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.