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Today's column uses The 100th Monkey phenomenon as metaphor for improving the collective eating habits of our nation and others
Friday Pearls
The 100th Monkey
September 07, 2012
“Americans are being led to believe that their vote can somehow change the healthcare system. What they need to realize is that their choices at the supermarket and in restaurants have a better chance of improving long-term health than any politician, physician or pharmaceutical company combined.” Dr. Steven Newman
While a number of doctors still prefer to believe Americans with bad eating habits will never change. Dr. Newman, an advisory board member of the Ocular Nutrition Society, sticks hard to his public advocacy for nutrition reform.
He believes that if 30,000 optometrists would just ask a few simple nutrition intake questions in their history process, eyes will begin to open. Newman says, “I’m fully aware of food industry lobbying interests against proper eating habits, but if every patient day 30,000 ODs improved the eating habits of even one patient’s life, that’s 600,000 lives per month and over 7, 000,000 per year."
Could this be another 100th Monkey?
In 1952, on the island of Koshima, Japan, scientists were providing monkeys with sweet potatoes dropped in the sand. The monkey liked the taste of the raw sweet potatoes, but they found the dirt unpleasant.
An 18-month-old female named Imo found she could solve the problem by washing the potatoes in a nearby stream. She taught this trick to her mother. Her playmates also learned this new way and they taught their mothers too.
This cultural innovation was gradually picked up by various monkeys before the eyes of the scientists. Between 1952 and 1958 all the young monkeys learned to wash the sandy sweet potatoes to make them more palatable. Only the adults who imitated their children learned this social improvement. Other adults kept eating the dirty sweet potatoes.
Then something startling took place. In the autumn of 1958, a certain number of Koshima monkeys were washing sweet potatoes -- the exact number is not known. But, let us just suppose that when the sun rose one morning there were 99 monkeys on Koshima Island who had learned to wash their sweet potatoes. Let's further suppose that later that morning, the hundredth monkey learned to wash potatoes.
Did one extra monkey create critical mass?
By that evening almost everyone in the tribe was washing sweet potatoes before eating them. The added energy of this hundredth monkey somehow created an ideological breakthrough!
Another most surprising thing was observed by the scientists. The habit of monkeys washing sweet potatoes jumped over the sea. . . colonies of monkeys on other islands and the mainland troop of monkeys at Takasakiyama began washing their sweet potatoes.
When a certain critical number achieves an awareness, this new awareness seems to be communicated from mind to mind.
Although the exact number may vary, this Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon means that when only a limited number of people know of a new way, it may remain the conscious property of these people. But there is a point at which if only one more person tunes-in to a new awareness, a field is strengthened so that this awareness is picked up by almost everyone!
Dr. Newman’s commitment to changing the eating habits of his own patient base, and doing everything he can to get other eye doctors to do the same is supported by the Ocular Nutrition Society president, Dr. Jeff Anshel, the ONS Board of Directors, the ONS Advisory Board and the ONS industry sponsors, who are equally committed to disease prevention and control, as well as improving public health through education.
This collective commitment will eventually reach critical mass and have the same effect as the 100th Monkey.
Ellen Troyer, MT MA
Biosyntrx CEO / Chief Research Officer
PEARL
Biosyntrx and the other esteemed ONS sponsors are proud to remind Eye Care Professionals about the upcoming 2012 nutrition education joint meeing of the Ocular Nutrition Society and the Optometric Retina Society titled:
Healthy Retina Through Behavioral Modification and Proper Nutrition.
This year's distinguished faculty includes:
JOE PIZZIMENTI, OD, FAAO
The Emerging Link Between Nutrition, Genomics, and Visual Performance
This course describes various high and low tech measures of retinal function, citing data on improved performance with better diets and/or supplementation. Additionally, this course presents a nutrigenomic approach to retinal wellness (e.g. the way in which food ingredients influence gene expression at the retinal level).
STUART RICHER, OD, PhD, FAAO
Molecular Medicine, Epigenetics, Resveratrol and the Retina
Resveratrol is a non-flavanoid polyphenol phytoalexin found in red wine grape skin. Combined with other small molecules, Resveratrol has been observed to be clinically beneficial in otherwise non-responsive age-related macular degeneration.
DIANA SHECHTMAN, OD, FAAO
KIM REED, OD
Practical Approaches to Clinical Nutrition: A Case-Based Series
This course presents a case-based review of our current understanding of the micro- and macro-nutrients related to several chronic ocular diseases. Potential benefits of supplementation, dosing considerations, risks, and current controversies are included.
JEFFRY GERSON, OD, FAAO
A. PAUL CHOUS, OD, FAAO
Feed your Retina: Nutrition and Retinal Health
This course will touch on several areas where nutrition play a role in retinal health. Special emphasis will be placed on AMD and Diabetes. Practical guidelines will be discussed in order to make the presented material immediately implementable
in practice.
ALL COURSES ARE COPE-APPROVED
Please stay after the meeting from 4-5PM for our wildly popular “Cabernet, Chocolate and Chatter” social hour. This will be an excellent chance to meet the speakers, sponsors and other docs who share your passion for nutrition.
October 23, 2012 9AM-4PM
Hyatt Regency Hotel
122 North 2nd Street, Phoenix, AZ 85004
(This event is just one day prior to the American Academy of Optometry annual meeting.)
Register for the COPE approved joint meeting here: www.ocularnutritionsociety.org/events?eventId=4&controller=event&task=individualRegister
Crestpoint Management, LTD instrument announcement:
Inamura Capsulorhexis Forceps 2-716GNR8-2
Inamura Capsulorhexis Forceps 2-716GNR8-2
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