We’ve found that feeding the brain is critical to treating traumatic brain injury. (Reported here.) But, the opposite- cutting out foods- is the right preparation for some surgery.
Continue reading Starve before surgery???
When I turned 50, my friend told me to consider taking an aspirin tablet every day. (Before you react crazily, I should remind you that my friend IS my doctor.) He suggested this routine because aspirin tends to ‘thin the blood’, rendering it more difficult for blood to clot and, therefore, block blood flow to the heart or brain. (Aspirin inactivates platelet cyclooxygenase; this precludes them from producing thomboxane A2. Thromboxane, in turn, is a vasoconstrictor and promotes platelet aggregation. Aspirin also has anti-inflamatory and vasodilation effects.)
Continue reading That aspirin tablet- NOT so fast!!!
So, I’ve been writing for a while about brain research. And, how some (a lot?) is being used to determine criminal behavior. Lie detection (here and here, among others- check out lie detect on the index) and legal/criminal thought and action are among the most insidious applications. Today, I will talk about one that has a benign application- except for what it really means. I guess that means you have to read this post to the end
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Continue reading What are YOU thinking?
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Correlation and causation get confounded because our brains rely on our “vision”, what we see is what we believe. (BTW, this discussion began yesterday with this post- there will be two more in a row.) And, most of our causal explanations are naïve (even if they seem complex)- they rely on the fallacy of a single cause (or two). These oversimplifications help us understand phenomena, so we are positive they are correct.
Continue reading And, the reason is…
I ran across this information the other day. It kind of shocked me- I guess I was not paying attention in my microbiology class. Actually, not- I checked my texts and found no mention in the index. You see, in 1954, Francois Jacob (Institut Pasteur, Paris) described a “pyocin”, a chemical exuded by a strain of microbes (Pseudomonas pyocyanea, now called Pseudomonas aeruginosa) that killed another species of P. aeruginosa. When examined under the electron microscope, these pyocins were found to resemble a rocket- the ones they show in cartoons- one thick tube with several fibers protruding out of its end. It turns out the thick tube also contains a thinner one, that gets expelled by the outer tube (via contraction) to inject itself into the cell wall of the target cell. Killing it.
Continue reading Killer Rocket Ships
We all know that our immune response is what keeps our bodies safe. This process (actually, in humans, it’s processes) is when our body distinguishes from ‘self’ to ‘other’, attacking the ‘other’ to preclude their invasion of the whole body. The system gains complexity as it adapts to recognize various pathogens (invaders) more efficiently. This is called acquired immunity (immunological memory); it is one of the reasons we get vaccinated- our body learns to respond to this pathogen and similar types- which can take from 2 days to several weeks to fully develop. This secondary response is critical for our homeostasis, our ability to remain ‘self’ and not be overtaken by ‘others’.
Continue reading Rapid Response Team
Pharmaceutical research has changed. There’s the soaring price of drug development, the dearth of blockbuster drugs, and the precipitous drop in patents. That does not include the megamergers that have occurred over the past decade. Only 11 of the 42 large firms that were members of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturer’s Association (PhRMA) 13 years ago survive today. The pharmaceutical firms have lost favor on Wall Street- with their market capitalization decimated. That’s true even though the sales of the top 10 drugs have doubled in the past decade and the number of biologics in the top 10 has risen (and will dominate the top 10 soon enough). The number of blockbuster drugs launched has not really changed- but their value has dropped.
Continue reading What can one person do?
We have a real problem. Our antibiotics are becoming less effective against microbes. The reason is simple- the bacteria (to paraphrase from the King and I) have become accustomed to your face- they have begun mutating to make themselves invulnerable to the actions of the antibiotics. The source of this problem is also simple- it’s us.
Continue reading If we don’t stop these practices, we won’t have viable antibiotics
This looks like it’s going to be a problem. We have a deadline of 1 January 2014 and we are nowhere close to meeting this goal. To make matters worse, that is not really the due date, but the drop-dead date, since the states will have to connect by the Fall of 2013 to insure this required start date. What am I talking about? The insurance exchanges (part of Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act-PPACA [Obamacare] )that are to be operational in each state. And, that means that the Federal exchange that coordinates these state systems must also be operational.
Continue reading Times a’wasting- and we are the ones who will be hosed
We have been seeking the ‘Holy Grail’ to treat Parkinson’s Disease with stem cells for some time. Given the restrictions on embryonic stem cells, research has been focused on integumentary and pluripotent stem cells. A big step forward has been made by a group of researchers working together, all from different institution. Drs. Lorenz Studer, Sonja Kriks & Jae-Won Shim of the Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in NY, along with other researchers there, plus researchers at the Cornell Medical School, Northwestern Medical, and Rush Memorial (the last two in Chicago, IL) published the results of their study in Nature on 10 November 2011.
Continue reading Stem Cell Therapy for Parkinson’s Moves Closer