frenkel said. “We hope to implement this concept of reaction on demand.”

According to Frenkel, beamline scientist Klaus Attenkofer at BNL and Lu are planning a project to monitor the evolution of catalysts in reaction conditions using this method.

By recognizing the specific structural changes that favor desirable reactions, Frenkel said researchers could direct the evolution of a process on demand.

“I am particularly intrigued by a new opportunity to control the selectivity (or stability) of the existing catalyst by tuning its structure or shape up to enhance formation of a desired product,” he explained in an email.

The neural network the team has created links the structure and the spectrum that characterizes the structure. On their own, researchers couldn’t find a structure through the spectrum without the help of highly trained computers.

Through machine learning, X-rays with relatively lower energies can provide information about the structure of nanoparticles under greater heat and pressure, which would typically cause distortions for X-rays that use higher energy, Timoshenko said.

The contribution and experience of Lin, Yoo and Lu was “crucial” for the development of the overall idea of the method and fine tuning its details, Timoshenko said. The teaching part was a collective effort that involved Timoshenko and Frenkel.

Frenkel credits Timoshenko for uniting the diverse fields of machine learning and nanomaterials science to make this tool a reality. For several months, when the groups got together for bi-weekly meetings, they “couldn’t find common ground.” At some point, however, Frenkel said Timoshenko “got it, implemented it and it worked.”

The scientists used hundreds of structure models. For these, they calculated hundreds of thousands of X-ray absorption spectra, as each atom had its own spectrum, which could combine in different ways, Timoshenko suggested.

They back-checked this approach by testing nanoparticles where the structure was already known through conventional analysis of X-ray absorption spectra and from electron microscopy studies, Timoshenko said.

The ultimate goal, he said, is to understand the relationship between the structure of a material and its useful properties. The new method, combined with other approaches, can provide an understanding of the structure.

Timoshenko said additional data, including information about the catalytic activity of particles with different structures and the results of theoretical modeling of chemical processes, would be necessary to take the next steps. “It is quite possible that some other machine learning methods can help us to make sense of these new pieces of information as well,” he said.

According to Frenkel, Timoshenko, who transferred from Yeshiva University to Stony Brook University in 2016 with Frenkel, has had a remarkably productive three years as a postdoctoral researcher. His time at SBU will end by the summer, when he seeks another position.

A native of Latvia, Timoshenko is married to Edite Paule, who works in a child care center. The scientist is exploring various options after his time at Stony Brook concludes, which could include a move to Europe.

A resident of Rocky Point during his postdoctoral research, Timoshenko described Long Island as “extremely beautiful” with a green landscape and the nearby ocean. He also appreciated the opportunity to travel to New York City to see Broadway shows. His favorite, which he saw last year, is “Miss Saigon.”

Timoshenko has dedicated his career to using data analysis approaches to understanding real life problems. Machine learning is “yet another approach” and he would like to see if this work “will be useful” for someone conducting additional experiments, he said.

At some point, Timoshenko would also like to delve into developing novel materials that might have an application in industry. The paper he published with Frenkel and others focused only on the studies of relatively simple monometallic particles. He is working on the development of that method to analyze more complex systems.

This work, he suggested, is one of the first applications of machine learning methods for the interpretation of experimental data, not just in the field of X-ray absorption spectroscopy. “Machine learning, data science and artificial intelligence are very hot and rapidly developing fields, whose potential in experimental research we have just started to explore.”

 

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Giada. Photo courtesy of Kent Animal Shelter

MEET GIADA!

Just look at those cute ears! Sweet little Giada came to Kent all the way from the Bahamas where these dogs, known as potcakes, don’t have it so great. This mixed-breed sweetie is only 7 months old and can’t wait to grow up with a loving family of her own. She is keeping her paws crossed that you will come see her right away! Giada comes spayed, microchipped and up to date on all her vaccines. Kent Animal Shelter is located at 2259 River Road in Calverton. For more information on Giada and other adoptable pets at Kent, visit www.kentanimalshelter.com or call 631-727-5731.

Update: Giada has been adopted!

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0 2017
Caviar Dip

By Barbara Beltrami

Lots of crunchy chips accompanied by bowls of chunky or velvety dips are as necessary for the big game this coming Sunday as the buffalo wings, the salsa and guacamole and maybe even the football itself.

Who can sit there with an adrenaline rush watching the big game without one hand wrapped around a beer and the other hand in perpetual motion between those chips and dips? And the good news is that whipping up a bunch of those dips is only marginally more difficult than opening that bag of chips and emptying it into a bowl (actually probably easier given how hard it is to pry those bags open).

With basic ingredients like sour cream, mayonnaise and cream cheese, the addition of savory and intense seasonings and ingredients is limited only by your imagination and what you have on hand. If you want to take the edible dippers beyond chips, try crackers, veggie crudités, toast strips, fried calamari, fried chicken nuggets or clams, cooked crabmeat or shrimp or chucks of interesting bread such as pumpernickel, rye or multigrain.

Just to jump start you, here are a few usual and unusual dips that will have the resident referees tooting their whistles and the resident cheerleaders shaking their pom-poms.

Veggie-Herb Dip

Veggie-Herb Dip

YIELD: Makes approximately 3 to 3½ cups

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups sour cream

¼ cup finely chopped fresh Italian flat-leaf parsley

¼ cup finely chopped fresh chives

½ cup finely chopped radishes

1⁄3 cup finely chopped peeled and seeded cucumber

Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

DIRECTIONS:

In a medium bowl combine all ingredients. With a rubber spatula, scrape the contents into an appropriate serving bowl. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use. Serve with chips, broccoli and cauliflower florets, baby carrots or chicken nuggets, fried calamari or cooked shrimp.

Caviar Dip

Caviar Dip

YIELD: Makes approximately 1½ cups

INGREDIENTS:

3/4 cup freshly whipped heavy cream

3 to 4 tablespoons caviar

3 tablespoons minced red onion

1 to 2 hard-cooked eggs, finely chopped

Freshly ground white pepper, to taste

DIRECTIONS:

In a small bowl, combine all ingredients. If mixture is too salty, add more whipped cream. With a clean paper towel wipe upper part of inside of bowl and rim. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use. Serve with cucumber, toasted pita bread, cooked shrimp or crabmeat or water crackers.

Asian Dip

Asian Dip

YIELD: Makes approximately 1½ cups

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup sour cream

½ cup finely chopped scallions

1/3 cup finely chopped fresh parsley

¼ cup finely chopped fresh cilantro

¼ cup finely chopped fresh chives

2 tablespoons mayonnaise

2 tablespoons finely chopped canned water chestnuts

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh ginger

1 tablespoon soy sauce

DIRECTIONS:

In a small bowl combine all the ingredients. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use. Serve with fresh mushrooms, fresh broccoli, rice crackers, cooked crabmeat, lobster or shrimp.

Retro Clam Dip

Retro Clam Dip

YIELD: Makes approximately 3½ cups.

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups shucked and cooked fresh clams, finely chopped

6 ounces soft cream cheese

½ cup heavy cream

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1⁄₈ teaspoon mustard

1½ tablespoons minced onions

½ cup traditional cocktail sauce (made with ketchup, horseradish and lemon juice)

DIRECTIONS:

In a medium bowl combine all ingredients except cocktail sauce. With rubber spatula turn mixture into appropriate serving bowl. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use. Before serving cover top of dip with cocktail sauce. Serve with crackers.

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Gray mouse lemur

By Elof Axel Carlson

Elof Axel Carlson

In 2016 a 54.5-million-year-old set of some 25 bones were unearthed in Gujarat, India. They belonged to the closest ancestor of all primates that lived about 56 million years ago. One branch of that ancestor produced the lemurs, lorises and an extinct group of adapoids. A longer branch produced the tarsiers and an extinct group of omomyids. Even more recently from that tarsier branch came the New World monkeys, followed by the Old World monkeys and most recently the apes and humans. The Gujarat primate has bones that are like a mixture of the lemurlike and monkeylike lineages.

The primates arose from an earlier line of dermopterans, and they in turn came from a line of tree shrews. The dermopterans are represented by a nearly extinct line of flying mammals that superficially look like bats but that differ in their mode of flight. They have a flap of skin that serves as a gliding organ, and they can glide about 200 feet from tree to tree in a forest. They are not good climbers, lack opposable thumbs and are nocturnal. Their diet consists of fruits, leaves and sap. 

One species lives in the Philippines. They are called by their popular name, colugos. Colugos are unusual in the trade-offs they have made in adapting to the rain forests in which they live. They gave up the marsupial pouch as they shifted to the placental pregnancies of mammals, but like marsupials, the colugo babies are born immature and are shielded by their mothers for about six months in the skin flaps that serve as both gliders and a pseudopouch.

We humans (Homo sapiens) can decide which of our ancestors to call human. The Neanderthals and Denisovans are our closest ancestors, and we acknowledge that they shaped tools, lived in communities and even bred with us, leaving behind as much as 3 percent of their genes in our genomes in many parts of the world.

The 54.5 million-year-old animal would have most closely resembled the gray mouse lemur.

Less human in appearance are Homo erectus and Homo habilis. All of these walked upright, unlike apes. Their skeletons are more humanlike than apelike. The very fact that they could reach reproductive age and survive tells us they knew how to shape the environments in which they lived or extract from them the protection, food and materials needed for their survival. 

Humans are remarkable in their plasticity of opportunities. They can migrate to frigid arctic or antarctic climates or live in deserts, in high altitude or sea level, in four seasons or one.   

As a geneticist I am aware that the contribution of any one of my Homo sapiens ancestor’s genes some 200,000 years ago had a low probability of remaining in contact with its neighboring genes, and in all likelihood those genes in me are from virtually all of the individuals alive then. 

When we do genealogy, assuming four generations per century, it only takes 2,000 years for any one of those ancestors in our family history to have less than 1 percent of our genes. If we are lucky (like royalty) to have records of our ancestors going back to the Middle Ages, we would likely find ourselves related to everyone in an ancestral region (a person like me whose father was from Sweden would be related to virtually every Swede in the age of the Vikings a little over 1,000 years ago).

In many ways our past genetic heritage is like the history of my Montblanc fountain pen, which was given to me by my students at UCLA in 1968. In the 40 years I wrote with it, I sent it to be repaired dozens of times either because I dropped it or a part wore out. Each time my pen came back looking new. I still think of it as the 1968 gift, but I doubt if there is any part that is still of the original pen given to me then.

This makes it unlikely that there is a genetic basis for behavior traits in a family that can go through more than 10 generations. The processes of shuffling genes every time we make eggs or sperm breaks up whatever cluster of genes we wish to assign to a human behavior. This is good because the genes of conquerors were spread widely while they held power, but having one of Ivan the Terrible’s genes or Genghis Khan’s genes would not make us a predatory monster in our relations with others. We inherit genes, not essences. If there is a mark of Cain, it is not engraved in our genes.

Elof Axel Carlson is a distinguished teaching professor emeritus in the Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at Stony Brook University.

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0 1811

Cheese, milk, butter, ice cream, yogurt. You were all such good friends. I was lucky to have known you at all.

Long ago, I developed an intolerance for you. It’s not as if you’d kill me but, let’s just say, you’d incapacitate me for a prolonged and agonizing period of time if I ever decided to ignore all the earlier experiences and indulge again.

That doesn’t mean, however, that I can’t appreciate the quality time we shared together, the memories you forever embedded in my taste buds and in my satisfied stomach.

I’ll start with the unexpected. Yes, you, in the corner, looking all innocuous. Stand up custardy yogurt and let me recall the smooth, cool feel and consistent taste. My favorite was banana, even though I lost the second-grade spelling bee when I thought there had to be an extra “n” in there somewhere. Someone with as many vowels as there are in the name Dunaief should have recognized the superfluous nature of consonants, but alas I was too young.

Then there’s macaroni and cheese. The soft noodles and almost too-sweet cheese was like a warm, sweet bath for my mouth. After throwing snowballs at my brothers or coming in from the walk along Mud Road from Gelinas on a rainy day, the hot mac and cheese revived me enough to break out my homework and try to figure how to find a second derivative or identify feldspar (a rock-forming mineral).

Then there’s that tall carton of milk. How awesome were you with Oreos and chocolate chip cookies? I’d dip the cookies deep into the milk, hoping they’d break apart. At the end of that refreshing glass, I’d have a blend of cookie crumbs supersaturated in milk at the bottom. I tipped the cool glass toward my mouth and let those mushy morsels land gently on my unfolded tongue.

And then there’s ice cream. After a movie at Stony Brook Loews, I’d sit with my buddies at Friendly’s on Route 347 and wait as patiently as I could for everyone else to figure out what they wanted. I pretended to read the menu, particularly when I was on a date and was considering what to say next, but the choice was always the same: the mint chocolate chip sundae.

During cold winter days, particularly after a day of skiing with my family — who were patient enough for me to stop getting frustrated when I fell, learn from my mistakes and enjoy the ride — I looked forward to onion soup. Oh, the melted cheese on the top of that soup. As my wife would say, what’s better than that?

Busboys risked serious injuries to their fingers if they tried to take the Crock-Pot before I’d finished picking every piece of cheese off the sides. When I finally looked up from my cheese removal operation, I saw my mom flashing that same annoying grin I show our children when I see how satisfied they are in a moment.

Since we’re discussing cheese, how about a grilled cheese? Buttered bread with soft American cheese was an irresistible delight. I’d order several of these sandwiches at the old Jack in the Box at the corner of 25A and Main Street in Setauket.

When I was young, one of my late father’s favorite sandwiches was Swiss cheese on rye with lettuce, tomato and mustard. The first time I tried it, I smiled politely and gave it back to him. Before the end of the dairy road for me, I ordered it again and thoroughly enjoyed it. Maybe it was an acquired taste or maybe it brought me closer to my father, who I could imagine enjoying the life and the food as much as I did. Oh, those dairy delights.

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As I write this column, Tuesday, I am thinking of the State of the Union address that President Trump is scheduled to give to Congress and the nation in the evening. What does each of us think about the state of the union at this time? Do we know enough about what’s happening in the country to offer a credible picture in this first month of the year 2018?

We know we have problems. Big problems, if you follow the newscasts. We have a Congress that people seem to agree is “broken,” and a president without precedent. We have an economy that is the largest in the world, yet our citizens are divided into those enjoying its fruits and the rest who have been left behind. We have a remarkable health care system that is not accessible for everyone. Our schools are uneven in their teaching, especially in subjects like math and science. We have to deal with racism, bigotry, sexism, ageism and lots of other “isms,” as well as gun violence, drugs, gangs, North Korea, Russia, the Taliban, you name them. It’s enough to addle the mind.

Then I think of the other side of the story, the story of what America means to me. When my grandchildren have their children, they will be sixth generation Americans. We are deeply rooted here in our country but not so much that we have forgotten how we got here and especially why we came. My father’s family arrived in the second half of the 19th century from Riga, the capital city of Latvia set on the Baltic Sea. We don’t know much about them except they were dairy farmers, and they managed to buy property and continue with that life after they landed and settled in Connecticut and upstate New York. My dad, the middle child of nine, left the farm for the big city when he was 14, got a job at the bottom of the ladder in a hardware store, lived in a boarding house in Brooklyn near his older brother, worked hard and for long hours, saved his pennies and ultimately started several hardware stores on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It was about then that I came along, the middle child of three.

We know more about my mother’s side of the family. Her uncle, her mother’s brother, left the army in the Ukraine after a perilous stint at the beginning of the 20th century. He joined his uncle in Corona, Queens, who taught him how to use a sewing machine in a clothing factory. He realized he could earn more if he owned a machine and could hire himself out to the highest bidder, then understood he could do better still if he owned the factory. His four children all graduated from college, his daughters became teachers and his son served as a judge in the District and Criminal Courts of Suffolk County.

My mother’s grandparents and parents, alarmed at the unrest in their homeland in the first decade of the 20th century, followed the family chain, established themselves financially in New York City, and saw to it that their offspring were educated so that they might further contribute to society and share in its benefits.

This is the American Dream. This is the route that countless individuals and families followed for 400 years to reach their goals amid the freedom and security of the United States, Has that dream been achieved by everyone here in America? Certainly not, and the situations where people are chained to the past or even the present are heartbreaking. The national goal is to bring the American Dream to all living within our borders.

Except for Native Americans, we all started out as immigrants, foreigners in a foreign land, and those who came voluntarily — along with those who didn’t — aspired for more. Some came with more skills and resources, some with less. Some had supportive family networks, some arrived alone.

The American siren song still exists. The formula does work. I see it realized by people locally every day. For all the cynicism and the partisanship, whatever the shortcomings and injustices, this is still America.

On the day of the State of the Union, this is what America means to me.

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