Steve Piccolo's Blog

Last year I went to a conference in St. Louis and presented some research I had worked on with some colleagues in the Genetic Epidemiology group at the University of Utah. It’s not tied directly to my dissertation work, but it was a good opportunity to collaborate with some great people and learn some new things. As a result, we also got the paper published in a journal called BMC Proceedings. This journal is not published in paper format (I don’t think). It just serves as a way for conferences to publish results.

Anyway, the idea behind the paper is to explore how well you can predict whether someone will have cholesterol problems based on their genetic profile. We expanded on some work that others have done by adding weights to the genetic markers. Here’s a link to the paper if anyone is interested. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2795945/?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_SingleItemSupl.Pubmed_DiscoveryDbLinks&ordinalpos=1&tool=pubmed

December 28th, 2009 | Category: Research | Comments (3)

Lots of people say they don’t want to run because running is bad for your knees. I recently came across an article in Time magazine that summarizes some recent research suggesting that runners have the same prevalence of osteoarthritis in their knees as non-runners. Or in other words, genetic factors likely influence arthritis in your knees more than anything, but running might even be able to help counteract that.

And people who run regularly have a much better chance of being healthy overall.

This isn’t to say that running is the only type of exercise worth doing. But it does say that this is no longer a valid reason to not run (for most people). Surely running can cause injuries, typically affecting some people more than others, but so can sitting on the couch too much of our lives (and probably much more serious injuries at that).

I recently read a book about the science of running called Lore of Running, which says (in basic terms) that if you have knee problems when you run, it usually can be fixed with something simple like a new pair of running shoes or a pair of custom orthotics, rather than surgery or other drastic measures. The book has lots more detail. But I just wonder how many times people give up on running because they think it’s bad for their knees when something simple could have made it better.

December 27th, 2009 | Category: exercise | Comments (4)

…you go to a BYU basketball game, and one of the players is the son of a guy you used to watch play when you were a teenager.

November 16th, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (2)

Let’s say you have two computers. Maybe you just bought a new one and need a way to get files from one computer to the other. Or you and your spouse each have a computer and you need a way to share files between yourselves. Or let’s say you just have one computer but want a simple way to be able to back up your files in case your computer completely crashes.

All of these scenarios apply to me.

I came across an awesome new service that addresses these problems. It’s called DropBox. You install a program on your computer, and then you just drop files into a folder on your computer. It will automatically save your files out to their servers. So that gives you a backup of the files. Then if you install it on another computer, you can access the same files on that computer. If you make a change on the second computer, the change shows up on the first computer. It works on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Some of you may be worried about whether this is secure–whether they will safeguard your files or peek at them or whatever. Their web site explains their security policies, which seem great to me. But if you want to be extra careful, you can just store files that you’re not super worried about someone else seeing. For me, that’s 99% of my files.

You get 2 gigabytes of space for free. Or you can pay a little per month and get 50 or 100 gigabytes. I signed up for the free service and doubt I will need to pay for more.

This is something I’ve been hoping to find for a long time. Try it!

September 11th, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (2)

Some of you may know Laurel is pregnant. Well, today we found out she’s going to have a boy. He looks healthy on the ultrasound, so that’s a great thing. The due date is January 17th. So if this pregnancy goes at all like the first one, he’ll probably come in early January. We don’t have many ideas for names yet. Any suggestions?

August 27th, 2009 | Category: baby, family | Comments (7)

I just heard about a movie that came out 2-3 years ago called “Spirit of the Marathon.” So naturally, I watched it today after my morning run.

This movie is a documentary that follows about 6-7 runners who were preparing to run the Chicago Marathon. Two of the runners are elite runners. The other runners vary in their abilities and range from a man in his 60’s who is doing his 3rd or 4th marathon to some 30ish women doing their first marathon to a guy about my age trying to qualify for the Boston Marathon.

This movie does a good job of illustrating why people do marathons and how much satisfaction it can bring a person to complete one or even to excel at one. It explains some of the joys and struggles of doing it. I thought some of you would be interested in watching.

You can watch the full movie (with some short commercials) online at: http://www.hulu.com/watch/85354/spirit-of-the-marathon

August 22nd, 2009 | Category: exercise | Comments (1)

I came across this article on runnersworld.com about Governor Palin. http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-243-410–13221-0,00.html The pictures are a little cheesy, but the article was interesting. She runs into mooses (meese?) regularly and likes to run alone and has run regularly since she was a child. I also thought it was interesting what she said about some of the things that running has taught her about life in general–determination despite adversity, discipline, appreciating nature, etc.

I’m not trying to make a political statement. I just thought it was interesting.

July 2nd, 2009 | Category: exercise | Comments (1)

Recently Lance Armstrong did a small bike race in Nevada City. I’m guessing that’s in Nevada. Someone caught some action photos that I thought were worth sharing. You can feel the intensity with which he rides. And there are some other pictures of some of his teammates. Hope you enjoy them.

http://www.velodramatic.com/archives/3385

July 1st, 2009 | Category: exercise | Comments (1)

For part of my research, I spent some time learning about a technique called immunotherapy, which is being tested as a means to kill tumors, etc. It has been used successfully in a few trials, but it is too early to tell whether this method will be successful. The basic idea is that a person’s own immune system is trained to kill cancer cell, rather than using something external like chemicals (chemotherapy).

Here is an article about a technique that has been extremely successful in a few prostate cancer patients at the Mayo Clinic. http://discoverysedge.mayo.edu/de09-2-kwonblute/ The first part is that they trick the immune system into sending more T cells to the area of the tumor. But tumor cells have a way of counteracting those T cells. So the second part is to counteract the tumor’s ability to suppress those T cells.

It’s still too early to tell whether this dramatic success will generalize to other patients and other types of cancers. But it’s promising, in my opinion. I think that these types of immunotherapy approaches will eventually be a cure for most types of cancer. That might take decades, but at least there’s more reason for hope.

July 1st, 2009 | Category: Research, health care | Comments (1)