Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Party Time

Don't Drive Glutened.   Or Drunk.  Or High.
Don't do this, either.

Make it through the night.
Thanks.

Next year will be better, next year will be better, next year will be better, next year will be better... 

Song of the Year

Wake Me Up-  Avicii

Makes me want to eat some sugar and take a nap.

As I was saying

Sugar intake must come down, says WHO – but UK likely to resist
British government's advisory committee, some of whom receive funding from food industry, sceptical about link with obesity.
The entire article is erroneous information.    

Monday, December 30, 2013

Update from the Center of the Vortex

Can Books Cure Depression? UK Operates Bibliotherapy Program For Mental Illness 

Presciption: Go away, and if things go wrong, we can blame the books.
I read those damn self help books for two decades searching for something that helped.  They are total bullshit.  As effective as "sleep hygiene".   Which means I got nothing but worse.
This librarian is furious. 

Why don't they just admit they have no freaking clue what to do????

For the record, one correct book was published 25 years ago.   Twenty dollars says it's not on their list.

Some Good Stuff

Mercy me, three from The Atlantic at the same time!  And I had given up on their fruit-and-veg pushing health section...

This Is Your Brain on Gluten
Doctors Perlmutter and Lustig get very close to the truth.  

Why Some People Respond to Stress by Falling Asleep
Skip the psych nonsense and go to the end-  orexin in there!

The Devious Ad Campaign That Convinced America Coffee Was Bad for Kids
And cereal was good.  Heh.

This is Why

Kill Me Now: The Troubled Life And Complicated Death Of Jana Van Voorhis
        An Arizona woman sought relief from terrible maladies that did not exist.

Because nobody diagnosed the illnesses that did exist.
And so it goes.

Sunday, December 29, 2013

More Fruits and Vegetables!

Obese, but starving: Girl, 12, denied weight-loss surgery for rare illness

They cut her calories, give her nightly insulin injections... and now she needs surgery?

Head. Desk. Head. Desk. Head. Desk. Head. Desk.

Welcome to the matrix, darlin'.

Zombie of the Year

No contest.  Nobody else even came close.

Rob Ford.

Sugar.  Alcohol.  Stimulants.
Behold the power of the vortex.

Saturday, December 28, 2013

Maniac of the Year

Behold the power of dopamine.

Edward Snowden.

Wicked Smart. Rigorously Righteous. Hyper vigilant. Impulsive.

The crucial thing to remember is that dopamine causes increased neural activity.  Low levels of added dopamine are beneficial to memory and reflexes.  High levels cause uncontrollable thinking and behavior.
I only hope he avoids the usual outcome... self-destruction.

Take care, young man.

Runners Up

I just saw this for the first time.  It's perfect.

A Sorority Girl Lashes Out At Her Sisters
NSFW.  Very nasty language.   She needs some mouth rinse.  Ha!

If you want to know how mania manifests in everyday life- that is it.
SCREAMING and cursing.   Righteous ranting about insignificant things.
Trust me. 
Been there, done that.  Over and over.

And this is the funniest study I saw all year.
Impulse control problems, indeed...

Friday, December 27, 2013

Brain Eating Zombies of the Year

So many choices...
Merck
Jazz
American Heart Association

I'm going with the FDA. For enabling all the others. 
Their sole mission now seems to be greasing the path for drug companies to get their chemicals into our circulatory systems.
FDA: Anti-smoking drug Chantix linked to more than 500 suicides
But they don't pull it off the market...

Pharmaceutical firms paid to attend meetings of panel that advises FDA
Well, it doesn't get much more blatant than that.

Against medical advice, FDA approves potent new painkiller
Against the recommendation of their own medical advisory board.   Seriously.

FDA says new cholesterol drugs may not need outcome studies
Dammit, that is their job.  To make sure they know what the drugs do, before they are approved.   Why would anyone assume all cholesterol reducers work the same way?

Sure they had a meeting for Narcolepsy patients.    But their expert panel didn't seem to know the first thing about narcolepsy.   And their ignorance and institutional indulgence is the reason Xyrem is being given to children.

They are the center of the Matrix.

Thursday, December 26, 2013

Duh Science

Toys, books, cribs can harbor bacteria for long periods
University at Buffalo research published today in Infection and Immunity shows that Streptococcus pneumoniae and Streptococcus pyogenes do persist on surfaces for far longer than has been appreciated. The findings suggest that additional precautions may be necessary to prevent infections, especially in settings such as schools, daycare centers and hospitals.
...
The UB researchers found that in the day care center, four out of five stuffed toys tested positive for S. pneumonaie and several surfaces, such as cribs, tested positive for S. pyogenes, even after being cleaned. The testing was done just prior to the center opening in the morning so it had been many hours since the last human contact
...
Hakansson and his co-authors became interested in the possibility that some bacteria might persist on surfaces when they published work last year showing that bacteria form biofilms when colonizing human tissues. They found that these sophisticated, highly structured biofilm communities are hardier than other forms of bacteria.
I'm shocked, shocked to find bacteria going on in here...

Organizations that give teddy bears to hospitalized kids make me scream at the TV.  
Fluffy snot collectors.  Disgusting.

Nightmare of the Year

Nevada busses the mentally ill out of state with no resources.
     The Sacramento Bee's index of all the articles of their investigation.

If only this were an aberration-  but it's not.
This is the Basic Business Model of Mental Health Treatment:

If you have insurance and your symptoms are mild, they are happy to sedate you.
They will put you on as many drugs as you can take.
Their shit doesn't address the underlying medical problems though- so you will get worse.
And when you do. you will lose your job and your income.
And then they will refuse to treat you.
And then you won't even have your sedatives.
And you will become psychotic.
And end up in jail.   Or Dead.

Either way- you're no longer their problem.

For a century now, Psychs have been making money off the fact that if they just distract you long enough, you will not come back.
Plausible Deniability is the hallmark behavior of Sociopaths.

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Merry Merry

"Carol of the Brains" — A Zombie Christmas Video

Impulse Control Problems

No I don't care to explain.
If you don't like it, don't read my blog.

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Oh Really

Glucose: Potential new target for combating annual seasonal influenza
Reducing viruses' glucose supply weakens the microbes' ability to infect host cells.
Dr. Adamson and Kohio boosted glucose concentrations in the laboratory cell cultures, and influenza infection rate concomitantly increased. Treating the viral cells with a chemical that inhibits glucose metabolism significantly decreased viral replication in the lab cultures. The researchers also demonstrated that the infection could be restored to high levels simply by adding ATP, the major source of energy for cellular reactions, bypassing the need for glucose.
Do you know what inhibits glucose metabolism?  A ketogenic diet.

Just Stop It

Southampton researchers help develop smart bra to measure mood to prevent over-eating
The prototype contains removable sensors that monitor heart and skin activity. The data collected is processed via a model to determine the emotional state and the intervention is sent to the wearer via a smartphone app. These physical symptoms are supposed to indicate mood, which a woman can track in order to highlight when 'emotional eating' is likely to occur.
Now I understand you boys might like to play around with electronic bras, but you engineers know nothing about women or metabolism. Go back to your labs and build a shock collar for yourself- one that fires when you have stupid ideas like this.

The Circle of Insanity

Study: Pay Kids to Eat Fruits, Vegetables
The good news: Research suggests that a new federal rule has prompted the nation's schools to serve an extra $5.4 million worth of fruits and vegetables each day.
The bad news: The nation's children throw about $3.8 million of that in the garbage each day.
Good Grief.  I don't know which is more disturbing- the  economic waste or the erroneous dietary guidelines.
The case against using bribes in parenting is perhaps best articulated in Alfie Kohn's 1999 book "Punished by Rewards." In many scenarios, the use of rewards can crush internal motivation. With healthy eating, for example, some fear that prizes will prevent children from developing their own motivation to eat things that are good for them. Another danger, known as a boomerang effect, is the possibility that some children would eat less fruits and vegetables when the rewards disappeared.
That's why Price and Just measured fruit and vegetable consumption before and after the week-long experiments. When the week of prizes ended, students went back to the same level of fruit and vegetable consumption as before -- no lasting improvement, but no boomerang effect either.  Now the researchers are studying whether extending the experiments over three to five weeks might yield lasting change.
So many studies.   No improvement in behavior or health.  So do more studies...
Good work if you can get it, I guess.

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Follow the Money

GSK to stop paying doctors to make speeches 

Now that they have been exposed...   How very kind of them.

Doesn't mean it will stop hiring them as "consultants" now does it?

Not to mention they've got Obamacare now and that new trade deal in the works.

Off Topic

But so interesting.  I've assumed this for a while-

No two people smell the same 
There are about 400 genes coding for the receptors in our noses, and according to the 1000 Genomes Project, there are more than 900,000 variations of those genes. These receptors control the sensors that determine how we smell odors. A given odor will activate a suite of receptors in the nose, creating a specific signal for the brain.
But the receptors don't work the same for all of us, said Hiroaki Matsunami, Ph.D., associate professor of molecular genetics and microbiology at the Duke University School of Medicine. In fact, when comparing the receptors in any two people, they should be about 30 percent different, said Matsunami, who is also a member of the Neurobiology Graduate Program and the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences.
"There are many cases when you say you like the way something smells and other people don't. That's very common," Matsunami said. But what the researchers found is that no two people smell things the same way. "We found that individuals can be very different at the receptor levels, meaning that when we smell something, the receptors that are activated can be very different (from one person to the next) depending on your genome."

Monday, December 16, 2013

ICYMI

The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder
The rise of A.D.H.D. diagnoses and prescriptions for stimulants over the years coincided with a remarkably successful two-decade campaign by pharmaceutical companies to publicize the syndrome and promote the pills to doctors, educators and parents. With the children’s market booming, the industry is now employing similar marketing techniques as it focuses on adult A.D.H.D., which could become even more profitable.  

Theory and Practice

Scientists Improve Human Self-Control Through Electrical Brain Stimulation
"There is a circuit in the brain for inhibiting or braking responses," said Nitin Tandon, M.D., the study's senior author and associate professor in The Vivian L. Smith Department of Neurosurgery at the UTHealth Medical School. "We believe we are the first to show that we can enhance this braking system with brain stimulation."
A computer stimulated the prefrontal cortex exactly when braking was needed. This was done using electrodes implanted directly on the brain surface.
Yes, that sounds practical.  Plug into the matrix.

You probably all know from experience what activates the prefrontal cortex...

Sunday, December 15, 2013

Bwa Ha Ha Ha Ha

As I was saying-

Lack of preciousss vitamin made Gollum a loser
Think kindly of the dragon Smaug. Shed a tear for Gollum. And give an orc a hug.
If only they had tucked into the occasional quiche and salad or a touch of smoked salmon, or had a few sessions on a sunbed. How much kinder history would have been to them.
So suggests an offbeat study, released on Sunday, which concludes that the evil characters in J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" lost their battle against men, elves and dwarves because they suffered from vitamin deficiency.
Shunning sunlight, surviving on a sketchy or unbalanced diet based on rotten meat or (in Gollum's case) the occasional blind fish, they lacked vitamin D, a key component for healthy bones and muscle strength.
The idea is proposed by Nicholas Hopkinson, a doctor at Imperial College London and his son Joseph, in the Christmas edition of the Medical Journal of Australia.
Well, it's a little more complicated than that-  lack of Vitamin D alters immune response and facilitates infection.   But still...  gotta love their correlational creativity!   Raising Awareness.  Ha.

Thinking Rationally about Irrational Thinking

It’s Simple: Fewer Guns, Fewer Suicides
Two scientists explore a decade of data to find the tie between gun ownership and suicide in America.
While reduced household gun ownership did lead to more suicides by other means, suicides went down overall. That’s because contrary to the “folk wisdom” that people who want to commit suicide will always find a way to get the job done, suicides are not inevitable. Suicides are often impulsive decisions, and guns require less forethought than other means of suicide—and they’re also deadlier.
 Good work guys.  Thanks.

The Immovable Object

Serotonin deficiency may not cause depression after all 
In fact, SSRIs fail to work for mild cases of depression, suggesting that regulating serotonin might be an indirect treatment only. “There’s really no evidence that depression is a serotonin-deficiency syndrome,” says Alan Gelenberg, a depression and psychiatric researcher at The Pennsylvania State University. “It’s like saying that a headache is an aspirin-deficiency syndrome.” SSRIs work insofar as they reduce the symptoms of depression, but “they’re pretty nonspecific,” he adds.
Now, research headed up by neuroscientists David Gurwitz and Noam Shomron of Tel Aviv University in Israel supports recent thinking that rather than a shortage of serotonin, a lack of synaptogenesis (the growth of new synapses, or nerve contacts) and neurogenesis (the generation and migration of new neurons) could cause depression. In this model lower serotonin levels would merely result when cells stopped making new connections among neurons or the brain stopped making new neurons. So, directly treating the cause of this diminished neuronal activity could prove to be a more effective therapy for depression than simply relying on drugs to increase serotonin levels.
The fact that serotonin is a red herring has been known for thirty years.
The idea that neurogenesis is a factor has been around for at least a decade.
Yet still they are still looking for drug targets.   Cuz that's where the money is...

Guess which neurotransmitter stimulates neurogenesis in the hippocampus?  Orexin.
And guess what neurotransmitter deficiency actually is associated with depression?  Orexin.
And guess what lowers orexin levels?   Sugar.

The Root of the Problem

A librarian's prerogative.
Some thoughts on access to information.   Compare and Contrast.

Dear Pres. Obama: Dissent isn’t Possible in a Surveillance State

Is Elsevier really for-science? Or just for-profit?

Saturday, December 14, 2013

My Two Cents

On Adam Lanza-

Hyperthyroidism.
Vitamin D deficiency.

I blame his "doctors".

Somebody Gets It Right

In Food Cravings, Sugar Trumps Fat    (abstract)
The new research tracked brain activity in more than 100 high school students as they drank chocolate-flavored milkshakes that were identical in calories but either high in sugar and low in fat, or vice versa. While both kinds of shakes lit up pleasure centers in the brain, those that were high in sugar did so far more effectively, firing up a food-reward network that plays a role in compulsive eating.
...
“We do a lot of work on the prevention of obesity, and what is really clear not only from this study but from the broader literature over all is that the more sugar you eat, the more you want to consume it,” said Dr. Stice, a senior research scientist at the Oregon Research Institute. “As far as the ability to engage brain reward regions and drive compulsive intake, sugar seems to be doing a much better job than fat.”
Yes, but that's only half the story.  Fat does not induce insulin production or hypoglycemia...
Another researcher who has studied the impact of fat and sugar on the brain in people, Dr. David Ludwig, said it was not so much the “immediate hedonic response” to junk food that drives overconsumption, but its impact on the brain and the body over several hours.
Dr. Ludwig and his colleagues showed in brain imaging studies on adults that high sugar milkshakes stimulate reward regions but also cause spikes and drops in blood sugar levels. Four hours later, they showed, these blood sugar drops stimulate changes in brain activity that induce cravings — and those cravings are typically for foods that can quickly restore blood sugar levels, like desserts, starches and sweets.
Hoo de freakin hoo!

Friday, December 13, 2013

This is not funny

Okay, maybe it is.

Steven Colbert discusses Suvorexant

Everything Old is New Again

Long-Term Use of Common Heartburn and Ulcer Medications Linked to Vitamin B12 Deficiency
Left untreated, vitamin B12 deficiency can increase the risk of dementia, nerve damage, anemia, and other medical complications, some of which may be irreversible. Stomach acid aids in vitamin B12 absorption; suppressing the acids can lead to the health-threatening vitamin deficiency.
Fascinating, I was just reading some medical history about this the other day.

B12 deficiency is also highly associated with major depression.
Over a century ago, melancholia (major Depression) was correlated with low stomach acid.
And streptococcal infection in the intestines- low levels of gastric acid allow bacteria to survive passage through the stomach.
 
Omeprazole (Prilosec), a common over the counter stomach acid inhibiting medication, is also associated with B12 deficiency and streptococcal overgrowth. 
(For the record, increased stomach acid is a result of ulcers, not a cause.  Stomach ulcers are caused by Helicobacter pylori infection.  The stomach increases acid production trying to kill it, so anti-acid drugs only treat the symptoms, and probably amplify the problem.)

For you narcos out there:
Gluten intolerance has been shown to result in low stomach acid and bacterial overgrowth.
Orexin has been shown to stimulate gastric acid secretion.

Brain Eating Zombie of the Day

NPR.
See the pro-carbohydrate bias.

Chowing Down On Meat, Dairy Alters Gut Bacteria A Lot, And Quickly 
Looks like Harvard University scientists have given us another reason to walk past the cheese platter at holiday parties and reach for the carrot sticks instead:
Switching to a diet packed with meat and cheese — and very few carbohydrates — alters the trillions of microbes living in the gut, scientists Wednesday in the journal Nature.
The change happens quickly. Within two days, the types of microbes thriving in the gut shuffle around. And there are signs that some of these shifts might not be so good for your gut: One type of bacterium that flourishes under the meat-rich diet has been linked to inflammation and intestinal diseases in mice.
...
In particular, microbes that "love bile" — the Bilophila — started to dominate the volunteers' guts during the animal-based diet. Bile helps the stomach digest fats. So people make more bile when their diet is rich in meat and dairy fats.
A study last year found that blooms of Bilophila cause inflammation and colitis in mice.
Ummm, no it didn't.
If you actually read the damn studyyou will see that the mice were bred to produce colitis symptoms.   
They are deficient in IL-10, an immune molecule.
Those Il-10 deficient mice got colitis from a high fat diet and Bilophila bacteria overgrowth.
Normal mice DID NOT.

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Science Says

Marijuana Doesn’t Cause Schizophrenia
New research from Harvard Medical School, in a comparison between families with a history of schizophrenia and those without, finds little support for marijuana use as a cause of schizophrenia.
“The results of the current study suggest that having an increased familial morbid risk for schizophrenia may be the underlying basis for schizophrenia in cannabis users and not cannabis use by itself,” note the researchers.
The new study is the first family study that, according to the researchers, “examines both non-psychotic cannabis users and non-cannabis user controls as two additional independent samples, enabling the examination of whether the risk for schizophrenia is increased in family members of cannabis users who develop schizophrenia compared with cannabis users who do not and also whether that morbid risk is similar or different from that in family members of schizophrenia patients who never used cannabis.”
Thanks, Harvard.

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Two kinds of Expected Behavior

Mental disorders lead to greater heart disease risk, study shows
Men with mental disorders are more at risk of developing coronary heart disease, according to a study by the Universities of Southampton and Edinburgh.
Researchers have identified an increased risk of non-fatal or fatal heart disease across a spectrum of mental conditions, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, neurotic disorders, substance-use disorders and personality disorders.

I just don't know how long I can go on reading this same crap over and over:

1.  The pathology Always Always Always comes first.   These are all symptoms of the same illness progressing over time.
2.  The causality you people put in your articles and headlines is Always Always Always backwards.

See the Pattern.
Holy Waste of Time, Batman.
Seriously-they could go on like this forever-
Doing experiments correlating all the symptoms of strep infection to the other symptoms of strep infection. And they could still not even conclude that they're dealing with a frakking strep infection!!!! 

Their Vision of Your Future

Hi-tech sensors aim to help prevent obesity
The system will be tested on around 200 secondary school students in Sweden and another set of children in the Netherlands.
Sensors will be used to measure the speed at which food is eaten as well as how food is chewed.
The sensor comprises a scale connected to a portable computer or a smartphone. A plate of food is put on the scale and the rate at which it leaves the plate is recorded, with an audible warning if it is being eaten too quickly for the person to realise they are full.
Swiss firm CSEM is developing the other two sensors that will be used in the project. ActiSmile is a wearable sensor, which rewards the wearer with a smiley face when enough exercise has been done.
The firm is also designing an acoustic sensor, which will take the form of a wearable microphone, and record how the user chews food.
Seriously.   A smiley face.
Yeah, that should compensate for the erroneous information, intrusive time and energy wasting bullshit, and public humiliation you force into those kids' lives...
Please go learn some endocrinology, you self-righteous twits.

Monday, December 9, 2013

Another Brick in the Matrix

Obama Faces Backlash Over New Corporate Powers In Secret Trade Deal
The Obama administration is insisting on mandating new intellectual property rules in the treaty that would grant pharmaceutical companies long-term monopolies on new medications. As a result, companies can charge high prices without regard to competition from generic providers. The result, public health experts have warned, would be higher prices around the world, and lack of access to life-saving drugs in poor countries. Nearly every intellectual property issue in the November chart is opposed by a broad majority of the 12 nations. The December memo describes 119 "outstanding issues" that remain unresolved between the nations on intellectual property matters. The deal would obligate nations to develop many standards similar to those in the United States, where domestic prescription drug prices are much higher than costs in other nations.
Also according to the December memo, the U.S. has reintroduced a proposal that would hamper government health services from negotiating lower drug prices with pharmaceutical companies. The proposal appears to have been universally rejected earlier in the talks, according to the memo.
Australia and New Zealand have medical boards that allow the government to reject expensive new drugs for the public health system, or negotiate lower prices with drug companies that own patents on them. If a new drug does not offer sufficient benefits over existing generic drugs, the boards can reject spending taxpayer money on the new medicines. They can also refuse to pay high prices for new drugs. The Obama administration has been pushing to ban these activities by national boards, which would lock in big profits for U.S. drug companies.
Yes, it's a travesty that some countries' health care administrations won't pay Jazz a zillion dollars to prescribe their patented version of a GENERIC DATE RAPE DRUG to their narcoleptics.   That kind of common sense will clearly not be tolerated in the future.

It's a Start

Scientists create candy that's good for teeth
The researchers knew that another type of bacteria, Lactobacillus paracasei, found in kefir, reduces levels of mutans streptococci and decreases the number of cavities in rats. A sugar on the surface of L. paracasei binds with mutans streptococci. Lang and her team think that by binding with mutans streptococci, L. paracasei prevents mutans streptococci from reattaching to teeth.
To test whether L. paracasei could help prevent cavities in people, Lang and her team developed a sugar-free candy containing heat-killed samples of the bacteria. They then tested the candy on a group of 60 volunteers. One third ate candies with one milligram of L. paracasei, one third ate candies with two milligrams and one third ate candies that tasted the same, but contained no bacteria.
Each of the subjects ate five candies over a one and half day period. At the end of the experiment, about three fourths of the volunteers who'd eaten candies with bacteria had significantly lower levels of mutans streptococci in their saliva than they'd had the day before. Subjects who consumed candies with two milligrams of bacteria experienced a reduction in mutans streptococci levels after eating the first candy.
Now add a little acidophilus and a few others, and reduce some periodontal disease too...
I would like it in gummy bear form, please.

Sunday, December 8, 2013

Money for Nothing

An effective eye drug is available for $50. But many doctors choose a $2,000 alternative. 
Doctors choose the more expensive drug more than half a million times every year, a choice that costs the Medicare program, the largest single customer, an extra $1 billion or more annually.
....
Doctors, meanwhile, may benefit when they choose the more expensive drug. Under Medicare repayment rules for drugs given by physicians, they are reimbursed for the average price of the drug plus 6 percent. That means a drug with a higher price may be easier to sell to doctors than a cheaper one. In addition, Genentech offers rebates to doctors who use large volumes of the more expensive drug.
...
“Lucentis is Avastin — it’s the same damn molecule with a few cosmetic changes,” said J. Gregory Rosenthal, a Toledo ophthalmologist who, outraged by the price, co-founded a group called Physicians for Clinical Responsibility to protest its use. “Yet Americans are paying a billion dollars every year for no good reason — unless you count making Genentech rich.”

See the Matrix

Sugar protections prove easy to swallow for lawmakers across political spectrum 
Big candymakers and food manufacturers such as Hershey, Mars and Kraft — whose costs rise with sugar prices — waged a lobbying campaign to put sugar on the farm-bill casualty list as well.
,,,
The industry’s power was evident in the unusual alliances that formed in the House and Senate to thwart sugar-related measures over the past two years, turning ideological adversaries such as Sens. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) into teammates operating from the same playbook.
“Removing the protections we have for our domestic sugar producers will do nothing but kill an American industry and outsource jobs to our competitors,” Franken said during a Senate floor debate this spring. Rubio, in the same debate, warned colleagues of the “risks to American jobs if reforms to our sugar program were to pass.”
That is the same Sugar industry that donates to the diabetes associations.  
And this is the same Farm Bill "compromise" that will cut Food Stamp benefits to poor people.

Saturday, December 7, 2013

See the Attraction

Do Cats Control My Mind?
Joanne Webster’s research group at Imperial College London has lately championed an idea that reconciles these and other findings: the effects of Toxo cysts in our brains are due to an increase in an enzyme called tyrosine hydroxylase. This is the basis of the dopamine hypothesis, which Stock believes her research supports.
Tyrosine hydroxylase is involved in production of the normally-occurring neurotransmitter dopamine. More of the enzyme means more dopamine. This changes behavior of mice, and Webster and Stock extrapolate, people.
The crucial thing to remember is that dopamine causes increased neural activity.  Low levels of added dopamine are beneficial to memory and reflexes.  High levels cause uncontrollable thinking and behavior.
Been there, done that.   Over and over.

Are You Effing Kidding Me?

Warning:  This may make your head spontaneously explode...

Response to a Single Question May Flag Suicide Risk 
A specific response to a single question from a commonly used depression scale may help clinicians flag patients at increased risk for suicide, new research suggests.
A study of more than 84,000 patients with depressive symptoms who completed the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) at every outpatient visit for depression care during a 4-year period showed that respondents who reported that they thought about death or self-harm "nearly every day" had more than a 6-fold increased risk for suicide attempt compared with respondents who did not consider these options.
In my opinion, the fact that this study was even done proves that psychologists should never be allowed near mentally ill people.

related post

We are prisoners of what They do not see

Youthful Suicide Attempts a Marker for Lifelong Troubles
A study that tracked more than 1,000 New Zealanders from birth to age 38 has found that those who attempted suicide before age 24 have been plagued by more health and psychiatric issues and had more economic difficulties later in life. 
In their 30s, these people were twice as likely as their peers to develop metabolic syndrome and have significantly higher levels of systemic inflammation, both markers of higher risk for cardiovascular disease.

Study subjects who had attempted suicide sometime before age 24 had been found to be more impulsive and have more conduct disorders and depression when they were children, well before the attempts. But it is difficult to say where their life-troubles come from, Goldman-Mellor said. "Our study did control for the fact that they have more psychiatric issues, but we may have missed some other underlying factors."
Goldman-Mellor, an epidemiologist who has studied links between economic conditions and suicidal behavior, notes that the New Zealand cohort was coming of age in an economic recession.
Yes, well poor economic conditions lead to poor nutrition, more hours spent working and less sleeping, and less access to medical and dental care.  That  "underlying factor" is untreated lifelong somatic illness.

Friday, December 6, 2013

Brain Saving Information of the Day

Herpes viruses associated with cognitive impairment
The herpes virus that produces cold sores during times of stress now has been linked to cognitive impairment throughout life, according to a new University of Michigan study that for the first time shows an impact on children ages 12-16.
HSV-1 is the oral herpes virus. Previous research has linked it with neurological disorders associated with aging, including Alzheimer's disease and dementia, but few studies have examined whether these pathogens may influence cognition beginning early in life.
"This study is a first step in establishing an association between these viruses and cognition across a range of ages in the U.S. population," said Allison Aiello, associate professor of epidemiology at the U-M School of Public Health.
You Go Girl!

Brain Eating Zombie of the Day

Philippe Autier et al.

Vitamin D Supplements Won't Help Prevent Disease: Review
Low levels of 'sunshine vitamin' could be a sign of illness, rather than a cause, studies suggest.
The observational studies showed a potential benefit from vitamin D. For example, vitamin D was associated with a 58 percent reduced risk of cardiovascular events, a 38 percent decreased risk of diabetes and a 34 percent decreased risk of colon cancer in these studies.
But, when the researchers looked to the randomized clinical trials that used vitamin D as a treatment, they failed to find any effect on disease occurrence or severity from raising vitamin D levels.
However, vitamin D did reduce the risk of dying from any cause in older people taking 800 international units a day, according to the review.
Do your frakkin homework.  Your relational studies are not the only ones in existence, idiot.
There are plenty of studies showing the metabolic and immunological pathways too.

Vitamin D is crucial in immune response.   So yes, if you have an infection or allergy your vitamin D levels will be depleted.
However, if one increases those levels, AND TREATS THE UNDERLYING CAUSE OF THE ILLNESS, improvements can be realized.

All the conditions you studied have been shown to have microbial origins.  Giving people vitamin D and telling them to eat more fruits and vegetables and exercise and take some statins is not going to overcome a lifelong respiratory or dental illness.

Quote of the Day

Charlie Pierce
It is a day for honoring a revolutionary by remembering that we are all children of one of the first revolutions against, as Jefferson once put it, all forms of tyranny over the mind of man.
Keep up the good fight.

Thursday, December 5, 2013

Yada Yada Yada

Study Links Sleep to Mood Disturbance, Poor Quality of Life in Obese

Uh Huh

Just Read It.

Essentials of Periodontal Medicine in Preventive Medicine (full text)
Abstract:
Influence of systemic disorders on periodontal diseases is well established. However, of growing interest is the effect of periodontal diseases on numerous systemic diseases or conditions like cardiovascular disease, cerebrovascular disease, diabetes, pre-term low birth weight babies, preeclampsia, respiratory infections and others including osteoporosis, cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, erectile dysfunction, Alzheimer's disease, gastrointestinal disease, prostatitis, renal diseases, which has also been scientifically validated. This side of the oral-systemic link has been termed Periodontal Medicine and is potentially of great public health significance, as periodontal disease is largely preventable and in many instances readily treatable, hence, providing many new opportunities for preventing and improving prognosis of several systemic pathologic conditions. This review article highlights the importance of prevention and treatment of periodontal diseases as an essential part of preventive medicine to circumvent its deleterious effects on general health.

Correlation Games

Vitamin D Decreases Pain in Women With Type 2 Diabetes, Depression
Researchers in this study tested the efficacy of weekly vitamin D2 supplementation (50,000 IUs) for six months on depression in women with type 2 diabetes. Depression significantly improved following supplementation. In addition, 61 percent of patients reported shooting or burning pain in their legs and feet (neuropathic pain) and 74 percent reported numbness and tingling in their hands, fingers, and legs (sensory pain) at the beginning of the study. Researchers found a significant decrease in neuropathic and sensory pain at three and six months following vitamin D2 supplementation.
Vitamin D is critical in healing from INFECTION.   Sick people will feel better.


New Research Shows Obesity Is Inflammatory Disease

Not good enough.
Inflammation is a sign of immune response which is a sign of INFECTION.

It's a Growth Industry

Dementia epidemic looms with 135 million sufferers seen by 2050

Well that is very good news for the Alzheimer's Association, now isn't it?  

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

This is Why

The Big Sleep
Insomnia drugs like Ambien are notorious for their side effects. Has Merck created a blockbuster replacement?
Super long, super detailed article on Merck's rush to get Suvorexant, an Orexin blocker,  approved despite it's lack of efficacy and known depressive side effects, like SUICIDAL IDEATION.

It's Narcolepsy in a Pill.

Pop Quiz

Talk therapy may reverse biological changes in PTSD patients
The researchers, led by Dr. Szabolcs Kéri at the National Institute of Psychiatry and Addictions and University of Szeged in Hungary, recruited 39 individuals diagnosed with PTSD to participate in the study. For a comparison group, they also included 31 individuals who had been exposed to trauma, but who did not develop PTSD. The individuals with PTSD then received 12 weeks of cognitive behavioral therapy, whereas the non-PTSD group received no therapy.

At the follow-up appointment 12 weeks later, the PTSD patients showed higher expression of FKBP5 and increased hippocampal volume. More importantly, these changes were directly associated with clinical improvement among the patients. The increased FKBP5 expression, and to a lesser degree the increased hippocampal volume, actually predicted improvement in their PTSD symptoms.
Please explain the Huge Glaring Error in the experimental design.
Extra credit:  describe a reality based mechanism for their results.

Learn some frakkin medical history

Increased Risk for Cardiac Ischemia in Patients With PTSD
Prior studies show that individuals with PTSD are at increased risk of cardiovascular disease. However, most of these studies proposed this relationship on the basis of self-report measures, creating a need for objective studies to establish the validity of this hypothesis.
In this issue of Biological Psychiatry, Jesse Turner and colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco have done just that and now report new evidence of elevated rates of myocardial ischemia in patients with PTSD.
Yes, well it has been known since the 1800's that streptococcal infection causes heart problems.  In  1992, Streptoccocus sanguis, a periodontal bacterium, was shown to cause increased levels of myocardial ischemia.

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Sounds Familiar

Train engineer said he was 'in a daze' before crash

Metro-North Driver Said to Have Lost Focus Before Fatal Crash
Bottalico said Rockefeller switched from a shift that started in the afternoons to one that started in the early morning on Nov. 17.
They have tested him for alcohol and drugs.   Too bad nobody ever gets tested for hyperinsulinemia.

Promising Results

Oxytocin nasal spray may improve brain activity in autistic children
In a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, children who received a single dose of an oxytocin-based nasal spray experienced enhanced activity in regions of the brain regulating social behavior.

A little background info

Raw Food Dieters are Starving Their Brains

This explains why vegans are skinny-  they are in ketosis from lack of calories.
It probably explains why they all also seem to have obsessive-compulsive disorder.
 

Monday, December 2, 2013

Brain Eating Zombie of the Day

Heaven help us.

Rick Warren shares the good news about weight-loss plan
The title of the Daniel Plan comes from the first chapter of Daniel, in which Daniel challenges the king's official guard to test some young men to eat the king's diet of rich food while Daniel and his three friends eat healthy fare including vegetables, Warren says. "We just took the title from that concept. It doesn't try to follow what Daniel ate, because the Bible doesn't tell us exactly what he ate."
...
He was doing well on the program before his son died. Matthew suffered from mental illness his entire life, Warren says.
"When Kay was pregnant with Matthew, she got some kind of unusual rash or disease that left her bedridden for months. During that pregnancy, I had three fears: Is my wife going to live? Is the baby to going live? And is the baby going to be healthy? Kay lived. Matthew lived, but Matthew was not healthy. He had a tender heart and a tortured mind. Your character is not your chemistry. He had borderline personality disorder. He struggled with suicidal thoughts all of his life."
Warren says he gained "about 35 pounds back in six months of grieving my son's suicide."
...
"I didn't sleep well for months, and when you don't sleep well, your hunger level goes up. I fell off the wagon. All those pounds I had lost kept finding me.

I'm sorry, but what this man is describing is a Bacteria Driven Life.
Please sir, I believe you mean well, but stick to preaching.   The Bible was written long before nutrition and metabolism and infection were even words, much less science.  You got this all wrong.

You Don't Say

Junk food and poor oral health increase risk of premature heart disease
The association between poor oral health and increased risk of cardiovascular disease should make the reduction of sugars such as those contained in junk food, particularly fizzy drinks, an important health policy target, say experts writing in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.
Poor oral hygiene and excess sugar consumption can lead to periodontal disease where the supporting bone around the teeth is destroyed. It is thought that chronic infection from gum disease can trigger an inflammatory response that leads to heart disease through a process called atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries. Despite convincing evidence linking poor oral health to premature heart disease, the most recent UK national guidance on the prevention of CVD at population level mentions the reduction of sugar only indirectly.
And soda contains acid which activates the bacteria even more...

Sunday, December 1, 2013

See the Obvious

Practice Solutions: When Doctors and Dentists Join
The clinic, locally called "Smoky Hill" for its historically hazy spot on the high plains, is at the forefront of a movement called "co-location," in which dentists, dental hygienists, physicians, and nurse practitioners share space -- and expertise. Last year, Smoky Hill had more than 29,000 medical visits from nearly 7,500 patients seeking care. More than a fourth of them got both medical and dental treatment. "I believe that number would be higher if we had more capacity in the dental clinic," Freelove said. "Two-thirds of our patients are either uninsured or underinsured when it comes to dental coverage."

For the Record

I am not a big fan of Obamacare. But not because of the mandate or technical complications- I would have preferred universal Medicare buy-in and some real incentive to improve efficacy and keep costs down.

I truly appreciate the fact that there are no more denials for pre-existing conditions or lifetime caps on reimbursement. That's a real nice thing for people with chronic illnesses, like everyone.  And  I really hope that maybe it will prevent some narcoleptics from killing themselves before they are properly diagnosed and effectively treated.

...Even though that also means the profit driven medico-pharma complex is still intact and your doctors can tell you to eat fruits and grains and prescribe you Xyrem for the rest of your lives.  Make their boat payments and give those criminals over at Jazz some more millions.
At their prices, you would have run out of benefits in a year or two. Forever.

Saturday, November 30, 2013

Quotes of the Day

Way off topic, but fascinating anyway.

Controversial T. Rex Soft Tissue Find Finally Explained
The controversial discovery of 68-million-year-old soft tissue from the bones of a Tyrannosaurus rex finally has a physical explanation. According to new research, iron in the dinosaur's body preserved the tissue before it could decay.
The research, headed by Mary Schweitzer, a molecular paleontologist at North Carolina State University, explains how proteins — and possibly even DNA — can survive millennia. 
Here's the bit I like:
"The problem is, for 300 years, we thought, 'Well, the organics are all gone, so why should we look for something that's not going to be there?' and nobody looks," she said.
We do not see the lens through which we look.
-Ruth Benedict

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Drive Safely Please

Happy Narcolepsy Day Everyone!
Have a nice postprandial nap for me.

I am thankful that I now live in sunny Arizona.
And I have a beautiful new kitchen table.
Good times.

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Brain Eating Zombie of the Day

Ewan McNay

Are Alzheimer's and diabetes the same disease?
In 2005, a study by Susanne de la Monte's group at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, identified a reason why people with type 2 diabetes had a higher risk of developing Alzheimer's. In this kind of dementia, the hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in learning and memory, seemed to be insensitive to insulin. Not only could your liver, muscle and fat cells be "diabetic" but so it seemed, could your brain.
Feeding animals a diet designed to give them type 2 diabetes leaves their brains riddled with insoluble plaques of a protein called beta-amyloid – one of the calling cards of Alzheimer's. We also know that insulin plays a key role in memory. Taken together, the findings suggest that Alzheimer's might be caused by a type of brain diabetes.
I've known that for five years and I'm a friggin housewife.
But of course-
"Perhaps you should use Alzheimer's drugs at the diabetes stage to prevent cognitive impairment in the first place," says Ewan McNay from the University at Albany in New York.
Yes, and don't forget to eat more fruits and grains too...
(/snark)

Everything Old is New Again

The Surfing Solution: How Seawater Can Help Treat Cystic Fibrosis
Cystic fibrosis, it turns out, doesn’t like salt water. Inhaling it rehydrates the airways, allowing mucus to flow more easily and be dislodged by coughing. Patients have used saline nebulizers to achieve this effect for years, and new units are under development that people can use during sleep.
Huh.   Cystic fibrosis is caused by a genetic inability to fight a bacterial infection.
The pharma I worked for spent millions of dollars and made even more millions of dollars repurposing the same antibiotic in different inhalable forms for CF patients.   They died anyway.

Saltwater is pretty effective for preventing skin and mouth infections too.   Go figure.

related post

Monday, November 25, 2013

More like this

It’s time to question the new guidelines on cholesterol drugs 
Why? Because the arbitrary cholesterol targets are not supported by scientific evidence. Let’s not forget that about three-quarters of people have normal cholesterol levels when they have heart attacks. That hasn’t changed during the great statins experiment of the past decade.
Logically, that means physicians should be prescribing fewer statins, not more. But the new guidelines are being sold as a “leap of faith,” a belief that statins can prevent heart attacks and strokes, even if that benefit doesn’t seem to come from controlling cholesterol.
Don't you think they should figure out how they work before deciding everyone needs them???

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Bwa ha ha ha ha

The first step has always been admitting you're an asshole...

The neuroscientist who discovered he was a psychopath
"The Psychopath Inside" author James Fallon on learning he was lacking in empathy and prone to aggression, violence.
Yo Doctors:  your bias is showing.   You only test acutely sick people.
Scan thyself, maniacs.

Saturday, November 23, 2013

Tic Tic Tic Tic Tic

This is what happens when you mess with people's orexin levels and dopamine receptors:

FDA: Anti-smoking drug Chantix linked to more than 500 suicides
In the last five years, 544 suicides and 1,869 attempted suicides have been reported to the FDA as “adverse events” in connection with Chantix, according to documents obtained by America Tonight under the Freedom of Information Act.
...
Moore continued digging into adverse event reports, particularly those involving violence. He co-authored a 2010 study in the Annals of Pharmacotherapy analyzing 26 acts of violence reported to the FDA as adverse events associated with Chantix.
...
“These cases had three striking characteristics,” Moore said in an interview at his Alexandria, Va., office. “First, the violence was absolutely unpredictable and senseless. Second, the victim was anybody who happened to be nearby. It could have been a fiancé. It could have been mother. It could have been a police officer. And third, these people had no history of violence and were unlikely prospects for a violent act.”
It's horrific.
Here's the really despicable part though:
The FDA has asked Pfizer to investigate reports of violence by Chantix users and report back by 2017.
Must go weep now...

Friday, November 22, 2013

Not Totally Off Topic

A Legacy of Obsession-

20 years ago today I met my husband.
In Dallas.   On the sixth floor of the book depository.   In front of the "sniper's nest".   Really.
We were both conspiracy geeks at the time.  But that crazy conference was enough to cure us.  Way more theories than evidence...

Anyhow, last week's Nova episode was the best analysis of the "magic bullet" ever done.  Lee Oswald really could have done it alone.   Whether someone else planned it with him is another subject.

I now believe his impulsive behavior and oppositional defiance indicate obsessive compulsive disorder.    Not only that- he had an acute bacterial infection as a child, surgery to correct it, and clearly shows facial symptoms of trigeminal neuralgia in many photos.
His life story is not only evidence of his megalomania, but in this photo one can clearly see active pathology on the left side of his face: a puffy and droopy eye, and swollen maxillary nerve.



Thursday, November 21, 2013

But of Course

Research shows that anti-fungal medicine may increase vulnerability to influenza and other viruses
Scientists at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute have discovered evidence that a widely used anti-fungal medicine increases susceptibility to flu infection in mice and cell cultures. Published online in Cell Reports, the study shows that Amphotericin B, commonly given to cancer and bone marrow transplant patients to fight invasive fungal infections, neutralizes an important anti-viral protein, making it easier for viruses to infect cells. These findings suggest that patients taking the antifungal therapy may be functionally immunocompromised and vulnerable to influenza and potentially other viruses.
And the influenza immune response disables bacterial immunity...

Frakkin Microbial Whak-a-Mole.

Another Cuppa

Coffee May Help Perk Up Your Blood Vessels
A study of 27 healthy adults showed -- for the first time -- that drinking a cup of caffeinated coffee significantly improved blood flow in a finger, which is a measure of how well the inner lining of the body's smaller blood vessels work. Specifically, participants who drank a cup of caffeinated coffee had a 30 percent increase in blood flow over a 75-minute period compared to those who drank decaffeinated coffee.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Good Grief

PTSD raises risk for obesity in women
Women with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) gain weight more rapidly and are more likely to be overweight or obese than women without the disorder, find researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and Harvard School of Public Health. It is the first study to look at the relationship between PTSD and obesity over time.
...
 "The good news from the study is that it appears that when PTSD symptoms abate, risk of becoming overweight or obese is also significantly reduced,"
...
Symptoms of PTSD rather than the trauma itself seemed to be behind the weight gain. "We looked at the women who developed PTSD and compared them to women who experienced trauma but did not develop PTSD. On the whole, before their symptoms emerged, the rate of change in BMI was the same as the women who never experienced trauma or did experience trauma but never developed symptoms," says Dr. Kubzansky.

All of this points to an ILLNESS.   If you're sick you get fat.   If you're not you lose weight.   And people who have trauma but aren't SICK don't get the symptoms.

Anxiety, depression, obsession and weight gain are all symptoms of the same damn infection.

Food for Thought

Probiotics a Potential Treatment for Mental Illness 
Several preclinical studies showed a link between specific probiotics and beneficial behavioral effects. These included one in which rats with depressive behaviors resulting from maternal separation displayed normalized behavior and an improved immune response after ingesting the Bifidobacterium infantis probiotic.
...
The investigators note that although human studies are still largely lacking, they did find some with promising results on behavior, including 1 showing that healthy volunteers who received Lactobacillus helveticus R0052 plus B longum for 30 days reported significantly lower stress levels than those who received placebo, as well as significantly reduced urinary free cortisol levels.
...
In 1 of the preclinical studies examined, mice that ingested L rhamnosus showed reduced anxiety scores and "altered central expression" on both the GABA type A and type B receptors.   And a study of human patients with chronic fatigue syndrome showed that those who consumed an active strain of L casei 3 times a day had significantly higher improvement scores on anxiety measures than did those who received matching placebo.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

And so it goes

Creigh Deeds’ son had mental-health evaluation Monday
Sen. Creigh Deeds was stabbed multiple times early today at his Bath County home and his son, Gus, is dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. Gus Deeds had been released Monday following a mental health evaluation performed under an emergency custody order, an official said.
...The son was evaluated Monday at Bath Community Hospital, Cropper said, but was released because no psychiatric bed could be located across a wide area of western Virginia.
The real tragedy is this happens all the time.  Just not to famous people.
Rest in Peace, young man.

Maniac of the Day

State Rep. Uses Sledgehammer To Destroy Homeless People’s Possessions

He clearly doesn't realize that self-righteous impulsive violence is how people lose their jobs and families and become homeless...

Me Oh My

Maps: The Mysterious Link Between Antibiotics and Obesity
The states with higher rates of antibiotic use also tended to have higher obesity rates.
Um... the southeast US is warm and moist.   There are more active microbes there.

Here's some other maps.   Those same states are also high in sleep disorders and heart disease and dental decay.  

Antibiotics mess up the intestinal microbe population and promote pathogenic strains.
They  may also contribute to gluten intolerance.
We should probably avoid them, but recurring infections are problematic too.
It's a real dilemma.

As I was Saying

The First Basic Principle-
Your risk of getting an infection is determined by your immune genes.

Gene Is Linked to Deadly Runaway Fungal Infection
For most people, a fungal infection like athlete's foot means a simple trip to the drugstore and a reminder to bring shower shoes to the gym. But in very rare cases, fungal infections can spread below the skin's surface and onto the lymph nodes, bones, digestive tract or even the brain. Researchers from The Rockefeller University and Necker Medical School in Paris have now discovered a genetic deficiency that allows the fungus to spread in this way, a condition called deep dermatophytosis. Their work suggests why treatments for fungal infection sometimes fail, and it gives weight to a genetic theory of infectious diseases, which proposes that a single genetic defect can cause an otherwise healthy person to become severely ill from a minor infection -- be it viral, bacterial or fungal.

Monday, November 18, 2013

Frakkin Respiratory Infections

Fungal infections can trigger and exacerbate asthma.   (abstract)

A molecule produced by those fungi has also been shown to affect dopamine cells.

Maniacs Running the Asylum

Why Doctors Don’t Take Sick Days
A 2005 outbreak of the norovirus stomach bug in a nursing home highlighted the role of medical personnel in spreading communicable disease. The most disturbing aspect of the case was that medical staff members continued to come to work while ill, well into the outbreak, despite strenuous and public exhortations to stay home. This may have prolonged the outbreak and led to more patients’ falling ill.
A survey of British doctors back in the ’90s found that 87 percent of G.P.’s said they would not call in sick for a severe cold (compared to 32 percent of office workers who were asked the same question). In Norway, a 2001 survey revealed that 80 percent of doctors had reported to work while sick with illnesses for which they would have advised their own patients to stay home. Two-thirds of these illnesses were considered contagious.
The rest of the article is a truly sickening display of narcissism.

Sunday, November 17, 2013

Pardon Me?

Against Medical Recommendations, FDA Approves Potent New Painkiller

FDA says new cholesterol drugs may not need outcome studies

More on Orphan Drug Profiteering

How a drug for few patients was turned into $81 million in sales
But when the November 2001 bulletin was published, its listing for Trisenox included a mistake. The bulletin made it appear that Trisenox was medically accepted for four diseases, instead of just one. Subsequent issues added three more diseases, leaving the false impression that Trisenox was accepted and reimbursable for seven diseases in all.
Marchese understood that a mistake in the bulletin could lead states to reimburse for unaccepted uses. He emailed the company’s sales director: “How pretty are those Compendia bulletins!!! … [M]an do I like working the system. I figure even if 1 state doesn’t check its [sic] a bonus!!”
To which the director responded: “[E]ven if it works in one state, it’s a HUGE win! … Getting rich is a very good thing and it can’t happen soon enough!”
Part 1 is here

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain

Some nice person sent me this link:   CafePharma Forum for Jazz.

Lots and lots of interesting stuff from sales reps in there...
"85k base pay and pretty easy scoring some cougar tail at the Jazz sales meetings. Not the most money or the best tail out here but both could be worse. Welcome to Jazz Land. The products do suck though. Enjoy while you work on something better."
No scruples.  No shame.  None.

The Joke's on Us

Dwayne Kennedy sees a sleep specialist

5:23 min video   Some mature language.
Pay special attention at the 2 minute mark.   "Something funny" going on there.

How do doctors do that with a straight face?

Friday, November 15, 2013

Brain Eating Zombie of the Day

Prof John Blundell
Is 'addiction' an excuse to overeat?

No it's a real phenomenon.  But Psychology does seem to be just an excuse to be a righteous asshole...

Cause and Effect

Bingeing Boosts Diabetes Risk
In a cohort study of about 4,300 girls, those who binged frequently -- without "purging," or using laxatives or vomiting after a big meal -- had nearly a four-fold increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, even after controlling for body mass index.
Binge eating involves taking in a large amount of food, which is usually highly processed and high in carbohydrates, especially sugar, Field said. This initiates a hefty insulin response, which could cumulatively exhaust the beta cells, raising the risk of insulin resistance.
Geez Louise.  This is really getting tedious.  Correlation vs Causation again.  
Why do "obesity experts" seem unaware that hypoglycemia induces binge eating?
The hyperinsulinemia comes first.  The pathology Always Always Always comes first.
I really wish someone would do some real science and perform hyperinsulinemic euglycemic patch clamp tests on those girls.

More fruits and vegetables, dammit!

Fatty Acid Produced By Gut Bacteria Boosts Immune System
A new integrative medicine paper examines the role of gut bacteria on the maturation of the immune system and claims evidence supporting the use of butyrate as therapy for inflammatory bowel diseases like Crohn's disease, based on mouse models.
They somehow neglect to mention-  butyrate is a component of Butter.   That evil animal fat everyone has been told to avoid.   Go figure.

Well how about that

Intermittent doses of nicotine decrease GABA utilization in the rat hypothalamus. 

That explains a whole lot, now doesn't it?

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Brain Eating Zombie of the Day

 Kathryn Orzech, Ph.D

Lack of Sleep in Teens Linked to Higher Risk of Illness

"We showed that there are short-term outcomes, like more acute illness among shorter-sleeping adolescents, that don't require waiting months, years or decades to show up," Orzech continued. "Yes, poor sleep is linked to increased cardiovascular disease, to high cholesterol, to obesity, to depression, etc., but for a teenager, staying healthy for the dance next week, or the game on Thursday, may be more important. This message from this study is clear: Sleep more, and more regularly, get sick less."
Ummmm, No.    Correlation does not imply causation.  Even if it is chronological.
Who gave you a PhD?

Disturbed sleep IS A SYMPTOM of subclinical illness.

Try the reverse configuration-  get sick less, sleep better.

Working in his Sleep

Car Mechanic Dreams Up a Tool to Ease Births

What a great story.

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Sounds Familiar

Soaring Prices, Not Demand, Behind Massive Hike in U.S. Health Spending

You kids on Xyrem know all about that.

Science Says

Electronic cigarettes 'could save millions of lives'

Not so Happy Hour

Symptoms of Parkinson's disease linked to fungus
The scientists discovered that the volatile organic compound 1-octen-3-ol, otherwise known as mushroom alcohol, can cause movement disorders in flies, similar to those observed in the presence of pesticides, such as paraquat and rotenone. Further, they discovered that it attacked two genes that deal with dopamine, degenerating the neurons and causing the Parkinson's-like symptoms.
Many, many fungi produce this compound and they grow on wheat and nuts and in dirt and the damp corners of your house.

1-octen-3-ol is also a mosquito attractant.

Beer Consumption Increases Human Attractiveness to Malaria Mosquitoes
Higher levels of exhaled breath (as measured with a CO2 analyser) were not associated with higher attractiveness and beer consumption did not affect CO2 expiration rate. We postulate that the metabolism of alcohol following beer consumption induces changes in breath and odour markers (i.e. increases the production of kairomones such as 1-octen-3-ol) that increases attractiveness to Anopheles gambiae.
Yeah, that just figures.   Beer and nuts.   My father's favorite things.   He can barely keep the liquid in the glass or swallow the damn peanuts, but will never give them up.

Update- the other person I know with tremors eats peanut butter every day.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

What a Surprise

I'm shocked.  Just shocked.

Not on cholesterol meds? New guidelines may change that
In what's being called a tectonic shift in the way doctors will treat high cholesterol, the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology on Tuesday released new treatment guidelines calling for a focus on risk factors rather than just cholesterol levels. The new guidelines could double the amount of people on medication to lower their cholesterol, experts say.
Guess who will benefit the most from that?   Cardiologists.   Cha Ching!

Will someone please tell me why "factors other than cholesterol" increase a person's need to reduce cholesterol?  

Here's all you really need to know:
AstraZeneca Applauds the Release of New U.S. Guideline for Management of Blood Cholesterol 

Yeah, I bet.  They have probably been drinking champagne and shopping for yachts all day.  Those donations to the AHA and ACC are paying off bigtime.

Brain Eating Zombies of the Day

Dr. Guy Fagherazzi and Dr. Francoise Clavel-Chapelon

Meat Products Could Raise Diabetes Risk: Study
"A diet rich in animal protein may favor net acid intake, while most fruits and vegetables form alkaline precursors that neutralize the acidity.  Contrary to what is generally believed, most fruits -- such as peaches, apples, pears, bananas and even lemons and oranges -- actually reduce dietary acid load once the body has processed them."
My emphasis.  The problem isn't renal acidity, it's oral acidity.   Acid in the mouth promotes bacterial infection which alters the intestinal microbiome and glucose metabolism.

They just gave a lot of people with hyperinsulinemia and carb addiction an excuse to become vegetarians.   Sheesh.

Correlation Games

Depression 'makes us biologically older' 
Telomeres cap the end of our chromosomes which house our DNA. Their job is to stop any unwanted loss of this vital genetic code. As cells divide, the telomeres get shorter and shorter. Measuring their length is a way of assessing cellular aging.
People who were or had been depressed had much shorter telomeres than those who had never experienced depression. This difference was apparent even after lifestyle differences, such as heavy drinking and smoking, were taken into account. 

Guess what is also strongly correlated to shorter telomeres?
Hyperinsulinemia.   Type 2 Diabetes.

I have "felt old" since I was in elementary school.

Quickie

Some 'Healthy' Vegetable Oils May Actually Increase Risk of Heart Disease
uh huh

Monday, November 11, 2013

This is Why

A veteran takes his or her own life every 80 minutes and that the number of suicides among veterans since 2001 has long since exceeded the number of combat deaths in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sunday, November 10, 2013

See the Matrix

Too much of too little - A diet fueled by food stamps is making South Texans obese but leaving them hungry.

Behold the Glucose-Industrial-Medical complex...
Companies such as Coca-Cola, Kraft and Mars have spent more than $10 million in the past several years lobbying Congress to keep their products available to those using food stamps. “No clear standards exist for defining foods as good or bad,” the lobbyist said.

Yo Jazz

We know you don't care one flippin bit about us or our misery.

Pharma's Windfall- The mining of rare diseases
Thirty years ago, Congress acted to spur research on rare diseases. Today, we have hundreds of new drugs — along with runaway pricing and market manipulation, as drugmakers turn a law with good intentions into a profit engine.
Market manipulation= donating to doctors and patients organizations

(also posted at NN just for the fun of it.)

related post

Saturday, November 9, 2013

Pop Quiz

What is wrong with this woman?
More importantly, what is wrong with the many, many doctors she has seen?

This Explains a Lot

Like maybe why 75% of narcoleptics are female...

Gut reaction: Scientists study factors influencing intestinal microbes
"As you might expect, significant differences were found between the fecal microorganisms of mice fed a biochemically complex diet containing isoflavones and those that were fed a simple diet that lacked isoflavones," he said. "Interestingly, however, we also found that the microorganisms differed between mice that expressed estrogen receptor beta and those that did not."
Not only does estrogen increase insulin production, it alters the intestinal microbe composition.

Here's the abstract.

Friday, November 8, 2013

More trouble with Flu Shots

Allergic to Gummy Bears? Be Cautious Getting the Flu Shot
Do marshmallows make your tongue swell? Gummy bears make you itchy? If you've answered yes and are allergic to gelatin, you will want to take some precautions when getting the flu shot. While the vaccine is recommended for those six months of age and older, a case report being presented at the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) Annual Scientific Meeting notes that individuals with a gelatin allergy can have a mild to severe reaction from the shot.

Update from the Center of the Zombie Vortex

Speaking of medical history-

Britain reports 'appalling' return of crippling 19th-century disease
Rickets, the childhood disease that once caused an epidemic of bowed legs and curved spines during the Victorian era, is making a shocking comeback in 21st-century Britain. Rickets results from a severe deficiency of vitamin D, which helps the body absorb calcium. Rickets was historically considered to be a disease of poverty among children who toiled in factories during the Industrial Revolution.
Yes, well now it's a disease of kids who don't drink milk because of the fat, are told the sun is dangerous, and sit inside and play video games all day long.

Now this sort of makes sense

Lack of protein drives overeating
Humans' instinctive appetite for protein is so powerful that we are driven to continue eating until we get the right amount of protein, even if it means consuming far more energy than we need, according to new research from the University of Sydney's Charles Perkins Centre.
That sort of dovetails with this hypothesis. Eat enough carbs and fat, and you won't ever get a high enough level of protein.

But there's also binge eating caused by hypoglycemia.  Even with adequate protein intake.

Bacon and eggs will fill me up.
Bacon, eggs and pancakes will make me hungry all day.

Thursday, November 7, 2013

This is Why

Depression is the second biggest cause of disability in the world

At this rate, it will be number one in another 10 years.

Another Good Example

Inflammation-Linked Diet Associated With Depression In Women 

Depression has been linked to diet since the dawn of civilization...

Freud is the doctor who claimed it was not.   About a hundred years ago.

The Unknown Unknowns

As I was saying...

New Ligament Discovered‬ In the Human Knee
Despite a successful ACL repair surgery and rehabilitation, some patients with ACL-repaired knees continue to experience so-called 'pivot shift', or episodes where the knee 'gives way' during activity. For the last four years, orthopedic surgeons Dr Steven Claes and Professor Dr Johan Bellemans have been conducting research into serious ACL injuries in an effort to find out why. Their starting point: an 1879 article by a French surgeon that postulated the existence of an additional ligament located on the anterior of the human knee.
That postulation turned out to be correct: the Belgian doctors are the first to identify the previously unknown ligament after a broad cadaver study using macroscopic dissection techniques. Their research shows that the ligament, which was given the name anterolateral ligament (ALL), is present in 97 per cent of all human knees. Subsequent research shows that pivot shift, the giving way of the knee in patients with an ACL tear, is caused by an injury in the ALL ligament.
This is a perfect example of doctors confidently acting despite the absence of information.
This is basic anatomy, people.   Should have been found a hundred years ago.
Nonetheless, surgeons have performed millions of these knee surgeries assuming they knew what they were doing.

Everything Old is New Again

Brain may play key role in development of type 2 diabetes
In their paper, the researchers note that about a century ago, scientists believed the brain played an important role in keeping glucose in check. But since its discovery in 1920, the focus shifted to insulin, and today nearly all treatments for diabetes are devised either to increase insulin or increase the body's sensitivity to the glucose-regulating hormone.

The researchers propose a two-system model - the pancreatic islet system reacts to rising blood glucose by releasing insulin, and the brain-centered system enhances insulin-dependent glucose metabolism while also stimulating glucose effectiveness independently of insulin.

According to the research, the brain system is the one most likely to fail first. This puts pressure on the islet system, which can compensate and carry on for a while, but then also fails, causing further decompensation in the brain system. The result is a vicious cycle of deterioration that ends in type 2 diabetes.
Emphasis mine.  The history of science is my true passion-  I am writing a book about how most of my ideas have been around for thousands of years.

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Uh Huh

Vitamin D Deficiency Linked to Onset of Psychosis
Vitamin D deficiency is linked to first episodes of psychosis (FEP), new research suggests.
A study of almost 140 participants in the United Kingdom showed that those who were presenting to a psychiatric in-patient facility with an FEP had significantly lower levels of vitamin D than did their age-matched, healthy peers.
"What surprised us was the degree of difference between the patients and their matched controls, with patients being nearly 3 times as likely to have full-blown vitamin D deficiency," co–first author John Lally, MRCPsych, clinical research fellow in the IMPACT project at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, UK, and in the UK's National Psychosis Unit, told Medscape Medical News.
Here's the abstract.

I think this explains a whole lot of things.  Starting with Adam Lanza who spent his life in a basement playing video games...

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

All Hail the Germ Theory of Disease

Microbes in the Gut Help Determine Risk of Tumors
Transferring the gut microbes from a mouse with colon tumors to germ-free mice makes those mice prone to getting tumors as well, according to the results of a study published in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology. The work has implications for human health because it indicates the risk of colorectal cancer may well have a microbial component.
Sounds simple enough.  Robert Koch used the same method to determine infectivity in the 1800's.   Somebody wanna tell me why this experiment wasn't done decades ago?????

Not Your Imagination


Non-Celiac Wheat Sensitivity: Is It an Allergy?
news article.

Here's the abstract.

Conclusions:
Patients with Non-Celiac Wheat Sensitivity and multiple food sensitivity show several clinical, laboratory, and histological characteristics that suggest they might be suffering from non-IgE-mediated food allergy. However, other pathogenic mechanisms need to be considered.
Funny how "allergy specialists" seem to be completely unaware that other antibody isotypes exist.   It is IgG mediated.  I'm sure of it.  Plenty of studies already in the literature.  That's the paper I'm researching now.   Including how they alter the microbial population and promote bacterial infections.

Expected Behavior

Shire hits new peak as ADHD drug succeeds in treating binge eating disorder

Vyvanse is just another amphetemine derivative.  Improves glycemic control.   SSDD.

Fun with Microbes

Exploring The Invisible Universe That Lives On Us — And In Us
   5:28 min video.    animated microbiome 101.   

Monday, November 4, 2013

Their Vision of Your Future

Speaking of trigeminal neuralgia...

Botox to Treat 'Suicide' Headaches
The gear they have developed looks a pistol with a very thin barrel, just the thickness of a knitting needle. The barrel is inserted up through the nose of the patient, and by passing through a natural hole in the nasal wall, the mouth of the barrel comes to a bundle of nerves behind the sinuses.  The surgeon pulls the trigger of the pistol, which shoots a dose of Botox to the area around the nerve bundle. The whole process takes about a half-an-hour.
Paralyze your brain.   Can't imagine what might go wrong...

related post     another link