Welcome to the chapter newsletter for May 2024.

CHAPTER NEWS 

• All-member Annual Meeting (May 29 at 7pm)

• Book Club: Recent and Upcoming Meetings

• Chapter Members Looking for Work

• Join our AMWA North Central LinkedIn Community! Link here. 

FEATURES 

• Grammar Talk: Compare “To” vs. “With”

• Book Club Review: Lifespan

CHAPTER NEWS

All-member Annual Meeting

Please join us for the 2024 AMWA North Central Chapter Annual Meeting on Wednesday, May 29, from 7:00-8:00pm (CST).

Tentative meeting agenda:

• Meet the BOD

• Financial update

• Upcoming in-person events

• New chapter website

Google Meet joining information:

• Video call link: https://meet.google.com/ccx-axqn-dio

• Or dial: ‪(US) +1 540-680-4327 PIN: ‪938 449 467#

Book Club: Recent and Upcoming Meetings

By Paul W. Mamula, PhD

Our book club met virtually on April 22, 2024, to discuss Lifespan: How We Age and Why We Don’t Have To by David A. Sinclair with Matthew D. LaPlante. We selected the book last year, and coincidentally the topics covered in the book (aging, healthy living, and maximum lifespan) have been in the news lately. We had a good turnout and a lively discussion. We have 5 members, including myself, Mary Knatterud, Kendra Hyland, Sarah Kuyack, and Laura Chapin, who contributed to our review of the book published below.

Please save the date for our next book club gathering: September 23, 2024, when we will discuss When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. The author, an MD, wrote the book while dying of lung cancer. We plan to hold this book club as an in-person event, most likely outdoors in the Como Pavilion in St Paul, but have not yet finalized the venue. We will also select future books to read at that gathering, so we hope you will join us!

Chapter Members Looking for Work

The following AMWA North Central Chapter members are looking for work. If you know someone who’s hiring, please reach out to them!

• Sarah Kuyack, Medical Writer (skuyack@gmail.com)

  • Areas of interest: patient education, public health communication, website content, mental health, veterinary or human medicine

  • Job type: full or part time, contract, freelance

• Kristen Hutchison (kristen.hutchison1@gmail.com)

  • Area of interest: continuing medical education (CME), clinical research work, literature reviews, patient advocacy, and healthcare policy work

  • Portfolio

  • LinkedIn

If you’d like to add your name to this list, please contact the Publications Committee Chair Michael Franklin at franklin.editing@gmail.com.

FEATURES

Grammar Talk: Compare “To” vs. “With”

By Tess Van Ee

Grammar is more than just a set of dusty rules to follow so you don’t get into trouble—it’s part of a broader mission to bring clarity to writing. In some cases, however, grammar isn’t enough to save the day. Something can be grammatically correct and still be, well, blah.

Like choosing between “to” and “with” when comparing nouns in a sentence. “Compare to” and “compare with” are both grammatically correct, so meaning should determine your choice.1

“Compared to” highlights the similarities between the two subjects.2 For example, the Grand Marais or Duluth tourism boards might appreciate the following sentence: “The sunrise over Lake Superior is comparable to a sunrise over the Pacific Ocean.”

“Compared with” highlights the differences between the two subjects.2 This is where you can subtly emphasize superiority. For example, “Patients receiving therapy A showed greater improvement in mobility compared with patients receiving therapy B.”

Sure, “compared to” would have worked in this sentence. However, choosing “with” helps the reader understand that picking therapy A will more likely help them (or their loved one) get moving again. 

On the ethics of word choice

You might wonder what right we, medical writers, have to tell readers how to think. Is pointing them in a specific direction okay, or is it manipulative? Isn’t our mission to be as objective as possible so readers can make their own decisions?

Like Spiderman’s Uncle Ben says, “With great power comes great responsibility.” This dilemma is an opportunity to ask if our writing is misleading or helpful and if the promotional statement is balanced by other statements showing alternatives or downsides. 

And if choosing “with” or “to” still feels wrong, you can always find another way to write the sentence.

References: 

1. Osmond C. Compared To or With—Which One to Use? Grammarist. Accessed April 19, 2024. https://grammarist.com/usage/compared-to-or-compared-with/

2. Strunk JR, White EB. The Elements of Style. 4th edition. ALLYN & BACON; 2000. 

Book Club Review: Lifespan

By Paul W. Mamula, PhD

The Book

Lifespan presents a case for lengthening human life by using a combination of sirtuins and other compounds. The tone is breezy, written for a nontechnical audience, but it features some scientific rationale for its prescription. Journalist LaPlante cowrote the book, which consists of 310 pages of text divided into 3 sections: What We Know [The Past]; What We’re Learning [The Present]; and Where We’re Going [The Future]. The book also features a notes section (with references to scholarly and news articles), acknowledgments, and author disclosures. In addition to being a professor at Harvard, Sinclair has been involved in multiple company launches. Three other useful short end sections are a table of the scale of things (from a grain of sand to distances), a cast of characters (minibiographies of key researchers cited), and a glossary (helpful for those without a science background).

Mixed Impressions: The Good and the Bad

Lifespan is a mixed bag. Sinclair argues for using sirtuins and other antiaging compounds to extend human lifespan. Sinclair walks the reader through the basis for the mechanisms, although most of his examples are drawn from experiments in yeast, fruit flies, and a few primates. The book is wonderfully illustrated with drawings of cellular networks, mechanisms for sirtuins and aging, and other artwork. I especially liked the inside cover drawing of Australian animals.

Although Sinclair cites studies, he often has sections that could benefit from references. In some sections, we found the writing a little too thin for his premise for extending life. While one can agree generally about what he presents, scientific consensus doesn’t support the implication that his prescriptions and compounds (resveratrol, metformin, supplements, and healthy living) can lengthen life (although he hopes they will). He states that a human lifespan of 150 years is possible, although most experts would disagree.

Sinclair presents Columbia University professor Nir Barzilai’s study of centenarians (pp 96-97; NB: all page numbers are from the hardcover edition), but I wish Sinclair would have presented more human and genetic data. The good behaviors common among the centenarians are useful for a healthy life—e.g., don’t smoke, be physically active, eat a healthy diet, moderate alcohol intake—but additional supporting evidence is sparse. Sinclair provides little detail about genetic background and healthcare, while mentioning that longevity is partly governed by genetic heritage. Most researchers currently believe that the upper limit for humans is about 120 years. Jeanne Calment, the oldest human documented, lived to age 122, but very few people have lived past 115 years.1 Sinclair also advocates using metformin, a generic drug normally used to treat type 2 diabetes mellitus, to aid longevity. Some evidence suggests that the drug might be useful, but studies are conflicting, and such use would be off-label. Barzilai is currently trying to raise money for a trial of metformin,2 to determine its effect among normal individuals.

Mary Knatterud said, “As the mom of monozygotic twins, I was struck by this hopeful epigenetic fact in particular: ‘Studies of identical twins place the genetic influences on longevity at between 10 and 25 percent which, by any estimation, is surprisingly low. Our genes are not our destiny’ (p 37).” Sinclair mentions genetic influences on longevity, but his coverage is uneven and sporadic.

Macro Problems

Sinclair presents some useful tips for successful living, but his descriptions are more anecdotal than data driven. The third section dabbles in complex topics—world food supply, population, pollution, and advances in aging—and seemed out of place. It neglects other potential downsides (e.g., radical politics, epidemics, war, nuclear disasters) that can disproportionately affect human lifespans. The last section, and although interesting to read, distracts from the book’s theme, mainly because those aspects are difficult to control: how we produce food, how our governments regulate industries, and how countries do or do not cooperate on common goals, such as decreasing pollution and fossil fuel usage. Think about the terrible smoky air last summer in Minnesota from the Canadian wildfires and its effect on those with asthma. The smoke was not something any individual could control and would influence health.

A Prescription for a Longer Life

Sinclair’s personal prescription for a longer life (p 304) contains a list of suggestions (e.g., don’t smoke, limit alcohol and red meat consumption, get some exercise), but it also includes taking some unproven supplements: 1 gram nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN), 1 gram resveratrol (his sirtuin activator), and an off-label drug (metformin). I found the list and the book a little too enthusiastic without much supporting evidence. His suggestion for using metformin, a prescription drug for diabetes, has made the news lately, and at least some clinicians have suggested a more aggressive use of it for those with prediabetes; however, not many suggest its use as a general supplement. He also tests himself regularly for a series of blood markers, something most would find compulsive and unnecessary.

Editorial Quibbles

Knatterud pointed out, “I enjoyed reading the book and appreciated its fascinating details about how and why aging is allegedly a disease, yet Sinclair’s style was somewhat scattershot, and some passages needed better proofreading; for example, the ‘not’ in this sentence should not have been left in: ‘But it’s getting easier and easier to imagine not being around—happy, healthy, and connected to friends, family members, and colleagues—past my 100th year’ (p 307).”

Knatterud added, “I also noticed less discombobulating errors—such as both ‘Werner’s syndrome’ and ‘Werner syndrome’ just a few lines apart (p 32), ‘hearts attacks’ (p 112), ’83 mg of aspirin’ (p 304) instead of 81 mg, and other lapses—that thorough editing should have caught.”

Knatterud was “especially disappointed to see the imprecise—and condescending—term elderly throughout a scientific work promoting healthy aging” (p 122 and many others), but also happy to learn an array of novel terms like inflammaging, epigenomic noise, longevity molecules, and antagonistic pleiotropy.”

Finally, for those who wish a contrasting essay on the book, read Charles Brenner’s essay.3 Brenner provides a stark contrast to the glowing optimism presented in Lifespan and clarifies some points that Sinclair omits or provides limited data on.

Although this book is interesting to read, it deserves a lower place on your current reading list.

References

1. Bryson B. Chapter 23. The End. In Bill Bryson, The Body. New York: Doubleday, 2019, pp 375-376.

2. Barzilai N, Crandall, JP, Kritchevsky SB, Espeland MA. Metformin as a Tool for Antiaging. Cell Metab 2016 Jun 14; 23(6):1060-1065. Metformin as a Tool to Target Aging – PMC [Accessed April 28, 2024]

3. Brenner C. A Scientific-Based Review of the World’s Best-Selling Book on Aging. Arch Gerontol Geriatr 2023 Jan; 104:104825 [Epub 2022 Sep 26] PMID:36183524 doi: 10.1016/j.archger.2022.104825 A science-based review of the world’s best-selling book on aging – PubMed [Accessed April 28, 2024]

Questions, comments or new additions to the newsletter? Please contact the Publications Committee Chair.