Speaker 1: It's night Side with Dan Ray on WBS Boston's radio.
Speaker 2: Gus up the duck boats. Let me tell you this
Speaker 2: is a much better team than you might expect, folks,
Speaker 2: gus up the duck boats. My name is Dan Ray,
Speaker 2: the eternal Optimist. Here spring springs tomorrow. Bro. When is
Speaker 2: the official start of spring? Do you have a time
Speaker 2: on that? I think it's I think tonight's the last
Speaker 2: night of spring. See if you can find me an
Speaker 2: official time on that, because maybe if it happens during
Speaker 2: our show, I want to introduce it to everybody and
Speaker 2: welcome spring. Thank god, winter is finally over, although we
Speaker 2: might get some snow this weekend. Good evening everyone. My
Speaker 2: name is Dan Ray, im the host of Nightside. We
Speaker 2: get down in business now. Rob Brooks is back in
Speaker 2: the control room. He's checking out exactly when spring arrives
Speaker 2: Thursday tomorrow morning, five oh one am. So I'm gonna
Speaker 2: basically take you to midnight and you run your own
Speaker 2: after that and five hours in one minute tomorrow morning,
Speaker 2: you will have spring. You'll wake up and you'll just
Speaker 2: feel different. Tomorrow morning. Everything will be perfect. Everything will
Speaker 2: be perfect. Winter's overspring is here. Okay, good got that
Speaker 2: taken care of. We have some really good guests coming
Speaker 2: up in the eight o'clock hour. No phone calls in
Speaker 2: the eight o'clock hour. Already mentioned. Rob is back in
Speaker 2: the control room at the Big Broadcast Center. He's all
Speaker 2: set to make sure everything goes perfectly. I'm all set
Speaker 2: to talk to four guests. We will talk at nine
Speaker 2: o'clock tonight about the termination of Massachusetts State Police Trooper
Speaker 2: Detective Michael Proctor. He was the lead investigator of the
Speaker 2: Karen Reid case and he messed up, and as a consequence,
Speaker 2: he has been terminated by the Massachusetts State Police for
Speaker 2: a number of things. We'll get into all of those,
Speaker 2: but it all involved his investigation of Karen Reid and
Speaker 2: some texts that he sent and some things that were
Speaker 2: in writing on his phone, and we'll get into all
Speaker 2: of that. At ten o'clock tonight, we will have the
Speaker 2: opportunity and the privilege of talking with Israeli Consul General
Speaker 2: to New England, Benny SHARONI. We're going to talk about
Speaker 2: what is going on in the Middle East and specifically
Speaker 2: between Israel and Gaza. And then if we get to it,
Speaker 2: and I hope we do, I'm going to be pretty
Speaker 2: critical of the Trump administration. And I may be off base,
Speaker 2: but I think I'm on solid footing a wrongful deportation
Speaker 2: out of Texas, which I'm still working on. I want
Speaker 2: to make sure we have this right. But I'll talk
Speaker 2: about that. If not tonight, we'll talk about it tomorrow night.
Speaker 2: First off, we're going to welcome Ellen Alden. Ellen deals
Speaker 2: with managing long COVID. She was a victim of it herself.
Speaker 2: She was recommended to us by one of our producers.
Speaker 2: If you will down to the cape, my good friend
Speaker 2: Larry and I want to welcome Ellen Alden, the founder
Speaker 2: of Less Stress Studios. Ellen, welcome to Night Side.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much.
Speaker 2: So how long did you deal or are you still
Speaker 2: dealing with long COVID.
Speaker 3: Well, I've got COVID the initial infection in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 3: so it was almost three years before I really started
Speaker 3: to feel you know, better, and you know, recovery. It's
Speaker 3: hard to say just because there are really no biometrics
Speaker 3: for it. But I know I can work, I know
Speaker 3: I can travel, I know I can do the things
Speaker 3: that I like to do.
Speaker 2: Again, Okay, so were you in effect because long COVID
Speaker 2: is a real thing, and it affects a lot of people. Seriously.
Speaker 2: We talked last week about it with Julie Sullivan from
Speaker 2: the from Brigham Mass General, Brighams or Brigham Mass General.
Speaker 2: They keep changing the names of that particular group. Julie
Speaker 2: runs the recovery from Long Covid. There. You're doing this
Speaker 2: a little differently on the cape. Tell us about because
Speaker 2: of your experience you then took I guess the experience
Speaker 2: that you had learned kind of learned as you went along,
Speaker 2: and you now have found a studio called less stress studio.
Speaker 2: And I assume applying some of the lessons you learned
Speaker 2: to help others men and women who want to somehow
Speaker 2: get out from underneath the shadow of Long COVID.
Speaker 3: Yes, when I couldn't find any.
Speaker 2: About that, things happened. Don't worry about those. No no, no,
Speaker 2: no no no no no no no, no, you go right ahead.
Speaker 2: Sorry for the interruption.
Speaker 1: That's very good.
Speaker 3: I was saying, you know, when I couldn't find answers
Speaker 3: in the medical you know, I tried it at I
Speaker 3: went down to Mount Sinai in a lot of different places.
Speaker 3: You know, there just aren't any right now. Treatments or cures,
Speaker 3: although they're working on them.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: So I had to do things that I could do
Speaker 3: for myself, you know, and luckily I was. I have
Speaker 3: I'm certified in mindfulness based stress reduction. So I implemented
Speaker 3: some breathing techniques, you know, I meditated every day, some
Speaker 3: this thing called bagel toning. So I really calmed my
Speaker 3: own nervous system down, because it affects every system in
Speaker 3: our autonomic nervous system. But being able to control that control,
Speaker 3: you know, the thoughts that were coming in the uncertainty,
Speaker 3: not to say that, you know, my metal health didn't
Speaker 3: get affected, because when you're stuck with something and you're
Speaker 3: in bed, and you know, your life changes so drastically
Speaker 3: because I also the brain fog and you think, oh,
Speaker 3: people are just probably a little you know, a little foggy,
Speaker 3: but it turns out it's really debilitating. Like I couldn't
Speaker 3: read for a while, and I couldn't write, and I
Speaker 3: was a writer, So it was, you know, affected so
Speaker 3: much of my life.
Speaker 2: So would we say long covid Okay, I know you've
Speaker 2: just described long COVID. Does long COVID come in a
Speaker 2: variety of forms? Or is long COVID the same for
Speaker 2: everyone who is impacted by it, or are there different
Speaker 2: manifestations of long COVID in different people?
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's you know, I work at the doing some
Speaker 3: stuff for Brigham too with Julie, and there are five
Speaker 3: one hundred people or so in that program. Everybody has
Speaker 3: a different case. It's almost like the virus goes in
Speaker 3: and it finds the vulnerabilities of the people and will
Speaker 3: affect them. So I guess there are two hundred and
Speaker 3: twenty two different symptoms that people can have. So it's
Speaker 3: really but you know, they're but they're debilitating. I couldn't
Speaker 3: get out of it. I couldn't exercise, I couldn't, you know,
Speaker 3: Like I said, reader, write for a while.
Speaker 2: And I assume that when you when you think, you said,
Speaker 2: what one hundred and two hundred and how many symptoms are.
Speaker 3: There of COVID J and twenty two.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so if you take all sorts of permutations, mathematical
Speaker 2: permutations of that, if if someone had symptom one sixteen
Speaker 2: and twenty three, their experience might be different from the
Speaker 2: person who had system one hundred and six, one hundred
Speaker 2: and twelve and two of two. So it's It's almost
Speaker 2: astronomical the number of potential types of long COVID that
Speaker 2: might exist if you have all the symptoms or just
Speaker 2: some of the symptoms. So what do you do at
Speaker 2: less stress studios? Do people come to you and say
Speaker 2: help me? I assume that's what's going on.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, and it's called stressless studios, not that it's
Speaker 3: that big a deal, but if anyone was trying to
Speaker 3: look it up, that's what it stressed.
Speaker 2: Now, Okay, fine, I see it both ways on my
Speaker 2: promotional sheet here, so no problem, that's we got to
Speaker 2: write stress less studios. Go ahead.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And so when people want to work with me and
Speaker 3: kind of do the things that I did to that
Speaker 3: worked for me to get out of you know, long COVID,
Speaker 3: which you know was the coming of nervous system and
Speaker 3: also the brain training called in the processing therapy, then yeah,
Speaker 3: they call me up. I work remotely. I'm actually in
Speaker 3: Manchester by the sea and on the cape, although I
Speaker 3: do know Larry, no problem and yeah no and so
Speaker 3: yeah so he so, so that's what they do. They
Speaker 3: I do workshops with people on those particular things I
Speaker 3: just talked about. And I also see people as a
Speaker 3: coach working one on one.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you do group things, you do one on one.
Speaker 2: Obviously you're not doing this for your health, as I
Speaker 2: assume cost involved. Let me ask you the tough question.
Speaker 2: Is this sort of a therapy that you have developed
Speaker 2: or do you have medical degrees into a training to
Speaker 2: back it up? Or is this just this is what
Speaker 2: worked for me. If you want me to share it
Speaker 2: with you, I'll share it with you. Tell me which
Speaker 2: I just want to make sure my audience understands.
Speaker 3: Oh. Absolutely, So I use the you know, the different
Speaker 3: they're mostly the Eastern techniques from my mindfulness based stress
Speaker 3: reduction program which I took at Brown University. It's a
Speaker 3: very hard program. And then the breath you know coaching.
Speaker 3: I just became a breath coach. And then also the
Speaker 3: pain reprocessing therapy. I am certified in that. So that's
Speaker 3: why I can teach that I want.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I want people to know and you know
Speaker 2: exactly what they're getting into. Now. The best way that
Speaker 2: people can reach you if they feel that your training
Speaker 2: might be helpful and they don't have to go to
Speaker 2: Manchestered by the Sea. This is all done you said remotely,
Speaker 2: So you're talking about Zoom one on ones or group
Speaker 2: zoom calls.
Speaker 3: Correct, yes, that is all on zoom call calls. And
Speaker 3: also I have a free support group as well, but yeah,
Speaker 3: they can just catch it. And it's not for everybody.
Speaker 3: It's definitely an alternative. But what I liked is in
Speaker 3: how I originally started, is something that you can do
Speaker 3: for yourself even while you're being treated by the medical system,
Speaker 3: just because you know, it's hard to manage all of
Speaker 3: this and so the better.
Speaker 2: And it's probably hard for people to get into the
Speaker 2: car and drive into a doctor's office, So the fact
Speaker 2: that you can do it remotely, that's great. Let's have
Speaker 2: the website. How can people most easily get in touch
Speaker 2: with you?
Speaker 3: Okay, well it is stress dash Less dash studio dot.
Speaker 2: Com, stress dash less dash Studios, Puerile.
Speaker 3: Dot com studio No just no s just singular.
Speaker 2: Okay, so stress dash less or I guess dash could
Speaker 2: also be a hyphen studio dot com stress less studio
Speaker 2: dot com with a couple of hyphens in there between
Speaker 2: stress and less between less a studio. You could have
Speaker 2: probably just put it all together there and it wouldn't
Speaker 2: cause me any.
Speaker 3: Sorry, that was ful. You did a great job with
Speaker 3: it though I'm trying.
Speaker 2: I'm trying. Ellen. Thanks very much for what you do,
Speaker 2: and we want to thank Larry for directing her you
Speaker 2: to us. We really do appreciate it. And I understand
Speaker 2: what the last name Alden. You might have had some
Speaker 2: four bears who came over in the Mayflower? Is that true?
Speaker 3: Yes, my husband did. Twelfth great grandfather.
Speaker 2: What well, congratulations on that. Okay, we should talk to
Speaker 2: him some night about the genealogy. Thank you, Ellen. Ellen
Speaker 2: stress less studio dot com with a couple of hyphens
Speaker 2: in there. Everyone, You'll find it. You'll find it. Thanks Ellen.
Speaker 2: We get back. We're going to talk with a Washington
Speaker 2: Post technical writer. Here's something that's really creepy, Alexa. Alexa
Speaker 2: is getting creepier because Alexa will now tell Amazon everything
Speaker 2: you say and you don't even know Alexa's listening. This
Speaker 2: is out of the Washington Post. Back on nights side,
Speaker 2: This of course, is a Wednesday night. We're halfway through
Speaker 2: the week. My name's Dan Ray. We're not halfway through
Speaker 2: the show yet. We have wats to do tonight. We'll
Speaker 2: get you to midnight. You can listen to us on
Speaker 2: the new iHeart app Real simple pull down the iHeart app,
Speaker 2: put it on your phone or whatever device you have.
Speaker 2: Make us your primary preset WBZ, and we are only
Speaker 2: a fingertip away from wherever you are in the world.
Speaker 2: Simple as that. My name's Dan Ray. This is Nightside.
Speaker 2: I'll be right back right after this.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Speaker 1: night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: All right, welcome back. We are going to talk with
Speaker 2: a guest who has been with us before, Shira Overday,
Speaker 2: Washington Post tech writer Shira. Welcome back to Nightside. How
Speaker 2: are you.
Speaker 4: I'm well, and it's Shira Shira.
Speaker 2: Okay, I was focused on the last name. I figured
Speaker 2: I had the first name nailed, Shira, but Overday I
Speaker 2: got I got the tough one. But this though, Yeah,
Speaker 2: all right, okay, my last name is spelled r Ea,
Speaker 2: so you can imagine the way that my name is pronounced.
Speaker 2: I'm very second imagine. Sure, yes, thanks. So, look, I've
Speaker 2: never used Alexa, I've never used Siri. There probably are
Speaker 2: some people in my audience who have never used alexra
Speaker 2: a Siri, and maybe there may be other devices out
Speaker 2: there beyond Alexa and Siri. Explain to my audience how
Speaker 2: Alexa or Siri works, and then let's talk about the
Speaker 2: problem that you've taught, that you've written about in the
Speaker 2: Washington Post.
Speaker 4: Sure, well, all of the voice activated assistance as they're called,
Speaker 4: are changing a bit now with artificial intelligence, but the
Speaker 4: way they worked for many years is you summon the
Speaker 4: voice assistant with some sort of word like you say,
Speaker 4: you say the word Siri, or you say the word
Speaker 4: hey Alexa, and then there's a snippet of voice of
Speaker 4: your voice that is sent to the cloud of that company,
Speaker 4: and it kind of processes whatever you've asked it to do,
Speaker 4: check the weather, play tailor Swiss songs, and then it
Speaker 4: triggers that action. That's the very basic way. It doesn't
Speaker 4: It looks a little bit like a phone tree, like
Speaker 4: when you call customer service line, right, and then there's
Speaker 4: this kind of escalating series of annoying, annoying, canned messages.
Speaker 4: So Alex and Siri work a little bit like that
Speaker 4: that they're kind of programmed to answer a certain set
Speaker 4: of questions.
Speaker 2: Just a technical question that crossed my mind, and I
Speaker 2: don't want to be too technical here, but if I
Speaker 2: had a lecture or Siri could have ask them not
Speaker 2: to play Taylor Swift songs. Is that possible as well?
Speaker 2: Just kidding, that's a great question.
Speaker 4: Play music but not hitless Swift. I'm not sure. O.
Speaker 2: So what now has happened is and I've heard this before,
Speaker 2: but I think you've done some research on this. It
Speaker 2: sounds like theoretically these devices, which were there to make
Speaker 2: things simpler for us, may be actually complicating things for
Speaker 2: us because they have been able to monitor our conversations
Speaker 2: that were not necessarily for them to overhear.
Speaker 4: Correct, that is sometimes correct. So there's two things that
Speaker 4: are happening. One is that you were right. Occasionally these
Speaker 4: voice as systems, including siy and and Alexa from Amazon,
Speaker 4: occasionally they have been found to sort of activate and
Speaker 4: essentially record snippets of audio when the person did not
Speaker 4: intend to activate them. There's not in the active mode
Speaker 4: of activation. That's kind of a known problem. I will
Speaker 4: say that in the past there's been some research that
Speaker 4: found that happens relatively infrequently, so that maybe gives you
Speaker 4: people in your audience some comfort. The other thing is.
Speaker 2: That so there's no suggestion here, just so I to say,
Speaker 2: there's really no suggestion here that it's not something that
Speaker 2: you freak people out. It's not as if Big Brother
Speaker 2: has been listening and writing down.
Speaker 4: I am not in a position to tell people what
Speaker 4: to freak out about or not to freak out about.
Speaker 4: But yes, I mean, look, the point of these voice
Speaker 4: activated assistance is that they have microphones that are always
Speaker 4: listening for you to say the trigger work right. So
Speaker 4: that may make people uncomfortable. And again, depending on how
Speaker 4: whether you feel cool with this or not, there are
Speaker 4: some small set of cases where they may turn on
Speaker 4: the voice assistance, may record you without you intending to
Speaker 4: be recorded, basically accidental activations. So again, whether that freaks
Speaker 4: you out or not, that's.
Speaker 5: A person right right.
Speaker 2: So what we're saying is this is not Big Brother
Speaker 2: watching you. We have This is not another chapter of
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty four or all this Huxley or anything like that.
Speaker 2: It just shows that sometimes when we have these great conveniences,
Speaker 2: that there's there's not subside benefits, the subside detriments. I
Speaker 2: guess I would characterize it.
Speaker 4: Yes, for sure, for sure, with every with every convenience,
Speaker 4: there comes a cost, and the cost of these voice
Speaker 4: assistants is yes, sometimes they inadvertently record you without your knowledge.
Speaker 4: And then the other, you know, larger, larger issue is
Speaker 4: that by it is standard that is written into Alexa,
Speaker 4: which is kind of the most aggressive of the voice assistance.
Speaker 4: Everything you say, all the things that are recorded from
Speaker 4: your home, from you asking for Taylor Swift songs or to.
Speaker 2: Remind you Tailor Swift songs right.
Speaker 4: Or not, yes, forgiving, that is all retained in Amazon's
Speaker 4: cloud computer system forever. That is the standard approach that
Speaker 4: Amazon has.
Speaker 2: Taken well, which gets to the point of then can
Speaker 2: your voice, which you would like to think you own,
Speaker 2: which we talked about a couple of nights ago, then
Speaker 2: can be expertsropriated by some organization that could then use
Speaker 2: your voice either for bad purposes or you might hear
Speaker 2: your voice being used unknowingly on a commercial someday five
Speaker 2: or ten years from now, and you say, my god,
Speaker 2: I never did that commercial. But they were the snippets
Speaker 2: of your voice, and if they felt it was the
Speaker 2: perfect voice they needed a friendly female voice, or an
Speaker 2: unfriendly female voice, or a friendly male voice whatever. So, yeah, boy,
Speaker 2: this is a lot to think about. Share I hear you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Look, I mean I think it's fun to think
Speaker 4: that that Amazon is not going to like sell your
Speaker 4: voice to some sort of con artist, right, who's gonna
Speaker 4: tend to be your grandchild. But I think the risk here,
Speaker 4: and then this is a standard risk for all these
Speaker 4: technology companies, is that they collect as much data as
Speaker 4: they possibly can, because nothing stops them from doing so. Right,
Speaker 4: and whenever there is large amounts of data, it is
Speaker 4: a honeypot for someone. It could be stolen by hackers.
Speaker 4: It could be you know, either requested with a valid
Speaker 4: legal warrant or maybe not by a government authority. It
Speaker 4: could be used in ways that you cannot imagine. It
Speaker 4: is also standard at these companies that they sometimes have
Speaker 4: human beings listen to those recordings in order to see
Speaker 4: if you know, transcription and things like that are accurate.
Speaker 4: That is something else that when that's been reported on,
Speaker 4: people freak out about that, and then I get.
Speaker 2: That, well, that's okay. I think people should freak out
Speaker 2: about more things, because look, I think it's fair to
Speaker 2: say that there's stuff going on in this world that
Speaker 2: we normally say, well, the government will protectives, the government
Speaker 2: will make sure that that's and in fact, the government
Speaker 2: can't stop those six o'clock phone calls when people calling
Speaker 2: you asking you to sign up for solar panels or
Speaker 2: or increase your your you know what if you fix
Speaker 2: your plumbing. I mean it's like those those those those
Speaker 2: auto dialed calls when you say hello, and it takes
Speaker 2: fifteen seconds for the person from where somewhere in the
Speaker 2: Philippines to say, oh, well, good evening, Hello, how are you?
Speaker 2: And the government can't stop those either, so.
Speaker 4: Anyway, well, I think the reality is again, the more
Speaker 4: data these companies collect, the more information there exists on
Speaker 4: the Internet for people to steal or purchase or trade
Speaker 4: in order to tailor scams right that that seem sophisticated
Speaker 4: and that make us fall for them, or to you know,
Speaker 4: persuade us to buy stuff. I mean, you know, again,
Speaker 4: I agree with you. People should be more freaked out,
Speaker 4: and that is the thing that they should freak out about,
Speaker 4: is again this mass collection of our personal data, including
Speaker 4: bits of our voices without really I mean like we
Speaker 4: have no possible way to anticipate how that might be
Speaker 4: used or misused today or in the future.
Speaker 2: You bet you, you bet you sare it overday? Thank
Speaker 2: you very much. As always, we will talk again. I
Speaker 2: very much appreciate your time with us tonight, very informing. Thanks, thanks,
Speaker 2: my pleasure. Thank you. All Right, we're a little bit
Speaker 2: late here for the eight thirty news. That's fine, that's
Speaker 2: coming right up. We're gonna hold on that. We come
Speaker 2: back on and talk about process meets don't just affect
Speaker 2: your heart, they may worsen your cognition too, that's good news.
Speaker 2: And then we'll talk about gambling, March's National Problem Gambling
Speaker 2: Awareness Month. Of course it is. You've heard of March madness.
Speaker 2: You thought it was about basketball. It's about basketball and gambling.
Speaker 2: We'll be back on Nightside with two very two more
Speaker 2: very interesting guests.
Speaker 1: It's night Side, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: All right, welcome back. We join now by our guest,
Speaker 2: you had O'Connor. Uh. He is a Washington Post health columnist,
Speaker 2: a new Hut. Welcome to Night's Side. How are you.
Speaker 5: I'm doing great? Thanks, it's Anahad. Great to be here.
Speaker 2: Anahad okay, I got it. I've never seen that name before.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry that I mispronounced it. It's Anahad Anahad okay.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, no problem, a problem, it's not there's not
Speaker 5: many of us out there, I guess not.
Speaker 2: Is that a family name. I see O'Connor at the end,
Speaker 2: I was, what is that happened to be Gaelic by
Speaker 2: any chance of know?
Speaker 5: Ah, that's a good guess. It's well, it's actually from
Speaker 5: Sanskrit and it means celestial. It means celestial music. And
Speaker 5: my my, the short story behind it is that my
Speaker 5: parents were hippies and so they gave my siblings and
Speaker 5: I names from Sanskrit. But O'Connor is the Irish part.
Speaker 2: No, clearly that one I'm very familiar with. I'm a
Speaker 2: I'm My family is from County Cork. So my parents
Speaker 2: weren't hippies. They were a little they were World War
Speaker 2: two generation, so hippies had. So we're talking about processed meats, okay, which,
Speaker 2: of course processed meats could be what anything, cold cuts,
Speaker 2: hot dogs give us the scope of I'm sure there
Speaker 2: are other things that fit under the umbrella or the
Speaker 2: category processed meats that I haven't mentioned. What else are
Speaker 2: we talking about when we talk about processed meats?
Speaker 5: Yeah, so they're usually the really highly processed, cured salted meats,
Speaker 5: so hot dogs, sausages, bacon, salami, you know, daily meats,
Speaker 5: those kinds of like preserved meats typically.
Speaker 2: Okay, and so these are known to affect your heart.
Speaker 2: I don't really want to ask, because I had a
Speaker 2: ham sandwich tonight, But how did they affect your heart?
Speaker 2: What do they do to your heart? And then we'll
Speaker 2: get to what they do to your cognition.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So, health authorities have long discouraged people from consuming
Speaker 5: a lot of processed and red meats because they know
Speaker 5: that these foods contain a lot of saturated fat and
Speaker 5: that can raise your LDL cholesterol, which is the kind
Speaker 5: associated with heart disease. Typically, the higher your LDL cholesterol,
Speaker 5: the higher your risk of heart disease and heart attacks
Speaker 5: and strokes. So that's primarily the reason doctors and health
Speaker 5: authorities have discouraged people from eating processed and red meats.
Speaker 5: But now, in this news research, they looked at whether
Speaker 5: there was a relationship between how much processed and red
Speaker 5: meat people ate and their risk of developing cognitive issues
Speaker 5: as they got older, such as dementia, Alzheimer's, memory decline,
Speaker 5: and loss. And they found that the more process meats
Speaker 5: people ate, the higher their likelihood of developing these cognitive
Speaker 5: issues as they got older.
Speaker 2: Okay, so I assumed that This is consumption that starts
Speaker 2: when kids are bringing boloney sandwiches to school, or maybe
Speaker 2: they don't bring boloney sandwiches to school were like we did.
Speaker 2: But uh, I assume it starts when when people when
Speaker 2: when you know, infants start to eat real food. Is
Speaker 2: there any I mean are they saying there's no safe level?
Speaker 2: Like you know I I, for example, I use myself
Speaker 2: oftentimes as a guinea pig on this show. I'm a
Speaker 2: big Boar's Head fan. I think that boys and Telly
Speaker 2: meats are really good, and now I like Boy's head turkey,
Speaker 2: and I occasionally get a couple of slices of thinly
Speaker 2: sliced ham maple honey ham to throw into a salad.
Speaker 2: I'm not somebody who's who's eating a lot of subs
Speaker 2: every day, But how how concerned should I be about
Speaker 2: the fact that over my lifetime I've probably eaten a
Speaker 2: lot of sandwiches, a lot of a lot of hot
Speaker 2: dogs at baseball games, and uh, you know the typical
Speaker 2: diet that many Americans look back in the rear view
Speaker 2: mirror and say that's the way I'm lived for thirty
Speaker 2: years or forty years or fifty years or more.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. And so, I mean,
Speaker 5: the first thing to know about the study is that
Speaker 5: it was quite large. It looked at like almost one
Speaker 5: hundred and fifty thousand people followed for over four years,
Speaker 5: and it was observational in nature. So they didn't take
Speaker 5: they didn't do a randomized control trial. They took people
Speaker 5: and split them into groups and said, Okay, this group,
Speaker 5: you're gonna eat salami and you know, ham sandwiches every day,
Speaker 5: and this group, you're not gonna eat any processed meats.
Speaker 5: They follow people and ask them about their diets, and
Speaker 5: you know, found that they're the more of these processed
Speaker 5: meats people ate, the higher they're likelihood of developing cognitive
Speaker 5: issues as they got older. But that doesn't mean that
Speaker 5: everyone got cognitive issues or that if you you know,
Speaker 5: if you eat some processed meat, you know that you're
Speaker 5: definitely going to get mentioned Alzheimer's or cognitive issues. You know,
Speaker 5: and there are so many other parts of your diet
Speaker 5: that also play a role as well, how much sugar
Speaker 5: you're consuming, how many ultra processed foods you're consuming. So
Speaker 5: the key takeaway was just that you know, there are
Speaker 5: reasons to believe that processed meats could play a role
Speaker 5: in your likelihood of developing you know, dementia, Alzheimer's, cognitive decline,
Speaker 5: because we know they can increase your saturated fat or sorry,
Speaker 5: they can increase your LDL cholesterol levels because of their
Speaker 5: saturated fat and a higher LDL itself. You know, it
Speaker 5: seems like it could potentially, you know, be causal. Also,
Speaker 5: these process meats tend to have high levels of sodium
Speaker 5: and preservatives such as nitrates and nitrites that can potentially
Speaker 5: increase your blood pressure. And we know that if you
Speaker 5: have higher blood pressure, that can lead to more vascular issues,
Speaker 5: and that's you know, obviously can play a role in
Speaker 5: your brain health. You know, these preservatives can also increase
Speaker 5: oxidative stress and inflammation. So you know, doesn't mean that
Speaker 5: you can't eat any processed meat ever, just that if
Speaker 5: you're eating, if you're eating, you know, if you're eating
Speaker 5: ham sandwiches every single day, then that certainly is not
Speaker 5: everything in moderation.
Speaker 2: But they say that, but if this isn't everything in moderation,
Speaker 2: I think I'm okay. If this is the surge of
Speaker 2: general telling us in nineteen sixty four, throw the cigarettes away.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is not quite at that level, but
Speaker 2: it's something people should.
Speaker 5: Definitely not okay. And the other thing to know is that,
Speaker 5: you know, if you're someone who likes processed meats like myself,
Speaker 5: I like, you know, I had a turkey sandwich today.
Speaker 5: But you can go to the grocery store and buy,
Speaker 5: you know, deli meats that say night write and night
Speaker 5: trate free, which are those potentially harmful preservatives. You can
Speaker 5: buy the deli meats that don't have a lot of
Speaker 5: sodium added to them. So one that I like, for example,
Speaker 5: is applegates. They use they don't use the nitrites and
Speaker 5: nitrate preservatives. You can buy one that sold in most
Speaker 5: grocery stores and I think it's made by Wegmans. It's
Speaker 5: called just Turkey, where it's literally just the sliced turkey
Speaker 5: without a bunch of additives. So if you are going
Speaker 5: to eat the process meats, then try to get the
Speaker 5: ones that have fewer additives, you know, just the turkey
Speaker 5: meat without the additives, or the you know, sliced roasted
Speaker 5: chicken without the additives. You know, so you can choose
Speaker 5: the ones that are have.
Speaker 2: Got to be a smart What you're saying is you've
Speaker 2: got to be a smart consumer. With the warning that
Speaker 2: you've issued, it's never too late to get back on track.
Speaker 2: I think everybody tomorrow could take some of this advice.
Speaker 2: Uh A new thank you very much. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: A new on O'Connor Washington Post Health column. Get it right,
Speaker 2: get the first name right that time.
Speaker 5: A new hut cloth on a hut.
Speaker 2: But that's not that's okay. I gotta get because you
Speaker 2: know I'll have you back. I want to work on
Speaker 2: it between now and then. Anaha, thank you very much.
Speaker 2: I appreciate it very much.
Speaker 5: My pleas are great to talk to you. Have a
Speaker 5: good evening, Great you too, you as well?
Speaker 2: All right, when we come back, March's National Problem Gambling
Speaker 2: Awareness Month. Isn't it funny that March is also March Madness?
Speaker 2: With the Sweet sixteen NCAA. You're going to talk with
Speaker 2: Marlene Warner. She's the CEO of the Massachusett Council on
Speaker 2: Gaming and Health. Coming back on Nightside right after this.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Speaker 1: night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: I'm here to tell you March is National Problem Gambling
Speaker 2: Awareness Month. It's also the month of March madness. Maybe
Speaker 2: it's appropriate with me is Marlene Warner. She's the CEO
Speaker 2: of the Massachusetts Council on Gaming and Health. Marlene, I
Speaker 2: didn't even realize we had a Council on Gaming and Health.
Speaker 2: Tell us about is that a state agency or is
Speaker 2: that a private agency?
Speaker 6: We're a private, nonprofit organization. Previously, we were named up
Speaker 6: until twenty twenty where the Massachusetts Council and compulsive gambling
Speaker 6: and actually we've been in the commonwealth since nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well the compulsive gambling one. Did it compulso become
Speaker 2: a bad word? And did we changed as a result
Speaker 2: of that?
Speaker 6: Yeah, compulsive is certainly a little bit stigmatizing or a
Speaker 6: lot stigmatizing. I think the other thing is that we
Speaker 6: recognize that we can help people prior to them getting
Speaker 6: to the point of addiction or disorder, which would be
Speaker 6: the more appropriate terms to use now. So really identifying
Speaker 6: that folks are in need of services and support from
Speaker 6: the moment they make the decision to gambling, all the
Speaker 6: way through long term recovery.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, I get it, and you know it's
Speaker 2: always I look at a lot of that stuff as euphemisms,
Speaker 2: but if it works better this way. The Massachusetts Council
Speaker 2: on Gaming and Health, we have just legalized sports betting
Speaker 2: in Massachusetts in the last year or so.
Speaker 6: Correct, Yes, it's been especially we're coming upon two years
Speaker 6: of legalized sports wagering.
Speaker 2: Okay, fine, Now again you use the word wagering, which
Speaker 2: I guess is a softer word in betting. When when
Speaker 2: I was a little kid, I mean when I was
Speaker 2: ten or twelve, used to get those those cards from
Speaker 2: the bookies. You've had to pick three games on NFL
Speaker 2: Sunday and you bet a bucket. If you got all
Speaker 2: three games right on the spread, you got five bucks back.
Speaker 2: I never turned out to be a big gambler or
Speaker 2: anything like that. I'm actually the I knew that the
Speaker 2: thing was all that the house always won. Okay, So,
Speaker 2: and I don't like to go into situations where where
Speaker 2: my chances of losing money are worse than my chances
Speaker 2: of winning money. But a lot of people have this problem.
Speaker 2: My question is, do you think we made a mistake.
Speaker 2: This is a tough question because I'm noticing that the
Speaker 2: lottery revenues are coming down, and I have to assume
Speaker 2: there's a relationship that as the football and sports betting
Speaker 2: goes up, that has to impact the Massachusetts State lottery.
Speaker 2: Correct or No, So I you know.
Speaker 6: I really can't comment on that piece. I guess what
Speaker 6: I would say is that our Massachusets State Lottery continues
Speaker 6: to be the most profitable lottery per capita in the world.
Speaker 6: So you know, we still are doing just fine in
Speaker 6: the Commonwealth in terms of lottery sales. You know, I
Speaker 6: certainly you know it would be a good question for
Speaker 6: the treasure for the lottery director.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well, treasure treasurer Uh Goldberg is a great friend.
Speaker 2: And I heard the numbers last week, and I assume that,
Speaker 2: like anything else, if you open up more you know,
Speaker 2: whatever options for people who who are who are gamblers,
Speaker 2: that they the mass Lottery, which is a wonderful lottery
Speaker 2: by the way, it's everyone knows it's all on luck.
Speaker 2: So you you buy a ticket on impulse, but you're
Speaker 2: hopefully you're not spending a lot of money the kids
Speaker 2: shoes shoe money. However, I think it's different when you
Speaker 2: bet in football in sports, and I'll tell you why,
Speaker 2: and you're probably going to disagree with me. I think
Speaker 2: most people realize Yeah, they buy a lottery ticket. It's
Speaker 2: pure luck. So there's no onus on losing My numbers
Speaker 2: didn't come up big deal. But there's a lot of
Speaker 2: people who bet football games, basketball games, bet they're spread beer,
Speaker 2: convinced that they know more than the bookies do about
Speaker 2: wh who's injured and all of that. And I would
Speaker 2: bet that compulsive gambling. There's more compulsive gamblers who are
Speaker 2: involved in sports betting than there are in the lottery.
Speaker 3: Can you comment on that, Yes, I can comment on that.
Speaker 6: So I think one of the things that's really interesting
Speaker 6: about Massachusetts is that we have a pretty robust research
Speaker 6: agenda here in the Commonwealth, and that was part of
Speaker 6: the twenty eleven Expand of Gaming Act that brought casinos
Speaker 6: to Massachusetts under Governor daval Patrick and he and the
Speaker 6: legislatory at the foresight to make sure that there were
Speaker 6: significant dollars set aside to study a lot of this.
Speaker 6: Of things that we know is that the biggest predictor
Speaker 6: of someone having a gambling problem is that they are
Speaker 6: a regular lottery player. But that doesn't mean that their
Speaker 6: unhealthy play is coming from lottery play. Only. We typically
Speaker 6: see that they play the lottery and other things. We
Speaker 6: did not see with the introduction of casino gambling here
Speaker 6: at least thus far over the last ten years, any
Speaker 6: significant increases in terms of gambling problems. We're still obviously, like,
Speaker 6: like we said, not even two years into sports wagering.
Speaker 6: You know, anecdotally, people will certainly say, and there's some
Speaker 6: early research results here in mass choos to say that
Speaker 6: there are some more significant problems happening as relates to
Speaker 6: sports wagerings. But I think the segments of the population
Speaker 6: are really different when we talk about that, and whether
Speaker 6: they also are you know, at baseline also lottery players,
Speaker 6: I think is another thing that we're trying to determine.
Speaker 6: You know, all this research is happening through you, matt Amherst.
Speaker 2: Well, I could do I could do the research for
Speaker 2: you right now. I can tell you that. And I
Speaker 2: don't want to be a wise guy when I say this,
Speaker 2: but I guarantee you that the lottery players skew older,
Speaker 2: and the and the sports betting players skew younger, and
Speaker 2: they will go to casino's probably somewhere in the middle,
Speaker 2: right or wrong.
Speaker 6: I think it depends. I think you know, again, these
Speaker 6: are all nuanced pieces I don't.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about I'm talking about you're paying research to you, Mass.
Speaker 2: I'm telling you right now that a lottery players because
Speaker 2: because I go into variety source and I see who's
Speaker 2: playing the lottery, young people aren't playing the lottery. That's
Speaker 2: part of the problem the lottery has, the dev Goldberg
Speaker 2: is trying to address. And the people who are betting
Speaker 2: on football games and on college basketball games, they're not
Speaker 2: people in their sixties and seventies. The more people in
Speaker 2: their twenties and thirties. And you know, you can spend
Speaker 2: a lot of money if you you Mass are doing research.
Speaker 2: But that's what the research in my opinion, and that's
Speaker 2: just from observations. I mean, talk probably talk to a
Speaker 2: couple of bookies and be able to figure it out.
Speaker 2: So what can we do here? What is the solution
Speaker 2: to this dilemma that you have sketched out for us?
Speaker 6: I think the solution is to do a couple of things.
Speaker 6: One is, before you introduce new forms of gambling or
Speaker 6: even expand upon the ones that we currently have, is
Speaker 6: to continue to offer a lot of safety nets. And
Speaker 6: so safety nets look different in different forms of gambling,
Speaker 6: and regulatory efforts and certainly in general public awareness. I mean,
Speaker 6: we have been around since nineteen eighty three, and yet
Speaker 6: a lot of folks still don't realize that you can
Speaker 6: have a gambling problem. So just constantly promoting the existence
Speaker 6: of the issue and some of the signs and symptoms,
Speaker 6: but also just making sure people know to call one
Speaker 6: eight hundred gambler so that they can get the help
Speaker 6: and resources they need that we do have here in
Speaker 6: the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The other thing I guess I
Speaker 6: would say is that there are many opportunities to make
Speaker 6: products safer safer, excuse me, and also how they are
Speaker 6: advertised and how they are promoted safer, and I think
Speaker 6: there's a lot of a lot of room for opportunity there,
Speaker 6: whether that be with the operators, whether that be the
Speaker 6: state through the lottery, or through the individual companies which
Speaker 6: are licensees of the commonwealth, or through the regulatory actions.
Speaker 2: I would just add one final comment, and I don't
Speaker 2: know if you can agree with me or not, but
Speaker 2: it is my belief that once you let the genie
Speaker 2: out of the bottle, it's tough to put the genie
Speaker 2: back in the bottle.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we certainly see that, seeing that in a lot
Speaker 6: of states and folks just continue to expand but don't
Speaker 6: actually correct some of the problems that they've kind of
Speaker 6: created and solved.
Speaker 2: You know, our tribe, give us the website where people
Speaker 2: can seek some help if they if they're able to
Speaker 2: realize they need some help, where can they go?
Speaker 6: Yeah, so they can. They can go to game sencema
Speaker 6: dot com if they want some help in terms of
Speaker 6: keeping their game states. And then if they definitely need
Speaker 6: treatment twelve step programs, they can go to Gambling Helplinema
Speaker 6: dot org, which is a website put out by dph.
Speaker 2: Okay, sounds great, Thanks very much, appreciate your time, Thank
Speaker 2: you much, and happy March Madness. Thanks very much. March
Speaker 2: National Problem Gambling Awareness Month. That's all we're going to
Speaker 2: see for the next two or three weeks for sure.
Speaker 2: And if you're a gambler, it's it's tough to resist.
Speaker 2: We've got to coming back on night's I'm going to
Speaker 2: talk about the termination of Massachusetts State Police trooper Michael Procter.