Here is another reason to think seriously about detoxing. A simple urine test can determine the levels of heavy metals in the body. Heavy metals like arsenic, mercury, lead, and cadmium are now ubiquitous in the air, water, and soil. That means it's in everything we eat, drink, and breathe. Unfortunately these metals play havoc with normal human physiology in many ways, most notably in damaging the brain. Here is new evidence that shows a link between arsenic and increased levels of Type II Diabetes. Researchers are unsure yet as to whether or not arsenic increases the risk of diabetes or if diabetics simply excrete more arsenic, but whatever the case may be it's better not to have an abundance of arsenic in the body.
My office tests for heavy metals and based on the results offers lab testing, nutritional help, and a detox program to rid the body of heavy metals and other toxins.
Trace Arsenic in Water Linked to Diabetes
Carla K. Johnson, Associated Press
Aug. 19, 2008 -- A new analysis of government data is the first to link low-level arsenic exposure, possibly from drinking water, with Type 2 diabetes, researchers say. The study's limitations make more research necessary. And public water systems were on their way to meeting tougher U.S. arsenic standards as the data were collected.
Still, the analysis of 788 adults' medical tests found a nearly fourfold increase in the risk of diabetes in people with low arsenic concentrations in their urine compared to people with even lower levels.
Previous research outside the United States has linked high levels of arsenic in drinking water with diabetes. It's the link at low levels that's new. The findings appear in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.
"The good news is, this is preventable," said lead author Dr. Ana Navas-Acien of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.
New safe drinking water standards may be needed if the findings are duplicated in future studies, Navas-Acien said. She said they've begun a new study of 4,000 people.
Arsenic can get into drinking water naturally when minerals dissolve. It is also an industrial pollutant from coal burning and copper smelting. Utilities use filtration systems to get it out of drinking water.
Seafood also contains nontoxic organic arsenic. The researchers adjusted their analysis for signs of seafood intake and found that people with Type 2 diabetes had 26 percent higher inorganic arsenic levels than people without Type 2 diabetes.
How arsenic could contribute to diabetes is unknown, but prior studies have found impaired insulin secretion in pancreas cells treated with an arsenic compound.
The policy implications of the new findings are unclear, said Molly Kile, an environmental health research scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health. Kile wrote an accompanying editorial in the journal.
"Urinary arsenic reflects exposures from all routes -- air, water and food -- which makes it difficult to track the actual source of arsenic exposure let alone use the results from this study to establish drinking water standards," Kile said.
Also, the findings raise a chicken-and-egg problem, she said, since it's unknown whether diabetes changes the way people metabolize arsenic. It's possible that people with diabetes excrete more arsenic.
The United States lowered arsenic standards for public water systems to 10 parts per billion in 2001 because of known cancer risks. Compliance was required by 2006, years after the study data were collected in 2003 and 2004.
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/08/19/arsenic-diabetes.html
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
The leading cause of bankruptcy:Private US health insurance
The whole U.S. healthcare system is in financial critical condition. The middle class population literally cannot afford to get sick. If they do their lives will be in devastating financial ruin. No one is safe except for multimillionaires.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Friday, August 15, 2008
Friday, August 08, 2008
Cancer is Fungus
A prominent Italian oncologist explains his view that cancer is fungus and can be easily treated. I would like to find out more about his treatment and success rate. Can this really be so simple?
The key here is to reduce acidity and toxins in the body! Alkalize through diet and elimination of toxins! Don’t create an environment where bacteria, viruses, parasites, and disease can take hold. Increased acidity=disease!
pH test your saliva and urine. If your saliva is below 7.0 it’s time to get a plan going.
The key here is to reduce acidity and toxins in the body! Alkalize through diet and elimination of toxins! Don’t create an environment where bacteria, viruses, parasites, and disease can take hold. Increased acidity=disease!
pH test your saliva and urine. If your saliva is below 7.0 it’s time to get a plan going.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Doctor and Patient, Now at Odds
Alternative healthcare practitioners such as chiropractors, classical osteopaths, acupuncturists, naturopaths and others usually spend time with patients and develop relationships.
This is a golden opportunity for physicians to take back what they have lost. Exactly how is not easy and debateable. What is not debateable is that public opinion about them is not very good. That's a shame because the vast majority of MDs truly care about their patients and are very well trained. The key problems are the influence of insurance and pharmaceutical companies.
Perhaps doctors need to start charging affordable cash fees and have the patients submit their claims to the insurance companies.
Doctor and Patient, Now at Odds
By TARA PARKER-POPE, NYT July 29, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/29/health/29well.html?_r=1&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss&oref=slogin
A growing chorus of discontent suggests that the once-revered doctor-patient relationship is on the rocks.
The relationship is the cornerstone of the medical system — nobody can be helped if doctors and patients aren’t getting along. But increasingly, research and anecdotal reports suggest that many patients don’t trust doctors.
About one in four patients feel that their physicians sometimes expose them to unnecessary risk, according to data from a Johns Hopkins study published this year in the journal Medicine. And two recent studies show that whether patients trust a doctor strongly influences whether they take their medication.
The distrust and animosity between doctors and patients has shown up in a variety of places. In bookstores, there is now a genre of “what your doctor won’t tell you” books promising previously withheld information on everything from weight loss to heart disease.
The Internet is bristling with frustrated comments from patients. On The New York Times’s Well blog recently, a reader named Tom echoed the concerns of many about doctors. “I, as patient, say stop acting like you know everything,” he wrote. “Admit it, and we patients may stop distrusting your quick off-the-line, glib diagnosis.”
Doctors say they are not surprised. “It’s been striking to me since I went into practice how unhappy patients are and, frankly, how mistreated patients are,” said Dr. Sandeep Jauhar, director of the heart failure program at Long Island Jewish Medical Center and an occasional contributor to Science Times.
He recounted a conversation he had last week with a patient who had been transferred to his hospital. “I said, ‘So why are you here?’ He said: ‘I have no idea. They just transferred me.’
“Nobody is talking to the patients,” Dr. Jauhar went on. “Everyone is so rushed. I don’t think the doctors are bad people — they are just working in a broken system.”
The reasons for all this frustration are complex. Doctors, facing declining reimbursements and higher costs, have only minutes to spend with each patient. News reports about medical errors and drug industry influence have increased patients’ distrust. And the rise of direct-to-consumer drug advertising and medical Web sites have taught patients to research their own medical issues and made them more skeptical and inquisitive.
“Doctors used to be the only source for information on medical problems and what to do, but now our knowledge is demystified,” said Dr. Robert Lamberts, an internal medicine physician and medical blogger in Augusta, Ga. “When patients come in with preconceived ideas about what we should do, they do get perturbed at us for not listening. I do my best to explain why I do what I do, but some people are not satisfied until we do what they want.”
Others say the problem also stems from a grueling training system that removes doctors from the world patients live in.
“By the time you’re done with your training, you feel, in many ways, that you are as far as you could possibly be from the very people you’ve set out to help,” said Dr. Pauline Chen, most recently a liver transplant surgeon at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the author of “Final Exam: A Surgeon’s Reflections on Mortality” (Knopf, 2007). “We don’t even talk the same language anymore.”
Dr. David H. Newman, an emergency room physician at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center in Manhattan, says there is a disconnect between the way doctors and patients view medicine. Doctors are trained to diagnose disease and treat it, he said, while “patients are interested in being tended to and being listened to and being well.”
Dr. Newman, author of the new book “Hippocrates’ Shadow: Secrets from the House of Medicine” (Scribner), says studies of the placebo effect suggest that Hippocrates was right when he claimed that faith in physicians can help healing. “It adds misery and suffering to any condition to not have a source of care that you trust,” Dr. Newman said.
But these doctors say the situation is not hopeless. Patients who don’t trust their doctor should look for a new one, but they may be able to improve existing relationships by being more open and communicative.
Go to a doctor’s visit with written questions so you don’t forget to ask what’s important to you. If a doctor starts to rush out of the room, stop him or her by saying, “Doctor, I still have some questions.” Patients who are open with their doctors about their feelings and fears will often get the same level of openness in return.
“All of us, the patients and the doctors, ultimately want the same thing,” Dr. Chen said. “But we see ourselves on opposite sides of a divide. There is this sense that we’re facing off with each other and we’re not working together. It’s a tragedy.”
well@nytimes.com
This is a golden opportunity for physicians to take back what they have lost. Exactly how is not easy and debateable. What is not debateable is that public opinion about them is not very good. That's a shame because the vast majority of MDs truly care about their patients and are very well trained. The key problems are the influence of insurance and pharmaceutical companies.
Perhaps doctors need to start charging affordable cash fees and have the patients submit their claims to the insurance companies.
Doctor and Patient, Now at Odds
By TARA PARKER-POPE, NYT July 29, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/29/health/29well.html?_r=1&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss&oref=slogin
A growing chorus of discontent suggests that the once-revered doctor-patient relationship is on the rocks.
The relationship is the cornerstone of the medical system — nobody can be helped if doctors and patients aren’t getting along. But increasingly, research and anecdotal reports suggest that many patients don’t trust doctors.
About one in four patients feel that their physicians sometimes expose them to unnecessary risk, according to data from a Johns Hopkins study published this year in the journal Medicine. And two recent studies show that whether patients trust a doctor strongly influences whether they take their medication.
The distrust and animosity between doctors and patients has shown up in a variety of places. In bookstores, there is now a genre of “what your doctor won’t tell you” books promising previously withheld information on everything from weight loss to heart disease.
The Internet is bristling with frustrated comments from patients. On The New York Times’s Well blog recently, a reader named Tom echoed the concerns of many about doctors. “I, as patient, say stop acting like you know everything,” he wrote. “Admit it, and we patients may stop distrusting your quick off-the-line, glib diagnosis.”
Doctors say they are not surprised. “It’s been striking to me since I went into practice how unhappy patients are and, frankly, how mistreated patients are,” said Dr. Sandeep Jauhar, director of the heart failure program at Long Island Jewish Medical Center and an occasional contributor to Science Times.
He recounted a conversation he had last week with a patient who had been transferred to his hospital. “I said, ‘So why are you here?’ He said: ‘I have no idea. They just transferred me.’
“Nobody is talking to the patients,” Dr. Jauhar went on. “Everyone is so rushed. I don’t think the doctors are bad people — they are just working in a broken system.”
The reasons for all this frustration are complex. Doctors, facing declining reimbursements and higher costs, have only minutes to spend with each patient. News reports about medical errors and drug industry influence have increased patients’ distrust. And the rise of direct-to-consumer drug advertising and medical Web sites have taught patients to research their own medical issues and made them more skeptical and inquisitive.
“Doctors used to be the only source for information on medical problems and what to do, but now our knowledge is demystified,” said Dr. Robert Lamberts, an internal medicine physician and medical blogger in Augusta, Ga. “When patients come in with preconceived ideas about what we should do, they do get perturbed at us for not listening. I do my best to explain why I do what I do, but some people are not satisfied until we do what they want.”
Others say the problem also stems from a grueling training system that removes doctors from the world patients live in.
“By the time you’re done with your training, you feel, in many ways, that you are as far as you could possibly be from the very people you’ve set out to help,” said Dr. Pauline Chen, most recently a liver transplant surgeon at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the author of “Final Exam: A Surgeon’s Reflections on Mortality” (Knopf, 2007). “We don’t even talk the same language anymore.”
Dr. David H. Newman, an emergency room physician at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center in Manhattan, says there is a disconnect between the way doctors and patients view medicine. Doctors are trained to diagnose disease and treat it, he said, while “patients are interested in being tended to and being listened to and being well.”
Dr. Newman, author of the new book “Hippocrates’ Shadow: Secrets from the House of Medicine” (Scribner), says studies of the placebo effect suggest that Hippocrates was right when he claimed that faith in physicians can help healing. “It adds misery and suffering to any condition to not have a source of care that you trust,” Dr. Newman said.
But these doctors say the situation is not hopeless. Patients who don’t trust their doctor should look for a new one, but they may be able to improve existing relationships by being more open and communicative.
Go to a doctor’s visit with written questions so you don’t forget to ask what’s important to you. If a doctor starts to rush out of the room, stop him or her by saying, “Doctor, I still have some questions.” Patients who are open with their doctors about their feelings and fears will often get the same level of openness in return.
“All of us, the patients and the doctors, ultimately want the same thing,” Dr. Chen said. “But we see ourselves on opposite sides of a divide. There is this sense that we’re facing off with each other and we’re not working together. It’s a tragedy.”
well@nytimes.com
Friday, July 25, 2008
A Cancer Cure?
This sounds very simple but very plausible. Wouldn't it be great if it's really true? Current cancer therapies kill all cells. The patient has to survive both the disease and the treatment! This treatment really seems to target only the cancer cells. And this goes for any type of cancer.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
A List of Drugs That Increase Falling Risk
From the New York Times, a blog on researcher's reporting on drugs which inrease the risk of falling. NEVER take yourself off a drug without the knowledge of your medical doctor! Use this information to present to your physician and discuss your concerns.
Researchers at the University of North Carolina have published a lengthy list of prescription drugs that increase the risk of falling among older patients.
Falls are the leading cause of both fatal and nonfatal injuries in adults 65 and older. An estimated 300,000 hip fractures occur each year, often as a result of falling. Head injury is also a problem among adults who fall.
Adults who take four or more medications at a time are at highest risk for falling. But certain types of drugs can also make someone more prone to falling, said Susan Blalock, an associate professor at the U.N.C. Eshelman School of Pharmacy.
The medications on the list cover a wide range of common prescription seizure medications and painkillers, among others. Also on the list are popular antidepressants like Celexa, Effexor, Wellbutrin, Prozac and others.
Researchers said the “common denominator” among the drugs on the list is that they all work to depress the central nervous system, which makes patients less alert and slower to react. The list was published in the June issue of The American Journal of Geriatric Pharmacotherapy.
Stefanie Ferreri, the lead author of the paper and a clinical assistant professor in the pharmacy school, said that patients need to be wary of more than just prescription medications, because many over-the-counter medications can also contribute to falls.
“Some allergy medications, sleep aids and some cold and cough remedies can have the same effects as prescription drugs,” Dr. Ferreri said. “Anything that can cause drowsiness can put you at increased risk of falling.”
The researchers warned that if patients see a drug they are taking on the list, they should not stop taking it. Many drugs can trigger serious side effects if stopped abruptly. But patients should talk to their doctors about falling risk and possible alternative medications, the researchers said.
Physicians should look for medications that have been proven safe and effective in older adults and look for medicines that have less of a sedating effect. Physicians should be especially wary of anticholinergics, a class of drugs that affect nerve cells used to treat a wide range of conditions.
To download the complete list of the prescription medications that increase the risk of falls, click here.
By Tara Parker-Pope
July 11, 2008, 9:26 amResearchers at the University of North Carolina have published a lengthy list of prescription drugs that increase the risk of falling among older patients.
Falls are the leading cause of both fatal and nonfatal injuries in adults 65 and older. An estimated 300,000 hip fractures occur each year, often as a result of falling. Head injury is also a problem among adults who fall.
Adults who take four or more medications at a time are at highest risk for falling. But certain types of drugs can also make someone more prone to falling, said Susan Blalock, an associate professor at the U.N.C. Eshelman School of Pharmacy.
The medications on the list cover a wide range of common prescription seizure medications and painkillers, among others. Also on the list are popular antidepressants like Celexa, Effexor, Wellbutrin, Prozac and others.
Researchers said the “common denominator” among the drugs on the list is that they all work to depress the central nervous system, which makes patients less alert and slower to react. The list was published in the June issue of The American Journal of Geriatric Pharmacotherapy.
Stefanie Ferreri, the lead author of the paper and a clinical assistant professor in the pharmacy school, said that patients need to be wary of more than just prescription medications, because many over-the-counter medications can also contribute to falls.
“Some allergy medications, sleep aids and some cold and cough remedies can have the same effects as prescription drugs,” Dr. Ferreri said. “Anything that can cause drowsiness can put you at increased risk of falling.”
The researchers warned that if patients see a drug they are taking on the list, they should not stop taking it. Many drugs can trigger serious side effects if stopped abruptly. But patients should talk to their doctors about falling risk and possible alternative medications, the researchers said.
Physicians should look for medications that have been proven safe and effective in older adults and look for medicines that have less of a sedating effect. Physicians should be especially wary of anticholinergics, a class of drugs that affect nerve cells used to treat a wide range of conditions.
To download the complete list of the prescription medications that increase the risk of falls, click here.
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Friday, July 04, 2008
I’m Nuts for Almonds
Recently published work by the Institute of Food Research has identified potential prebiotic properties of almonds that could help improve our digestive health by increasing levels of beneficial gut bacteria. The study found that finely ground almonds significantly increased the levels of certain beneficial gut bacteria. This effect was not seen when the fat content was removed from the almond preparation, suggesting that the beneficial bacteria use the almond lipid for growth, and this is the basis for the prebiotic effect of almonds.
80% of the immune system is located within the gut. The average healthy person has about 3 pounds of beneficial bacteria in the gut. One type of bacteria most people are familiar with is acidophilus but there are many more. There are more bacteria in the gut than cells in the body. These bacteria are critical for digestion and absorption of nutrients, immune function, and much more.
Unfortunately most people have a deficiency of beneficial bacteria due to poor diets, stress, lack of sleep, chlorinated water, environmental toxins, etc. When the levels of good bacteria decrease "bad" bacteria flourishes and this provides a platform for viral and bacterial infections, parasitic infections, yeast infections, systemic acidity etc.
This imbalance is called dysbiosis. Signs and symptoms of dysbiosis include abdominal bloating and gas, constipation or diarrhea, foul smelling bowel movements, headaches, dizziness, confusion, skin conditions, etc.
If this becomes a chronic lifelong problem then the person can be at risk for all the major diseases; cancer, diabetes, heart disease, neurological problems such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, etc.
Probiotic (meaning "promotes life") bacteria need food to live. One food they like is certain types of healthy fats found in nuts. Almonds and other nuts and probably fatty fish, flax, coconut, and avocados provide these healthy fats for the probiotics to munch and thrive on.
Source: Investigation of the potential prebiotic properties of almond (Amygdalus communis L.) seeds.
80% of the immune system is located within the gut. The average healthy person has about 3 pounds of beneficial bacteria in the gut. One type of bacteria most people are familiar with is acidophilus but there are many more. There are more bacteria in the gut than cells in the body. These bacteria are critical for digestion and absorption of nutrients, immune function, and much more.
Unfortunately most people have a deficiency of beneficial bacteria due to poor diets, stress, lack of sleep, chlorinated water, environmental toxins, etc. When the levels of good bacteria decrease "bad" bacteria flourishes and this provides a platform for viral and bacterial infections, parasitic infections, yeast infections, systemic acidity etc.
This imbalance is called dysbiosis. Signs and symptoms of dysbiosis include abdominal bloating and gas, constipation or diarrhea, foul smelling bowel movements, headaches, dizziness, confusion, skin conditions, etc.
If this becomes a chronic lifelong problem then the person can be at risk for all the major diseases; cancer, diabetes, heart disease, neurological problems such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, etc.
Probiotic (meaning "promotes life") bacteria need food to live. One food they like is certain types of healthy fats found in nuts. Almonds and other nuts and probably fatty fish, flax, coconut, and avocados provide these healthy fats for the probiotics to munch and thrive on.
Source: Investigation of the potential prebiotic properties of almond (Amygdalus communis L.) seeds.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
A Life Saver Called "Plumpynut"
Here is a news story that perfectly makes the case for nutrition's importance. This story involves starving children in Niger, Africa, but the principles can apply to anyone.
To my chagrin I've been told by some top medical doctors that nutrition has no effect on human health and function. Nutrition is the basis for health! Every cell in the body needs the building blocks of nutrients in order to rebuild cells, organs, and systems. Nutrients are to the body what construction materials are to a house, except that the human house is constantly being built throughout the course of a lifetime.
Disease is always present in the absence of nutrients!
When starving and malnourished children are given a simple formulation of proteins, fats, and carbs fortified with vitamins and minerals they quickly reverse course in their physical health status.
"Now we have something. It is like an essential medicine. In three weeks, we can cure a kid that is looked like they're half dead. We can cure them just like an antibiotic. It’s just, boom! It's a spectacular response," Dr. Tectonidis says.
Hippocrates himself is attributed to having said, "Let food by thy medicine and medicine thy food."
For those of us in Western countries where starvation is not usually a problem you may wonder how this applies to you and your children. If your diets are full of junk food this too is a form of malnourishment! Empty calories with no nutritive value eaten as a habit over time will lead to a form of starvation. There are no hunger pangs but every cell in the body is deprived of the nutrients it needs to build as it can. This will effect your brain chemistry, hormone and neurotransmitter levels, bones, organ functions, skin, hair, teeth, nails, reproductive abilities, mood, etc. We simply must provide the building blocks.
To my chagrin I've been told by some top medical doctors that nutrition has no effect on human health and function. Nutrition is the basis for health! Every cell in the body needs the building blocks of nutrients in order to rebuild cells, organs, and systems. Nutrients are to the body what construction materials are to a house, except that the human house is constantly being built throughout the course of a lifetime.
Disease is always present in the absence of nutrients!
When starving and malnourished children are given a simple formulation of proteins, fats, and carbs fortified with vitamins and minerals they quickly reverse course in their physical health status.
"Now we have something. It is like an essential medicine. In three weeks, we can cure a kid that is looked like they're half dead. We can cure them just like an antibiotic. It’s just, boom! It's a spectacular response," Dr. Tectonidis says.
Hippocrates himself is attributed to having said, "Let food by thy medicine and medicine thy food."
For those of us in Western countries where starvation is not usually a problem you may wonder how this applies to you and your children. If your diets are full of junk food this too is a form of malnourishment! Empty calories with no nutritive value eaten as a habit over time will lead to a form of starvation. There are no hunger pangs but every cell in the body is deprived of the nutrients it needs to build as it can. This will effect your brain chemistry, hormone and neurotransmitter levels, bones, organ functions, skin, hair, teeth, nails, reproductive abilities, mood, etc. We simply must provide the building blocks.
What's the miracle formula?
"Plumpynut is a remarkably simple concoction: it is basically made of peanut butter, powdered milk, powdered sugar, and enriched with vitamins and minerals. It tastes like a peanut butter paste. It is very sweet, and because of that kids cannot get enough of it".
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
"A hundred thousand people die every year because of adverse drug side effects."
"A hundred thousand people die every year because of adverse drug side effects." That's a quote from the article. That's just from side effects!!! 100,000 people every year! How is it possible for drug companies to still be in business?? Why do so many people put their faith in pills to fix their ills? Here's another unbelievable quote: "Nine out of ten drugs studied in humans turn out not to work or to be too toxic." And how about that 10th drug. Is it just less than too toxic or is it just a high priced placebo?Doesn't this make you a bit skeptical? OK, maybe you can believe an article from a trustworthy source like Forbes. Now what? If you're already on medications don't stop! That could be even more dangerous than first getting on them.Most people need a detox program with concurrent monitoring of salivary and urinary pH (acidity/alkalinity). 100% of the population is polluted with environmental toxins! Then give the body the nutrients it needs to repair.
Stem cells could lead to better, safer drugs
Robert Langreth and Matthew Herper 06.16.08
Drug discovery is a cruel business. A hundred thousand people die every year because of adverse drug side effects. Millions die too young because drugs just aren't good enough.
The problem is that scientists invent medicines to treat people, but they have to use animal or tumor cells to do it. Heart cells, brain cells and liver cells all die when you try to keep them in a petri dish. So over decades researchers have come up with jury-rigged tests. They use preserved kidney cells extracted from a human fetus 30 years ago to see if an experimental drug will disrupt the rhythm of the heart. They use cells from a rat's digestive tract with human receptors stuck in. They force huge doses of every potential medicine down the throats of rodents. "The system is failing," says Gabriela Cezar, who left Pfizer to study stem cells at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
It's a testament to the ingenuity of pharmaceutical researchers that the system works at all. Nine out of ten drugs studied in humans turn out not to work or to be too toxic. Sanofi-Aventis, Pfizer and AstraZeneca have all had promising compounds go up in flames because of dangerous side effects. One solution may be to use embryonic stem cells to test drugs for safety and efficacy. "You should be able to get rid of some of the nasty drugs before they even hit clinical trials," says uw-Madison stem cell pioneer James Thomson. "And we're able to do that today."
Two years ago Thomson founded Cellular Dynamics International, a biotech firm that uses embryonic stem cells to make beating human heart cells, something that's never before been available to drug companies. Thomson has avoided the business world as long as possible but now says it is time for his cells to go commercial. Roche is the first announced customer. Earlier this year it began tests with Thomson's heart cells to catch cancer drugs that are toxic to the heart. A rival company, Sweden's Cellartis, is developing ways to test drugs for liver toxicity (with AstraZeneca) and for birth defects (Pfizer).
Even bigger, but further off, is the potential that being able to study neurons in a dish will allow researchers to understand what causes Parkinson's or Lou Gehrig's disease. It could be that in 20 years almost every medical researcher is going to use embryonic stem cells as basic tools. "That is going to profoundly change medicine," says Thomson.
Catapulting this work forward is the discovery of ways to create cells that act like embryonic stem cells but without ever using embryos. Last year Japan's Shinya Yamanaka and Thomson simultaneously showed that adult human cells could be transformed into embryolike stem cells by activating only four genes using viruses. "That has galvanized the field," says Alexander Rod MacKenzie, head of basic research at Pfizer.
San Diego researcher Lawrence Goldstein is using these so-called induced pluripotent stem cells to make neurons that are "genetically identical" to those of Alzheimer's patients. He is collecting 50 skin samples from Alzheimer's patients in order to hunt for new drugs.
Wisconsin's Cezar has started a biotech called Stemina that is using stem cells to get to the roots of autism. Autism appears in a tenth of the children born to mothers who take the epilepsy drug valproate. Valproate is known to injure neurons, so Cezar is converting embryonic stem cells into live neurons and adding valproate to the sample. The neurons gush chemicals that she is comparing to those found in brain cells of people with autism. If there's a match, Cezar could be on a path toward diagnostic tests or drugs. Stemina is using a similar strategy for a range of potential drugs. "[Autism] is an epidemic," she says, "and we have no idea about the cause.
Next: The Ultimate Turn-On
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2008/0616/088.html
Fixing Pharma
Stem cells could lead to better, safer drugs
Robert Langreth and Matthew Herper 06.16.08
Drug discovery is a cruel business. A hundred thousand people die every year because of adverse drug side effects. Millions die too young because drugs just aren't good enough.
The problem is that scientists invent medicines to treat people, but they have to use animal or tumor cells to do it. Heart cells, brain cells and liver cells all die when you try to keep them in a petri dish. So over decades researchers have come up with jury-rigged tests. They use preserved kidney cells extracted from a human fetus 30 years ago to see if an experimental drug will disrupt the rhythm of the heart. They use cells from a rat's digestive tract with human receptors stuck in. They force huge doses of every potential medicine down the throats of rodents. "The system is failing," says Gabriela Cezar, who left Pfizer to study stem cells at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
It's a testament to the ingenuity of pharmaceutical researchers that the system works at all. Nine out of ten drugs studied in humans turn out not to work or to be too toxic. Sanofi-Aventis, Pfizer and AstraZeneca have all had promising compounds go up in flames because of dangerous side effects. One solution may be to use embryonic stem cells to test drugs for safety and efficacy. "You should be able to get rid of some of the nasty drugs before they even hit clinical trials," says uw-Madison stem cell pioneer James Thomson. "And we're able to do that today."
Two years ago Thomson founded Cellular Dynamics International, a biotech firm that uses embryonic stem cells to make beating human heart cells, something that's never before been available to drug companies. Thomson has avoided the business world as long as possible but now says it is time for his cells to go commercial. Roche is the first announced customer. Earlier this year it began tests with Thomson's heart cells to catch cancer drugs that are toxic to the heart. A rival company, Sweden's Cellartis, is developing ways to test drugs for liver toxicity (with AstraZeneca) and for birth defects (Pfizer).
Even bigger, but further off, is the potential that being able to study neurons in a dish will allow researchers to understand what causes Parkinson's or Lou Gehrig's disease. It could be that in 20 years almost every medical researcher is going to use embryonic stem cells as basic tools. "That is going to profoundly change medicine," says Thomson.
Catapulting this work forward is the discovery of ways to create cells that act like embryonic stem cells but without ever using embryos. Last year Japan's Shinya Yamanaka and Thomson simultaneously showed that adult human cells could be transformed into embryolike stem cells by activating only four genes using viruses. "That has galvanized the field," says Alexander Rod MacKenzie, head of basic research at Pfizer.
San Diego researcher Lawrence Goldstein is using these so-called induced pluripotent stem cells to make neurons that are "genetically identical" to those of Alzheimer's patients. He is collecting 50 skin samples from Alzheimer's patients in order to hunt for new drugs.
Wisconsin's Cezar has started a biotech called Stemina that is using stem cells to get to the roots of autism. Autism appears in a tenth of the children born to mothers who take the epilepsy drug valproate. Valproate is known to injure neurons, so Cezar is converting embryonic stem cells into live neurons and adding valproate to the sample. The neurons gush chemicals that she is comparing to those found in brain cells of people with autism. If there's a match, Cezar could be on a path toward diagnostic tests or drugs. Stemina is using a similar strategy for a range of potential drugs. "[Autism] is an epidemic," she says, "and we have no idea about the cause.
Next: The Ultimate Turn-On
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2008/0616/088.html
Doctors Vent Their Discontent
More on the current and looming health care crisis; medical doctors are increasingly dissatisfied with practicing medicine. Why? They love being doctors but hate the constantly increasing effects of managed care; the amount of paperwork and insurance denials for prescriptions and procedures. Only "3 percent said they were not frustrated by nonclinical aspects of medicine". With a constantly increasing load of patients from the Baby Boom generation and with all major diseases (CV disease, obesity, diabetes, cancer, Parkinson's & Alzheimer's, etc.) on the rise this is a bad time to have overworked and disenchanted doctors who will no longer reccomend that young people go into medicine. The whole picture is disturbing and can only end up in a true crisis if something doesn't change.
June 17, 2008
Essay
Eyes Bloodshot, Doctors Vent Their Discontent
By SANDEEP JAUHAR, M.D.
“I love being a doctor but I hate practicing medicine,” a friend, Saeed Siddiqui, told me recently. We were sitting in his office amid his many framed medical certificates and a poster of an illuminated lighthouse that read: “Success doesn’t come to you. You go to it.”
A doctor in his late 30s, he has been in practice for six years, mostly as a solo practitioner. But he told me he recently had decided to go into partnership with another cardiologist; his days, he said, will be “totally busy.”
“Your days aren’t busy enough already?” I asked.
The waiting room was packed. He had a full schedule of appointments, and after he was done with his office patients, he was going to round at two hospitals.
He smiled wanly. “Just look at my eyes.”
They were bloodshot.
“This whole week I haven’t slept more than about six hours a night.”
I asked when his work usually got done.
“It is never done,” he replied, shaking his head. “See this pile?”
He pointed to five large manila packages on a shelf above his desk. “These are reports I still have to finish.”
As a physician, I could empathize. I too often feel overwhelmed with paperwork. But my friend’s discontent seemed to run much deeper than that. Unfortunately, he is not alone. I have been hearing physician colleagues voice a level of dissatisfaction with medical practice that is alarming.
In a survey last year of nearly 2,400 physicians conducted by a physician recruiting firm, locumtenens.com, 3 percent said they were not frustrated by nonclinical aspects of medicine. The level of frustration has increased with nearly every survey.
“It will take real structural change in the work environment for physician satisfaction to improve,” Dr. Mark Linzer, an internist at the University of Wisconsin who has done extensive research on physician unhappiness, told me. “Fortunately, the data show that physicians are willing to put up with a lot before giving up.”
Not long ago, fed up with what he perceived as a loss of professional autonomy, Dr. Bhupinder Singh, 42, a general internist in New York, sold his practice and went to work part time at a hospital in Queens.
“I’d write a prescription,” he told me, “and then insurance companies would put restrictions on almost every medication. I’d get a call: ‘Drug not covered. Write a different prescription or get preauthorization.’ If I ordered an M.R.I., I’d have to explain to a clerk why I wanted to do the test. I felt handcuffed. It was a big, big headache.”
When he decided to work in a hospital, he figured that there would be more freedom to practice his specialty.
“But managed care is like a magnet attached to you,” he said.
He continues to be frustrated by payment denials. “Thirty percent of my hospital admissions are being denied. There’s a 45-day limit on the appeal. You don’t bill in time, you lose everything. You’re discussing this with a managed-care rep on the phone and you think: ‘You’re sitting there, I’m sitting here. How do you know anything about this patient?’ ”
Recently, he confessed, he has been thinking about quitting medicine altogether and opening a convenience store. “Ninety percent of doctors I know are fed up with medicine,” he said.
And it is not just managed care. Stories of patients armed with medical knowledge gleaned from the Internet demanding antibiotics for viral illnesses or M.R.I. scans for routine symptoms are rife in doctors’ lounges. Malpractice worries also remain at the forefront of many physicians’ minds, compounded by increasing liability premiums that have forced many into early retirement.
In surveys, increasing numbers of doctors attest to diminishing enthusiasm for medicine and say they would discourage a friend or family member from going into the profession.
The dissatisfaction would probably not have reached such a fever pitch if reimbursement had kept pace with doctors’ expectations. But it has not.
Doctors are working harder and faster to maintain income, even as staff salaries and costs of living continue to increase. Some have resorted to selling herbs and vitamins retail out of their offices to make up for decreasing revenue. Others are limiting their practices just to patients who can pay out of pocket.
There are serious consequences to this discontent, the most worrisome of which is that it is difficult for doctors who are so unhappy to provide good care.
Another is a looming shortage of doctors, especially in primary care, which has the lowest reimbursement of all the medical specialties and probably has the most dissatisfied practitioners.
Last year, residency programs in family practice took only 1,096 graduating medical students, the fewest in the last two decades. The number increased just slightly this year. Students who do choose internal medicine increasingly are forgoing primary care for subspecialty practices like cardiology and gastroenterology.
“For me it’s an endless amount of work that I can never get through to do it properly,” said Dr. Jeffrey Freilich, 38, a primary-care physician on Long Island. “I’m a bit compulsive. As an internist, I have to worry about working up so many conditions — anemia, thyroid problems and so forth. There is no time to do it all in a day.
“On top of all that, there are all the colonoscopies and mammograms you have to arrange, and all the time on the phone getting preauthorizations. Then you have to track the patient down. And none of it is reimbursed.”
Many primary-care physicians have stopped seeing their patients when they are hospitalized, relying instead on hospitalists devoted to inpatient care. Internists have told me that it is prohibitively inefficient to drive to a hospital, find parking, walk to the wards, examine a patient, check laboratory tests and vital signs, talk to a nurse and write orders and a note — for just a handful of cases. They cannot afford to leave their offices long enough to do it.
The upshot is that the doctor who knows a patient best is often uninvolved in her care when she is hospitalized. This contributes to the poor coordination and wanton consultation that is so common in hospitals today.
“Years ago you had one or two doctors,” a hospitalized patient told me recently. “Now you’ve got so many people coming in it’s hard to know who’s who.”
A 10.6 percent cut in Medicare payments to physicians is scheduled to take effect on July 1. Further cuts are planned in coming years. Many doctors have told lawmakers that if the cuts go through, they will stop seeing Medicare patients. But reimbursement cuts are only a small part of doctors’ woes today.
“I was naïve,” Saeed Siddiqui said. “When I was a resident I thought it was enough to take good care of patients. But the real world is totally different.”
Dr. Sandeep Jauhar, a cardiologist on Long Island, is the author of a new memoir, “Intern: A Doctor’s Initiation.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/health/views/17essa.html?ex=1371355200&en=505c2fbd5bfe4f7f&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
June 17, 2008
Essay
Eyes Bloodshot, Doctors Vent Their Discontent
By SANDEEP JAUHAR, M.D.
“I love being a doctor but I hate practicing medicine,” a friend, Saeed Siddiqui, told me recently. We were sitting in his office amid his many framed medical certificates and a poster of an illuminated lighthouse that read: “Success doesn’t come to you. You go to it.”
A doctor in his late 30s, he has been in practice for six years, mostly as a solo practitioner. But he told me he recently had decided to go into partnership with another cardiologist; his days, he said, will be “totally busy.”
“Your days aren’t busy enough already?” I asked.
The waiting room was packed. He had a full schedule of appointments, and after he was done with his office patients, he was going to round at two hospitals.
He smiled wanly. “Just look at my eyes.”
They were bloodshot.
“This whole week I haven’t slept more than about six hours a night.”
I asked when his work usually got done.
“It is never done,” he replied, shaking his head. “See this pile?”
He pointed to five large manila packages on a shelf above his desk. “These are reports I still have to finish.”
As a physician, I could empathize. I too often feel overwhelmed with paperwork. But my friend’s discontent seemed to run much deeper than that. Unfortunately, he is not alone. I have been hearing physician colleagues voice a level of dissatisfaction with medical practice that is alarming.
In a survey last year of nearly 2,400 physicians conducted by a physician recruiting firm, locumtenens.com, 3 percent said they were not frustrated by nonclinical aspects of medicine. The level of frustration has increased with nearly every survey.
“It will take real structural change in the work environment for physician satisfaction to improve,” Dr. Mark Linzer, an internist at the University of Wisconsin who has done extensive research on physician unhappiness, told me. “Fortunately, the data show that physicians are willing to put up with a lot before giving up.”
Not long ago, fed up with what he perceived as a loss of professional autonomy, Dr. Bhupinder Singh, 42, a general internist in New York, sold his practice and went to work part time at a hospital in Queens.
“I’d write a prescription,” he told me, “and then insurance companies would put restrictions on almost every medication. I’d get a call: ‘Drug not covered. Write a different prescription or get preauthorization.’ If I ordered an M.R.I., I’d have to explain to a clerk why I wanted to do the test. I felt handcuffed. It was a big, big headache.”
When he decided to work in a hospital, he figured that there would be more freedom to practice his specialty.
“But managed care is like a magnet attached to you,” he said.
He continues to be frustrated by payment denials. “Thirty percent of my hospital admissions are being denied. There’s a 45-day limit on the appeal. You don’t bill in time, you lose everything. You’re discussing this with a managed-care rep on the phone and you think: ‘You’re sitting there, I’m sitting here. How do you know anything about this patient?’ ”
Recently, he confessed, he has been thinking about quitting medicine altogether and opening a convenience store. “Ninety percent of doctors I know are fed up with medicine,” he said.
And it is not just managed care. Stories of patients armed with medical knowledge gleaned from the Internet demanding antibiotics for viral illnesses or M.R.I. scans for routine symptoms are rife in doctors’ lounges. Malpractice worries also remain at the forefront of many physicians’ minds, compounded by increasing liability premiums that have forced many into early retirement.
In surveys, increasing numbers of doctors attest to diminishing enthusiasm for medicine and say they would discourage a friend or family member from going into the profession.
The dissatisfaction would probably not have reached such a fever pitch if reimbursement had kept pace with doctors’ expectations. But it has not.
Doctors are working harder and faster to maintain income, even as staff salaries and costs of living continue to increase. Some have resorted to selling herbs and vitamins retail out of their offices to make up for decreasing revenue. Others are limiting their practices just to patients who can pay out of pocket.
There are serious consequences to this discontent, the most worrisome of which is that it is difficult for doctors who are so unhappy to provide good care.
Another is a looming shortage of doctors, especially in primary care, which has the lowest reimbursement of all the medical specialties and probably has the most dissatisfied practitioners.
Last year, residency programs in family practice took only 1,096 graduating medical students, the fewest in the last two decades. The number increased just slightly this year. Students who do choose internal medicine increasingly are forgoing primary care for subspecialty practices like cardiology and gastroenterology.
“For me it’s an endless amount of work that I can never get through to do it properly,” said Dr. Jeffrey Freilich, 38, a primary-care physician on Long Island. “I’m a bit compulsive. As an internist, I have to worry about working up so many conditions — anemia, thyroid problems and so forth. There is no time to do it all in a day.
“On top of all that, there are all the colonoscopies and mammograms you have to arrange, and all the time on the phone getting preauthorizations. Then you have to track the patient down. And none of it is reimbursed.”
Many primary-care physicians have stopped seeing their patients when they are hospitalized, relying instead on hospitalists devoted to inpatient care. Internists have told me that it is prohibitively inefficient to drive to a hospital, find parking, walk to the wards, examine a patient, check laboratory tests and vital signs, talk to a nurse and write orders and a note — for just a handful of cases. They cannot afford to leave their offices long enough to do it.
The upshot is that the doctor who knows a patient best is often uninvolved in her care when she is hospitalized. This contributes to the poor coordination and wanton consultation that is so common in hospitals today.
“Years ago you had one or two doctors,” a hospitalized patient told me recently. “Now you’ve got so many people coming in it’s hard to know who’s who.”
A 10.6 percent cut in Medicare payments to physicians is scheduled to take effect on July 1. Further cuts are planned in coming years. Many doctors have told lawmakers that if the cuts go through, they will stop seeing Medicare patients. But reimbursement cuts are only a small part of doctors’ woes today.
“I was naïve,” Saeed Siddiqui said. “When I was a resident I thought it was enough to take good care of patients. But the real world is totally different.”
Dr. Sandeep Jauhar, a cardiologist on Long Island, is the author of a new memoir, “Intern: A Doctor’s Initiation.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/health/views/17essa.html?ex=1371355200&en=505c2fbd5bfe4f7f&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
The Science Of Sleep
What health issue can be the centerpiece of diabetes, obesity, lack of appetite control, and other major health problems? Not getting enough sleep. Watch Parts 1 and 2 for details and feel free to comment!
Sunday, June 15, 2008
What Happened to Russert
The main points here to take home are: he had no symptoms, he was on meds, and he was excercising. People think that there's a problem only if there's pain. This is the biggest mistake you can make!!!! Yes, I'm yelling at you!!! Underline this and put it where you'll see it everyday. This is the single most important and most difficult point I find in getting through to patients. Pain is a lousy indicator of your health. It is often late in onset and leaves early but the underlying problem is there and ready to strike. Do you know the first signs of many heart attacks? The heart attack itself. By that time it's too late. How about certain cancers like pancreatic? Asymptomatic until the end stage. Too late again.
The 5th paragrpah is the most important paragraph, beginning, "A sudden cardiac arrest is, of course, unexpected, but the process that causes it may begin many years before..." Take note of "inflammation" and the latent nature of the disease.
The science of sudden cardiac arrest
Mary Carmichael and Caitlin McDevitt
Newsweek Web Exclusive
Updated: 11:15 AM ET Jun 14, 2008
Journalists and politicians across the country were in shock Friday afternoon at news that Tim Russert, the prominent and beloved NBC correspondent, had collapsed and died suddenly of a heart attack in the network's Washington office. Russert had previously been been diagnosed with several risk factors for a sudden heart attack, including coronary artery disease and diabetes. But his death is still a sad reminder that cardiac arrest can strike anyone without warning—and that when it does, it is often fatal.
Sudden cardiac arrest accounts for 310,000 deaths in America every year, or 850 a day—more than those caused by breast cancer, lung cancer, stroke, and AIDS combined. But despite how common the condition is, doctors know little about what predisposes one person to it and not another. The National Institutes of Health is currently mounting a major study at 60 trial sites across the country to try and identify risk factors related to both genes and lifestyle, and will begin enrolling patients this week. For now, says Jeffrey Olgin, a cardiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, assessing risk is "a very, very difficult thing. I can't look at you and say you have a 10 percent chance of dying from this."
Doctors do know that a previous history of heart attacks is the most important risk factor. Vice President Dick Cheney, who has suffered four heart attacks, wears a pacemaker to ward off sudden arrest. Age and gender also play roles, and as a 58-year-old male, Russert was in high-risk groups; the average age for suffering sudden cardiac death is between 58 and 62. Other factors involved in all forms of cardiovascular disease—family history, smoking, diabetes, and obesity—can come into play. Russert had some of these too; he had been previously diagnosed with diabetes and and coronary artery disease, and his autopsy on Friday showed an enlarged heart. But doctors do not know which of these factors is most important in causing a sudden heart attack, or why. They also do not know if stress plays a role at all; the data is unclear. "Most of us do not think it is terribly relevant," says Steven Nissen, chair of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic and a past president of the American College of Cardiology. After all, he notes, "many people in this world have stressful jobs," and they don't all die of of heart attacks.
What is clear is that there are ways to lower one's risk of sudden cardiac death: eat healthy, exercise, don't smoke, and take aspirin or statins. The trouble, though, is that patients often don't think they're at serious risk until they are actually experiencing an attack. In about a third of all sudden deaths due to coronary disease, death is the first sign that anything major is wrong. Russert himself was exercising and taking medication for his coronary artery disease, which was asymptomatic. He performed well in a stress test two months ago.
A sudden cardiac arrest is, of course, unexpected, but the process that causes it may begin many years before. "In middle-aged men, it's virtually always caused by degeneration in the wall of a coronary artery," says Dr. Thomas Risser, a cardiologist at Cambridge Health Alliance. "It starts with fat deposits and inflammation, and these plaques just lie there silently." They can do so for decades until one of them fractures, at which point the body tries to plug the hole with a blood clot—and ends up blocking off the whole blood vessel. This condition is known as a coronary thrombosis, and it is extremely dangerous. The heart muscle, now starved for oxygen-rich blood, falls out of rhythm; it quivers but doesn't pump. "In the final stage, the ventricle looks like a bag of worms. It's chaotically beating very fast and therefore is completely inefficient at pumping blood," says Olgin. "Soon, there's no blood flow anywhere, including the brain, and people just suddenly collapse."
Once a patient's heart has gotten out of a normal rhythm, it can't get back on beat on its own. But a defibrillator—either an internally implanted one such as Cheney's, or an external one with electrical paddles—can get the heart beating steadily again, provided it is used in time. "If people get there with an external defibrillator within three minutes of a collapse, the survival rate for the kind of thing Russert may have had can be as high as 50 percent," says Robert J. Myerburg, a cardiologist at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. "But time is the whole issue. If you rely on fire/rescue teams to bring one, the chance of survival drops seven to ten percent" with every minute that passes after a collapse. It's unclear whether Russert had access to a defibrillator. His internist said on Friday that "resuscitation" had begun immediately after the collapse and continued at the hospital, to no avail.
URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/141450
The 5th paragrpah is the most important paragraph, beginning, "A sudden cardiac arrest is, of course, unexpected, but the process that causes it may begin many years before..." Take note of "inflammation" and the latent nature of the disease.
The science of sudden cardiac arrest
Mary Carmichael and Caitlin McDevitt
Newsweek Web Exclusive
Updated: 11:15 AM ET Jun 14, 2008
Journalists and politicians across the country were in shock Friday afternoon at news that Tim Russert, the prominent and beloved NBC correspondent, had collapsed and died suddenly of a heart attack in the network's Washington office. Russert had previously been been diagnosed with several risk factors for a sudden heart attack, including coronary artery disease and diabetes. But his death is still a sad reminder that cardiac arrest can strike anyone without warning—and that when it does, it is often fatal.
Sudden cardiac arrest accounts for 310,000 deaths in America every year, or 850 a day—more than those caused by breast cancer, lung cancer, stroke, and AIDS combined. But despite how common the condition is, doctors know little about what predisposes one person to it and not another. The National Institutes of Health is currently mounting a major study at 60 trial sites across the country to try and identify risk factors related to both genes and lifestyle, and will begin enrolling patients this week. For now, says Jeffrey Olgin, a cardiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, assessing risk is "a very, very difficult thing. I can't look at you and say you have a 10 percent chance of dying from this."
Doctors do know that a previous history of heart attacks is the most important risk factor. Vice President Dick Cheney, who has suffered four heart attacks, wears a pacemaker to ward off sudden arrest. Age and gender also play roles, and as a 58-year-old male, Russert was in high-risk groups; the average age for suffering sudden cardiac death is between 58 and 62. Other factors involved in all forms of cardiovascular disease—family history, smoking, diabetes, and obesity—can come into play. Russert had some of these too; he had been previously diagnosed with diabetes and and coronary artery disease, and his autopsy on Friday showed an enlarged heart. But doctors do not know which of these factors is most important in causing a sudden heart attack, or why. They also do not know if stress plays a role at all; the data is unclear. "Most of us do not think it is terribly relevant," says Steven Nissen, chair of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic and a past president of the American College of Cardiology. After all, he notes, "many people in this world have stressful jobs," and they don't all die of of heart attacks.
What is clear is that there are ways to lower one's risk of sudden cardiac death: eat healthy, exercise, don't smoke, and take aspirin or statins. The trouble, though, is that patients often don't think they're at serious risk until they are actually experiencing an attack. In about a third of all sudden deaths due to coronary disease, death is the first sign that anything major is wrong. Russert himself was exercising and taking medication for his coronary artery disease, which was asymptomatic. He performed well in a stress test two months ago.
A sudden cardiac arrest is, of course, unexpected, but the process that causes it may begin many years before. "In middle-aged men, it's virtually always caused by degeneration in the wall of a coronary artery," says Dr. Thomas Risser, a cardiologist at Cambridge Health Alliance. "It starts with fat deposits and inflammation, and these plaques just lie there silently." They can do so for decades until one of them fractures, at which point the body tries to plug the hole with a blood clot—and ends up blocking off the whole blood vessel. This condition is known as a coronary thrombosis, and it is extremely dangerous. The heart muscle, now starved for oxygen-rich blood, falls out of rhythm; it quivers but doesn't pump. "In the final stage, the ventricle looks like a bag of worms. It's chaotically beating very fast and therefore is completely inefficient at pumping blood," says Olgin. "Soon, there's no blood flow anywhere, including the brain, and people just suddenly collapse."
Once a patient's heart has gotten out of a normal rhythm, it can't get back on beat on its own. But a defibrillator—either an internally implanted one such as Cheney's, or an external one with electrical paddles—can get the heart beating steadily again, provided it is used in time. "If people get there with an external defibrillator within three minutes of a collapse, the survival rate for the kind of thing Russert may have had can be as high as 50 percent," says Robert J. Myerburg, a cardiologist at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. "But time is the whole issue. If you rely on fire/rescue teams to bring one, the chance of survival drops seven to ten percent" with every minute that passes after a collapse. It's unclear whether Russert had access to a defibrillator. His internist said on Friday that "resuscitation" had begun immediately after the collapse and continued at the hospital, to no avail.
URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/141450
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Aspartame promotes grand mal seizures, say health experts
If you eat or drink anything with aspartame/NutraSweet in it this is a must to read!
http://www.naturalnews.com/008952.html
From NaturalNews.com
A nursing infant developed convulsions after his mother drank an aspartame-sweetened soft drink. A 19-year-old woman went into grand mal convulsions within minutes of chewing a piece of aspartame-flavored gum. A small amount of toxin can push the human body into near-fatal conditions, regardless of whether the toxin is considered “safe” and sold on grocery and convenience store shelves around the world. Aspartame, the artificial sweetener that often flavors sugar-free drinks and foods, has been known to induce convulsions and grand mal seizures in certain individuals. So why is it still on peoples’ shopping lists?
In 1987, scientists and aspartame-sensitive seizure patients made the government aware of the link between the consumption of aspartame and the onset of seizures and convulsions, reports Dr. H.J. Roberts in Aspartame (NutraSweet): Is It Safe. On November 3, 1987, the U.S. Senate held a hearing entitled “‘NutraSweet’ — Health and Safety Concerns.” In this hearing, people from a wide variety of occupations, including an Air Force pilot, told the Senate about their aspartame-induced grand mal seizures. These individuals reported that their seizures disappeared after abstaining from aspartame consumption.
By all ethical standards, the testimonials provided during this 1987 hearing — combined with the strong scientific evidence demonstrating the health dangers of aspartame — should have led to the banishment of aspartame-sweetened products from grocery shelves forever; yet, aspartame products are still abundant in our grocery stores and restaurants.
How aspartame damages human health
Aspartame is a synthetic chemical composed of the amino acids phenylalanine and aspartic acid. Each time you drink a diet soft drink or chew sugarless gum, you are feeding unhealthy doses of these amino acids into your system, according to Dr. James Howenstine in A Physicians Guide to Natural Health Products that Work.
These amino acids can bypass the blood-brain barrier, enabling them both to directly alter your neurological function. Your brain naturally contains phenylalanine, but phenylalanine in its solitary form without its companion amino acids is not normally a part of the human diet. Debra Lynn Dadd, author of Home Safe Home, believes this is where the health problems posed by aspartame begin. Aspartame consumption provides phenylalanine in excess of your brain’s normal level. According to James A. May in Miracle of Stevia, this state of excess phenylalanine lowers the seizure threshold, thereby making convulsions more likely.
Researchers know that a raise in brain phenylalanine levels ultimately increases the risk of seizures. This is true even for people without a history of non-aspartame induced seizures, such as the Air Force pilot who testified in the 1987 hearing. However, researchers are still debating the exact role of increased brain phenylalanine levels in inducing seizures. Although many researchers believe that increased brain phenylalanine levels directly cause seizures and convulsions, Dr. Blaylock writes in Excitotoxins that it is “more likely … the direct excitatory effect of the aspartate itself. Phenylalanine may act to potentiate this irritability.” Regardless of the precise method, the combined neurological effects of excess phenylalanine and aspartic acid make aspartame a dangerous ingredient.
Aspartame Marketing Gimmicks
Advertisements for aspartame commonly portray aspartame as a “healthy” alternative to sugar. Such advertising makes aspartame even more dangerous to consumers who are ignorant of the artificial sweetener’s potential side effects. Because of this deceptive advertising, people concerned about their health and the health of their families regularly use aspartame-sweetened products. Rather than switching to a truly healthy diet and exercising more often, people concerned with weight loss may use sugar-free foods sweetened with aspartame to refrain from extra calorie consumption.
True, they’re “watching their calories,” but they are also putting themselves at risk of suffering from several aspartame-associated health consequences, including insomnia, dehydration, migraines, seizures and brain tumors. Dr. Roberts illustrates with an anecdote about the malignant consequences suffered by consumers because of this deceptive advertising: “A two-year-old with fever suffered seizures within 10 minutes after chewing aspartame-sweetened acetaminophen … This consideration may be significant to health-conscious mothers who elect to give their infants health products containing aspartame rather than sugar (such as vitamins) in an effort to prevent tooth decay.”
Imagine the guilt of a poor parent who gives his or her child aspartame-sweetened medication in an effort to make the child healthy or keep the child’s teeth free of cavities only to have the child suffer or even die from a grand mal seizure. Aspartame’s deceptive advertising is truly inexcusable.
If you’ve been drinking diet sodas and chewing sugarless gum for decades and you haven’t been experiencing convulsions, then consider yourself lucky that you apparently lack the biological tendency that puts you at risk for aspartame-induced convulsions or grand mal seizures. Other individuals have not been so lucky. Seizures aside, however, you may not turn out to be as lucky in avoiding the other health problems commonly associated with aspartame. You can read about these other possible side effects along with stevia, an alternative to both aspartame and natural sugar, at NaturalNews’s aspartame and stevia archives. Don’t gamble with your body – you’re only given one.
http://www.naturalnews.com/008952.html
From NaturalNews.com
A nursing infant developed convulsions after his mother drank an aspartame-sweetened soft drink. A 19-year-old woman went into grand mal convulsions within minutes of chewing a piece of aspartame-flavored gum. A small amount of toxin can push the human body into near-fatal conditions, regardless of whether the toxin is considered “safe” and sold on grocery and convenience store shelves around the world. Aspartame, the artificial sweetener that often flavors sugar-free drinks and foods, has been known to induce convulsions and grand mal seizures in certain individuals. So why is it still on peoples’ shopping lists?
In 1987, scientists and aspartame-sensitive seizure patients made the government aware of the link between the consumption of aspartame and the onset of seizures and convulsions, reports Dr. H.J. Roberts in Aspartame (NutraSweet): Is It Safe. On November 3, 1987, the U.S. Senate held a hearing entitled “‘NutraSweet’ — Health and Safety Concerns.” In this hearing, people from a wide variety of occupations, including an Air Force pilot, told the Senate about their aspartame-induced grand mal seizures. These individuals reported that their seizures disappeared after abstaining from aspartame consumption.
By all ethical standards, the testimonials provided during this 1987 hearing — combined with the strong scientific evidence demonstrating the health dangers of aspartame — should have led to the banishment of aspartame-sweetened products from grocery shelves forever; yet, aspartame products are still abundant in our grocery stores and restaurants.
How aspartame damages human health
Aspartame is a synthetic chemical composed of the amino acids phenylalanine and aspartic acid. Each time you drink a diet soft drink or chew sugarless gum, you are feeding unhealthy doses of these amino acids into your system, according to Dr. James Howenstine in A Physicians Guide to Natural Health Products that Work.
These amino acids can bypass the blood-brain barrier, enabling them both to directly alter your neurological function. Your brain naturally contains phenylalanine, but phenylalanine in its solitary form without its companion amino acids is not normally a part of the human diet. Debra Lynn Dadd, author of Home Safe Home, believes this is where the health problems posed by aspartame begin. Aspartame consumption provides phenylalanine in excess of your brain’s normal level. According to James A. May in Miracle of Stevia, this state of excess phenylalanine lowers the seizure threshold, thereby making convulsions more likely.
Researchers know that a raise in brain phenylalanine levels ultimately increases the risk of seizures. This is true even for people without a history of non-aspartame induced seizures, such as the Air Force pilot who testified in the 1987 hearing. However, researchers are still debating the exact role of increased brain phenylalanine levels in inducing seizures. Although many researchers believe that increased brain phenylalanine levels directly cause seizures and convulsions, Dr. Blaylock writes in Excitotoxins that it is “more likely … the direct excitatory effect of the aspartate itself. Phenylalanine may act to potentiate this irritability.” Regardless of the precise method, the combined neurological effects of excess phenylalanine and aspartic acid make aspartame a dangerous ingredient.
Aspartame Marketing Gimmicks
Advertisements for aspartame commonly portray aspartame as a “healthy” alternative to sugar. Such advertising makes aspartame even more dangerous to consumers who are ignorant of the artificial sweetener’s potential side effects. Because of this deceptive advertising, people concerned about their health and the health of their families regularly use aspartame-sweetened products. Rather than switching to a truly healthy diet and exercising more often, people concerned with weight loss may use sugar-free foods sweetened with aspartame to refrain from extra calorie consumption.
True, they’re “watching their calories,” but they are also putting themselves at risk of suffering from several aspartame-associated health consequences, including insomnia, dehydration, migraines, seizures and brain tumors. Dr. Roberts illustrates with an anecdote about the malignant consequences suffered by consumers because of this deceptive advertising: “A two-year-old with fever suffered seizures within 10 minutes after chewing aspartame-sweetened acetaminophen … This consideration may be significant to health-conscious mothers who elect to give their infants health products containing aspartame rather than sugar (such as vitamins) in an effort to prevent tooth decay.”
Imagine the guilt of a poor parent who gives his or her child aspartame-sweetened medication in an effort to make the child healthy or keep the child’s teeth free of cavities only to have the child suffer or even die from a grand mal seizure. Aspartame’s deceptive advertising is truly inexcusable.
If you’ve been drinking diet sodas and chewing sugarless gum for decades and you haven’t been experiencing convulsions, then consider yourself lucky that you apparently lack the biological tendency that puts you at risk for aspartame-induced convulsions or grand mal seizures. Other individuals have not been so lucky. Seizures aside, however, you may not turn out to be as lucky in avoiding the other health problems commonly associated with aspartame. You can read about these other possible side effects along with stevia, an alternative to both aspartame and natural sugar, at NaturalNews’s aspartame and stevia archives. Don’t gamble with your body – you’re only given one.
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Experts Revive Debate Over Cellphones and Cancer
Do not hold a cell phone to your ear and do not, as some doctors in the NYT article suggest, use an earpiece. An earpiece actually intensifies the signal. Some earpieces have a wire which transitions into an air tube, thus conducting the sound over air waves. This is better than using a regualr wire.
The best cell phone use is minimal contact using the speakerphone.
An Israeli study showed definitively that cell phone radiation causes disruption in cellular DNA which in time could be cancer forming.
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/10/brief_cellphone.html
June 3, 2008 NYT
Well
Experts Revive Debate Over Cellphones and Cancer
By TARA PARKER-POPE
What do brain surgeons know about cellphone safety that the rest of us don’t?
Last week, three prominent neurosurgeons told the CNN interviewer Larry King that they did not hold cellphones next to their ears. “I think the safe practice,” said Dr. Keith Black, a surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, “is to use an earpiece so you keep the microwave antenna away from your brain.”
Dr. Vini Khurana, an associate professor of neurosurgery at the Australian National University who is an outspoken critic of cellphones, said: “I use it on the speaker-phone mode. I do not hold it to my ear.” And CNN’s chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon at Emory University Hospital, said that like Dr. Black he used an earpiece.
Along with Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s recent diagnosis of a glioma, a type of tumor that critics have long associated with cellphone use, the doctors’ remarks have helped reignite a long-simmering debate about cellphones and cancer.
That supposed link has been largely dismissed by many experts, including the American Cancer Society. The theory that cellphones cause brain tumors “defies credulity,” said Dr. Eugene Flamm, chairman of neurosurgery at Montefiore Medical Center.
According to the Food and Drug Administration, three large epidemiology studies since 2000 have shown no harmful effects. CTIA — the Wireless Association, the leading industry trade group, said in a statement, “The overwhelming majority of studies that have been published in scientific journals around the globe show that wireless phones do not pose a health risk.”
The F.D.A. notes, however, that the average period of phone use in the studies it cites was about three years, so the research doesn’t answer questions about long-term exposures. Critics say many studies are flawed for that reason, and also because they do not distinguish between casual and heavy use.
Cellphones emit non-ionizing radiation, waves of energy that are too weak to break chemical bonds or to set off the DNA damage known to cause cancer. There is no known biological mechanism to explain how non-ionizing radiation might lead to cancer.
But researchers who have raised concerns say that just because science can’t explain the mechanism doesn’t mean one doesn’t exist. Concerns have focused on the heat generated by cellphones and the fact that the radio frequencies are absorbed mostly by the head and neck. In recent studies that suggest a risk, the tumors tend to occur on the same side of the head where the patient typically holds the phone.
Like most research on the subject, the studies are observational, showing only an association between cellphone use and cancer, not a causal relationship. The most important of these studies is called Interphone, a vast research effort in 13 countries, including Canada, Israel and several in Europe.
Some of the research suggests a link between cellphone use and three types of tumors: glioma; cancer of the parotid, a salivary gland near the ear; and acoustic neuroma, a tumor that essentially occurs where the ear meets the brain. All these cancers are rare, so even if cellphone use does increase risk, the risk is still very low.
Last year, The American Journal of Epidemiology published data from Israel finding a 58 percent higher risk of parotid gland tumors among heavy cellphone users. Also last year, a Swedish analysis of 16 studies in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine showed a doubling of risk for acoustic neuroma and glioma after 10 years of heavy cellphone use.
“What we’re seeing is suggestions in epidemiological studies that have looked at people using phones for 10 or more years,” says Louis Slesin, editor of Microwave News, an industry publication that tracks the research. “There are some very disconcerting findings that suggest a problem, although it’s much too early to reach a conclusive view.”
Some doctors say the real concern is not older cellphone users, who began using phones as adults, but children who are beginning to use phones today and face a lifetime of exposure.
“More and more kids are using cellphones,” said Dr. Paul J. Rosch, clinical professor of medicine and psychiatry at New York Medical College. “They may be much more affected. Their brains are growing rapidly, and their skulls are thinner.”
For people who are concerned about any possible risk, a simple solution is to use a headset. Of course, that option isn’t always convenient, and some critics have raised worries about wireless devices like the Bluetooth that essentially place a transmitter in the ear.
The fear is that even if the individual risk of using a cellphone is low, with three billion users worldwide, even a minuscule risk would translate into a major public health concern.
“We cannot say with any certainty that cellphones are either safe or not safe,” Dr. Black said on CNN. “My concern is that with the widespread use of cellphones, the worst scenario would be that we get the definitive study 10 years from now, and we find out there is a correlation.”
well@nytimes.com
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
The best cell phone use is minimal contact using the speakerphone.
An Israeli study showed definitively that cell phone radiation causes disruption in cellular DNA which in time could be cancer forming.
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/10/brief_cellphone.html
June 3, 2008 NYT
Well
Experts Revive Debate Over Cellphones and Cancer
By TARA PARKER-POPE
What do brain surgeons know about cellphone safety that the rest of us don’t?
Last week, three prominent neurosurgeons told the CNN interviewer Larry King that they did not hold cellphones next to their ears. “I think the safe practice,” said Dr. Keith Black, a surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, “is to use an earpiece so you keep the microwave antenna away from your brain.”
Dr. Vini Khurana, an associate professor of neurosurgery at the Australian National University who is an outspoken critic of cellphones, said: “I use it on the speaker-phone mode. I do not hold it to my ear.” And CNN’s chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon at Emory University Hospital, said that like Dr. Black he used an earpiece.
Along with Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s recent diagnosis of a glioma, a type of tumor that critics have long associated with cellphone use, the doctors’ remarks have helped reignite a long-simmering debate about cellphones and cancer.
That supposed link has been largely dismissed by many experts, including the American Cancer Society. The theory that cellphones cause brain tumors “defies credulity,” said Dr. Eugene Flamm, chairman of neurosurgery at Montefiore Medical Center.
According to the Food and Drug Administration, three large epidemiology studies since 2000 have shown no harmful effects. CTIA — the Wireless Association, the leading industry trade group, said in a statement, “The overwhelming majority of studies that have been published in scientific journals around the globe show that wireless phones do not pose a health risk.”
The F.D.A. notes, however, that the average period of phone use in the studies it cites was about three years, so the research doesn’t answer questions about long-term exposures. Critics say many studies are flawed for that reason, and also because they do not distinguish between casual and heavy use.
Cellphones emit non-ionizing radiation, waves of energy that are too weak to break chemical bonds or to set off the DNA damage known to cause cancer. There is no known biological mechanism to explain how non-ionizing radiation might lead to cancer.
But researchers who have raised concerns say that just because science can’t explain the mechanism doesn’t mean one doesn’t exist. Concerns have focused on the heat generated by cellphones and the fact that the radio frequencies are absorbed mostly by the head and neck. In recent studies that suggest a risk, the tumors tend to occur on the same side of the head where the patient typically holds the phone.
Like most research on the subject, the studies are observational, showing only an association between cellphone use and cancer, not a causal relationship. The most important of these studies is called Interphone, a vast research effort in 13 countries, including Canada, Israel and several in Europe.
Some of the research suggests a link between cellphone use and three types of tumors: glioma; cancer of the parotid, a salivary gland near the ear; and acoustic neuroma, a tumor that essentially occurs where the ear meets the brain. All these cancers are rare, so even if cellphone use does increase risk, the risk is still very low.
Last year, The American Journal of Epidemiology published data from Israel finding a 58 percent higher risk of parotid gland tumors among heavy cellphone users. Also last year, a Swedish analysis of 16 studies in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine showed a doubling of risk for acoustic neuroma and glioma after 10 years of heavy cellphone use.
“What we’re seeing is suggestions in epidemiological studies that have looked at people using phones for 10 or more years,” says Louis Slesin, editor of Microwave News, an industry publication that tracks the research. “There are some very disconcerting findings that suggest a problem, although it’s much too early to reach a conclusive view.”
Some doctors say the real concern is not older cellphone users, who began using phones as adults, but children who are beginning to use phones today and face a lifetime of exposure.
“More and more kids are using cellphones,” said Dr. Paul J. Rosch, clinical professor of medicine and psychiatry at New York Medical College. “They may be much more affected. Their brains are growing rapidly, and their skulls are thinner.”
For people who are concerned about any possible risk, a simple solution is to use a headset. Of course, that option isn’t always convenient, and some critics have raised worries about wireless devices like the Bluetooth that essentially place a transmitter in the ear.
The fear is that even if the individual risk of using a cellphone is low, with three billion users worldwide, even a minuscule risk would translate into a major public health concern.
“We cannot say with any certainty that cellphones are either safe or not safe,” Dr. Black said on CNN. “My concern is that with the widespread use of cellphones, the worst scenario would be that we get the definitive study 10 years from now, and we find out there is a correlation.”
well@nytimes.com
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Sex problems 'may be heart alert'
Why do some men who take Viagra for ED get heart attacks? It's not from the sudden excitement. If blood flow is impaired to certain parts of the body (such as your private parts) you can be sure it's impaired to other parts of the body; like your heart. This is a warning signal! Why do we always focus on a particular body part without looking at the whole picture?? Thankfully this research may shed light on this important (and impotent) issue and help save some lives.
Says BBC News, "Men with diabetes who are having trouble keeping an erection could be at increased risk of serious heart problems, suggests a study".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7405532.stm
If you have impaired blood flow and diabetes you need to immediatley consult with a nutritionist in addition to your medical doctors. A nutrition and activity program can help tremendously with these conditions, thereby reducing or eliminating your need for prescription meds, and hopefully enhancing the quality of your life without side effects. The last thing any couple wants is for the man to die of a heart attack, especially during sex.
Says BBC News, "Men with diabetes who are having trouble keeping an erection could be at increased risk of serious heart problems, suggests a study".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7405532.stm
If you have impaired blood flow and diabetes you need to immediatley consult with a nutritionist in addition to your medical doctors. A nutrition and activity program can help tremendously with these conditions, thereby reducing or eliminating your need for prescription meds, and hopefully enhancing the quality of your life without side effects. The last thing any couple wants is for the man to die of a heart attack, especially during sex.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Can You Become a Creature of New Habits?
The brain is able to remodel according to the input it receives. By taking small steps and achieving small sucesses you can stimulate the brain to lay down new pathways and become more robust. Do something you enjoy! This can be in the form of mental excercises such as crossword or wordsearch puzzles, physical activity such as walking, jumping rope, or a new sport, or a combination of physical and mental like playing the piano. Remember, do something that interests you and take small steps to avoid frustration and quitting too soon! You can do it!
From the NY Times:
May 4, 2008
By JANET RAE-DUPREE
HABITS are a funny thing. We reach for them mindlessly, setting our brains on auto-pilot and relaxing into the unconscious comfort of familiar routine. “Not choice, but habit rules the unreflecting herd,” William Wordsworth said in the 19th century. In the ever-changing 21st century, even the word “habit” carries a negative connotation.
So it seems antithetical to talk about habits in the same context as creativity and innovation. But brain researchers have discovered that when we consciously develop new habits, we create parallel synaptic paths, and even entirely new brain cells, that can jump our trains of thought onto new, innovative tracks.
Rather than dismissing ourselves as unchangeable creatures of habit, we can instead direct our own change by consciously developing new habits. In fact, the more new things we try — the more we step outside our comfort zone — the more inherently creative we become, both in the workplace and in our personal lives.
But don’t bother trying to kill off old habits; once those ruts of procedure are worn into the hippocampus, they’re there to stay. Instead, the new habits we deliberately ingrain into ourselves create parallel pathways that can bypass those old roads.
“The first thing needed for innovation is a fascination with wonder,” says Dawna Markova, author of “The Open Mind” and an executive change consultant for Professional Thinking Partners. “But we are taught instead to ‘decide,’ just as our president calls himself ‘the Decider.’ ” She adds, however, that “to decide is to kill off all possibilities but one. A good innovational thinker is always exploring the many other possibilities.”
All of us work through problems in ways of which we’re unaware, she says. Researchers in the late 1960s discovered that humans are born with the capacity to approach challenges in four primary ways: analytically, procedurally, relationally (or collaboratively) and innovatively. At puberty, however, the brain shuts down half of that capacity, preserving only those modes of thought that have seemed most valuable during the first decade or so of life.
The current emphasis on standardized testing highlights analysis and procedure, meaning that few of us inherently use our innovative and collaborative modes of thought. “This breaks the major rule in the American belief system — that anyone can do anything,” explains M. J. Ryan, author of the 2006 book “This Year I Will...” and Ms. Markova’s business partner. “That’s a lie that we have perpetuated, and it fosters mediocrity. Knowing what you’re good at and doing even more of it creates excellence.”
This is where developing new habits comes in. If you’re an analytical or procedural thinker, you learn in different ways than someone who is inherently innovative or collaborative. Figure out what has worked for you when you’ve learned in the past, and you can draw your own map for developing additional skills and behaviors for the future.
“I apprentice myself to someone when I want to learn something new or develop a new habit,” Ms. Ryan says. “Other people read a book about it or take a course. If you have a pathway to learning, use it because that’s going to be easier than creating an entirely new pathway in your brain.”
Ms. Ryan and Ms. Markova have found what they call three zones of existence: comfort, stretch and stress. Comfort is the realm of existing habit. Stress occurs when a challenge is so far beyond current experience as to be overwhelming. It’s that stretch zone in the middle — activities that feel a bit awkward and unfamiliar — where true change occurs.
“Getting into the stretch zone is good for you,” Ms. Ryan says in “This Year I Will... .” “It helps keep your brain healthy. It turns out that unless we continue to learn new things, which challenges our brains to create new pathways, they literally begin to atrophy, which may result in dementia, Alzheimer’s and other brain diseases. Continuously stretching ourselves will even help us lose weight, according to one study. Researchers who asked folks to do something different every day — listen to a new radio station, for instance — found that they lost and kept off weight. No one is sure why, but scientists speculate that getting out of routines makes us more aware in general.”
She recommends practicing a Japanese technique called kaizen, which calls for tiny, continuous improvements.
“Whenever we initiate change, even a positive one, we activate fear in our emotional brain,” Ms. Ryan notes in her book. “If the fear is big enough, the fight-or-flight response will go off and we’ll run from what we’re trying to do. The small steps in kaizen don’t set off fight or flight, but rather keep us in the thinking brain, where we have access to our creativity and playfulness.”
Simultaneously, take a look at how colleagues approach challenges, Ms. Markova suggests. We tend to believe that those who think the way we do are smarter than those who don’t. That can be fatal in business, particularly for executives who surround themselves with like-thinkers. If seniority and promotion are based on similarity to those at the top, chances are strong that the company lacks intellectual diversity.
“Try lacing your hands together,” Ms. Markova says. “You habitually do it one way. Now try doing it with the other thumb on top. Feels awkward, doesn’t it? That’s the valuable moment we call confusion, when we fuse the old with the new.”
AFTER the churn of confusion, she says, the brain begins organizing the new input, ultimately creating new synaptic connections if the process is repeated enough.
But if, during creation of that new habit, the “Great Decider” steps in to protest against taking the unfamiliar path, “you get convergence and we keep doing the same thing over and over again,” she says.
“You cannot have innovation,” she adds, “unless you are willing and able to move through the unknown and go from curiosity to wonder.”
Janet Rae-Dupree writes about science and emerging technology in Silicon Valley.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/business/04unbox.html?_r=1&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss&oref=slogin
From the NY Times:
May 4, 2008
By JANET RAE-DUPREE
HABITS are a funny thing. We reach for them mindlessly, setting our brains on auto-pilot and relaxing into the unconscious comfort of familiar routine. “Not choice, but habit rules the unreflecting herd,” William Wordsworth said in the 19th century. In the ever-changing 21st century, even the word “habit” carries a negative connotation.
So it seems antithetical to talk about habits in the same context as creativity and innovation. But brain researchers have discovered that when we consciously develop new habits, we create parallel synaptic paths, and even entirely new brain cells, that can jump our trains of thought onto new, innovative tracks.
Rather than dismissing ourselves as unchangeable creatures of habit, we can instead direct our own change by consciously developing new habits. In fact, the more new things we try — the more we step outside our comfort zone — the more inherently creative we become, both in the workplace and in our personal lives.
But don’t bother trying to kill off old habits; once those ruts of procedure are worn into the hippocampus, they’re there to stay. Instead, the new habits we deliberately ingrain into ourselves create parallel pathways that can bypass those old roads.
“The first thing needed for innovation is a fascination with wonder,” says Dawna Markova, author of “The Open Mind” and an executive change consultant for Professional Thinking Partners. “But we are taught instead to ‘decide,’ just as our president calls himself ‘the Decider.’ ” She adds, however, that “to decide is to kill off all possibilities but one. A good innovational thinker is always exploring the many other possibilities.”
All of us work through problems in ways of which we’re unaware, she says. Researchers in the late 1960s discovered that humans are born with the capacity to approach challenges in four primary ways: analytically, procedurally, relationally (or collaboratively) and innovatively. At puberty, however, the brain shuts down half of that capacity, preserving only those modes of thought that have seemed most valuable during the first decade or so of life.
The current emphasis on standardized testing highlights analysis and procedure, meaning that few of us inherently use our innovative and collaborative modes of thought. “This breaks the major rule in the American belief system — that anyone can do anything,” explains M. J. Ryan, author of the 2006 book “This Year I Will...” and Ms. Markova’s business partner. “That’s a lie that we have perpetuated, and it fosters mediocrity. Knowing what you’re good at and doing even more of it creates excellence.”
This is where developing new habits comes in. If you’re an analytical or procedural thinker, you learn in different ways than someone who is inherently innovative or collaborative. Figure out what has worked for you when you’ve learned in the past, and you can draw your own map for developing additional skills and behaviors for the future.
“I apprentice myself to someone when I want to learn something new or develop a new habit,” Ms. Ryan says. “Other people read a book about it or take a course. If you have a pathway to learning, use it because that’s going to be easier than creating an entirely new pathway in your brain.”
Ms. Ryan and Ms. Markova have found what they call three zones of existence: comfort, stretch and stress. Comfort is the realm of existing habit. Stress occurs when a challenge is so far beyond current experience as to be overwhelming. It’s that stretch zone in the middle — activities that feel a bit awkward and unfamiliar — where true change occurs.
“Getting into the stretch zone is good for you,” Ms. Ryan says in “This Year I Will... .” “It helps keep your brain healthy. It turns out that unless we continue to learn new things, which challenges our brains to create new pathways, they literally begin to atrophy, which may result in dementia, Alzheimer’s and other brain diseases. Continuously stretching ourselves will even help us lose weight, according to one study. Researchers who asked folks to do something different every day — listen to a new radio station, for instance — found that they lost and kept off weight. No one is sure why, but scientists speculate that getting out of routines makes us more aware in general.”
She recommends practicing a Japanese technique called kaizen, which calls for tiny, continuous improvements.
“Whenever we initiate change, even a positive one, we activate fear in our emotional brain,” Ms. Ryan notes in her book. “If the fear is big enough, the fight-or-flight response will go off and we’ll run from what we’re trying to do. The small steps in kaizen don’t set off fight or flight, but rather keep us in the thinking brain, where we have access to our creativity and playfulness.”
Simultaneously, take a look at how colleagues approach challenges, Ms. Markova suggests. We tend to believe that those who think the way we do are smarter than those who don’t. That can be fatal in business, particularly for executives who surround themselves with like-thinkers. If seniority and promotion are based on similarity to those at the top, chances are strong that the company lacks intellectual diversity.
“Try lacing your hands together,” Ms. Markova says. “You habitually do it one way. Now try doing it with the other thumb on top. Feels awkward, doesn’t it? That’s the valuable moment we call confusion, when we fuse the old with the new.”
AFTER the churn of confusion, she says, the brain begins organizing the new input, ultimately creating new synaptic connections if the process is repeated enough.
But if, during creation of that new habit, the “Great Decider” steps in to protest against taking the unfamiliar path, “you get convergence and we keep doing the same thing over and over again,” she says.
“You cannot have innovation,” she adds, “unless you are willing and able to move through the unknown and go from curiosity to wonder.”
Janet Rae-Dupree writes about science and emerging technology in Silicon Valley.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/business/04unbox.html?_r=1&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss&oref=slogin
Evidence a High-Fat Diet Works to Treat Epilepsy
A idea of a hig fat diet to treat epilepsy has been around since the 1920s and has often been dismissed by the medical community. A new British study shows good evidence that it works. I wonder how well essential fatty acids from fish oils and other quality fats like avocado, coconut, and flax would work compared to the highly saturated animal fats that were tested.
From The New York Times:
May 6, 2008
By ALIYAH BARUCHIN
A formerly controversial high-fat diet has proved highly effective in reducing seizures in children whose epilepsy does not respond to medication, British researchers are reporting.
As the first randomized trial of the diet, the new study lends legitimacy to a treatment that has been used since the 1920s but has until recently been dismissed by many doctors as a marginal alternative therapy.
“This is the first time that we’ve really got Class 1 evidence that this diet works for treatment of epilepsy,” said Dr. J. Helen Cross, professor of pediatric neurology at University College London and Great Ormond Street Hospital. She is a principal investigator on the study, which will appear in the June issue of The Lancet Neurology.
Though its exact mechanism is uncertain, the diet appears to work by throwing the body into ketosis, forcing it to burn fat rather than sugar for energy. Breakfast on the diet might consist of bacon, eggs with cheese, and a cup of heavy cream diluted with water; some children drink oil to obtain the fats that they need. Every gram of food is weighed, and carbohydrates are almost entirely restricted. Breaking the diet with so much as a few cookies can cause seizures to flare up.
For the British trial, the researchers enrolled 145 children ages 2 to 16 who had never tried the diet, who were having at least seven seizures a week and who had failed to respond to at least two anticonvulsant drugs.
One group began the ketogenic diet immediately. The control group waited three months before starting it. In the first group, 38 percent of the children had seizure rates reduced by half, compared with 6 percent in the control group. Five children in the diet group had reductions exceeding 90 percent.
Perceptions of the diet have changed sharply in the last decade. In 1993, a Hollywood producer, Jim Abrahams, took his 1-year-old son, Charlie, to Dr. John M. Freeman at the Pediatric Epilepsy Center at Johns Hopkins, which was one of the few centers championing the diet. Within three days of starting the diet, Charlie’s incapacitating seizures, which had resisted multiple medications and surgery, stopped entirely.
With his wife, Nancy, Mr. Abrahams founded the Charlie Foundation to Help Cure Pediatric Epilepsy to promote education about the diet. He produced an instructional video for parents and a made-for-television movie, “First Do No Harm,” starring Meryl Streep as a mother who seeks out the diet for her child.
As a result of the Johns Hopkins work, research on the diet blossomed and it became a standard treatment at hospitals and epilepsy centers in the United States and abroad.
Dr. Shlomo Shinnar, director of the Comprehensive Epilepsy Management Center at the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, called the new study “an important trial that lays to rest the issue of ‘Does it really work or not?’ ”
Although the diet has to be medically supervised, Dr. Shinnar said, it is a mistake to believe that it requires extensive hospital resources and a staff’s constant attention. “Here they don’t have this,” he said of the British trial. “This study makes it clear that this actually can be made to work in a community setting.”
From The New York Times:
May 6, 2008
By ALIYAH BARUCHIN
A formerly controversial high-fat diet has proved highly effective in reducing seizures in children whose epilepsy does not respond to medication, British researchers are reporting.
As the first randomized trial of the diet, the new study lends legitimacy to a treatment that has been used since the 1920s but has until recently been dismissed by many doctors as a marginal alternative therapy.
“This is the first time that we’ve really got Class 1 evidence that this diet works for treatment of epilepsy,” said Dr. J. Helen Cross, professor of pediatric neurology at University College London and Great Ormond Street Hospital. She is a principal investigator on the study, which will appear in the June issue of The Lancet Neurology.
Though its exact mechanism is uncertain, the diet appears to work by throwing the body into ketosis, forcing it to burn fat rather than sugar for energy. Breakfast on the diet might consist of bacon, eggs with cheese, and a cup of heavy cream diluted with water; some children drink oil to obtain the fats that they need. Every gram of food is weighed, and carbohydrates are almost entirely restricted. Breaking the diet with so much as a few cookies can cause seizures to flare up.
For the British trial, the researchers enrolled 145 children ages 2 to 16 who had never tried the diet, who were having at least seven seizures a week and who had failed to respond to at least two anticonvulsant drugs.
One group began the ketogenic diet immediately. The control group waited three months before starting it. In the first group, 38 percent of the children had seizure rates reduced by half, compared with 6 percent in the control group. Five children in the diet group had reductions exceeding 90 percent.
Perceptions of the diet have changed sharply in the last decade. In 1993, a Hollywood producer, Jim Abrahams, took his 1-year-old son, Charlie, to Dr. John M. Freeman at the Pediatric Epilepsy Center at Johns Hopkins, which was one of the few centers championing the diet. Within three days of starting the diet, Charlie’s incapacitating seizures, which had resisted multiple medications and surgery, stopped entirely.
With his wife, Nancy, Mr. Abrahams founded the Charlie Foundation to Help Cure Pediatric Epilepsy to promote education about the diet. He produced an instructional video for parents and a made-for-television movie, “First Do No Harm,” starring Meryl Streep as a mother who seeks out the diet for her child.
As a result of the Johns Hopkins work, research on the diet blossomed and it became a standard treatment at hospitals and epilepsy centers in the United States and abroad.
Dr. Shlomo Shinnar, director of the Comprehensive Epilepsy Management Center at the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, called the new study “an important trial that lays to rest the issue of ‘Does it really work or not?’ ”
Although the diet has to be medically supervised, Dr. Shinnar said, it is a mistake to believe that it requires extensive hospital resources and a staff’s constant attention. “Here they don’t have this,” he said of the British trial. “This study makes it clear that this actually can be made to work in a community setting.”
Fat Cells Die and Are Replaced
Fat cells never go away! Arrrghh! If you lose weight they're just waiting for you to eat that bag of potatoe chips to fill up again! You just can't get away from being active, getting a good night's sleep, and a proper diet.
From the New York Times:
May 5, 2008
Study Finds That Fat Cells Die and Are Replaced
By GINA KOLATA
Every year, whether you are fat or thin, whether you lose weight or gain, 10 percent of your fat cells die. And every year, those cells that die are replaced with new fat cells, researchers in Sweden reported Sunday.
The result is that the total number of fat cells in the body remains the same, year after year throughout adulthood. Losing or gaining weight affects only the amount of fat stored in the cells, not the number of cells.
The finding was published online Sunday in the journal Nature.
Obesity investigators say the study raises tantalizing questions: What determines how many fat cells are in a person’s body? When is that number determined? Is there a way to intervene so people end up with fewer fat cells when they reach adulthood? And could obesity be treated by making fat cells die faster than they are born?
“This is a new way of looking at obesity,” said Dr. Lester Salans, an obesity researcher and emeritus professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.
But for now, researchers say, they do not have a clue about how to answer those questions.
“There is a system waiting to be discovered,” said Dr. Jeffrey S. Flier, an obesity researcher and dean of Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Flier and other obesity researchers cautioned, though, that even if scientists knew how the fat cell system worked, it was not clear that it would be safe or effective to treat obesity by intervening. One of the hard lessons of the past couple of decades has been that the body has redundant controls to maintain weight.
“I suspect that the body’s regulation of weight is so complex that if you intervene at this site, something else is going to happen to neutralize this intervention,” Dr. Salans said.
But the discovery is also leading to new ways to address other questions about obesity. For example, what happens to people who are thin until adulthood and then gain a lot of weight? The study focused on people who had been fat since childhood, the usual route for adult obesity. The situation may be different for people who got fat later. They may actually grow new fat cells — the ones they had may have become so stuffed with fat that they could hold no more.
Another question is whether fat cells removed with liposuction grow back.
Both questions are now under investigation by the Swedish researchers.
In a way, Dr. Flier noted, the discovery is a sort of back-to-the-future moment. There was a time a few decades ago, before the current interest in how the brain regulates how much is eaten, when obesity researchers spent all their time studying and discussing fat cells. Investigators discovered that fat people had more fat cells than thin people and that fat cells shrank with weight loss and bulged with weight gain.
Dr. Jules Hirsch of Rockefeller University in New York, who did many of the initial studies with humans, said he started because he could not understand why people who lost weight regained. “They should have been cured,” Dr. Hirsch said. After all, he said, if you cut out a fatty tumor, the fat does not grow back. Why was fat lost from dieting different?
The result was the fat cell hypothesis, a notion that obsessed researchers. Fat cells, the hypothesis said, are laid down early in life and after that, they can change only in size, not in number. When people lose weight and their fat cells shrink, that creates a signal to fill the cells again, making people regain. “We didn’t know a lot about obesity, so that was what we talked about,” Dr. Flier said.
But the discussions stalled. It was not clear what to do about those discoveries or what they meant to efforts to help people lose weight. And no one had a method to ask whether fat cells were being created and destroyed during life. Few even thought to ask that question.
That changed only recently when the new paper’s first author, Kirsty L. Spalding, a neurobiologist at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, developed a way to ask whether new cells grow in the cortical and cerebellum regions of the human brain. She found no new cells there since birth. One day, she was giving a talk on her brain study when a scientist in the audience, Erik Arner, suggested she use the method to look at fat cells. (Dr. Arner is the second author of Dr. Spalding’s paper.) The method for dating human cells takes advantage of an effect caused by above-ground nuclear bomb testing that took place from 1955 to 1963.
When the bombs were tested, their radioactivity created a spike in the amount of a carbon isotope, C14, in the atmosphere. The C14 made its way into plants and animals that ate the plants. When people ate those plants and meat from the animals, the C14 was incorporated into their human DNA. After the nuclear test ban, C14 levels started to drop. The result is that every cell has a C14 level that reflects the level in the atmosphere at the time the cell was born.
“Each cell is a time capsule of sorts,” Dr. Spalding said.
First the researchers confirmed that the number of fat cells remained constant in adults. Obese people who had weight loss surgery had as many fat cells two years after the surgery as before it, even though they were much thinner.
Then the investigators asked whether fat cells were being born and dying. To do that, they examined fat cells taken from 35 people, fat and lean, who had had liposuction or abdominal wall reconstruction. The amount of C14 in the cells would reveal how old the cells were. Since the number of fat cells remained constant, the number being born had to equal the number dying. And a mathematical model would reveal the dynamics of the cell turnover.
“We found the cells were really quite young,” Dr. Spalding said. “That tells us new cells are being born.”
She added: “The million-dollar question now is, What regulates this process? And where can we intervene?”
From the New York Times:
May 5, 2008
Study Finds That Fat Cells Die and Are Replaced
By GINA KOLATA
Every year, whether you are fat or thin, whether you lose weight or gain, 10 percent of your fat cells die. And every year, those cells that die are replaced with new fat cells, researchers in Sweden reported Sunday.
The result is that the total number of fat cells in the body remains the same, year after year throughout adulthood. Losing or gaining weight affects only the amount of fat stored in the cells, not the number of cells.
The finding was published online Sunday in the journal Nature.
Obesity investigators say the study raises tantalizing questions: What determines how many fat cells are in a person’s body? When is that number determined? Is there a way to intervene so people end up with fewer fat cells when they reach adulthood? And could obesity be treated by making fat cells die faster than they are born?
“This is a new way of looking at obesity,” said Dr. Lester Salans, an obesity researcher and emeritus professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.
But for now, researchers say, they do not have a clue about how to answer those questions.
“There is a system waiting to be discovered,” said Dr. Jeffrey S. Flier, an obesity researcher and dean of Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Flier and other obesity researchers cautioned, though, that even if scientists knew how the fat cell system worked, it was not clear that it would be safe or effective to treat obesity by intervening. One of the hard lessons of the past couple of decades has been that the body has redundant controls to maintain weight.
“I suspect that the body’s regulation of weight is so complex that if you intervene at this site, something else is going to happen to neutralize this intervention,” Dr. Salans said.
But the discovery is also leading to new ways to address other questions about obesity. For example, what happens to people who are thin until adulthood and then gain a lot of weight? The study focused on people who had been fat since childhood, the usual route for adult obesity. The situation may be different for people who got fat later. They may actually grow new fat cells — the ones they had may have become so stuffed with fat that they could hold no more.
Another question is whether fat cells removed with liposuction grow back.
Both questions are now under investigation by the Swedish researchers.
In a way, Dr. Flier noted, the discovery is a sort of back-to-the-future moment. There was a time a few decades ago, before the current interest in how the brain regulates how much is eaten, when obesity researchers spent all their time studying and discussing fat cells. Investigators discovered that fat people had more fat cells than thin people and that fat cells shrank with weight loss and bulged with weight gain.
Dr. Jules Hirsch of Rockefeller University in New York, who did many of the initial studies with humans, said he started because he could not understand why people who lost weight regained. “They should have been cured,” Dr. Hirsch said. After all, he said, if you cut out a fatty tumor, the fat does not grow back. Why was fat lost from dieting different?
The result was the fat cell hypothesis, a notion that obsessed researchers. Fat cells, the hypothesis said, are laid down early in life and after that, they can change only in size, not in number. When people lose weight and their fat cells shrink, that creates a signal to fill the cells again, making people regain. “We didn’t know a lot about obesity, so that was what we talked about,” Dr. Flier said.
But the discussions stalled. It was not clear what to do about those discoveries or what they meant to efforts to help people lose weight. And no one had a method to ask whether fat cells were being created and destroyed during life. Few even thought to ask that question.
That changed only recently when the new paper’s first author, Kirsty L. Spalding, a neurobiologist at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, developed a way to ask whether new cells grow in the cortical and cerebellum regions of the human brain. She found no new cells there since birth. One day, she was giving a talk on her brain study when a scientist in the audience, Erik Arner, suggested she use the method to look at fat cells. (Dr. Arner is the second author of Dr. Spalding’s paper.) The method for dating human cells takes advantage of an effect caused by above-ground nuclear bomb testing that took place from 1955 to 1963.
When the bombs were tested, their radioactivity created a spike in the amount of a carbon isotope, C14, in the atmosphere. The C14 made its way into plants and animals that ate the plants. When people ate those plants and meat from the animals, the C14 was incorporated into their human DNA. After the nuclear test ban, C14 levels started to drop. The result is that every cell has a C14 level that reflects the level in the atmosphere at the time the cell was born.
“Each cell is a time capsule of sorts,” Dr. Spalding said.
First the researchers confirmed that the number of fat cells remained constant in adults. Obese people who had weight loss surgery had as many fat cells two years after the surgery as before it, even though they were much thinner.
Then the investigators asked whether fat cells were being born and dying. To do that, they examined fat cells taken from 35 people, fat and lean, who had had liposuction or abdominal wall reconstruction. The amount of C14 in the cells would reveal how old the cells were. Since the number of fat cells remained constant, the number being born had to equal the number dying. And a mathematical model would reveal the dynamics of the cell turnover.
“We found the cells were really quite young,” Dr. Spalding said. “That tells us new cells are being born.”
She added: “The million-dollar question now is, What regulates this process? And where can we intervene?”
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Study: Chiropractic Care Helps Concentration
A small but growing group of very progressive chiropractors is showing the world that chiropractic is neurology. Structure and function are interdependent upon one another. Watch the video to see a bit of how this works. The goal is to build new neural pathways and enhance the existing ones through specific brain exercises. While brain exercises seem to be the buzz today, remember that chiropractors have been addressing the nervous system since 1895, and today are very well equipped to do so, especially with intensive post graduate programs in different areas of specialty such as neurology.
Study: Chiropractic Care Helps Concentration - News Story - KXAS Dallas
LAKE HIGHLANDS, Texas -- A small study last month in Switzerland offered more evidence that chiropractic care can help adults with concentration problems and attention deficits, NBC 5 reports. Tuesday, October 16, 2007.
Click on the link:
http://video.nbc5i.com/player/?id=164894
Study: Chiropractic Care Helps Concentration - News Story - KXAS Dallas
LAKE HIGHLANDS, Texas -- A small study last month in Switzerland offered more evidence that chiropractic care can help adults with concentration problems and attention deficits, NBC 5 reports. Tuesday, October 16, 2007.
Click on the link:
http://video.nbc5i.com/player/?id=164894
Monday, April 28, 2008
Neurotoxicity
Neurotoxicity is defined as the capacity of chemical, biological, or physical agents in your environment to cause abnormal changes in the nervous system. It is well recognized that exposure to toxic chemicals in the environment can cause neurological and psychiatric illnesses. We use the term environmental neurotoxicity to refer broadly to adverse neurological response to a wide variety of substances that cause injury to the brain including diet, alcohol, tobaccos, drugs, and other toxic substances in the air, water, and soil. About 70,000 chemicals are in the environment. Of these, only a handful have been evaluated thoroughly for neurotoxicity. The picture becomes even more frightening when we consider that decades can pass between exposure to a chemical and symptoms. This is called latent toxicity. These chemicals saturate and reside in your fat cells in your abdomen, breast, buttocks, and the sheaths around your nerves. These toxins gradually leach out into the system. Many times when you begin to lose weight we find cases of neurotoxicity.
Many of us are exposed to toxic chemicals in the environment. It has been suggested that many signs of sub-clinical toxicity are more common than we think.
These are the common signs of neurotoxicity:
· Insomnia
· Weakness
· Visual disorders
· Confusion
· Heart symptoms like palpitations & arrhythmia
· Headaches
· Irritability
· Tension
· Nerve disorders, i.e. Parkinson’s
· Chronic fatigue
· Chronic pain
· Poor memory
· Depression
· Nervousness
· Sleep disturbances
· Skin inflammation
There are five major environmental toxins:
· Mercury
· Lead
· Cadmium
· Arsenic
· Aluminum
At the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in NYC volunteers were tested for the presence of 210 chemicals commonly found in consumer products and industrial pollutants in the NY tri-state area. Tests on blood and urine detected on average 91 industrial compounds, pollutants, and chemicals in New Yorkers.
There is no way to avoid these chemicals. We must make our system that detoxifies these toxins efficient in clearing these from our body by using nutrition, diet, exercise, and any other methods since we can’t avoid them entering.
Glutathione clears these xenobiotics. Glutathione and lipoic acid repair neurons and neuronal membranes and omega 3 oils repair cell membranes.
It is imperative for us to take control of our health because no else is going to do it for us. There are increasingly more and more toxins and chemicals being added to the environment annually. We only have one liver to detoxify us and it may have difficulty in doing its job. We must support it with lots of fresh clean water every day and lots of fruits and vegetables, especially cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, asparagus, Brussels sprouts, kale, collards, etc.
Many of us are exposed to toxic chemicals in the environment. It has been suggested that many signs of sub-clinical toxicity are more common than we think.
These are the common signs of neurotoxicity:
· Insomnia
· Weakness
· Visual disorders
· Confusion
· Heart symptoms like palpitations & arrhythmia
· Headaches
· Irritability
· Tension
· Nerve disorders, i.e. Parkinson’s
· Chronic fatigue
· Chronic pain
· Poor memory
· Depression
· Nervousness
· Sleep disturbances
· Skin inflammation
There are five major environmental toxins:
· Mercury
· Lead
· Cadmium
· Arsenic
· Aluminum
At the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in NYC volunteers were tested for the presence of 210 chemicals commonly found in consumer products and industrial pollutants in the NY tri-state area. Tests on blood and urine detected on average 91 industrial compounds, pollutants, and chemicals in New Yorkers.
There is no way to avoid these chemicals. We must make our system that detoxifies these toxins efficient in clearing these from our body by using nutrition, diet, exercise, and any other methods since we can’t avoid them entering.
Glutathione clears these xenobiotics. Glutathione and lipoic acid repair neurons and neuronal membranes and omega 3 oils repair cell membranes.
It is imperative for us to take control of our health because no else is going to do it for us. There are increasingly more and more toxins and chemicals being added to the environment annually. We only have one liver to detoxify us and it may have difficulty in doing its job. We must support it with lots of fresh clean water every day and lots of fruits and vegetables, especially cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, asparagus, Brussels sprouts, kale, collards, etc.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Key Nutrients Reverse Brain AgingHealth News
This is an article from the staff at Vitamin Research Products, one of the cutting edge companies that I deal with. The brain is under assault today from envirnomental toxins, lack of proper sleep and nutrition, and couch potato-ism. Consequently we have the highest rates of neruodegenerative diseases in history. The old science said that the brain and it's wiring were set in our youth. Whatever we lost could not be regained. We now know otherwise. Exercises and activities, improved sleep, hydration, and nutrition can all be implemented to build new brain cells, neurotransmitters, and pathways.
By VRP Staff
For years, the health of your brain cells was largely considered a one-shot deal: Your neurons had a single non-dividing lifespan — and once they were gone, there was no replacing them.
Making matters worse, any further loss of neurites and dendrites (the branches that form your brain’s massive communication network) could take what would be an otherwise normal loss of brain cells and turn it into a much more serious (and equally irreversible) condition — one marked by anything from minor physical and behavioral impairments to a state of complete senility.
Luckily, the scientific community has since done an about face on this particular matter.
More recent research has revealed that brain cells can replace themselves and regrow their communication networks, if given the right environment. In fact, just by boosting your intake of a few key nutrients, you can improve cognitive health — and even turn back the clock where cognitive decline has already started to settle in.
Among these nutrients, acetyl carnitine could be considered the most important. Laboratory studies have shown that this nutrient increases the revitalizing effects of nerve growth factor (NGF) on brain cells — helping to boost neurite outgrowth a full 100 times greater than NGF alone.1 And when taken in combination with acetyl carnitine arginate, the two act synergistically to boost the production of key neurotransmitters, like GABA and glutamate.2
These powerful effects are reflected in a number of human trials—all of which have shown that acetyl carnitine yields significant improvements in cognition.3
Uridine is also an important and little known ingredient for brain function—it provides the necessary components for cell membrane growth and memory-related neural signaling. In vitro analysis has revealed that human brain cells exposed to uridine experience increased neurite outgrowth and regeneration — results that carried over in vivo, when tested in aged rats.4-5
Similar applications can be seen with gotu kola, an Indian plant with a long history of use in Ayurvedic preparations for senility, epilepsy, and other nervous conditions. Studies performed in the last decade have only reinforced this reputation: Scientists have identified two of gotu kola’s unique compounds — asiaticosides and asiatic acid — as being particularly active, sparking repair of damaged neurons and higher brain functioning in both animal and in vitro studies.6
References:
Tagliatatela G, Angelucci L, Ramacci MT, et al. “Acetyl-L-carnitine enhances the response of PC12 cells to nerve growth factor.” Brain Res Dev Brain Res. 1991 Apr 24;59(2):221-30.
Westlund KN, LU Y, Werrbach-Perez K, et al. “Effects of nerve growth factor and acetyl-L-carnitine arginyl amide on the human neuronal line HCN-1A. Int J Dev Neurosci. 1992 Oct;10(5):361-73.
Montgomery SA, Thai LJ, Amrein R. “Meta-analysis of double-blind randomized controlled clinical trials of acetyl-L-carnitine versus placebo in the treatment of mild cognitive impairment and mild Alzheimer’s disease.” Int Clin Psychopharmacol. 2003 Mar;18(2): 61-71.
Pooler Am, Guez DH, Benedictus R, et al. “Uridine enhances neurite outgrowth in nerve growth factor-differentiated PC12 [corrected].” Neuroscience. 2005; 134(1):207-14.
Wang L, Pooler AM, Albrecht MA, et al. “Dietary uridine-5-monophosphate supplementation increases potassium-evoked dopamine release and promotes neurite outgrowth in aged rats. J Mol Neurosci. 2005;27(1):137-45.
Soumyanth A, Zhong YP, Gold SA, et al. “Centella asiatica accelerates nerve regeneration upon oral administration and contains multiple fractions increasing neurite elongation in-vitro.” J Pharm Pharmacol. 2005 Sept;57(9):1221-9.
By VRP Staff
For years, the health of your brain cells was largely considered a one-shot deal: Your neurons had a single non-dividing lifespan — and once they were gone, there was no replacing them.
Making matters worse, any further loss of neurites and dendrites (the branches that form your brain’s massive communication network) could take what would be an otherwise normal loss of brain cells and turn it into a much more serious (and equally irreversible) condition — one marked by anything from minor physical and behavioral impairments to a state of complete senility.
Luckily, the scientific community has since done an about face on this particular matter.
More recent research has revealed that brain cells can replace themselves and regrow their communication networks, if given the right environment. In fact, just by boosting your intake of a few key nutrients, you can improve cognitive health — and even turn back the clock where cognitive decline has already started to settle in.
Among these nutrients, acetyl carnitine could be considered the most important. Laboratory studies have shown that this nutrient increases the revitalizing effects of nerve growth factor (NGF) on brain cells — helping to boost neurite outgrowth a full 100 times greater than NGF alone.1 And when taken in combination with acetyl carnitine arginate, the two act synergistically to boost the production of key neurotransmitters, like GABA and glutamate.2
These powerful effects are reflected in a number of human trials—all of which have shown that acetyl carnitine yields significant improvements in cognition.3
Uridine is also an important and little known ingredient for brain function—it provides the necessary components for cell membrane growth and memory-related neural signaling. In vitro analysis has revealed that human brain cells exposed to uridine experience increased neurite outgrowth and regeneration — results that carried over in vivo, when tested in aged rats.4-5
Similar applications can be seen with gotu kola, an Indian plant with a long history of use in Ayurvedic preparations for senility, epilepsy, and other nervous conditions. Studies performed in the last decade have only reinforced this reputation: Scientists have identified two of gotu kola’s unique compounds — asiaticosides and asiatic acid — as being particularly active, sparking repair of damaged neurons and higher brain functioning in both animal and in vitro studies.6
References:
Tagliatatela G, Angelucci L, Ramacci MT, et al. “Acetyl-L-carnitine enhances the response of PC12 cells to nerve growth factor.” Brain Res Dev Brain Res. 1991 Apr 24;59(2):221-30.
Westlund KN, LU Y, Werrbach-Perez K, et al. “Effects of nerve growth factor and acetyl-L-carnitine arginyl amide on the human neuronal line HCN-1A. Int J Dev Neurosci. 1992 Oct;10(5):361-73.
Montgomery SA, Thai LJ, Amrein R. “Meta-analysis of double-blind randomized controlled clinical trials of acetyl-L-carnitine versus placebo in the treatment of mild cognitive impairment and mild Alzheimer’s disease.” Int Clin Psychopharmacol. 2003 Mar;18(2): 61-71.
Pooler Am, Guez DH, Benedictus R, et al. “Uridine enhances neurite outgrowth in nerve growth factor-differentiated PC12 [corrected].” Neuroscience. 2005; 134(1):207-14.
Wang L, Pooler AM, Albrecht MA, et al. “Dietary uridine-5-monophosphate supplementation increases potassium-evoked dopamine release and promotes neurite outgrowth in aged rats. J Mol Neurosci. 2005;27(1):137-45.
Soumyanth A, Zhong YP, Gold SA, et al. “Centella asiatica accelerates nerve regeneration upon oral administration and contains multiple fractions increasing neurite elongation in-vitro.” J Pharm Pharmacol. 2005 Sept;57(9):1221-9.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Use of brain-boosting drugs reported in survey
From a story on CNN we learn that one in 5 respondants to a survey reported that they take brain enhancing drugs.
There's a drug solution for everything, isn't there? A better brain builder is good sleep, adequate water intake, a variety of excercises, and thinking activities like crossowrd puzzles and reading! This takes some effort compared to popping some pills, but you will be buidling new neural pathways that provide natural drugs the brain produces. This will enhance your performance for the long term. Drugs provide temporary results but then wear away. In the course of time higher doses are needed to provide the same results. Soon you're addicted and what will you do then? Not to mention all kinds of awful side effects including a weakening of the system you took the drug for in the first place. The brain will be dependant upon the drug since you effectively shut down it's natural production of dopamine and other critical neurotransmitters.
There's a drug solution for everything, isn't there? A better brain builder is good sleep, adequate water intake, a variety of excercises, and thinking activities like crossowrd puzzles and reading! This takes some effort compared to popping some pills, but you will be buidling new neural pathways that provide natural drugs the brain produces. This will enhance your performance for the long term. Drugs provide temporary results but then wear away. In the course of time higher doses are needed to provide the same results. Soon you're addicted and what will you do then? Not to mention all kinds of awful side effects including a weakening of the system you took the drug for in the first place. The brain will be dependant upon the drug since you effectively shut down it's natural production of dopamine and other critical neurotransmitters.
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Saturday, March 29, 2008
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