Critically Speaking

Dr. Richard P. Phelps is founder of the Nonpartisan Education Group, editor of Nonpartisan Education Review (http://nonpartisaneducation.org), a Fulbright Scholar, and fellow of the Psychophysics Laboratory. He has authored, or edited and co-authored Correcting Fallacies about Educational and Psychological Testing (APA); Standardized Testing Primer (Peter Lang); Defending Standardized Testing (Psychology Press); Kill the Messenger (Transaction), and several statistical compendia. Phelps has worked with several test development organizations, including ACT, AIR, ETS, the OECD, Pearson, and Westat. He holds degrees from Washington, Indiana, and Harvard Universities, and a PhD in Public Policy from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.

In this episode, Therese Markow and Dr. Richard Phelps discuss the education system in the United States, especially in comparison with Western Europe and other industrialized societies. They look at how Common Core, No Child Left Behind, and the changes to the SAT test have affected the curriculum, learning, and student preparedness both for further education as well as life after school. These trends in educational standards and standardized tests continue to impede our students compared to those of the industrialized world. Students from all levels and backgrounds are affected by these programs and the changes that need to be made are discussed.

Key Takeaways:

• The U.S. is falling behind other countries, even those with less spending on education.
• Common Core and No Child Left Behind have caused progress to be lost in elementary and secondary education standards.
• The SAT has become less of an aptitude test and more of an achievement test, and can discriminate against talented students from underrepresented groups that attended lower quality high schools.

"Most information is not on the world wide web, much of what is there is wrong, and search rankings are easily manipulated by money and interests." — Dr. Richard Phelps

Connect with Dr. Richard Phelps:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/RichardPPhelps

Website: https://richardphelps.net/ &https://nonpartisaneducation.org/

Research Gate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Richard_Phelps

SSRN Scholarly Papers: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=1592150

Academia: https://204.academia.edu/RichardPhelps

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardpphelps/

LinkedIn Learning: https://www.slideshare.net/search/slideshow?searchfrom=header&q=Richard+P+Phelps

Connect with Therese:

Website: www.criticallyspeaking.net

Twitter: @CritiSpeak

Email: [email protected]

In this culture where dreams and nightmares are such a part of our everyday language, the question becomes, what is dreaming? We all dream, so what does it mean, and how does it impact other areas of our lives, such as our mental health? In this episode, Therese Markow and Dr. Michael Nadorff discuss these questions, as well as diving deeper into the different cycles of sleep, the changes in our dreams and sleep as we age, different types of nightmare therapies, and the relationship between nightmares and suicide.

Key Takeaways:

• All dreams, good and bad, occur during the REM cycles of our sleep. The amount of REM sleep increases as the night goes on and, consequently, dreams get longer too.
• Sleep loves the cold. If you fall asleep in too warm of an environment, during REM sleep when your temperature drops, you are more likely to wake up feeling overheated.
• Having nightmares significantly increased the likelihood of future suicide attempts in those who had previously attempted suicide.

"REM is so important to us that, if you are sleep deprived, your body actually prioritizes REM, and it makes it even that much more intensive." — Dr. Michael Nadorff

Connect with Dr. Michael Nadorff:

Professional Bio: psychology.msstate.edu/people/michael-r-nadorff/

Connect with Therese:

Website: www.criticallyspeaking.net

Twitter: @CritiSpeak

Email: [email protected]

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

Various forms of cold therapy, from ice on wounds to cold showers, have been successfully used for ages. And ice baths help athletes after an event. But these temperatures don't fall below freezing, or 32°F, and are usually above this. Recently, tanks providing whole body cryotherapy have been promoted for a wide range of health problems, some serious and progressive. This involves subjecting the body to anywhere from minus 160°F to 250°F, for several minutes. While this extreme exposure, even if for only a minute or so, definitely causes physical reactions, there have been no clinical trials to demonstrate their efficacy for the medical conditions supposedly helped. Furthermore, the tanks are not FDA approved.

Key Takeaways:

• Whole body cryotherapy is being promoted for a wide range of medical conditions.
• The WBC tanks are not FDA approved medical devices.
• The facilities offering WBC rarely have any medical personnel present during the treatments.
• No standard clinical trials have been conducted demonstrating their efficacy, as claimed, for the medical conditions mentioned.
• People considering using the treatment should consult their physicians, rather than the internet, as to the benefits, prior to spending the money to expose themselves to these extremes.

"Don't get all your information from celebrity testimony or social media promotions. Things that pass for research on the internet are not what serious investigators would define as quality research." — Therese Markow, Ph.D.

Connect with Therese:

Website: www.criticallyspeaking.net

Twitter: @CritiSpeak

Email: [email protected]

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

Breast cancer is on the rise, especially in women under 40. This is pretty scary and the increase points to something environmental. In today's episode, Therese Markow and Dr. Kris McGrath talk about one of these environmental factors and how our individual underarm hygiene may play a role in our risk for breast (and prostate) cancers earlier in life. Dr. McGrath has had a long time interest in this trend and they discuss some of his work on the relationship between underarm shaving and the use of deodorants and antiperspirants.

Key Takeaways:

• The majority of breast cancer is environmental or lifestyle. Only 5-10% of breast cancer is due to genetic causes. So what are the factors?
• Both breast cancer and prostate cancer are hormone-driven cancers.
• More research needs to be done, but there already is a significant and scary relationship between underarm hygiene and beast and prostate cancers.

"In my paper, I showed that the earlier you began underarm habits, shaving your underarm and applying antiperspirant deodorant three times a week or more, the diagnosis of breast cancer began at a younger age, especially if you started using these products before the age of 16." — Dr. Kris McGrath

Connect with Dr. Kris McGrath:

Professional Bio: feinberg.northwestern.edu/faculty-profiles/az/profile.html?xid=15819

Connect with Therese:

Website: www.criticallyspeaking.net

Twitter: @CritiSpeak

Email: [email protected]

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

What's the placenta? Some people think of it as a bag filled with fluid that protects the fetus inside from accidental blows, or a structure that sends maternal nutrients to the fetus while removing its waste products. Well, it's actually much more than this. When we may think that the placenta is protective, it can also create detrimental effects to the fetus - effects that can be lifelong. In fact, the placenta is a complex organ on its own and we've only recently been discovering some of the things that the placenta really does, and also what it can't do. Every new person that has arrived on this planet developed in a placenta, so to ensure the health and wellbeing of future generations, understanding what goes on with the placenta has become more critical. Today's guest is a leader in the field of placental biology. Dr. Cheryl Rosenfeld is professor of biomedical sciences and her cutting edge research on the multiple roles of the placenta and fetal development provides critical guidance for prenatal maternal lifestyle and care.

Key Takeaways:

• The placenta does have some ability to metabolize things, and it does offer some buffering capacity to the fetus.
• The placenta is an endocrine organ. It also produces neurotransmitters.
• Endocrine disrupters can be found in household items and everything around us. Understanding the green chemistry movement can help us lead a healthy life style.

"Even though we can't really, completely, eliminate our exposure to environmental chemicals. We can try to offset it by living with good healthy practices." — Dr. Cheryl Rosenfeld

Connect with Dr. Cheryl Rosenfeld:

Professional Bio: https://biomed.missouri.edu/cheryl-s-rosenfeld-phd-dvm/

The United States Developmental Origins of Health and Disease Society: https://www.usdohad.org/

Connect with Therese:

Website: www.criticallyspeaking.net

Twitter: @CritiSpeak

Email: [email protected]

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

Just about everybody has bumped their head at least once in their life. A number of these bumps on the head, especially those resulting from more obvious head injury, are more serious than most of us imagine. What is a concussion? When should head trauma receive more attention? Given the recent reports about long term effects of head injuries in athletes, and the risks of head traumas for sports and accidents, let's learn a little bit more. After all, each of us has a head. Today's guest neuro psychiatrist, Dr. Jon Lieff, has been treating head injuries for decades, he even founded several programs for treating patients with head injuries. And interestingly, he's also the author of a book called, The Secret Language of Cells, a fascinating and very accessible description of how the cells in our body talk to each other in health and in illness.

Key Takeaways:

• Here is no exact definition of a concussion - we do not have the imaging devices accurate enough to see the tiny breaks in neurons and axons and it is based on the symptoms as a judgment call by the doctor.
• Studying brain injury is still individual and still difficult.
• Some people are more resilient to head injuries over others. For example, young women and girls are particularly vulnerable for head injuries.

"Younger kids should avoid hitting their head. They're more sensitive to it. They're not going to notice it as much, and there is very good information that multiple hits are far worse than one or the occasional." — Dr. Jon Lieff

Connect with Dr. Jon Lieff:

Professional Bio: https://jonlieffmd.com/about

Twitter: https://twitter.com/jonlieffmd

Website: https://jonlieffmd.com/

Book: https://jonlieffmd.com/book/the-secret-language-of-cells

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonlieffmd/

Additional Resources: https://jonlieffmd.com/resources

Connect with Therese:

Website: www.criticallyspeaking.net

Twitter: @CritiSpeak

Email: [email protected]

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

Millions of women are undergoing ovarian stimulation to harvest either their own eggs or to donate, for monetary compensation, to egg banks that can help infertile couples, gay couples, and single infertile women to, through in vitro fertilization, conceive. Donors can receive considerable payments for their donations and, in fact, many young women undergo multiple cycles of ovarian stimulation treatments. These payments can help with student loans, living expenses, and other things. The treatments consist of hormone injections for over a week in order to get the ovaries to produce a lot of eggs. The short term risks, like the painful ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, are infrequent and women are usually informed of this. But there have been mixed reports as to the long term risks of cancers associated with these hormone treatments. The studies are mixed because they have not been conducted with sufficient rigor. Women undergoing treatments, either to retrieve their own eggs or to donate, are mostly unaware of these long term risks as they can manifest some years later. Women need to be fully informed before undergoing injection with ovarian stimulation hormones.

Key Takeaways:

• Egg donation clinics are mostly "for profit" organizations and businesses.
• There needs to be a national registry of all egg donors in the US.
• The registry must contain the ages, types of hormones used, number of cycles of stimulation, history of birth control pill use, ethnicity, and the clinic where they donated.
• Only then can we conduct the long term studies to clearly assess risks and properly inform women about the potential risks of these treatments.

"We already know that long term hormone replacement therapy is a risk for breast cancer and other female cancers. It's only logical to wonder if a possibility exists that the hormones injected to harvest eggs also increase the risk of certain cancers down the road." — Therese Markow, Ph.D.

Resources:

1. Schneider J, Lahl J, Kramer W. Long-term breast cancer risk following ovarian stimulation in young egg donors: a call for follow-up, research and informed consent. ReprodBiomed Online. 2017 May;34(5):480-485.https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28473127/
2. https://www.statnews.com/2017/01/28/egg-donors-risks/
3. https://www.cbc-network.org/issues/making-life/egg-donation-and-exploitation-of-women/
4. Brinton LA, Sahasrabuddhe VV, Scoccia B. Fertility drugs and the risk of breast and gynecologic cancers. Seminars in Reproductive Medicine. 2012 Apr;30(2):131-145. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4106369/

Connect with Therese:

Website: www.criticallyspeaking.net

Twitter: @CritiSpeak

Email: [email protected]

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

In a world full of media, which may contain misinformation or fake news, there are conspiracy theories abounding. However, conspiracy theories, and the spreading of those theories, is not a new practice, it has been around and transmitting in any way that people communicate. In this episode, Therese Markow and Dr. Joseph Uscinski talk about the origin of conspiracy theories and how these formal theories differ (and are similar) to the fake news and misinformation that fills our media screens today. They discuss some of the earliest US conspiracy theories, as well as some of the more modern ones, and how they are different now, with our current political climate, from what they may have done in the past. They also discuss why people believe these conspiracy theories, as well as why people believe in them, even in the face of refuting evidence.

Key Takeaways:

• The internet did not introduce the spread of conspiracy theories. They will always be spread in any way that people communicate.
• Our worldviews impact the media that we access, which then can filter which conspiracy theories we are likely to believe.
• The two most consistent predictors of those who believe in conspiracy theories are education and level of income.

"Most of the arguments about evidence, really aren't about evidence - they're just about subjective judgments about evidence, which gets us away from evidence and gets us back into how people interpret information and what the world views are they bring into interpreting that information." — Dr. Joseph Uscinski

Connect with Dr. Joseph Uscinski:

Twitter: @JoeUscinski

Website: JoeUscinski.com

Books: American Conspiracy Theories & Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them

Connect with Therese:

Website: www.criticallyspeaking.net

Twitter: @CritiSpeak

Email: [email protected]

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

Among the biggest health fears adults have are getting a diagnosis of cancer or developing Alzheimer's disease. An estimated 6.2 million Americans aged 65 and older, actually are living with Alzheimer's today. That number could double by 2050. The worldwide number is estimated to be about 50 million. Alzheimer's develops later in life, and class can last anywhere from three to 10 years before the patient dies. And currently, there's no cure for the disease. Well, today's guest is uniquely suited to address these questions and tell us what's on the horizon in terms of research and treatment. Dr. Ryan Townley, of the neurology department at the University of Kansas Medical Center is a primary investigator at the university's Alzheimer's Disease Research Center. Not only does he see patients, but his role as Associate Director of the Alzheimer's Clinical Trials Consortium puts him in a unique position, he's at the cutting edge of the potential new treatments being tested. In todays' episode, Therese Markow and Dr. Townley discuss the causes, symptoms, risk factors, and treatments (both current and in trials) of Alzheimer's.

Key Takeaways:

• We know that amyloid plaques are kind of a hallmark of the disease, but we don't know if they're causative of the disease or the symptom.
• 35 to 40% of patients that develop Alzheimer's disease don't have an APOE e4 allele.
• Some supplements, individually, have gone through clinical trials. However, none of them have been done through classic clinical trials and supplements are not regulated and may not contain what they say.
• Sleep, and good sleep, is the most overlooked important lifestyle factor in preventing Alzheimer's disease.

"Our early detection methods are really going to have to improve for us to make a major dent in changing the course of this disease." — Dr. Ryan Townley

Connect with Dr. RyanTownley:

Professional Bio: https://www.kumc.edu/rtownley.html

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLJVcSxZ7GWxGLl6ouwVlVg

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-townley-51b74872/

Article: Alzheimer's Disease, Aduhelm, and The Fear of False Hope

https://ordinary-times.com/2021/06/10/alzheimers-disease-aduhelm-and-the-fear-of-false-hope/

Connect with Therese:

Website: www.criticallyspeaking.net

Twitter: @CritiSpeak

Email: [email protected]

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

When we hear the term tumor or cancer, the image that often comes to mind is a bunch of bad cells next to normal ones, and growing. Like many things, it's just not that simple. How do the normal cells turn bad? Can our immune systems detect the cancer cell and kill it? Why does some, initially successful, chemotherapy stopped working? Why does cancer spread? These are all great questions, since cancers of one kind or another, will affect so many of us either as patients, friends, or loved ones. Well, basic science is providing some critical answers. In today's episode, Therese Markow and Dr. Ajit Nirmal discuss just these questions.

Key Takeaways:

• If we didn't have an immune system, we'd all get cancer.
• Drug resistance continues to be the principal limiting factor to achieving cures in patients with cancer.
• Once a normal cell has turned cancerous, it is likely dividing much faster than a normal cell. This rapid cell division is error prone, and can lead to accumulation of mutations at a much faster rate.

"I truly believe, with adequate basic understanding of the molecular underpinnings of cancer evolution, and how the tumor microenvironment helps it or promotes it, we will be able to predict the best course of action to target all cancer cells up until the very last one, and consequently to the patient." — Dr. Ajit Nirmal

Connect with Dr. Ajit Nirmal:

Professional Bio: https://scholar.harvard.edu/ajitjohnson/home

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajitjohnsonnirmal/

Connect with Therese:

Website: www.criticallyspeaking.net

Twitter: @CritiSpeak

Email: [email protected]

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.