One of my 13 year old son’s favorite TV show is Dirty Jobs. For those who have not seen this show the host of the show Mike Rowe films himself working on jobs that can be quite gross and disgusting. It is too bad Mike Rowe can’t go back in time 1,000 years ago in …
The last several months numerous articles have been written on how the US public is consuming trace amounts of pharmaceuticals such as antibiotics, hormones, mood-altering drugs and pain killers in each glass of water they drink. The pharmaceuticals wind up in the water supplies in 1 of 3 ways: they may be excreted unmetabolized by …
A recent article in the Journal of Urology, reported on the long term use of lemonade (3.7 years) and its beneficial effects on decreasing kidney stones. The therapy consisted of drinking 120ml of concentrated lemon juice mixed with 2 liters of water and consumed throughout the day. Prior to the experiment the patients were experiencing …
Parkinson’s first surfaced in 1817 when James Parkinson, a British physician, published a paper on what he called “the shaking palsy.” Almost 200 years later it has become an epidemic where over 1,000,000 Americans lie with Parkinson’s, making it the second most common neurodegenerative disorder (Alzheimer’s ranks first). What is even more alarming is that …
The University of Miami School of Medicine, Miami Children’s Hospital, Duke University Medical School studied children with mild to moderate juvenile rheumatoid arthritis who were massaged by their parents 15 minutes a day for 30 days (and a control group engaged in relaxation therapy). The children’s anxiety and stress hormone (cortisol) levels were immediately decreased …
Irving Kirsch of Hull University, UK, studied all data submitted to the US FDA for the licensing of the antidepressants fluoxetine, venlafaxine, nefazodone and paroxetine. He states, “Compared with placebo, antidepressants do not produce clinically significant improvements in patients who initially have moderate or even very severe depression.” It seems that Antidepressants did substantially outperform …
Since we are on the subject of fat I came across this whimsical poem written by David Harris Ebenbach of Richmond, Indiana titled Belly I finally notice it at a dinner party, They way it stretches my shirt, Its urgency from the cake I’ve eaten, Its nerdy gurgles all the way home. My wife has …
About 5 years ago while preparing a talk on the excessive use of statins in the United States I came across evidence suggesting that this class of cholesterol lowering drugs can have dramatic effects on memory. However, the pharmaceutical industry has somehow managed to keep this information from the public. Last week I was surprised …
Quite a few people are proponents of raw milk. However, I am not quite convinced as to its safety. A recent study found that more than 1/3 of raw milk samples tested positive for H. pylori. Four hundred raw milk samples were screened and 139 of those samples tested positive for the presence of the …
Scientists have known for years that both the male and female brains have estrogen receptors that have wide-ranging effects on our physical, emotional and cognitive health. Estrogen influences language skills, mood, attention, and a number of other functions, in addition to memory. Estrogen receptors are present in several regions of the brain, including the …