michael r barrett

MedLife framer | Longevity, fitness & public health | Writing about resilience — biological, institutional & democratic | Experiential Artist | 7th-point Sailor

[michael r barrett @zaailor]

AI confirmed I made a good choice on buying what’ll potentially be the last laptop I’ll ever buy - as I’m on my 70th orbit around the sun. Figured, given the jump in the price of chips - Apple’s already raising prices - it’s time to replace a 9 yr old laptop that runs pretty slow, and only if plugged in.

Here’s Gemini’s response to the query (supported with uploaded pic of box label showing specs)

How good of a value is this laptop
on sale for $660 Canadian
compared to the cost of other
laptops available with touch
screens and matching this laptops
basic specs?:

“Value Verdict

Highly Recommended Value. In Canada, matching these exact specs—specifically combining a Ryzen 7, 16GB RAM, and a 16:10 touchscreen—typically places laptops in the $750 to $900 CAD range when not on promotion. Getting this package out the door for $660 CAD makes it a standout choice for everyday productivity.”

Full details via: https://t.co/zer97zviXL

BTW: I bought it on sale from @BestBuy (until July 2nd ) vs Walmart at $900. I hope to swap in a 4TB SSD from the old laptop (& ram) that rehabilitated its sluggishness a few years ago.

[michael r barrett @zaailor]

.@SimonSTIPLE: “understand” four truths:

1. As @afshineemrani states, at the clinical/patient level “Each (Rx is) prescribed by a different specialist. Each treating one symptom. NONE of them talking to each other. [1]”

2. This lack of awareness/communication/coordination between different specialty silos at the clinical level mirrors the broader educational/research/governance levels, where the myopia originates and is institutionalized through billing codes, licensing, regulation etc.

3. The #Medical sector is LARGELY only incentivized to commoditize/monetize the #Medical treatment of illness and injury, not keep #uspoli #cdnpoli etc healthy, despite MDs et al purporting to provide #Healrhcare, for which they’re NOT incentivized to provide. That would undermine the #Medicalcare MDs provide to pay the bills. Ergo #MDs like @afshineemrani, @EricTopol etc write books/posts/speeches to monetize the #Healthcare knowledge they’ve cobbled together, but are unable to capitalize through their #Medical license and malpractice insurance. For more details see the attached “Answers” podcast-essay: a teaser to a longer podcast and essay [2].

4. This dysfunction, with the cooperation/culpability of #BigFood & #BigPharma, is very profitable for all stakeholders, and the broader economy. The latter is especially true in #Canada with our public, taxpayer funded #Medicare, which in a demographic where 85% & 69% of men & women are #Overfat [3] and potentially incubating one or more of ~30 collateral deadly/disabling ailments [4], has essentially become a covert economic stimulus programme. It treats #Canadian peasants for the diseases we incubate, that MDs try to profitably RESCUE their patients dying from. For more details see attached “Harvested” podcast-essay, a teaser to a longer podcast & essay [5].)

[1] https://t.co/zLfc6udHEO

[2] See #podcastessay “The System That Only Answers to Itself: How Ten Papers, Two Journalists, and One Trapped Cardiologist Expose a Crisis in Health Knowledge” via https://t.co/Ua35Pj1olI

[3] https://t.co/JVRfYS7qBw (a less robust supply chain than the #USA with its 91% market share among adults https://t.co/mMr51Uqj0a)

[4] #DOGE deems this data irrelevant https://t.co/vq94T1UUKm

[5] See podcast-essay Farmed:
How Canada’s Medical Industrial Complex Harvests Unhealthy Canadians https://t.co/fmRd84zSXk

[Simon sC 777 @SimonSTIPLE]

@afshineemrani Why is it so difficult to understand. If metabolic dysfunction is the key culprit to most diseases or health instability, why has it taken medicine so long to fully take this on, apart from pharma intervention.

[michael r barrett @zaailor]

.@JamesVGrimaldi @rfelliott: the #IranWar‌ offers a natural experiment [https://t.co/ePDSxbczpH] in showing how War Rewards, and Peace Penalizes. For details see the essay https://t.co/WhwerVrIF7, or podcast generated from it (Below👇)

[michael r barrett @zaailor]

.@mcottle could have picked a more consequential example to reflect on how “The president’s allies get rich while the public gets shafted [1]”.

Like the #Iranwar, as the attached podcast/video explains. It’s titled “War Rewards, Peace Penalizes: How the Iran war’s incentive structure rewards conflict and penalizes peace — without anyone having to engineer it”

The attached offers a counterpoint to @rfelliott’s deferential post “U.S. Oil Is Skipping the Chance to Grab Market Share From the Gulf [2].” The audio was generated by NotebookLM, from the essay scrolling in the video’s background but also available on Substack for easier reading [3]

[1] https://t.co/ztDclJKHDB

[2] https://t.co/NnRf0jGZ9V

[3] https://t.co/hmYMkt5EwE

[michael r barrett @zaailor]

.@mcottle could have picked a more consequential example to reflect on how “The president’s allies get rich while the public gets shafted [1]”.

Like the #Iranwar, as the attached podcast/video explains. It’s titled “War Rewards, Peace Penalizes: How the Iran war’s incentive structure rewards conflict and penalizes peace — without anyone having to engineer it”

The attached offers a counterpoint to @rfelliott’s deferential post “U.S. Oil Is Skipping the Chance to Grab Market Share From the Gulf [2].” The audio was generated by NotebookLM, from the essay scrolling in the video’s background but also available on Substack for easier reading [3]

[1] https://t.co/ztDclJKHDB

[2] https://t.co/NnRf0jGZ9V

[3] https://t.co/hmYMkt5EwE

[Michelle Cottle @mcottle]

Reasons I 🫶Trump's reflecting pool meltdown -- and you should too. https://t.co/mI84W35UxZ

[michael r barrett @zaailor]

.@daveasprey: WHAT/WHERE are the studies you allude to?

[Dave Asprey @daveasprey]

Longevity science moved faster in the last 3 years than the previous 20. Mouse studies dominated the field. Now we have human data that actually replicates.

Four levers show the strongest evidence in humans right now.

Fasting and time-restricted eating: Studies from multiple countries show fasting drives autophagy and improves metabolic markers. I've tested this extensively. The data is clean.

Resistance training: Muscle mass predicts longevity stronger than almost any biomarker. Sarcopenia kills more people than you realize. Build strength or lose it.

Sleep quality between 6.5-7.5 hours: The research on deep sleep cycles contradicts the 8-hour myth. Quality beats quantity. Get at least 1.5 hours each of REM and deep sleep.

Mitochondrial health through heat and cold: Sauna and cold exposure trigger adaptive stress that rebuilds your cellular power plants. The human studies show real improvements in energy production and resilience.

These four don't require supplements. They don't require a clinic. Just be consistent. I've invested millions testing this across Upgrade Labs and my own self-experimentation. The ones that make a difference are the ones people actually do.

[michael r barrett @zaailor]

.@fvettese1: I've been meaning to share a few thoughts for a while, and your recent post on whether our health care spending is out of control [1] feels like the right moment, since fitness sits at the heart of both questions.

First, thank you for your earlier piece [2] highlighting the 2018 study by Mandsager et al. on cardiorespiratory fitness and long-term mortality [3]. It is an important paper, and the central message is correct: fitness is a powerful, modifiable lever for longevity, with no observed upper limit to its benefit.

One point on the graphic in that article, though, because the label changes how the numbers should be read. The chart is titled "Probability of dying in the next 10 years, based on fitness level." That is not quite what the figures show. The percentages (23.7%, 10.6%, 7.3%, 4.7%, 2.6%) are the crude, unadjusted shares of each group who died over the study's full follow-up window, which had a median of 8.4 years, not a standardized 10-year probability. They come straight from the study's baseline table.

Why the distinction matters: these crude rates mix fitness together with everything else that differed between the groups. The lowest-fitness group was, on average, considerably less healthy at the start. They had higher rates of diabetes (about 22%, versus roughly 2% in the elite group), more diagnosed heart disease, more smoking, and a higher body mass index. So the raw 23.7% figure reflects both low fitness and poorer baseline health, not fitness alone.

To isolate fitness, the study uses adjusted hazard ratios, which account for age, sex, and baseline conditions. On that basis the finding is, if anything, more striking than the chart suggests. I've put the key adjusted numbers in the attached chart: the lowest-fitness group had roughly five times the risk of death compared with elite performers (hazard ratio 5.04). For perspective, that is a larger relative risk than smoking (1.41), diabetes (1.40), or established coronary artery disease (1.29) carried in the same study.

So the conclusion stands, and it bears directly on today's question. If fitness outweighs those traditional clinical risk factors, then the spending conversation is incomplete without it. The suggestion is simply to label the figures as what they are: unadjusted death rates over the follow-up period, not a 10-year probability. The adjusted numbers tell the stronger story, and they tell it accurately.

[1] https://t.co/fYJcPI5tKQ

[2] https://t.co/pB2qfYOnNu

[3] https://t.co/yBYsHUMc8l

[michael r barrett @zaailor]

.@RobertKennedyJr almost succeeded in BURYING the positive scientific results, that ER visits & Hospitalizations in the #USA were 50% & 55% respectively LOWER [1] amongst HEALTHY ppl that had RECIEVED a 2025/26 Covid Vaccination, compared with those WITHOUT a vax.

[1] Study https://t.co/smrvttWoD0 via @bylenasun’s 🎁 post https://t.co/R2aon0xSPA

[michael r barrett @zaailor]

.@JonathanPieNews: 👍👍👍

[michael r barrett @zaailor]

.@KattyKay’s podcast with @EricTopol [4] offers an example of this systemic failure, in how MDs are trapped and shackled to only offering support that can be profitably monetized by the #MIC.

TRAPPED is sadly what I see when an esteemed MD only speaks [4] of CURING #Alzheimers with a Rx, while saying absolutely nothing, nada, zero [4] about the likelihood of Alzheimer’s being PREVENTED [5], by serfs simply being physically active over our lives, vs being shackled to an assembly line to survive (a subject of Essay 5 below).

That science wasn’t shared (as I do PRO BONO in the attached) because the #MIC has no profitable way to commoditize that intelligence, unless a MD writes a book [6] or earns speaking fees.

There’s ZERO incentive to provide clinical support that’ll undercut 97% of the #MIC’s income stream.

That’s why I’m sorry to say, it seems willfully blind from my perspective to see MDs as delivering Healthcare, except for the 3% of the time the #MIC bills [4] for screenings etc to prevent illnesses, that otherwise are more profitable for the #MIC to treat.

The attached clip is from the podcast linked below, that was generated from the essay “The System That Only Answers to Itself: How Ten Papers, Two Journalists, and One Trapped Cardiologist Expose a Crisis in Health Knowledge.”

https://t.co/Ua35Pj1olI

That is the first of five podcast-essays in my Ruptures Series. The others are titled/linked as follows:

Essay 2, MAHA? Not With These Gatekeepers, https://t.co/bWgzqWNL9n

Essay 3, Farmed: How Canada’s Medical Industrial Complex Harvests Unhealthy Canadians, https://t.co/qWZ4JDIwh0

Essay 4, The Climate Story the Media Is Mis-Telling, https://t.co/nmHF9VxpNG

Essay 5, The Rupture Has Arrived, https://t.co/wOchqUAzxu

[4] https://t.co/4nWVMmhiWz

[5] James S et al. The relationship between leisure time physical activity patterns, Alzheimer's disease markers and cognition. Brain Commun. 2025;7(1):fcae431. doi:10.1093/braincomms/fcae431

[6] Like Topol’s book SUPER AGERS
(NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER)
An Evidence-Based Approach to Longevity, https://t.co/o07sIj841o

🧵 2/2

[michael r barrett @zaailor]

.@M_Heffernan: i wonder if in this post u can see me as George Kneal [1], in me trying to convince you to drop being aghast with the quote in the attached (from your recent substack [2].) The statement is more right than wrong, when we all accept that the #MedicalIndustrialComplex #MIC predominantly provides #medicalcare, not #healthcare.

Can I convince you that when speaking of Healthcare, it is most cleanly defined, as that which keeps us well, especially in helping to prevent and thus avoid treatment of the injuries and illnesses that make up 97% [3] of the #MIC’s revenue?

IOW: the #UK’s @NHS, & #cdnpoli’s #medicare are collapsing from excess demand, because our #MICs lack the capability/capacity to competently monetize keeping ppl healthy, and out of the MIC’s supply chains.

After all, what incentives do the #MIC have to support the growth of a population that’s healthy, and not needing its very expensive services?

To shorten waitlists you can’t build your way out of the gridlock, any better than you can permanently solve bumper-to-bumper traffic with wider freeways.

MDs treat injury and illness with what they — under suffocating student debt/overhead — can monetize, with the competencies they can deploy profitably.

Healthcare that keeps people healthy is at best 3% [3] of what MDs do. If ppl are healthy they’ll NEVER need a MD’s illness/injury biased medical services.

If fixing Healthcare is the goal, and MDs are recognized as not having the capabilities/competencies to deliver Healthcare (despite their legislated monopoly), what’s to be gained in keeping them on a playing field they lack the capabilities/competencies to win with, and only gum up the game?

🧵 1/2

[1] I greatly relate to — especially given my #ADG — to “George Kneale” in your @TEDTalks Dare to Disagree, via https://t.co/mDE5SvCOZx

[2] From Margaret’s substack https://t.co/nP52ysJFVZ

[3] See "It’s not just about spending more, it’s also spending smarter. A shocking statistic, for instance in OECD countries, is that the average spend on prevention is 3% of the budget of health systems. And obviously, if you spend so little on prevention, you end up spending the majority of your budget on hospitalization or only treatments." Quoting @AstraZeneca Board Chair Michel Demaré at #Davos, via https://t.co/BOJMtTTNnp

[michael r barrett @zaailor]

.@ViralNewsNYC is close [1], but more specifically @elonmusk is basically signalling

“we’re all just inputs for wealth-generating enterprises.”

I’m quoting history prof Dr. Kim Phillips-Fein @Columbia [2].

Moreover, #Musk is simply following the business strategy of the medical industrial complex, as articulated in the podcast/essay

“Farmed: Canada’s MEDICARE Harvests the Harvester’s.”

@uspoli has of course been doing similarly for decades, but without the efficacy of #cdnpoli’s public medical care system serving covertly as a economic stimulus programme.

You won’t however hear @MarkJCarney frame #Medicare as such, because it’s likely evolved to this point organically, not surreptitiously

For further details on what I see pls listen to the attached introductory podcast, which is continued via: https://t.co/ch86SXDnHv

The latter podcast is the third in my Ruptures series of podcast-essays. The other four current ones are accessible via:

• https://t.co/Ua35Pj1olI
• https://t.co/bWgzqWNL9n
• https://t.co/ZTjVLnNep5
• https://t.co/rlKIaiLRrV

[1] post below

[2] @nytimes post https://t.co/n3EoKFSRCv

[Viral News NYC @ViralNewsNYC]

@elonmusk Hi @grok is Elon trying to turn us all into robots with this tweet ?

[michael r barrett @zaailor]

While the present is playing crazy punk death metal,” the Director said, movies are playing “a nice intermezzo by Chopin.”

“Yes” is in part a disgusted condemnation of such escapism. Almost two hours into it, a voice-over says, “The Israelis, who grew up with the question ‘How could people live normally while perpetrating horror?,’ have themselves become the answer.” The inanity of the leftists who’d censor such a film shouldn’t distract us from the right-wing nightmare it reveals.

🎁https://t.co/pHQPCUbZ7x

[michael r barrett @zaailor]

So gentle

[michael r barrett @zaailor]

🥳🥳🥳 2/3 of #breastcancer survivors can likely avoid chemotherapy.

“Scientists used a gene test called Prosigna to measure the activity of 50 genes involved in breast cancer growth and calculate a patient's risk of the disease returning.

Those who received a low score - two-thirds of the group - were not treated through chemotherapy. The five-year survival rate of their group was 93.7%, compared with a 94.9% rate among patients who received chemotherapy as part of their care.”

https://t.co/RjpUlrQGLT.

[michael r barrett @zaailor]

.@SameerChhabra94 #ICYMI

#Alzheimer’s is AVOIDABLE!

Your quote [1] below is outdated.

Our brain can also be influenced and remodelled by our muscles when we move vigorously.

Over a lifetime of being active, that uncouples the pathology (signs) of Alzheimer’s from the cognitive decline normally linked to its debilitating plaques [2].

The attached video — annotating a clip from a longer podcast [3] — summarizes the study [2] where this decoupling was discovered.

The longer podcast [3] further discusses two studies [4] detailing the #BDNF mechanism likely behind the decoupling in the Alzheimer’s study [2].

This trait - activated when early humans hunted - was likely a huge factor in our evolution. If early hunters had the trait, they had an improved ability to remember the hunt, to build on what worked, while dropping the less effective behaviour. Better hunters = better food = better growth, survivability and societal standing to pass-on/build-on the trait.

The out of date quote u shared sparking this post:

“A healthy body is a healthy mind," she said. "Your brain doesn't just stop at your neck. It's fed by your heart, by your lungs. It's a highly metabolic organ”

[1] Quoting @UBC_PT’s Dr. Liu-Ambrose from https://t.co/gHBuiFTOX9

[2] see study via https://t.co/m8IuxemT8s

[3] full podcast via https://t.co/Ua35Pj1olI

[4] related studies via https://t.co/RULqhfNLyi & https://t.co/yorZzNLA35