The new age we are now entering, The Shift Age, will be a time of great transformation.  One of the areas that will undergo the greatest transformation is health and medicine.  It is expected that nanotechnology will bring great changes in both medical treatments and life expectancy.  The miniaturization of computer and chip technology will finally initiate the era of the bionic human to some degree.  There will breakthroughs in pharmacology and discoveries that will basically be unintended consequences of research into the treatment and cures of many diseases.

One such incredible discovery was reported last week by researchers at the Salk Institute in San Diego.  They reported that they had found two drugs that increased muscle endurance without exercise.  The two drugs, Alcar and GW1516 increased the endurance of ‘couch potato mice” dramatically.  Alcar increased the mice’s endurance by 44% after just four weeks of treatment.  GW1516 increased endurance by 75% but had to be combined with exercise to have any effect.

Across the country the sound of overweight couch potatoes clapping their remotes together was positively deafening.  On Wall Street, the price of publicly traded health club chains plummeted as sellers shorted the stocks.  Kidding on both accounts.

This discovery is analogous to eating meals without calories or smoking cigarettes without any negative health consequences. The “no pain, no gain” mantra spoken by thousands of personal trainers nation-wide might thankfully be retired.

There are some serious immediate positive possibilities for these drugs.  Health conditions such as obesity and diabetes which …

Last week it was reported that the ratings board of the motion picture industry is now going to factor in cigarette smoking as part of the overall rating of a film.  Films with excessive smoking will now certainly get a PG-13, if not an R rating.  The goal is to cut down on the influence on teen smoking behavior.  There is clear correlation between the glamorization of cigarette smoking on screen and people smoking.

While this development is certainly to be applauded from a public health point of view, it does seem to be off the mark if the goal is to lessen unhealthy behavior in young Americans. Excessive drinking, use of guns, corporate theft and deceit, physical and sexual violence are also bad for this country’s health and they are also widely depicted on the big screen.  It is absurd to think that a scene depicting gun violence or a robbery might get a less restrictive rating if the actors are not smoking. There is no need for me to dwell on this aspect of the topic, as Marshall Herskovitz, the accomplished Hollywood producer, has written a great piece on this development.

This news story did get me to thinking about cigarette smoking, but from a more historical point of view. It could be argued that, in the United States, cigarette smoking is a habit largely contained in a single century.  At the beginning of the 20th century, cigarette smoking was not widespread.  In the middle of the century it …