Vitamin Information: B6 and B12

B12: (In order by usefulness)
http://dietary-supplements.info.nih.gov/factsheets/vitaminb12.asp Dietary Supplement Fact Sheet: Vitamin B12

Office of Dietary Supplements • NIH Clinical Center • National Institutes of Health

http://www.vegsoc.org/info/b12.html Vegetarian Society Information Sheet: B12

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/vitamin-B12/NS_patient-vitaminb12 Mayo Clinic Website

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002403.htm Medline PlusMedical Encyclopedia

Basically, if you are eating enough animal protein per day you most likely get enough B12, but yet as one study seemed to show in the NIH factsheet information, all age groups show similar prevalence of deficiencies, but younger people are simply less easily diagnosed by current methods. And there seems to be no harm in supplementing.

One interesting question, perhaps, is whether it would be wise to take extra B12 after illness involving diarrhea, since B12 is secreted and resorbed through the lower intestine. If one has a lot of diarrhea, on top of the poor diet that often accompanies illness, it may lead to low B12 levels in the bloodstream temporarily, and lower reserves overall. This is just my own musings, so someone who has the equipment to test blood B12 levels in sick people with and without diarrhea ought to test this sometime.

B6:
http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/vitamins/vitaminB6/ The Linus Pauling Institute

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B6 Wikipedia

http://dietary-supplements.info.nih.gov/factsheets/vitaminb6.asp Dietary Supplement Fact Sheet: Vitamin B6 from NIH, Office of Dietary Supplements

Vitamin B6, unlike B12, has an upper limit to safe dosages, so while it may also be a good idea to take extra B6, it should be taken with more care. The Linus Pauling Institute's recommendation of 2mg per day sounds reasonable, though up to 100mg per day seems fairly safe from the above sources' information.

The Virgin Queen Mother of Heaven and Earth

I think if I was inclined to become 'Christian at all, I might find it worthwhile to move to France, where I might worship in a Notre Dame cathedral, where as Henry Adams points out Mary is the reigning power in the statuary of many of these places, and is prayed to and revered as a motherly deity might be.

Really, it seems that Catholicism would be easy enough to swallow if religion were mandatory, especially as compared to Adventism, Mormonism or Judaism, to name just the few religions I have paid some attention to in the past. All of these three are rather demanding, requiring hours of study and devotional practice besides the mandatory attendance that marks membership in these groups. I have met many Catholics from many different congregations, all of whom seemed to confirm the generalization that Catholicism does not expect people to read the Bible and to seek the help of the Holy Spirit to understand the verses for oneself. In the past it was in fact assumed that most Catholics did not read the whole Bible and that the priests and the Pope handed down the word of God to the masses in terms that would make better sense to laymen. Granted, most Mormons have not actually read and studied the Bible and Book of Mormon verse by verse, and likewise there are lazy Adventists and Jews, but the average Adventist is expected to be reading the whole Bible, and there is a printed schedule in the back of their Bibles that many follow to read it every year completely. Church consists of a class of an hour or two every Saturday morning before the actual service, in which the congregation divides into small groups and each discusses a particular topic or book of the Bible, in a format I have otherwise only encountered in upper-division or graduate college courses. Many of the members of a congregation are called upon to lead these groups, and most prepare ahead of time every week, with a discipline that has been honed since early childhood. Compared to this Catholicism sounds fairly easy, and while orthodox Catholic views are demeaning to women at least in the old French traditions there are options for avoiding such unpleasantness. No, I am not converting from my atheist stance. But if I did, Catholicism has a much better chance of winning me now that I am aware of the Notre Dame cathedrals and their offerings.

The Old and the New

What an interesting combination. I have been trying to listen to the radio and read Henry Adams books at the same time, and unfortunately it is really not working. The radio personalities, as always, really, have nothing better to do than to talk trash about people and say stupid stuff. If I wanted to listen to that I would have put on talk radio, not a music channel. Not that country music really is a great backdrop for a book on Midieval France and its architecture, but I don't have early French music available right now. I suppose that is what libraries are good for, so maybe I'll be in a more total immersion tomorrow, after a trip downtown.

I still wonder whether I am missing a lot of good writings by just reading the books I wind up with in my room and those on the list I compiled of the Internet. But I am not sure I have enough hours in my life to read everything worth reading. And that is just the writings available in English. Many of the books on my list that are optional are in Japanese, or Finnish, or some other language I can't read yet. And then there are all the things I don't want to skip out on, that make up my own life. Considering that I am 28 and have been reading and studying since I was 8 or so, I can't imagine someone having enough time to be completely well educated before they are in their 90's. There will always be subjects and topics I have missed and topics I only know basics about, and I know a lot by many people's standards. And this is just looking at book-learning, not naturalists' skills and understanding. I can see why the first man to use the title 'philosopher' or 'lover of knowledge' felt it necessary, to replace the term 'wise man' which had previously been used for such people, according to Abelard. It would feel horribly pretentious to call myself wise at this point in my life, if it ever could be comfortable. Just as it would be rediculous to pretend I know nothing.

On Pierre Abelard and his World

It is always interesting to me to try to understand how people from different perspectives perceive reality, and to try to understand those people better. This can of course mean just trying to understand one's roommate or neighbor, but it is much more difficult and in some ways more fascinating with respect to people from different eras.

By all accounts, including his own, Pierre Abelard was a brilliant lecturer and teacher, and a great debater, but not a major philosophical originator. He was too brilliant and not particularly adept at making allies of those around him, so that while he was successful at whatever he did with respect to teaching, he made many enemies, and was rarely at peace because of them. This aspect of his life is not unlike what many modern people describe as their own work environments, with the constant backbiting and vicious competition between coworkers over seeming trifles. The part about his enemies having him attacked and his genitals cut off is a bit extreme, and was so in his day, too. Also I doubt most monasteries these days have issues with unruly monks trying to poison their abbot, or stealing everything to support their concubines and children. We only have his side of his story, so perhaps he was not as ill-treated as he makes himself out to be. In any case it is interesting to read about how vitally important ideas were to people then. They weren’t talking about science yet, but they were debating the nature of the universe, and really trying to determine by logic and faith the power the church ought to hold, and the outcome of these seemingly idle philosophical debates would in their world change the fortunes of nations. It would be as if the ‘arguments’ Andrew and I used to have about the nature of the universe could result in tangible changes to the universe itself, and to our places within it, besides just upsetting us both and damaging our romance and our friendship.

It seems my reading is becoming a bit thematic, at least from the online books. My next book is Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres, by Henry Adams. Abelard features in it, and it is a broader sketch of the century within which he lived and wrote, though Adams does not focus on Abelard. He so far is discussing the century's architecture, and the Song of Roland, from whence my cat's name was produced. I am amused by the thought that the name I originally suggested for him, Oliver, is the name of Roland's friend, in that ancient poem. He certainly looks like he could be a French cat, and his attitude fits in very nicely with the Norman aesthetics, even if he is a bit small for his age, and far too cute.