Scott Anderson, Ph.D.

  When I practice Pilates 3+ days per week, my knees do not hurt. With less frequent Pilates practice, my right knee reminds me of all the wear and tear that’s shown in both the X-rays and MRI. Over the course of the past decade or so, this pattern has remained true, and I have come to rely upon Pilates as one of the three tools I use to manage what orthopedists consider a worn-out joint. When many people think of Pilates, they tend to mention “core strength” or how Pilates helps loosen up stiff joints. While a strong core and supple spine are definitely among the benefits arising from a Pilates practice, I have come to believe that the Pilates secret sauce is how it benefits postural alignment. The first step in improving alignment is to connect lower-ribs with the abdomen. In an era of staring at handheld screens, sitting in cars and working at computers, most of us developed a head-forward habitus. Perhaps you’ve experienced the tight neck and shoulders that often accompany head-fo

As far back as I can my remember, my right knee has been funky. Thankfully "funky" hasn't involved much pain, though my right knee has long been unstable. And this instability was accompanied by intermittent clicking, locking and grinding. Sensations of grinding within a joint, perhaps not surprisingly, generally indicate that something is ground. A nd that something is generally cartilage; in my case, both hyaline cartilage (articular) and fibrocartilage (meniscus) were ground away by the bedstones of my femoral chondyles and runner stones of the tibial plateaus. As can be seen in the accompanying image, years of this "milling" ground away the cartilage. The formerly plump space between thigh bone and shin bone no longer exists, indicating the state of "bone on bone." Upon viewing the X-ray and MRI images, the orthopedist shot a sympathetic look my direction and asked me how I was managing the pain. His hand seemed to almost tremble in anticipation

One pound is not the same as one kilogram. While that may or may not seem like an interesting factoid, its influence on dietary choices is significant. While current dietary recommendations suggest consuming approximately 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body mass, many pundits are incorrectly suggesting that people consume 1 gram of protein per pound of body mass. This is not a trivial difference - for me, this is the difference between consuming 190 grams of protein per day and 70 grams of protein per day. The former generally necessitates a diet that's very low in fiber, while the latter is entirely do-able on the high-fiber diet that supports a healthy microbiota. This error reminds me of an unfortunate mistake that created a $135-million puff of smoke . In 1999, as part of the emerging Small Spacecraft Technology initiative, NASA sent the Mars Climate Orbiter to research the make-up of the Martian climate. Designed to orbit the Red Planet  and determine the location of w