Thursday, December 31, 2015

Science Article of the Year

Microwave oven baffled astronomers for decades
The source of strange radio signals that have left astronomers at Australia's most famous radio telescope scratching their heads for 17 years has finally been discovered. It turns out that it was a microwave oven. 
Maybe next year some doctors will check their labs and figure out that their medicines are the source of many of our illnesses.
Yeah, sure.

It's Been a Good Year

I am feeling much better than I did this time last year.
My teeth and ears aren't tweaking my head anymore, that's nice.   I think I can start exercising again.  Maybe I will get some of my working memory back, that would be helpful.

I got the paper written.   Wasn't sure that would happen.   I really thought the pathology would kill me before I could get the explanation out of my head.  (I was afraid to get my bad tooth pulled before I wrote, because I might have forgotten all of it...)

Lydia and Jamie graduated from college.    I can't tell you how impressed I am by their desire and ability and success at mitigating their symptoms.    They are the future.

Madcap Miss took her show on the road and converted a few unsuspecting zombies.

And Harriet Washington wrote this book.   I really needed that.
I now have the confidence to write to a few researchers and maybe find someone who really wants to help us, not just make money off our misery.
 
And there's some other exciting stuff in the pipeline...
So next year will be even better.

Maybe I will even try to find a doctor I can talk to.   Maybe.   No promises.

I think I would rather get all you folks together and talk to you.   I would really like to be able to speak my mind freely with a whole group of people who "get it".     Let's plan a Zombie jamboree.   Somewhere and sometime that's warm please.

As always, I couldn't survive without y'all.
Best wishes to all of you for a Healthier and Happier New Year.

Special message to the person in Russia who is reading my entire blog.    Dude, I am flattered, but that's way too much crazy for anyone to handle.   Take a shower.  Eat some protein.  Go outside.  ;-)

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Reality Based Solutions

I think the most efficient solution to a lot of America's urgent social problems is this:

Legalize Marijuana.

I have been ruminating here in the Wild West, and as far as I can tell, the reason most of these good old boys have tons of guns is because they smoke and sell weed.
If marijuana were legal, that would be one less reason for them to be paranoid.     And maybe get out in the sun a little...

Or take less prescription opiate drugs.

And maybe some people would stop drinking so much.
And learn how to eat properly for their damaged bodies.

And a lot of women would be able to better control their weight and moods.

And a bunch of otherwise law abiding people could get out of jail.

And maybe we could put a few of those reanimated people to work building a better electrical and network infrastructure for the all-hologram future the kidz theze dayz are expecting.   Or maybe just fix a few bridges, that would be nice.

Yeah I know folks that vote for Joe Arpaio will clutch their hankies, but Arizona has medical marijuana, and I see who shops in the dispensaries.   Old sick folks like me.   The "war on drugs" has lost their core population.

This is totally possible.

Prohibition is a Threat Multiplier.
Reverse the Cycle.  Stop the Vortex. 

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Brain Eating Zombies of the Year

Lola Berry-   and her "Stop Being a Fat Bitch"  diet plan

Nicole Arbour-   and her Dear Fat People video.

Two skinny bitches who actually believe everyone else is just too stupid to follow directions.
And then repeat the same instructions that have failed for fifty years.

Please just get on your treadmills and STFU.

Maniacs of the Year

Too Hard to Choose Just One-
Donald Trump-  His trigeminal is clearly infected.  He looks like a neon rooster.  Funny that his doctor didn't notice.

Martin Shkreli-  I gotta guess it's in his prostate and his penis is tiny and calcified.  Just sayin...
Either way- nasty, self-righteous impulsives who can't admit when they're wrong.
See the pathology.

Monday, December 28, 2015

Brain Saving Zombie of the Year

Santa was very nice to us...
This Is The Best Information Resource of My Entire Life. And I have been looking for a very long time.  

Special Commendation Award from the blog to  Harriet Washington for writing this book:

Infectious Madness: The Surprising Science of How We "Catch" Mental Illness 

I have read it now, and the author has done an excellent job.   It might be a little technical for some people, but I have a hard time judging.   I am too familiar with the subject matter.   She does give personal stories of both patients and researchers though, I appreciated that.  She also gives historical and global context-   I especially liked the the concept of Nervios- a temporary illness of the nerves-as opposed to Schizophrenia, a permanent condition.

She starts with well documented microbes that cause mental illness and works her way to the newer research.
Not only does she cover the Streptococcal induced behavior disorders, she actually discusses some of the unintended consequences of antibiotics on the intestinal microbes...  and even endotoxin!  She puts them in a context of chronic illnesses with long latency periods, too.    I am impressed.

My only disappointment is that the author doesn't know about orexin, and therefore is missing a crucial part of the infection-cognition connection.    She tangents slightly into the possibility of "psychologically induced" symptoms that, in my opinion, could mostly be explained by orexin pathways.

Nonetheless, you must read it.   Even if you only read one thing next year, make sure it is this book.   This is the future of medicine.
And our best hope for a safe and sane tomorrow.

Read some medical history so you are not doomed to learn the hard way.

(Bonus points for the index and a bibliofilial shout-out to the OCD person who indexed it...)

Sunday, December 27, 2015

Food for Thought

Can chicken soup really cure body and soul? 
Marvin Sackner, in 1978, conducted a study showing that drinking chicken soup was significantly better at clearing up congestion in the nose compared with drinking hot or cold water.
In 1980, Irwin Ziment showed that chicken broth helps to thin mucous in the lungs with a higher effect being achieved when the broth was spiced. His study was followed up by Stephen Rennard in 2000 who argued that chicken soup, by reducing mucous in the lungs, supported the white blood cells in fighting a cold.
That's probably due to the sodium.   Salt water loosens biofilms.
It also contains Glutamine- which reverses intestinal permeability and helps guts heal.

It's probably better for us to eat it with egg drops instead of noodles though.  (whisk an egg then drop the batter into the broth when it is vigorously  boiling.)

Happy recovering.   Have some white tea too.

Saturday, December 26, 2015

Heh

Missed this one...
The scientific benefits of Rudolph's red nose
 According to Dominy, Rudolph's nose also poses a problem. Reindeer noses are extremely vascular, which causes them to lose body heat through their noses. A glowing nose could cause excessive heat loss for Rudolph, putting him at risk of hypothermia. "It is therefore imperative for children to provide high-calorie foods to help Rudolph replenish his energetic reserves on Christmas Eve," says Dominy.

Sorry

I have been participating in the delightful winter tradition of gathering people from all over the country to ritually exchange our microbes.

Will return to my irregular pattern of posting soon.

Saturday, December 19, 2015

A Heaping Helping of Insanity

Is it fair to punish prisoners with horrible food?
Nutraloaf. Disciplinary loaf. Prison loaf. Special management meal. The loaf.
The blended and often baked block of food, served in some US prisons as a punishment for bad behaviour, comes in a number of guises.
There is no single recipe.
The New York state prison version that is being discontinued consists of flour, milk, yeast, sugar, salt, margarine, potatoes and carrots.
Los Angeles county jail's loaf contains ground beef, turkey or vegetable protein, cabbage, carrots, potato, tomato juice, flour, onion, red beans, chilli powder and egg, while Pennsylvania state prisons' recipe includes rice and oatmeal.
The question is not "is this fair?".
The question is "is this food?

I say not.   I say that is poison.  That is every food allergen put into one unavoidable serving. 
I could not eat that.   It would make me raging sick and psychotic in three days.
And thus a permanent member of the isolation group.

I say that is cruel and unusual punishment.

Friday, December 18, 2015

Happy Adolescent Obsession Day

May the force be with you.

Thursday, December 17, 2015

Brain Saving Zombie of the Day

Harriet Washington is my new hero.
She wrote this book, so now I don't have to.

Infectious Madness: The Surprising Science of How We "Catch" Mental Illness 
A groundbreaking look at the connection between germs and mental illness, and how we can protect ourselves.
I haven't read it yet, but a hardcopy is on it's way to my house. 
Yes- I buy actual books. 
You can take the girl out of the library...

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Brain Eating Zombie of the Day

Olga Khazan
The Second Assault
Victims of childhood sexual abuse are far more likely to become obese adults. New research shows that early trauma is so damaging that it can disrupt a person’s entire psychology and metabolism.
There is no reason to concoct a "lasting psychological trauma" explanation for this result.
Sexual assault consists of physical contact and injury.   Sometimes occurring for years.

None if these correlations are incompatible with a chronic infection mechanism for obesity.

More Depressing News

Reality check: Taking antidepressants while pregnant unlikely to double autism risk in kids
Now, a new study is raising eyebrows in the psychiatry and neuroscience communities. It suggests that women who use antidepressants while pregnant are nearly twice as likely to bear children with ASD. Many epidemiologists and psychiatrists say the study, published today in JAMA Pediatrics, is flawed and will cause unnecessary panic.
...
The “critical flaw” in the new research is that it doesn’t fully account for the fact that women suffering from psychiatric illnesses already have a greater risk of having children with ASD, says Roy Perlis, a psychiatric geneticist at Harvard University who consults for several biotechnology startups. Although the authors controlled for maternal depression, “they don’t really have reliable measures of severity,” he says. As a result, there’s no way to tell whether the children were at higher risk because their mothers were taking more drugs or because the women had more severe depression. Several papers, including two from Perlis’s group, have looked at large numbers of women and children and found no increased risk for ASD after adjusting for the severity of maternal depression, he says. “The risk travels with the disease, not the treatment,” he says. 
Well that's really not at all reassuring.
And the treatment clearly isn't solving the problem...

Monday, December 14, 2015

More Fruits and Vegetables!

Vegetarian and 'healthy' diets are more harmful to the environment
Contrary to recent headlines -- and a talk by actor Arnold Schwarzenegger at the United Nations Paris Climate Change Conference -- eating a vegetarian diet could contribute to climate change.
In fact, according to new research from Carnegie Mellon University, following the USDA recommendations to consume more fruits, vegetables, dairy and seafood is more harmful to the environment because those foods have relatively high resource uses and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per calorie. Published in Environment Systems and Decisions, the study measured the changes in energy use, blue water footprint and GHG emissions associated with U.S. food consumption patterns.
"Eating lettuce is over three times worse in greenhouse gas emissions than eating bacon," said Paul Fischbeck, professor of social and decisions sciences and engineering and public policy. "Lots of common vegetables require more resources per calorie than you would think. Eggplant, celery and cucumbers look particularly bad when compared to pork or chicken."
This is particularly interesting since the environmental argument has recently been used to recommend less dietary meat by the USDA.
Personally, I believe human metabolism should be used as the criteria for recommendations, but frankly, it never has been.   It's always been political.

Thursday, December 10, 2015

Why I no longer speak frankly to Doctors

Early stage dementia patients referred to specialists are institutionalized twice as often
The study's results indicate that participants who were referred to a specialist early in the disease course presented a twice higher risk of being institutionalized but did not report any further decline in bADL ( basic activities of daily living).  The associations were consistent even after controlling for several variables that could have fostered care referral and influenced prognosis.
Because they have an overwhelming urge to do anything to appear efficacious.   Whether it is or not.
And mine have always made it worse.

Welcome to the Hotel California.

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Not a Mystery

The Day Everything Became Clear
Parker was a happy, typical, youngster who loved to be outside playing with his friends from morning til night. We were gearing up for another adventurous summer when Parker came down with strep throat. He took the normal antibiotics, and though the strep throat cleared up, he changed.
He began sleeping all day. It was hard for him to stay awake long enough to eat a meal. School was out for the summer, and his friends were out having a ball, but Parker just couldn’t wake up to go play. He stayed in, sleeping.

Yes, I had the same experience in 1969.
And things are just now getting clearer for me.

The day after I published my current hypothesis, I got an email from a woman with a ten year old daughter with Narcolepsy.    The poor girl had just finished her 9th round of amoxicillin in four years...

Yes, things are getting much clearer.

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Reality Based Intoxication

Want to reduce obesity? Legalize medical marijuana, researchers say
....But for younger adults, age 18 to 24, the study found a different dynamic at play. "Our findings show that the enactment of Medical Marijuana Law is associated with a 3.1 percent reduction in the probability of alcohol consumption and a 4.8 percent reduction in the probability of binge drinking" among this younger group, the researchers found. They posit that medical marijuana availability may lead some younger adults to "substitute away from highly caloric alcoholic beverages toward a lower-calorie marijuana 'high,' resulting in lower body weight and likelihood of obesity."
This so-called substitution effect is often cited in arguments for legalizing marijuana: If you legalize weed, some people will opt for pot over alcohol. Alcohol consumption will fall as a result. And since researchers agree that marijuana is far less harmful than alcohol, the net effect of such a change for individuals and society would be positive.
They don't even mention the fact that it heals intestinal epithelium and reduces insulin resistance.   That seems relevant somehow.

Monday, December 7, 2015

Reality Based Dentisty

Study finds 'no-drill' dentistry stops tooth decay
A University of Sydney study has revealed that tooth decay (dental caries) can be stopped, reversed, and prevented without the need for the traditional 'fill and drill' approach that has dominated dental care for decades.
The results of the seven year study, published today in Community Dentistry and Oral Epidemiology, found that the need for fillings was reduced by 30 to 50 per cent through preventative oral care.

"For a long time it was believed that tooth decay was a rapidly progressive phenomenon and the best way to manage it was to identify early decay and remove it immediately in order to prevent a tooth surface from breaking up into cavities. After removing the decay, the affected tooth is then restored with a filling material—this process is sometimes referred to as 'drilling and filling'.
"However, 50 years of research studies have shown that decay is not always progressive and develops more slowly than was previously believed. For example, it takes an average of four to eight years for decay to progress from the tooth's outer layer (enamel) to the inner layer (dentine).
"That is plenty of time for the decay to be detected and treated before it becomes a cavity and requires a filling."
Yes, Ellie Phillips wrote a book about this in 2010.
But ignoring symptoms and drilling and filling is so much more lucrative....  those dentists have boat payments you know...

Sunday, December 6, 2015

What I Believe

I believe that poor dental care, chronic infections and wanton overprescription of antibiotics are destroying the hearts and minds of everyone in America, and a good portion of the rest of the world.

And nothing will change until we address that.

Thoughts for A Sunday Morning

New York Times Runs First Front-Page Editorial Since 1920 to Demand Gun Control

Ted Nugent Called For Americans To Get Their Guns And ‘Cleanse’ The Country Of Liberals
I have decorated the trees in my front yard with peace symbols for this Solstice season.   I do not intend to remove them.   Or the silver one hanging around my neck.

Pray for the Peacemakers for they will be used as Targets.

Friday, December 4, 2015

While I'm thinking about him

Yo EmmyM-

Have you ever tested those spinal taps for streptococcal meningitis?
You do know that is also a possible adverse complication of the procedure itself, right?

Yo Dr. Mignot

You wanna help us?    Try This.   If not, don't.

Intestinal bacteria are affected by antidiabetic drugs
Intestinal bacteria change their composition and function when diabetic patients are treated with the drug metformin
Metformin makes intestinal bacteria produce fatty acids
European and Chinese researchers in the EU-funded MetaHIT consortium have studied the intestinal bacterial communities from Danish, Swedish and Chinese patients with type 2 diabetes as well as from healthy individuals; a total of 784 people were studied. The purpose of these studies were to separate changes in gut microbiota associated with disease from changes that may be associated with the intake of certain types of medication. The findings have recently been published in the prestigious international journal Nature.
The study shows that the most frequently used drug for the treatment of high blood glucose levels, metformin, causes favourable changes in the gut microbiota in patients with type 2 diabetes. This boosts the capability of the bacteria to produce certain types of short-chain fatty acids, such as butyric acid and propionic acid. These fatty acids can reduce blood glucose levels in different ways. Metformin is, however, also known for having adverse effects on the gastrointestinal tract, for example bloating and increased flatulence. The study has provided the researchers with a possible explanation, since patients treated with metformin have more coliform bacteria in their intestines, which may be one of the causes of the inconveniences.
I am beginning to think this drug should be given immediately after antibiotic treatment.

Robert Koch Spins A Few Times

Study shows that certain herpes viruses can infect human neurons
For years, researchers have noted a tantalizing link between some neurologic conditions and certain species of the herpes virus. In patients with Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, and cerebellar ataxia, among other neuropathies, the cerebrospinal fluid teems with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). Yet, the nature of that link has remained unclear, as it has been assumed that EBV, as well as other viruses in the same sub-family, called gammaherpesviruses, cannot infect neurons.
Now, thanks to investigators from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, researchers in this field know better. Erle S. Robertson, PhD and colleagues published in mBio this week that EBV and a related virus, Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV), can infect and replicate in both cultured and primary neurons.
Though by no means proving causality, those data do suggest viral infection could underlie at least some of the symptoms of those brain disorders, as well as the potential utility of antiviral drugs as a novel therapeutic strategy.

That's Effed Up

I am at a point in my recovery, and live in a location where-
I now believe it's more likely that I will be shot by a random wacko in the street
Than commit suicide.

The mind, it boggles.

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Evidence of Occult Infection

Depression contributes to preventable hospitalizations in Danish study
Individuals with depression are more than twice as likely to have hospitalizations that might be preventable with timely outpatient medical care in the community, a new study finds. In addition, after being discharged from the hospital, individuals with depression were also more likely to return to the hospital within 30 days for the same conditions, the researchers found.
Such preventable hospitalizations, also known as hospitalizations for ambulatory care-sensitive conditions, include exacerbations of common chronic conditions, such as diabetes, congestive heart failure, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and acute illnesses, such as bacterial pneumonia and urinary tract infections.
Thanks Denmark.

I would just like to point out:
Orexin deficiency is strongly correlated with depression.
Narcolepsy is commonly comorbid with many of those conditions.
The orexin receptor has just been linked to heart failure.
And ALL of those illnesses can be caused by strep colonization.

Words Matter

This study seems to be making the rounds-
There’s No Such Thing as a Male or Female Brain

So?    There are major differences in immune responses between males and females.

Even if the brain structures are basically the same, the hormones and neurotransmitters running through them are not- because they are responding to different triggers.

And very many of us are sick and tired of being treated as if this is a mystery.
Bullshit headlines like this have real world consequences.

Sunday, November 29, 2015

Dear Sinead

You have saved my life many times.
You helped me endure until it got better.
I just wanted to say thanks for that.

The Glucose-Industrial Complex

Have a coke and diabetes: The beverage giant’s shady research practices, exposed
Once one of America's most-trusted brands, Coca-Cola is downplaying soda's link to obesity. An expert explains.
See the sociopathy.

Saturday, November 28, 2015

Cereal Zombies

Breakfast Cereal's Last Gasp
Last year, General Mills launched a new product aimed at health-conscious customers: Cheerios Protein, a version of its popular cereal made with whole-grain oats and lentils. Early reviews were favorable. The cereal, Huffington Post reported, tasted mostly like regular Cheerios, although “it seemed like they were sweetened and flavored a little more aggressively.” Meanwhile, ads boasted that the cereal would offer “long-lasting energy” as opposed to a sugar crash.
But earlier this month, the Center for Science in the Public Interest sued General Mills, saying that there’s very little extra protein in Cheerios Protein compared to the original brand and an awful lot more sugar—17 times as much, in fact. So why would General Mills try to market a product as containing protein when it’s really a box fill of carbs and refined sugar?
Ummm, because sugar makes you hungrier and protein doesn't?
It's like pretzels in bars making you thirsty.   They just want to sell you more product.

Thursday, November 26, 2015

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

The Known Unknowns

Trump spent this week defending his dubious claims, insisting that — although he could not remember where he had seen "thousands and thousands” of Muslims cheering the destruction of the World Trade Center — he was certain he had witnessed it because he has, in his own words, “the world’s greatest memory.”

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

But of Course

High bicarbonate levels in narcoleptic children

High bicarbonate levels are a sign of hypoventilation-   impaired breathing .    Uh huh.

Monday, November 23, 2015

More Fruits And Vegetables!!

Blood sugar levels in response to foods are highly individual 
Scientists have released new results underscoring the importance of a personalized diet, prepared based on complex factors such as your gut microbes and lifestyle. Surprisingly, the foods that raise blood sugar levels differ dramatically from person to person. 

Now will someone please tell Cigna?     I am sick and tired of being threatened with cancellation and  financially punished for refusing to eat a low fat diet.     And refusing to lie about it like everyone else...

Modern dietary protocols are complete bullshit, and forcing people to comply with them is flat-out malpractice.
  
This study is "revolutionary" only because a century of doctors did not listen to their patients.

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Palate Cleanser

Totally Off Topic:

But it is something useful and practically miraculous. 
I used this technique on a water stain on my antique card catalog and it worked perfectly.

Made me so happy.   Little victories make life worth living.

How to Remove Dark Stains from Wood Furniture

Wish I would have known this decades ago.   Thanks Internet.

See the Vortex

My doctor told me it was all in my head; I might have died if I’d believed him 


Yeah, Hashimoto's is commonly comorbid with Narcolepsy....and can be caused by endotoxin.

Saturday, November 21, 2015

Further Adventures in Auditory Phenomena

Further ruminations on the loss of sensation.

Results of my latest tinnitus experiment:

My head has been ringing for a couple years now.  Although some of it comes from my teeth, since moving to this dry climate I clearly have been having middle ear problems.   I have tried a number of drugs and things, but it has persisted.

Even though I do not have pain, I decided to try the advice I gave someone else and gargle with baking soda and water.   See if that could clear my eustachian tubes.

I hate to gargle and have had impaired facial movement on the right side since the shrieking started.  I suspected I wasn't swallowing properly.
So I got back there with a toothbrush and cleaned my throat.   My eustacian tubes are situated up high behind my upper molars, and apparently they collect debris and mucous there.

So- after clearing them out, not only did the screeching lessen dramatically, I regained feeling in the whole right side of my face and neck.  It was like a warm light warming up the side of my head.   And I am regaining small muscle movement over there too.     After about a week, I am amazed.

I found the toothbrush too scratchy, I didn't like long cotton swabs, but long foam ones seem to be good.   I think I might use them to clean out all the duct openings-  nasal openings on the roof of the mouth and salivary glands under the tongue.   Don't forget to rinse well and lubricate with some kind of edible oil.

A long time ago I noticed that we don't know how bad we feel until we get better.
About a year ago I noticed that we seem to lose epithelial sensitivity where we are infected.
Now I finally realize we just can't feel the source of our misery until after we get better.

Update: 
I felt really stupid for not thinking of this much earlier, even though I couldn't think...
But I have searched and there are NO protocols or advice to swab out your throat to clean it.   None.
That's  astonishing

Update 2: These are the swabs you want.   They work great.   And like sinus cleaning, this process seems to work much better in the shower. 

Update 3:  Dammit, People....

While We're Getting Medieval

I am beginning to believe the solution to the world's problems is to "migrate" ridiculous old men into "safe zones" called "assisted living facilities".

Have some nice orderlies feed them correctly and vigorously clean out their ears, sinuses and colons so they can think more clearly.

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Just Following Protocol Sir

Most Vets Don't Qualify For VA Dental Care. So These Dentists Are Giving It For Free
After years of neglect, William Bell’s teeth had deteriorated to the point that he looked liked he had been “smoking meth every day for years.” And though the U.S. veteran had kidney cancer, diabetes, PTSD and depression, he wasn’t “disabled enough” to qualify for dental care through the Department of Veterans Affairs.
“I was trying to get my teeth worked on for three years. They wouldn’t do it,” Bell, who served three tours in Iraq and two in Afghanistan before retiring in 2013, told The Huffington Post. “I can get major surgery done, but I can’t get my teeth done.”
That is as backwards as it gets.    
See the Matrix.

Insert long string of curse words here

Adenoid hypertrophy (or enlarged adenoids) is the unusual growth of the adenoid tonsil first described by the Danish physician Wilhelm Meyer  in Copenhagen in 1868. He described that a long term adenoid hypertrophy will cause an obstruction of the nasal airways. These will lead to a dentofacial growth anomaly that was defined as "adenoid facies".

Adenoid inflammation results in mouth breathing, which CHANGES THE SHAPE OF THE FACE.   It causes nostril constriction, smaller upper jaws, protruding upper teeth, and long slack cheeks. 

This is an obvious external symptom, and this has been known for 150 years!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I keep having visions of all the droopy faced children at the conferences I have attended...
 
Seriously-   every single doctor or dentist I have ever seen should have mentioned this.
Not one ever did.
And that includes numerous sleep specialists and ENT's.
They did give me orthodontia for 9 years though.    Yeah, that did not solve the problem.

Bonus Study:   New research shows that obstructed breathing is enough to harm orexin cells.
 
Here, imagine my distorted head exploding.















Update:   Yeah, I was about twelve when that picture was taken  (circa 1972).   And I was already haunting libraries studying medical science and history-  Pasteur, Koch- I was familiar with infection and microbes.   I would have researched this at the time.
Kaboom.

Monday, November 16, 2015

Correlation Games

Modulating brain's stress circuity might prevent Alzheimer's disease
In a novel animal study design that mimicked human clinical trials, researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine report that long-term treatment using a small molecule drug that reduces activity of the brain's stress circuitry significantly reduces Alzheimer's disease (AD) neuropathology and prevents onset of cognitive impairment in a mouse model of the neurodegenerative condition.
Previous research has shown a link between the brain's stress signaling pathways and AD. Specifically, the release of a stress-coping hormone called corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF), which is widely found in the brain and acts as a neurotransmitter/neuromodulator, is dysregulated in AD and is associated with impaired cognition and with detrimental changes in tau protein and increased production of amyloid-beta - protein fragments that clump together and trigger the neurodegeneration characteristic of AD.

My turn:

Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) increases plasma levels of CRF  in rats.

 Chronic LPS administration increases Beta amyloid levels in the brains of mice. 

HeadDeskHeadDeskHeadDesk

New research raises questions about using certain antibiotics to treat 'superbug' MRSA
The scientists explained that beta-lactam antibiotics kill normal staph bacteria by inactivating their cell-wall-making enzymes. But one of these enzymes, PBP2A, which is induced when MRSA is exposed to beta-lactam antibiotics, is not rendered inactive by the antibiotics. In fact, PBP2A allows the superbug to continue making its cell wall. Further, the cell wall's structure differs from that of normal staph, and not in a good way. "This altered cell wall induces a powerful inflammatory response," said the study's co-senior author, David Underhill, PhD, associate director of the Division of Immunology Research in the Cedars-Sinai Department of Biomedical Sciences and the Janet and William Wetsman Family Chair in Inflammatory Bowel Disease. "In mice infected with MRSA, induction of PBP2A with methicillin led to more inflammation and pathology."
In other words, the mice became sicker.
Yeah, beta-lactam antibiotics are flat out evil.   They seem to make everything worse.

And not to put too fine a point on this.... but my doctor gave me Keflex to prevent MRSA.
Prophylactic use is against protocol, and this shows clearly that it could not have helped.

And people tell me I have a bad attitude about doctors...

Vertical Sociopathy

How pharma keeps a trove of drug trials out of public view
A third of the clinical trial results that federal regulators reviewed to approve drugs made by large pharmaceutical companies in 2012 were never publicly reported, according to a new study that grades companies on their transparency.
That's upstream.  I think we had downstream last week...
As many as a third of drug meta-analyses are written by pharma industry employees.
They bias the data pool, the experimental protocols, they restrict patient pools, skew the conclusions and then the secondary analysis, too.  


Yeah this is a big problem for us. 
Drug companies are just about the only people interested in our illness.

Sunday, November 15, 2015

Same as it ever was

A lot of old men with head infections deciding what to do about a few young men with head infections.

This should work out well.

Thursday, November 12, 2015

A Floor Wax and a Dessert Topping

Okay people, it is apparently winter in northerly latitudes and I am starting to get reports of throat infections and depression.  You must start taking care of your noses and throats immediately.

So the topic for today is Baking Soda-
I am beginning to believe it is the best thing on the planet.
It neutralizes acid, and Strep bacteria need acid to digest glucose.   It starves them.  And the water rehydrates your tissues.

Baking soda is the most effective tooth cleaner.
Saline with baking soda is the best nose wash.   (Simply Saline is one)
Warm water with baking soda is good to gargle with for middle ear infections.
It also dissolves wax in the outer ear.
If you drink it, it relieves urinary tract infections.
And it makes a nice bath salt too.

Not to mention it cleans pots and pans and bong residue.  Ha.

Don't forget to rinse well and lubricate with some kind of oil afterwards.   Olive, coconut, butter, etc.

The Circle of Insanity

 A New Look at the Sleepless Brain
In 2014, Rachel Salas, director of ambulatory sleep services at Johns Hopkins Center for Sleep, tested how quickly insomniac patients could learn a simple motor task. Given that their brains were depleted of fuel, she reasoned, they’d probably do worse. Instead, they did far better. “Their brains were more plastic, more adaptive,” Salas says. It wasn’t the sleep deprivation: It was that their brains simply processed information faster, whether or not they had gotten enough sleep. In fact, other studies have found that insomniacs have heightened levels of the stress hormone cortisol and higher overall brain metabolism, whether they were sleeping or awake.
“It’s like a light switch that’s always on, a car that’s always running” is how Salas describes the insomniac brain. Her findings add to the mounting evidence that insomnia is not just something that happens at night—the insomniac brain exists in a constant state of hyperarousal.

Here's why this is relevant for Narcolepsy-
It is possible to have low orexin levels and still have high cortisol levels.    And most of us do.
One of the most fundamental things about narcolepsy that nobody seems to understand is how debilitated we really are.  We are twice as sick as anyone realizes.   Because underneath those slack faces and paralyzed bodies-   we are completely wired,  our brains don't ever shut down.   And yet we still can't move.
Not only is our sleep not relaxing or refreshing,  we get to experience every moment of the nightmare.

It's not real mysterious that giving orexin blockers to insomniacs has been found to have  alarming adverse consequences....
Lowing orexin levels does not address the cortisol overproduction problem.
It's merely narcolepsy in a pill.

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

The Gateway Drug

One course of antibiotics can affect diversity of microorganisms in the gut
A single course of antibiotics has enough strength to disrupt the normal makeup of microorganisms in the gut for as long as a year, potentially leading to antibiotic resistance, European researchers reported this week in mBio, an online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

In a study of 66 healthy adults prescribed different antibiotics, the drugs were found to enrich genes associated with antibiotic resistance and to severely affect microbial diversity in the gut for months after exposure. By contrast, microorganisms in the saliva showed signs of recovery in as little as few weeks.
The microorganisms in study participants' feces were severely affected by most antibiotics for months, said lead study author Egija Zaura, PhD, an associate professor in oral microbial ecology at the Academic Centre for Dentistry in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In particular, researchers saw a decline in the abundance of health-associated species that produce butyrate, a substance that inhibits inflammation, cancer formation and stress in the gut.
Yeah that round of Keflex made me sick for a year.
And I lost big chunks of my memory.
Good times.

Things that Make me Laugh

Dark sense of humour could be early sign of dementia

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Geez Louise

Alzheimer’s drug found to cause harm to mouse brain cells
Alzheimer’s plaques form when protein pieces called beta amyloid clump together. Busche and his colleagues previously discovered that beta amyloid proteins can cause neurons to become hyperactive. They suggest that when the antibodies break up the plaques, it somehow aggravates this effect, making it worse than if the plaques remained intact.
In the wake of multiple failures trying to treat people with advanced Alzheimer’s disease, drug developers have switched to trying to detect and treat disease earlier.
So Busche and his team also studied the effect of the drug in mice with early-stage Alzheimer’s. Even in these mice, which had no plaques in their brains, neurons became hyperactive and symptoms of the disease worsened.
Mercy, mercy, mercy.   

It's a Thing Now

'Post-hospital syndrome' found to be a risk factor for elective surgery
During hospitalization, patients often are sleep deprived and in pain or discomfort. They receive medications that can alter their mental and physical abilities. They become deconditioned (loss of muscle mass, reduced cardiac output, etc.). And patients may not get sufficient nutrition if, for example, they are on a ventilator or have to fast before surgery or tests. These problems can impair their recovery and make them more prone to disease and mental errors, Dr. Krumholz wrote.
Seriously?   It's as if thousands of years of civilization and medicine never existed...

Pretty sure Hippocrates came to this same conclusion.

But hey, excellent documentation of the obvious.

Thursday, November 5, 2015

Brain Eating Zombie of the Day

Mark Joseph Stern

My 9-Year Love Affair With Melatonin
Falling asleep is hard work. After spending a day solving the complex puzzles of daily life, you are expected to lie down, turn off the lights, and quiet your whirring whirlwind of thoughts within a few minutes. In my early years, this process was fraught with frustration and despair: I would lie awake for hours, bored and desperate, staring at the ceiling, wondering why I couldn’t shut off my brain. I tried all the hippie methods—meditation, breathing exercises, even goddamn Sleepytime tea—but none of it eased me into slumber.
Then, around age 15, I discovered melatonin. I first spotted the drug on the shelf of a health food store—the kind that sells vegan dog food and horny goat weed. Melatonin struck me as marginally less scammy than most supplements, so I bought a bottle and took my first dose that night. Thirty minutes later, I was overcome with the drowsy feeling kids get after a day at the beach. Five minutes after that, I eased into sleep.
And that’s when the real fun began.
 There is a fair amount of research documenting the effectiveness of melatonin supplements as a sleep aid. But there is relatively little research to explain why it gives you trippy, totally bonkers dreams. This phenomenon is well-documented on the Internet but largely ignored by scientists, presumably because crazy dreams are not (yet) therapeutically relevant. Still, almost everybody I know who takes melatonin confirmed what I discovered on that first night: You will never dream as vividly as you do on melatonin.

Ummmmm, this man has acute trigeminal neuralgia. He's wired and can't sleep because he can't feel his own headache. Looks like he's got a sinus infection...
Melatonin reduces the pain in his face so he passes out even though his stress hormones are racing and his cortex is still functioning.
Sound familiar?

Insomnia and Vivid Dreaming are symptoms of active head infection.
I say that's clinically relevant.
(Talkin to you, Dr. Dreamy)

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Go Effin Figure

Deadly microbe dodges human immune system
Group A Streptococcus is one of the world's most fatal infectious diseases, with 600,000 cases annually.
...
"We studied M1T1, one of the most prevalent strains affecting the developed world," Dr Barnett said.  "It had previously been thought that autophagy, which is part of the immune response, efficiently defended the interior of cells against Group A Streptococcus." He said the research showed that in fact M1T1 produced an enzyme that breaks down the patient's immune proteins that fight bacterial infection.

"Our findings were vastly different to previous studies that used strains not commonly associated with human disease," Dr Barnett said. "We now know that Streptococcus can hide, survive and grow in cells."

Ruminations on the Loss of Sensation

I find it very fascinating that even an eminent neurosurgeon doesn't seem to notice that his own trigeminal nerve has stopped functioning and his whole face is drooping.

I would bet he's pre-Parkinsons. Lots of volatile aromatics in surgery suites.

Update:  here's a simpler mechanism- enlarged adenoids.

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Correlation Games

New genetic risk marker for late-life depression
Individuals who carry this ε4 variant of APOE are at increased risk for developing Alzheimer's disease, early age of Alzheimer's disease onset, and more rapid progression of Alzheimer's disease symptoms. APOE ε4 has also been associated with atherosclerosis as well as cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease.
A new study published in the current issue of Biological Psychiatry suggests that even when controlling for the risk for Alzheimer's disease, the APOE ε4 allele also conveys an increased risk for late-life depression.

APOE genotype alters glial activation and loss of synaptic markers in mice.
APOE4 mice display increased glial activation in response to cranial  lipopolysaccharide (LPS) compared to APOE2 and APOE3 mice by several measures.

They are talking about US

Quiet 'epidemic' has killed half a million middle-aged white Americans
 With data from a variety of surveys and reports, the paper reports a sharp increase in the death rate for middle-aged whites after 1998, which the researchers tie to drugs and alcohol, suicide, chronic liver disease and cirrhosis. This turnaround in mortality reverses decades of progress, the researchers write, and the same pattern is not seen in other rich countries, nor is it seen among African Americans or Hispanics in the United States.

This is what happens when you tell alcoholics to stay out of the sun and eat low fat- high carb food, and to drink fructose instead.
They get sicker.   Until they don't want to live anymore.

I should be one of the dead.

Monday, November 2, 2015

As I was saying

Male and female mice respond differently to inflammation
New research published in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology shows that male and female mice respond differently to inflammation at the cellular level. Specifically, in male mice the spleen acts as a source of white blood cells, while in females this is not the case. This discovery suggests that human studies are necessary to determine if current medical practices, which treat men and women generally the same, should be altered to reflect sex-specific differences.

Sunday, November 1, 2015

For the Record

This is the one thing I have found that works when I can't sleep:
A teaspoon of olive oil taken orally.

It seems to lubricate my mouth and throat and help me breathe and swallow and relaxes my head, and before I know it, it's morning.

I keep a small squirt bottle on my nightstand-  I find that I will not get out of bed when my head is clenched, even if I cannot sleep.   But I can reach out one arm...

Update: This works because we can't sleep when our mucous tissues are inflamed.
If it doesn't work, you can try Chloroseptic spray.

For The Geeks

Intestinal permeability – a new target for disease prevention and therapy

Long review article about guts.   Very good.

Saturday, October 31, 2015

THEY KNOW THIS


Metabolic endotoxemia initiates obesity and insulin resistance.
Diabetes and obesity are two metabolic diseases characterized by insulin resistance and a low-grade inflammation. Seeking an inflammatory factor causative of the onset of insulin resistance, obesity, and diabetes, we have identified bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) as a triggering factor...
This new finding demonstrates that metabolic endotoxemia dysregulates the inflammatory tone and triggers body weight gain and diabetes. We conclude that the LPS/CD14 system sets the tone of insulin sensitivity and the onset of diabetes and obesity. Lowering plasma LPS concentration could be a potent strategy for the control of metabolic diseases.
Why don't we all?  

Friday, October 30, 2015

Works for Me

Research finds new link between zonulin and 2 common inflammatory bowel conditions 
The researchers have discovered that people with non-coeliac gluten sensitivity (NCGS) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) have higher than normal blood levels of zonulin, suggesting an important role for the protein in the development of these conditions.
Speaking at the 23rd United European Gastroenterology Week (UEG Week 2015) in Barcelona, Spain, Professor Giovanni Barbara from the University of Bologna said the results may lead to new treatment strategies for these conditions. "We were intrigued to find that blood levels of zonulin were almost as high in patients with NCGS as in those with coeliac disease," he said.
...
 "Increased intestinal permeability has been implicated in a range of autoimmune conditions including coeliac disease, type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis," explained Prof. Barbara. "Since zonulin is a key regulator of intestinal permeability, it is possible that this protein provides a common link between all these conditions."

Thanks for this, Sarah.

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

I'm tellin ya, Sociopaths all the way down...

It’s not just Paxil: Your antidepressant could be dangerous to your health
An explosive new report finds as many as a third of drug meta-analyses are written by pharma industry employees.
As the old saying goes....  It's not who votes, it's who counts the votes that matters.
And in this case, that would be people who do not care about other people's brains.

Sunday, October 25, 2015

Absolutely. 100%. Yes.

Could Depression Be Caused By An Infection? 

And you don't even need all these convoluted explanations how it works.
Infection reduces Orexin levels to one-sixth of normal.    It's a basic immune response to all kinds of infection.  You instantly have no energy and become cranky.
If your infection is chronic, well you experience this as depression.

Period. The End.

(unless of course you want to include all the other things that are caused by infections...  Anxiety, PTSD, ADHD, Schizophrenia, Autism, Bipolar, Alzheimer's, Parkinsons, Multiple Sclerosis, Alcoholism, Obesity, and all the "Addictions"...  I'm still working out all the details of that thesis, though.)

Saturday, October 24, 2015

Oh Really

Old rat brains rejuvenated and new neurons grown by asthma drug
The rats took part in a range of learning and memory tests. One of these, for example, involved the rats being placed in a pool of water with a hidden escape platform. At the start of the study, untreated young rats learned to recognise landmarks and quickly find their way to the platform, while the untreated older animals struggled at the task.
By the end of their six-week drug regime, though, old animals performed as well as their younger companions. “We’ve restored learning and memory 100 per cent, to a level comparable with youth,” says Aigner. He presented his findings last week at the Society for Neuroscience meetingin Chicago.
When the team studied the brains of the animals, they found that old rats that had been given Montelukast had 80 per cent less inflammation. They also had an enhanced level of new neuron growth compared with untreated old rats – about 50 per cent of that seen in young rats, says Aigner.
The team also found that the blood-brain barrier – which stops infectious agents reaching the brain and which weakens in old age – was stronger in treated old rats. “Structurally, the brain had rejuvenated,” says Aigner.
Yes, it seems Montelukast alleviates the inflammatory effects of Endotoxin.

I think we need to start a campaign to research this.    I want some, dammit.

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

On the Topic of Progressive Cell Loss

One of the fundamental misconceptions about Narcolepsy is the belief that orexin deficiency is static- either you have orexin producing cells or you don't. The fallacies that usually accompany this misunderstanding are:
  • If you do have cells, you produce orexin
  • And if you don't produce orexin, you don't have cells.
So let's start here:  Orexin production is not binary.
Orexin production fluctuates up and down regularly all day long in all people. That's how it works, high levels wakes us up and low levels puts us to sleep.  1
And many environmental triggers decrease orexin production without killing the cells.   2 3 4 5

Secondly- theres a pervasive idea that orexin cell loss is an all or nothing thing, either you have them or you don't, that they all get killed before you show symptoms. That is not true, even old dead narcoleptics still have between 5-10% of their cells left.  6

Most of this misunderstanding is the result of hasty conclusions. When orexin was first discovered, they had a bunch of old-time narcos who volunteered to be tested. And lo and behold they had no orexin.  And normal people did. So it was clear: Narcolepsy is a lack of orexin.  That's what the dog experiments showed.   Those narcoleptic dogs are unable to produce orexin.

But then they started testing as many people as would let them stick a needle in their spines... and bam, they soon found people who still did produce orexin, but passed out and slept in the doctor's office anyway.  So, since they couldn't go in those people's brains and figure out what was actually going on.... they just made another category to put those people into.

Since then, the evidence has clearly shown that there is a whole range of symptoms and cell loss and orexin levels that narcoleptic humans exhibit. Not only that, the symptoms are inversely correlated to orexin levels and these effects are cumulative.   7
Instead of two discreet diagnoses.... Type 1 and Type 2, the data actually indicates a progression of cell loss, orexin depletion and symptoms. Unfortunately, most sleep doctors cannot even name the five basic symptoms of narcolepsy, so yours is likely unaware of this development.  8

The current evidence supports the conclusion that narcolepsy is actually a combination of cell loss AND low production of orexin in the remaining cells. Erratic production causes symptoms in the beginning, but eventually the cells are killed.

This is why people who are tested close to the onset of symptoms may show orexin levels in the normal range.
And also why even if you do have viable cells, you still might not have any circulating orexin.

It is also why you should do something about it as soon as possible.

Thursday, October 15, 2015

It's Not Your Imagination

A couple for you.

Type 2 diabetes patients find exercise more difficult
All of the women exercised on a stationary bicycle at a low to moderate intensity similar to the work needed to walk one mile in 25 minutes. During the exercise, women reported how difficult it felt while also having blood drawn to test for lactate levels. Those levels are an important measure of effort because they increase in proportion to the level of exertion.
The researchers found significantly higher lactate levels during low to moderate intensity exercise in people with Type 2 diabetes than their counterparts without the disease. They also tended to score higher on the Rating of Perceived Exertion that measures how difficult people rate the exercise.
"Exercise effort is an important barrier to physical activity because it is modifiable," the study said, "and the perception of more intense effort during exercise has been associated with lower levels of usual physical activity."
According to Huebschmann, these findings suggest that common household activities like climbing stairs or carrying groceries would feel more difficult to people with Type 2 diabetes than to their counterparts without diabetes.
And guess what....  eating fruit before exercising makes this worse.
Sheesh.

Here's a great one from Denise.

Losing Neutrality: The Neural Basis of Impaired Emotional Control without Sleep
 Sleep loss is known as a robust modulator of emotional reactivity, leading to increased anxiety and stress elicited by seemingly minor triggers. In this work, we aimed to portray the neural basis of these emotional impairments and their possible association with frontal regulation of emotional processing, also known as cognitive control of emotion. Using specifically suited EEG and fMRI tasks, we were able to show that sleep deprivation alters emotional reactivity by triggering enhanced processing of stimuli regarded previously as neutral. These changes were further accompanied by diminished frontal connectivity, reduced REM sleep, and poorer performance. Therefore, we suggest that sleep loss alters emotional reactivity by lowering the threshold for emotional activation, leading to a maladaptive loss of emotional neutrality.

Emotional volatility.   Sounds familiar for some reason... wish I could remember.... ha.

Saturday, October 10, 2015

Brain Saving Zombie of the Day

















Apparently Jazz is giving away cookies at their booth.   Uh huh.

THIS IS WHY

Because we can come out of our fogs, and when we do, we want everyone to do the same.

Gina is at the NN Conference right now, has a booth, and is telling everyone who will listen that a gluten free diet changed her life.
And she's revving up the info barrage on her blog.  Here's her latest post.

Last year, Christina gave a talk on Diet and Narcolepsy.  You can access the video here.


This was my goal-  Just to wake y'all up enough that you could find the way out of the darkness.   And now you're off and running.

I must go weep now.

Thursday, October 8, 2015

Can You Hear Me Screaming???

Suicide attempts and self harm increase in wake of weight-loss surgery

Yes, it's amazing what can happen to your brain when you get a bunch of gut microbes in your bloodstream...

Okay, gotta go pace some more...

Friday, October 2, 2015

Just Sayin

Men in their twenties can be assumed to have unaddressed wisdom teeth problems.
And that often causes bacteremia and mania and delirium.

Thursday, October 1, 2015

Not my Imagination

Why It Was Easier to Be Skinny in the 1980s
A new study finds that people today who eat and exercise the same amount as people 20 years ago are still fatter.
Yeah, and they give a few of the standard options, but don't actually answer the question.

The answer to the question is wanton overprescription of antibiotics.
The cumulative effects are destroying our collective metabolism.  

Monday, September 21, 2015

Yo Bruce

I never looked up your photo before.

Guess what?   You have all the external presentations of a narcoleptic.... most notably the red swollen face and neck....
You have an oral infection and endotoxemia, probably induced by alcohol, bless your fat Irish heart.

Good luck with that.

Brain Eating Zombie of the Day

Martin Shkreli
And I meant that literally.
Not to mention, Worst Person in the World.

A $750 Pill And A Founder Who Doesn’t Know When To Stop Tweeting
The New York Times ran a piece Sunday looking into why a 62-year-old pill saw its price skyrocket from $13.50 to nearly $750 after it was acquired by Turing Pharmaceuticals last month.
The increase in the price of Daraprim, a drug that the Times reported “is the standard of care for treating a life-threatening parasitic infection,” will undoubtedly have a major impact on those struggling to keep up with high prescription drug costs.
This is unconscionable
Toxoplasmosis is a frakking brain infection.   It makes you insane.  
This is flat out extortion.

Why do they do this?   Because they can.   What's an infected person to do? 
And the asshole in charge is the most callous sonofabitch I've ever witnessed.   At least Bruce Cozadd knows he's got to protect his racket.
Martin Shkreli's brain is clearly infected with something.
Read the article.  Read his tweets.  It's nauseating.

Thursday, September 17, 2015

Why I am not going to the Narcolepsy Network Conference

Not because almost everything I've ever been told there is either irrelevant or downright inaccurate-
But because every time I do, my symptoms get worse.

And that's because Narcolepsy is contagious.
It is caused by upper airway bacterial infection and big groups of people in closed quarters increase the likelihood of disease transmission.

And since NN really doesn't want to admit that, they don't do anything to prevent it.
Hell, they seem to go out of their way to choose the least appropriate locations.
Vegas was a hot, arid sensory nightmare, Cleveland was cold and rainy, (I missed Atlanta), the altitude in Denver caused respiratory distress, and now Minneapolis is the ground zero of winter infectious illnesses.
Like flu.   Which triggers strep.  And Strep Causes Narcolepsy.

Not to mention most of the food contains gluten or sugar which makes our symptoms worse.
And even if it doesn't, it is served buffet style, and all your fellow sickos are breathing on it.  Mmmmmm,   narcolepsy on a plate.

I don't think they know enough about Narcolepsy to actually make us worse intentionally...
But that is because they are willfully ignoring the research.
The real goal of the organization and their conference is to get you a diagnosis so the doctors and pharmas can make money off you for the rest of your life.  
So if they admit that narcolepsy is caused by oropharyngeal  infection, they are instantly out of business...

See the Matrix

New research reveals obese individuals can't switch off from food
"We found that when the displayed images were not of food, such as chips or chocolate for example, but were instead of, say, kittens then obese individuals behave the same as normal-weight people and were able to look away," Dr Bell said.

Yes, that's because hyperinsulinemia makes us hypoglycemic.   And that makes us frakkin hungry,  not stupid.
This is Basic Endocrinology, dammit.   Stop assuming we have defective decision making abilities.

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

My two cents

Donald Trump suffers from an obvious head infection.
This infection affects his thinking and makes him impulsive and nasty.
The reason he is so popular is because many older Americans suffer the same illness due to pervasive poor dental care.

What you are witnessing is the effects of population-wide progressive neuropathology.   

Thursday, September 10, 2015

Oh Yeah, almost forgot.

Dear Skinny Bitch-
I really can't explain how very much you are going to regret your nasty tirade.

Not because of the social backlash.
But because you are about to learn how obesity really works.
You are not healthy.  You are manic.
Your anorexia and your compulsive exercise and your sense of superiority are symptoms of cortisol overload.
And mania happens while your orexin cells burn out.

I hope you survive the next part of the process.
Because your crash is imminent.

As I was saying

Chronic rhinosinusitis linked to increased risk of other diseases

Chronic rhinosinusitis without nasal polyps is correlated with obesity.
Yep.

oh, and periodontitis  is too...

Friday, August 28, 2015

Have a Nice Weekend

Marijuana fights diabetes, another study confirms
A study in the February issue of the journal Obesity found that regular cannabis users had a lower body mass index, lower fat percentages, and lower fasting insulin — adding to the growing body of research debunking the ‘fat, munchie-chomping stoner’ stereotype.
Canadian researchers looked at 786 adults in the an Inuit community where more than half the population used cannabis. They found that cannabis use was statistically associated with lower BMI, and other metrics of obesity.
The study mirrors findings of several others, including a French study in 2011, and a U.S. study in 2012 that concluded “marijuana use was independently associated with a lower prevalence of diabetes mellitus.”
citation

Tic Tic Tic Tic Tic

Microbiomes of human throat may be linked to schizophrenia
In the most comprehensive study to date, researchers at the George Washington University have identified a potential link between microbes (viruses, bacteria and fungi) in the throat and schizophrenia. This link may offer a way to identify causes and develop treatments of the disease and lead to new diagnostic tests.
"The oropharynx of schizophrenics seems to harbor different proportions of oral bacteria than healthy individuals," said Eduardo Castro-Nallar, a Ph.D. candidate at GW's Computational Biology Institute (CBI) and lead author of the study. "Specifically, our analyses revealed an association between microbes such as lactic-acid bacteria and schizophrenics."
You don't say.

Thursday, August 27, 2015

Well Howdy

Antibiotic use linked to type 2 diabetes diagnosis
A person develops diabetes, which is characterized by high blood sugar levels, when the individual cannot produce enough of the hormone insulin or insulin does not work properly to clear sugar from the bloodstream.
More than 29 million Americans have diabetes, according to the Society's Endocrine Facts and Figures report. Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the condition, accounts for 90 to 95 percent of all cases.
"In our research, we found people who have Type 2 diabetes used significantly more antibiotics up to 15 years prior to diagnosis compared to healthy controls," said one of the study's authors, Kristian Hallundbæk Mikkelsen, MD, of Gentofte Hospital in Hellerup, Denmark. "Although we cannot infer causality from this study, the findings raise the possibility that antibiotics could raise the risk of Type 2 diabetes. Another equally compelling explanation may be that people develop Type 2 diabetes over the course of years and face a greater risk of infection during that time."
Or maybe BOTH, huh?

Thanks Denmark.   We really needed this.

Saturday, August 22, 2015

A couple for you

Serious childhood infection tied to metabolic disease later in life
 The researchers found that early-childhood Infection-related hospitalization  (IRH) correlated with adverse adult, but not childhood, metabolic variables: increased body mass index and metabolic syndrome.   The age at which differences in adult BMI became persistent was related to age of IRH in childhood. Cases with more than one childhood IRH had the greatest increase in adult BMI.

What's lurking in your lungs? Surprising findings emerge from microbiome research

In a paper last year in The Lancet, Dickson and Huffnagle reviewed what's known about exacerbations -- flare-ups of diseases such as asthma, CF, COPD and pulmonary fibrosis. In many cases, they conclude, these events can be linked to a disruption in the microbiome of the patient's lungs -- a state known as dysbiosis.
"The old explanation for a lot of these exacerbations was that the airways are acutely infected with bacteria," says Dickson. "But a large number of microbiome studies have shown that this just isn't so. Our old definition of 'infection' doesn't explain what's happening at all."
Instead, argue Dickson and Huffnagle, exacerbations happen when the bacterial communities in a patient's airways are disordered, which creates inflammation, which in turn further disorders the bacterial communities. This cycle of dysbiosis and inflammation is common across a number of chronic inflammatory lung diseases.

Yes, This.

Why the world’s remaining hunter-gatherer societies are some of its biggest pot smokers 
What’s clear is that the Aka people are managing to keep at bay an otherwise deadly infestation of intestinal worms entirely through diligent application of cannabis.

They are not doing it on purpose, however. The Aka, also known as Pygmies, enjoy weed because of what it does to their heads, not their intestines. A 1977 study of the group described its use as motivational: They “smoke to increase their courage on a hunt, dance better, increase their vital force, or to increase their work capacity when working for Europeans or village people,” researcher Barry Hewlett wrote at the time.
This next generation of Congo researchers, led by Washington State University researcher Ed Hagen, found the same. And then they deduced that the health benefits of enjoying a leaf-wrapped spliff in a Central African rainforest are evolutionary. The Aka may be unconsciously self-medicating.
This goes way beyond pot and Pygmies. Hagen thinks human use of all plant-based drugs followed the same path.
“We might have evolved a ‘taste’ for drugs for some utilitarian reason, such as defense against parasites,” Hagen said by email, “but then we elaborate this behavior in rituals, etc., exactly as we do for eating food and every other utilitarian behavior.
A thousand times YES.
Alcohol, nicotine, opiates, volatile aromatic chemicals, sugar, fat, fasting and exercise all affect the immune response...

Monday, August 17, 2015

Presents

From Lydia.  Nice finds.

Adolescent gamma-hydroxybutyric acid exposure decreases cortical NMDA receptor and impairs spatial learning
Together, these data indicate that GHB exposure in adolescent rats negatively impacts spatial learning and this is associated with altered regulation of cortical NMDA receptor.
These data indicate that GHB exposure in adolescent female rats has a negative impact on spatial learning and memory.

Neurotoxic effects induced by gammahydroxybutyric acid (GHB) in male rats
Stereological quantification showed that this drug produces a drastic neuronal loss in the hippocampal region and in the prefrontal cortex, two areas clearly involved in cognitive and neurological functions. ... The results show for the first time that the repeated administration of GHB, especially at very low doses, produces neurotoxic effects. This is very relevant because its abuse, especially by young persons, could produce considerable neurological alterations after prolonged abuse.

Pop Quiz

Gestational diabetes: A diabetes predictor in fathers
Gestational diabetes, a type of diabetes that occurs during pregnancy, affects between three and 20 per cent of pregnant women. Those who develop gestational diabetes are 7 times as likely to eventually develop type 2 diabetes in the years following pregnancy. Now, in a large study analyzing 20 years of data from Quebec, a team from the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) has demonstrated that gestational diabetes signals future diabetes risk not only in mothers, but also in fathers. The study was recently published in Diabetes Care.
"We observed that the incident of diabetes was 33% greater in men whose partner has gestational diabetes compared with men whose partners did not have gestational diabetes," says the lead author of the study, Dr. Kaberi Dasgupta, endocrinologist at the MUHC and an associate professor of Medicine at McGill University. "This is the first study to demonstrate a link between gestational diabetes in mothers and diabetes incidence in fathers."
What is a likely, logical explanation?

Extra Credit Question-  Why do they not know this?
really, someone tell me...

Thursday, August 13, 2015

Big fat clue in bold

Case report describes benefit of ketamine in child with PTSD
Ketamine may be beneficial for children with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and episodes of severe aggression and emotional dysregulation, according to a case report published online Aug. 10 in Pediatrics.

Anna C. Donoghue, M.D., from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and colleagues report on a case of a 7-year-old boy treated with ketamine for PTSD and episodes of severe aggression and emotional dysregulation. The episodes involved destruction of property and the symptoms were refractory to multiple medical and behavioral interventions.
The authors note that the child demonstrated sustained remission from symptoms (eight to 13 days) when exposed to ketamine on two occasions: when he underwent surgery for tonsillectomy and when he underwent sedated magnetic resonance imaging. On both occasions the patient demonstrated a reduction in the intensity and frequency of aggressive behaviors and exhibited an ability to control his emotions.
"There is a growing literature supporting ketamine for treatment-resistant depression in adults and, more recently, PTSD," the authors write. "This case report suggests the need for future study using ketamine as a treatment option for children with a history of trauma and severe behavioral dysregulation who have not responded to first-line medication and behavioral therapy approaches." 

Yes, well, psychotropic medications and behavioral therapy do not address sepsis in any way.   But Ketamine does.
This is infection.    Period.  No emotional trauma required.
A hundred dollars says that kid had multiple rounds of antibiotics before that surgery.
And if they let it go on... he will end up with narcolepsy.  Hell, it's probably too late already.

Puffy droopy cheeks on that boy too.

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Preliminary Results: Ear Exercises

Fun fact:   Orexin helps keep the muscle tone in your Eustachian tubes.   That's why your hearing changes when you fall asleep.   They close up.
And yawning is apparently the thing to do if you want them to open back up.

I have been having problems with my ears since moving to Arizona and taking that round of Keflex.  I find the effects much more annoying than the regular old nasal or tooth headaches.   Lots of screeching in my head, weird anxiety attacks, no desire to leave the house when it flares up...

Anyhow, I took Flonase for a while- and it helped a lot, but made my skin more sun sensitive.  So I've been looking for more practical ways to alleviate the problem.

I have taken some information from these articles, done some experiments,  and had some success-
About 85% of People Only Breathe Out of One Nostril at a Time
There is something called the Nasal Cycle which alternates the sinuses that are open vs closed by alternating partial congestion and decongestion of the turbinate tissue.

Could body posture during sleep affect how your brain clears waste?
 By using dynamic contrast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to image the brain's glymphatic pathway, a complex system that clears wastes and other harmful chemical solutes from the brain, Stony Brook University researchers Hedok Lee, PhD, Helene Benveniste, MD, PhD, and colleagues, discovered that a lateral sleeping position is the best position to most efficiently remove waste from the brain.
Blowing balloons 'treats glue ear'
Using the nose to inflate a balloon helps heal middle ear infection.
If I lie on one side, I can feel the turbinates switch so the upper sinus is decongested.
Then I plug the lower nostril and do forceful exhales through the top one.  After a few of these I can feel my ears pop and the tube opens and drains.   Rapid breathing through it seems to work too.   If I'm in the correct position, the parotid salivary gland will drain too, and wash my mouth with saliva.
The nasal cycle is kind of slow though, when you turn over, you have to wait for the other sinus to open...

For the record, this feels really good.   Makes my whole head tingle.

Saturday, August 8, 2015

Brain Eating Zombie of the Day

Nancy Zucker
Severe 'Picky Eating' May Point to Mental Health Issues in Kids
The researchers discovered that kids who eat selectively are unusually sensitive, and that this sensitivity affects their eating and their emotional health.

"They have a stronger sensitivity to the world outside and to how their body feels," Zucker said. "That sets them up to have more vivid experiences -- more intense food experiences, more intense emotional experiences. None of that is pathological, but it could be a vulnerability for later problems."
You have this completely backwards.
This is not psychological. And yes it is pathological. This is the expected result of digestive dysfunction. Those kids have intestinal problems, and the intestines are wired to emotional parts of the brain. They get sick from certain kinds of foods, and that is experienced as revulsion.

Sick people are hypersensitive and irritable.
I would really like to know what is so frakkin hard to understand about that.

Article Roundup

Novel fatigue syndrome in feedlot cattle discovered
Feedlot cattle get constant dosing of antibiotics.  Uh huh.


Why Depression Needs A New Definition
Many psychiatrists believe that a new approach to diagnosing and treating depression—linking individual symptoms to their underlying mechanisms—is needed for research to move forward.
I'm workin on it...

High glycemic index diet as a risk factor for depression
The investigators found that progressively higher dietary GI scores and consumption of added sugars and refined grains were associated with increased risk of new-onset depression in post-menopausal women.

Believing you are overweight may lead to further weight gain
No, but going on a low fat diet because of those beliefs will, though.

Diabetes drug modulates cholesterol levels

More people are dying in custody. And more people are committing suicide in local jails.
First they came for the criminals, and I said nothing...