Silver Tsunami:
Lessons of a Lab Rat
Michael Taylor | Article & Photograph
The health and wellness of the Silver Tsunami is commonplace on social media, including
the aches and sprains we complain about to our grey-haired peers on Face(lift)book. The
prime topic of discussion with old friends is still BMD, which in our teens meant ‘Babes,
Motors and Disco,’ but now refl ects ‘Bones, Muscles, and Disorders.’ We may feel helpless
in the face of aging, but we can join the fi ght against diseases and disorders by becoming
silver lab rats for medical research. Let me share my journey through the research maze at
my neighbourhood university in Calgary.
It begins fi fteen years ago upon
the death of my father — a man
who preached and practised giving
back and paying forward. After
the funeral, I was playing with a
nephew to cheer myself up when,
oops, something gave in my lower
spine. After tests, my doctor called
and told me, over a crackly phone
line, “You have Austrian perogies.”
Later I understood that I had
‘osteoporosis’ and the question-mark
disfi guration of my spine would
need physiotherapy. So I went to the
University of Calgary Kinesiology
Department and began doing some
routine exercises. After one gym visit,
I noticed a feathered tear-off poster
on the noticeboard requesting healthy
participants of ‘an advanced age’ to
participate in a study testing dietary
supplements for diabetic patients.
Remembering my dad’s advice to pay
forward, I signed up.
The process was simple — drink
a large glass of magic elixir before
every meal, weigh and report all food
intake for three individual weeks
over the twelve-week study, and
spend Saturdays in the lab eating
a controlled breakfast and giving
blood at intervals. At the end I lay
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on a wiggling and whirling table to
measure my bone density. Ooh, and
always carry spare underwear because
the secret prebiotic ingredient (inulin)
caused bloating, irritable bowel
syndrome, and in my case, the loss of
twenty-three pounds (ten kilograms)
over the three-month testing period!
Many started that study, but few saw
it through, and I understand why!
Despite my complaints, I was
undeterred. Next I was a healthy
lab rat for carpal tunnel research,
allowing postgraduate students to
measure how the human hand grips
in diff erent confi gurations. Another
study investigated neuropathy in
diabetic patients, which involved
inserting sensors into my gym
shoes and wearing an instrumented
waistband which buzzed when it
detected anomalous footfalls — all
the while wearing a ridiculous
spandex suit with refl ective balls
at key body joints and being fi lmed
walking, striding, and mincing down
a pitch-dark track, lit only by
peripheral red lighting.
Despite the toiletry discomforts
of the earlier inulin study, my wife
and I participated in a double-blind
study of inulin-enhanced granola
bars, this time with much lower
doses of the secret ingredient and
thankfully without the disastrous
side eff ects. Next came the French
(Electrical) Connection — two
French postgraduate researchers
studying vibration therapy on the
leg muscles of bedridden diabetic
patients, ominously entitled, “Neural
adaptations in quadriceps muscle
after four weeks of local vibration
training in young versus old subjects.”
After receiving an hour of vibration
therapy, we were strapped into
a testing chair and our lower leg
lifting strength was measured to
exhortations of “Push ’ard! Push
’ard!” while they surfed social media
on their cell phones. And then came
the French Torture component, more
scientifi cally termed ‘Transcranial
Magnetic Stimulation.’ A bridle
was placed on my skull while I
was seated in the testing chair,
and intermittently, the torturer’s
assistant would zap my brain while
shouting “Pushing ’ard!” That was one
stimulation I learned to hate — hence
my apprehensive visage!
Still undeterred, my wife and
I recently answered the call to
‘Become a Poop Donor’! Yes, the