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For Those Long Coding Sessions: The Food Patch
Posted by
timothy
on Sat Jan 11, 2003 12:34 AM
from the ask-your-doctor-if-it's-right-for-you dept.
from the ask-your-doctor-if-it's-right-for-you dept.
rtphokie writes "The U.S. Army has created a Transdermal Nutrient Delivery System which works similarly to to nicotine or birth control patches but delivers vitamins and other micronutrients. It was developed to help "warfighters sustain their physical and mental performance" during high intensity conflict. Is this what ./'ers need during those long coding sessions."
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ok, sign me up to be a dotslasher (Score:2, Funny)
What flavors? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What flavors? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What flavors? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What flavors? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
No vits, please (Score:5, Funny)
I just want a caffeine patch. - Well, maybe a junk food patch. I can see this.
Re:No vits, please (Score:3, Funny)
Look, I'm a Brit, and if there's one thing we British know, it's how to conquer a planet and rule it for two centuries without really trying. These patches are a bad idea. The British Army marches on fried sausages, fried bacon, black pudding, fried bread, fried tomatoes, fried eggs and Earl Grey tea. The French Army, who also did a fairly good job of conquering things, marched on croissants, black coffee and Gitanes.
Do you really think the American Empire will survive if you make your troops use patches instead of real food? Whoever invented these should be court-martialled.
There's a reason why some drugs are legal. (Score:5, Informative)
What you say is more true than you know. When I started taking Prozac, my life turned around. My life became normal again. So yes, a lot of people probably shouldn't be taking the drugs they do. But a lot of other people should. Please don't associate scientifically tested and proven useful medical drugs with common street drugs. Anybody who scoffs at the use of medications such as SSRIs and thinks of them as nothing more than "happy pills" probably hasn't been or known someone in their life who has suffered from and been diagnosed with major depression.
Before you jump on the what-about...-train, I'll admit that drugs like marijuana do have ligitimate medical uses. However, recent research has isolated the elements of the plant that work for pain relief from the other elements, such as those that cause the "high" that can permanently damage the brain's pleasure receptors after frequent use. If that first element can be administered seperately in a refined form, say in a pill, shot or nasal spray, it can be safely taken. Heck, even a patch (strangely, sounds almost on-topic). That is the difference between street drugs and prescription drugs.
Now if advocates put half the energy into fighting the medical industry as they did getting their pet stoner-drug legalized, these prescriptions would be cheap enough for anyone (who needs them) to afford. But prescription drugs make a nice scapegoat (mischaracterise, scream "me too!") for anyone who is cranky that they can't get their daily high.
Parent
Re:There's a reason why some drugs are legal. (Score:4, Informative)
Wow, there's nothing like slashdot for unsupported claims about scientific 'fact'.
Please refer to
http://www.canorml.org/healthfacts/healthmyth
for more info on this and other myths.
Parent
Re:hell with food, MORE DRUGS (Score:5, Interesting)
According to the US government [whitehousedrugpolicy.gov], one of the meanings of "crank" is amphetamine. Since "go pills" are dexedrine, and dexedrine is an amphetamine, I think that "go pills are crank" is a logically true statemnt.
Parent
I suppose it makes sense... (Score:5, Funny)
Hopefully, this patch will help people with a food abuse problem to combat it and overcome it. In moderation, food is a good and healthy thing, but as with so many things, there is such a thing as too much.
I wonder how long it's going to take them to come up with the Sleep patch? Now that's an addiction I'd like to kick...
Re:I suppose it makes sense... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:I suppose it makes sense... (Score:4, Funny)
oh wait...
Parent
be careful, you are slashdotting an .mil server (Score:5, Funny)
Re:be careful, you are slashdotting an .mil server (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdotting it would be considered a normal network incident subject to someone having to come in over the weekend and fix (reboot). I don't think we need worry about our doors being broken in over this.
Paranoia sucks.
Btw, I work for the military: I know what i am talking about here.
Parent
Re:be careful, you are slashdotting an .mil server (Score:3, Funny)
No. (Score:5, Insightful)
This may have been said jokingly, but it definately isn't what we need. Not only do TNDS' not give you a delicious taste in your mouth, they don't tell your body that you are full either. If we want fatter geeks, this is the way to go. Otherwise, I'll just stick to my perishable food.
Jolt patches... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Jolt patches... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:No. (Score:3, Interesting)
I know a guy who lost 150 pounds by just taking the refridgerator out of his computer room.
it is one thing to to grab something quick to eat, usually not healthy. Having to go out in the middle of a game of everquest is quit another.
Re:No. (Score:5, Funny)
Moving a 150 pound refrigerator from the computer room and back into the kitchen from where it came does NOT constitute weight loss.
Parent
Re:No. (Score:3, Interesting)
Sez the Army (Score:2)
Foolish Army...Everyone knows the answer to this is alien-tech suits filled with multi-purpose gelatin. [baen.com]
oh great (Score:2)
The logical extension (Score:3, Funny)
I am warfighter of Borg.
You will be assimilated.
Resistance is futile.
I Don't Have Security Hole (Score:2)
Why should I apply patches to myself? There's no Windows inside... Oh wait...
Insulin patch - good pharmecutical uses (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, it's nice to see this kind of technology being developed out of the military budget instead of another variation on the bullet, bomb, etc. It has a lot of potential and I imagine it's not long before we see folks using pharmecutical patches soon - probably tailored for their specific needs/doses.
It would be pretty nice if I could take ALL of my daily meds via a single patch rather than gulp down 10+ "easy-to-swallow if you're a horse" caplets.
Good show, GI Joe.
Will they come in Flintstone shapes? (Score:2, Funny)
Beer (Score:4, Funny)
what about oral stimulation ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but when I'm wading through breakpoints, I want something cruncy. When I'm hacking out a killer regular expression, something sweet. While I'm sure the patch is nice and chewy, there's nothing like an ice cold Jolt Cola at about 1a.m. when you've finally inherited and overloaded your native hash object to recursively enumerate its own members.
Point is, some of the fun of eating while coding isn't just the stinking vitamins, more full tummy for that matter. So while I see it as an effective way to feed someone who'd rather starve than gag on MRE's in the middle of a minefield, I'll stick to my pretzels and mint-conditioned coffe thank you very much.
I wonder what is (Score:3, Interesting)
I think currently athletes drink some sort of soups or something to get their calories... just a semi wild guess.
Re:I wonder what is (Score:5, Informative)
It takes more than just nutrients to get the job done. They don't say exactly what chemicals will be delivered by this system, but a cyclist would need:
Carbohydrates, and lots of them. This is the body's main source of fuel during aerobic exercise.
Electrolytes, to maintain the proper chemical balances in your body. This helps muscles perform at peak efficiency and staves off cramps.
Water, because buckets of it are lost from sweating. Dehydration is perhaps the easiest way to ensure a poor performance.
IANAN (nutritionist), but I've been cycling in both recreation and competition for about 10 years, and the things mentioned above are common knowledge to most cyclists.
Parent
Long Coding Sessions? (Score:5, Funny)
Is that anything like the much needed Sex Patch?
Uh, erm, not that I need it. =)
Re:Long Coding Sessions? (Score:4, Funny)
Is that anything like the much needed Sex Patch?
And by the pr0n usage of the readers, would they make those in both right-handed and left-handed varieties?
Parent
Re:Long Coding Sessions? (Score:3, Funny)
$ patch -p0 < human_male-1.3.7-multiple-orgasms.diff
And I thought C-Rats and MRE's were bad (Score:5, Funny)
Personal Strap-On Aircraft for Auction on eBay [xnewswire.com]
67 posts in.. (Score:3, Funny)
Cant be
*mumbles*
*shakes monitor*
Come on ya bitch, serve the page, serve the page!
*frowns*
too late!
Uhm no (Score:5, Insightful)
What we geeks need is for those long coding sessions is: better chairs, better screens, workplace ergonomy in general, decent food, short breaks a couple times an hour and a short walk around the block or something now and then aswell as 8 hours of sleep. We do not need anything to keep us glued to our monitors.
I know it's incredibly cool to keep up the pizza/coffee/dew image, I like all three of them too, but considering how bad a lof of geeks handle their eating and sleeping, combined with a bad workplace and little excercise... they're a burnedout zombie with bad back and wrist problems waiting to happen.
Contrary to popular geek belief, our bodies are not made for such abuse, and no, you are not different, you too need nutrition and sleep.
Re:Uhm no (Score:3, Insightful)
You forgot the women. We need more women. Seriously! Women are on average smarter than men and are less likely to put up with the abusive work conditions/demands placed on technologists these days.
What we should do is equalize the gender balance, then we'll all be treated more fairly in the workplace (read: legally force employers to be more humane). After the work day ends at 6, we can all head over to the local disco for some dancin'
When I played Army we didn't have this cool stuff (Score:3, Funny)
Imagine you'll get pretty hungry, though.
GI Joe: Trade you my patch for your peanut butter and crackers.
GI Ethnic: [bitch slaps GI Joe]
This makes nutrition neutral from religion (Score:5, Interesting)
This is army food that even the Atkins diet could love!
But, I don't think they actually made it??? (Score:3, Informative)
What gives?
-Jordan
I'm confused... (Score:3, Funny)
What's a dot-slasher?
Food patch? Need sleep patch!! (Score:3, Insightful)
No, what I need is a patch to feed me lots of "nutrazzzzzicals", giving me a full nights sleep while I do whatever. If that means lucid dreams overlaying normal vision, fine (I'll just be really careful who or what I look at), just give me real sleep I don't have to catch up on later.
The Food Patch (Score:5, Funny)
similarly to to nicotine or birth control patches (Score:5, Funny)
Oh yeah, there's a warehouse mixup waiting to happen.
-- Terry
Fancy vitamin pill (Score:4, Informative)
This patch is nothing but a fancy vitamin pill. It won't "feed" you any more than a vitamin pill would. RTFA!
The only advantage this patch has is that it lasts many days - the idea being to prevent soldiers from coming down with beri-beri, scurvy, and other diseases due to lack of vitamins (which MREs are not exactly high in). If you can issue a soldier a patch every week,
a) You can quickly determine if the soldier is using it - "INSPECTION - Pruuu-zent PATCH!" This is harder to do with a pill.
b) You only need worry about it once a week - for guys on long range patrol this simplifies life. In combat, simple is good.
For geeks driving a keyboard, just take your multivitamin every (virtual) morning, along with your coffee, and you will get the same effect.
Chicken-a-la-King anyone? (Score:3, Informative)
Still, MREs had a small problem, it took time to eat them. The MRE not only gave us a certain caloric load per bag, but it also kept us busy for up to 30 minutes (some of us looked forward to getting MREs instead of a chow truck because you would be literally guaranteed 30 minutes of peace from the cadre as long as you looked busy tearing open packets of food). If you are really in a hurry and you don't eat your MREs whole then over time in a long deployment you could start suffering vitamin deficiencies, which is where a patch like that would rock.
Of course, we know the first three patches that are going to be issued will be:
1. Caffeine
2. Tylenol/Motrin
3. Go pills
The concept sounds great, but it is just too obvious that they are looking for a clean way to deliver chemicals without needles or pills (plus the patch allows a time release).
If any of you has never tasted an MRE and has a chance to, go ahead and try it. I have always been picky about food but I never thought I would be so damn well pleased with cold food (the warming jackets were not widely distributed to non-deployed units). Chicken-a-la-King, Beef Stew and "Ham and Omelette" where the best
Re:No calories? (Score:5, Informative)
So I really don't see how these patches could be a complete solution, although they might be useful for replacing lost electrolytes like potassium, sodium, calcium, and magnesium. When you're engaged in physical exertion for long periods of time though, you really need macronutrients. This is why marathon runners and triathletes drink sports beverages and/or eat power bars. In addition to the electrolyes in, lets say gatorade, you also get a load of sugar (carbohydrates) for energy. These patches would only help with half the problem, and the smaller half at that.
Maybe they just expect that with the right micronutrient balance and some hormones the field soldiers will burn their own body fat for energy. Then when they do get some down time, they eat a meal rich in protein (for muscle/tissue repair), carbohydrate (to replace muscle and liver glycogen stores), and fatty acids (to replenish body fat stores, for repair and growth of nerves/neurons, and for various hormone precursors, etc.)
Parent
This will NOT work (Score:5, Informative)
Critically ill hospitalized patients with long-term abdominal pathology that prevent them from eating (severe Pancreatitis, shotgun wound to the abdomen, Gastric Outlet Obstruction from cancer, Crohns Disease, etc) are at high risk for all kinds of problems. It can even happen with anorexics. They often end up on TPN (total parenteral nutrition)... AKA Intravenous feedings. Long term TPN puts you at risk for some nasty complications (see below), even aside from the risk of TPN itself (you have to have the electrolytes, osmolality, etc just right).
The current theory is that the intestinal wall needs to be "fed" by absorbing food. Like many things in the body, the gut needs exercise. If it doesn't get it, you get atrophy of the viscera, and bacterial translocation across the gut wall. This results in severe gram-negative sepsis from enteric organisms (think about intravenously injecting feces... it's about the same effect). Overwhelming gram-negative sepsis has a tremendous mortality rate... most don't survive.
Even without the above complication of not eating, the amount of material (think in terms of simple mass of nutrients) you could get from a transdermal patch is miniscule. There is no way you could absorb enough nutrients to stay alive. Even TPN requires that huge volumes be infused, since it can only be concentrated so much. Some components are not even water soluble (lipids), and have to be given as a suspension. Even worse, TPN has to be given through a central IV line (subclavian, jugular, femoral, PICC), since peripheral veins quickly become unusable from the irritation and osmotic load.
Honestly, I can't see this satisfying anyone's caloric needs.
I suspect this will be used primarily to deliver drugs... something we already do.
Parent