Seth’s blog

I did two balance experiments with a warmup of 8 trials. In one, the order of feet (which foot I stood on) was left, then right; in the other, right, then left. In both experiments I did much better (i.e., balanced longer) on my right foot than my left foot, ps < 0.001. This surprised me; I had never heard of such an asymmetry. The difference was so large that the platform size (0.75 inch) good for the left foot was too easy for the right foot.

To make things as simple and easy as possible I decided to stop testing both feet and to only measure balancing on my right foot (and to use a 0.5-inch platform to make it more difficult and avoid a ceiling effect). I tested my balance (a) in silence and (b) listening to a book. The results were similar so I decided the standard condition will be listening to something. I want to make my balance test fast and pleasant.
I came across several promising related facts:

1. On the Shangri-La Diet (SLD) forums, spacehoppa said she felt “solid on [her] feet” — which may mean her balance has improved. If so, the improved balance that I noticed may be widely true. She also said “my mind feels clearer,” another effect I noticed from omega-3’s, and more reason to think omega-3 improve brain function.

2. On the SLD forums, porkypine wrote, “I have a very strong reaction to the 1500 mg of OmegaBrite that I have begun taking in the morning. . . . During the day, I am not just happier, but actually chipper, which is not a normal state for me. I have wondered if I am getting too much Omega-3.” This supports one of the assumptions behind my upcoming tests of the effects of omega-3 on balance: the effects of omega-3 on the brain happen quickly. It also highlights an advantage of measuring balance rather than something else, such as mood — namely, it is reasonable to assume that the better your balance, the better your brain is working. As this quote shows, the mapping between mood and goodness of functioning is not so clear.

3. In a book about neurology (Defending the Cavewoman by Harold Klawans), including Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease, I read: “A [Fore] woman in late pregnancy who was unable to walk easily across a narrow tree trunk bridging a gorge knew from that change in her balance that she had kuru and that she would die of it. The physicians examined her and thought she was normal, but in less than one year, she was dead.” This shows that balance is an especially sensitive measure of brain function, at least under demanding conditions. It’s relatively easy to notice worse balance.

Balance is also much easier to quantify than many other measures of brain function, such as mental clarity.

I’ve been doing small experiments on my balance to learn what affects it. Most research using new tools follows a progression. Step 1: you learn what people already knew. Step 2: you find new information that isn’t very interesting. Step 3: you find interesting new information. Earlier I found that I could balance on one foot longer on a wider platform — Step 1.

Now Step 2. I’ve done a few experiments comparing different footwear (sandals, shoes, barefoot). In each experiment I ran several conditions, each consisting of 12 trials standing on my left foot followed by 12 trials standing on my right foot. These trials had gaps of seconds between them. Different conditions (different footwear) were separated by at least 10 minutes and usually more.

The right-foot average was always more than the left-foot average. You can see examples of this in my earlier results. I doubt that the right foot/leg is actually better than the left so this suggests there is a substantial warmup effect, as there is in most tasks.

To make measurements more precise, it would help to have a warmup period before collecting the main, more stable data. How long should it be? The graph below shows data from many of the conditions I have run arranged by trial number, with a lowess summary line.

The y axis is in log seconds, not seconds; I used a log transform to make the distribution of the data more symmetrical. The maximum time was 30 seconds. (Log(30) = 3.4.) If I kept my balance for 30 seconds, I stopped, and recorded the result as 30 seconds.

The graph shows an early warmup period that lasts 6-8 trials long, followed by a slow improvement that lasts at least 24 trials. Here is something new and not very interesting: details about the warmup effect.

I posted a little essay with that title at the Huffington Post.

Why is now a great time to be alive? Because Philip Weiss, one of my favorite writers, has a blog. Today’s entry mentioned a story about teaching the Torah while standing on one foot.

Speaking of standing on one foot . . . I devised a way to measure my balance. (To recap: I want to measure my balance to see if omega-3 improves it. When I increased my omega-3 consumption via walnut oil and flaxseed oil, it suddenly became much easier to put on my shoes while standing, which I’d been doing for years. The omega-3 also improved my sleep. Maybe omega-3 makes much of the human brain work better, especially the most-recently-evolved portions. Maybe this effect happens within hours.)

Here is the method. Equipment. At a hardware store I bought a series of 6 pipe caps, caps for 0.5 inch pipe, 0.75 inch pipe, 1.0 inch pipe, 1.25 inch pipe, 1.5 inch pipe, and 2.0 inch pipe (total $24). At a new-age pharmacy I bought a thick foot-sized cutting board (made of bamboo, $15). Below is a picture of these items and my stopwatch, which measures times to 0.01 second. Procedure. I put the board on one of the caps and balance on the board on one foot. I measure with a stopwatch how long I can balance on it before putting the other foot down. After 30 seconds, the trial stops — 30 seconds is the maximum possible score. I stand on my left foot for several trials (e.g., 12), then switch to my right foot for several trials.

The reason for six different caps — six different platforms — is to be able to adjust the difficulty so that it is neither too easy nor too hard — if either were the case the measurements wouldn’t be telling me much. With a little trial and error, the 0.75-inch cap seemed to be best. Below is data from that cap and the smaller and larger caps. With each foot I balanced 12 times; the graph shows the means and standard errors on a log scale. The sequence of conditions was: (1) 0.75-inch cap, (2) 0.5-inch cap, (3) 1.0-inch cap, (4) 0.75-inch cap. I balanced on each foot 12 times in each of the 4 conditions.

The results make sense: the smaller the platform, the less time I could balance on it. There appears to be a practice effect — better scores with more practice. I hope with more experience this effect will go away. The next step is to do these measurements several times per day for several days so that I can get some idea of how much they vary “naturally” — what the background variation is.

In Brain Food (part 2) I found that when I reduced my flaxseed-oil intake my sleep got worse that very night. (Presumably because I reduced the amount of omega-3 fatty acids in my diet and therefore my blood.) Several people, including me, have found that their sleep improved the night after taking more omega-3 — that is, hours later. For example, if the omega-3 was begun Monday afternoon, they slept better Monday night.

How could the effect turn on and off so quickly? An article in the current issue of Journal of Nutrition supplies an answer:

Of the lipids found in the brain, polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) play an important role, serving as a major component of the phospholipids that form cell membranes, being precursors of signaling molecules such as prostaglandins and leukotrienes, modulating gene expression through the activation of transcription factors, and forming the microenvironment around membrane-bound proteins.

In other words, omega-3 has several effects in the brain, with vastly different sensitivities to changes in omega-3 blood levels. Changes in cell membranes probably happen very slowly; changes in “the microenvironment around membrane-bound proteins” could happen very quickly.

That a necessary nutrient (omega-3) could have fast-acting changes (within hours) is counter-intuitive. It doesn’t agree with previous experience. Other necessary nutrients take much longer for a deficiency to become apparent. And it doesn’t agree with common-sense design notions. Evolution builds our bodies out of what is in our blood. Human design is quite different — cars are not built out of what flows around them (oil and gas). Nor is anything else. There isn’t a everyday analogy that shows that a deficiency of a construction element can have fast-acting effects. If all the raw metal in the world disappeared, your car would run fine for a long time. Nor does it fit with general trends in nutrition research. Nutrition researchers study the whole body, most of which changes slowly by comparison to the brain. Sure, food can change the brain — make you sleepy, make you alert (caffeine), but these are not changes that interest most nutrition researchers, who usually emphasize optimal functioning. During the Stone Age, our diets did not contain much caffeine so it is obviously not a necessary nutrient, even if it can improve memory. No dietician tells clients to consume more caffeine. There are hundreds of substances like caffeine that change mental functioning, of course, and with the right definition of improvement all of them can be considered to improve mental functioning. But none of them interest nutrition researchers, with the exception of Adelle Davis (fascinated by LSD). An experimental psychologist, on the other hand, . . .