Category Archives: Health – opinions

Sometimes I laugh – SP-D

Health - opinions, Rants, Science and art cover illustrations, surfactant proteins A and D, Ultimate order, the cell

I am trying to write a comment page about innate immunity proteins and the possibility of nano-superballs being used to configure and distribute such immune proteins (which, by the way is a logical next step in that research since at least two of the C-type lectins that are important for innate immunity actually do have fuzzyball multimer structures. Those would be SP-D and SP-A. When I saw this cute dimer of surfactant protein D I just laughed to myself, such a happy dancer.  This particular image of a surfactant protein D dimer came from a portion of an AFM image published by Arroyo et al, JMB, 430:1495-1509, 2018. Thanks to them for the laugh, and the inspiration to keep up the exercise program for the sake of good health.  This guy (girl) is just about to cross the half-marathon finish line.

What is interesting is the light and airy feeling, arms outstretched, legs in the air and the perfectly positioned ball (likely a loose CRD, ha ha) for a head.

Babies hate broccoli – video

Health - opinions, Rants, Ultimate order, the cell

I was looking at this cute video with dozens of little kids who turned up their noses when being fed broccoli ..this was on  facebook (i don’t know if i could find it to post it here) but after viewing the video i began thinking about what would cause babies to reject a food that i personally think is a really healthful part of our diets. Truth told, i dont think my mom fed us much broccoli as kids, sadly, and i didn’t eat much of it until my seventh decade.

The babies universally made cute screwed-up expressions, when asked to taste broccoli and spit it out. I began to reason that this video send out some of that “fake news” that never gets straightened out, and the take home message which was “broccoli is horroble” was the “wrong” message.  The message here  “i hate broccoli” is not the message that should have accompanied the video.  Instead of “i hate broccoli” the message should have been something like this:

What a marvelous instinct has evolved in babies that protects them from their urges to put things unknown in their mouths when mom and dad are not watching.  Foreign objects feel, taste, and smell different than the bland diet they are used to and such odd tastes, shapes and textures  (particularly like broccoli), would trigger such a “warning” response that having a vigorous negative response to such items would indeed be a very good instinct to have.  I have read where exposure to new foods in infants requires an enormous number of “trials” maybe upwards of 17 — at least that is the number that comes to memory, before an infant or toddler (and some adults) will try to eat a new food.  A marvelous instinct that has undoubtedly saved many many children’s lives.

HERE IS A NICE ARTICLE ABOUT introducing new foods, and foods in general from TODAY’s PARENT but it doesnt address food rejection in infants. THIS ONE DOES.

Superballs vs fuzzy balls: immunity

Health - opinions, The cell: images, Ultimate order, the cell

I got into searching for the structures of clathrin, COPI and COPII and one website visit after the other led me to this link. There headline was “Globular glycofullerene molecules prevent virus from evading immune system and entering cells” and I got goosebumps when i thought to myself that the surfactant protein A and surfactant protein D fuzzy balls might very well act as these proposed superballs in inhibiting infections from those viruses which have developed the reverse method for “entering” cells and avoiding the immune response (ebola and HIV for example).  Seems a really fun thing to research.  I posted a picture of what i designed as a surfactant protein A fuzzy ball (surfactant protein D makes fuzzy balls as well) and immediately saw the similarities between the octadecamer glycoprotein protruding  in a sphere in both these fuzzy ball naturally occurring innate immune functioning proteins and the one that was produced by synthetically.  Nature figure it out first.

BTW i dont like how the EBOLA virus is tangled within the backdrop of the globular glycofullerene on the left, called a  “superball”,  in fact it is kind of “nonesense” to me…. I could however envision the EBOLA virus stretched to oblivion as if stuck to a round velcro sphere, with areas exposed for digestion and removal.  It has been stated that EBOLA type viruses (EBOLA is a “Filoviridae” virus and older than previously thought). That group of viruses has been interacting with mammals for several between 5 – 23 million years and it makes perfect sense that some sort of defense mechanisms have arisen in parallel. In fact a little bit of searching shows up this reference on filovirus entry.

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Retail spread and time-restricted eating habits

Health - opinions, Rants, Ultimate order, the cell

A really nice article on length of fasting time, and restricted eating times mentioned that there was a correlation with these and the levels of metabolic dseases common to obesity and overweight problems, diabetes, heart disease and the like. The studies were done by Hatori et al at UCSD using mice and various high fat and normal and ad lib and restricted feeding schedules but similar calorie inake.  The bottom line make good sense….. it is not only WHAT we eat, but really more about WHEN we eat and that relates to our circadian rhythms.  Second point here is the varying hours that many retail workers experience…. some early shifts, others late, and even those varying from day to day.  It seems pretty simple to me that this combination of “mall” food and changing “diurnal” eating patterns are likely related to “retail spread” of the waistline.

Be careful writing the TITLE to your article!

Health - opinions, Ultimate order, the cell

Be careful when you write the title to your scientific works (or any work) lest you produce something that can be misinterpreted like I misinterpreted this particular title, morphing it into this hysterical  concept of having a  “barbeque”.  After all it does say “taste-testing”.

So here is the title of the RA Fisher et al, article in Nature, way back in 1939. “Taste-testing the Anthropoid Apes.” R. A. FISHER, E. B. FORD & JULIAN HUXLEY . Nature volume 144, page 750 (28 October 1939).

What this silly interpretation led to was kind of interesting, and while I wasn’t about to pay 8$ to read the original Fisher et al article, I did find an open source article from 2003 (Stephen Woodling. Genetics 172(4):2015-23) that offered up some equally flavorful language from that 1939 publication. The old guys did not hesitate to “opine” in their publications and banter back in forth in actual publications.  The topic here was phenylthiocarbamine — which some individuals can taste as “bitter” and to others is completely “tasteless”.  These guys saw a pattern of inheritance, and one of the best known Mendelian (nearly simple) traits in humans, which paved the way for about 70 years of new investigations. Would love to have time and knowledge enough to read and interpret all these articles.

Lichen planus: a case report

Health - opinions, Lichen planus

I am going to begin blogging data about my own  case… ultimately with data and slides and perhaps I can submit it to a journal where others can benefit from my observations.

So beginning with, yikes, i don’t like this condition, ha ha, itching is a seriously annoying entity, and scratching is not an option.  Basically I am not one who has ever been able to use, or even consider using, skin creams, antiaging formulas, junk for tanning, or removing spots. I have skin which is genetically “poor” by all standards so had I been raised in an age where there were products for sensitive skin, and had there been much knowledge about skin care in general (UV A, B, and C and their potential for causing skin aging and cancer) and had I been born to parents (whom I do not criticize here as the data were not yet defined) with any biological knowledge, things might have ended up differently..but they didn’t.

My children inherited their father’s skin for all I can determine, olive complected and not prone to burning and sun damage…so that is a plus, nevertheless I am/will/have  informed them all of what I understand about skin types and predispositions.

While this is just  “tip” for now…..  the itching of lichen planus is not easily remedied. I have found one very interesting thing (at least i think it is interesting and it works for me). Mary Kay cosmetics makes a buffing cream…I haven’t even read the contents, but i had a tube in my closet for 20 years at least and got it out about a week ago and wondered if it would help take the keratin layer off my lichen planus lesions.  What I found really startled me…in fact using this buffing cream in a soft circular motion over the lesions actually did NOT MAKE ME ITCH…. but it did give me some relief.  How odd is that.  In place of scratching, try using this buffing cream and cold water rinsing…. ha ha… who knew.

Good grief!

Good Grief!, Health - opinions, Rants

Working with a friend and fellow emeritus faculty on a presentation about the birth of the field of statistics I ran across the statement that Ronald. A. Fisher had 9 children.  Two were male but seven were female.  Since the man was brilliant, and since he did experiments on sex ratios in offspring of mice and plants and chickens and other things….. do you suppose his wife (poor woman) was the unwitting, or perhaps willing, subject of some “in house” probability experiments, and the outcome was likely not what he expected.  Lest anyone forget, numbers alone do not tell the whole story.  Ha ha.

This reminds me of my time working with another wild-haired genius, Leland clark Jr. who in his investigations for artificial blood was willing to stretch out his arm and recieve a pint or two.

Scientists are an amazing breed.

And a word in addendum, this era presents a truly tragic story of a man who in an era of the beginning of dominance of scientific thought may have almost crossed the line into the extermination mentality, and white supremacy.  I retrospect it is perhaps alarming but understandable for the early 20th century to be steeped in the voodoo of the then newly discovered eugenics to think that there was a “superior” (that is superior in the darwinian sense) race, and “they” were it… since i have little doubt (but no absolute proof) that Fisher and Neyman were waging an antisemitic-white supremacist war all the while tragically recognizing their need to collaborate as two very great minds working on the same scientific problems.  To me that is tragic, yet comedic in the sense that we all give ourselves such credit for being the “fittest”  LOL.  sorry for my unschooled commentary on two statisticians… neither of whose work I understand, but whose motives are fresh and “in your face”.

Who has felt a “brain itch”

Health - opinions, Rants

brain itch or something like it
WHO has experienced brain itch… ha ha i found a rock band with that name so i guess someone else in the world has experienced it. For me it is like having eaten MSG and then trying to sleep…. my brain just itches.

 

 

So I googled it….. not a lot of good scientific stuff out there on the sensation of a crawly itchy brain.  Some data below… nothing noteworthy.

“too much pressure”  throw this one out
“recovery from drugs” the drug responders disagreed
“brainitch facebook” ha ha, from california, what else
“i guess a brain itch is a song that repeats in your head over and over” i have had this

“itch and pain are entirely separate sensations, transmitted along different pathways” ok with this
“… a type of nerve that was specific for itch. A single itch fibre can pick up sensations over more than three inches away. The fibres have slow conduction speeds….
A distinct area lights up for itch activity in the sensory cortex, and the region that governs your emotional responses, and limbic and motor areas that process serious urges which equates to the really vigorous desire to scratch an itch”

basically I did not find the “itch” i was looking for, but it is a symptom similar to having eaten too many glutamines, or some MSG, and it is just a weird state of feeling

“the jury is still out”  on this one and google didn’t find me much of value to explain this sensation

I found a website that had some interesting stuff….one quote that is disturbing just because it shows how “self absorbed” we are with our appearance and skin “Psychosocial distress is a natural, normal response to skin symptoms, especially in our society. Americans spend more on their appearance than on social welfare, health, and education combined”…these facts i did hot fact-check, but sounds very much like american humanity

And the following by Dr. Frank Lipmann —i will underscore completely!!!
What are the biggest problems you see with the way Medicine is practiced today? Here is my list, I am sure there are more:

1. Modern Western Medicine is based on a narrow “scientific” model, and arrogantly ignores and rejects therapies and entire medical systems that don’t fit this model.

2. Doctors are trained in hospitals in “crisis care” medicine, not to take care of the “walking wounded,” which is the majority of people. They need to be trained to take of the “walking wounded” as well.

3. Instead of treating the underlying causes or imbalances, Doctors often merely manage symptoms.

4. Symptoms are seen as something to be suppressed rather than a pointer to some underlying imbalance.

5. Doctors see the human body as a machine with separate parts that can be treated independently rather than as an integrated whole. In addition the mind and body are also seen as separate independent entities and emotions are often ignored.
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6. Man is not seen as part of nature, and how what happens in nature effects humans.

7. We look for a magic bullet instead of all the possible factors that make up the total load which are causing the underlying imbalance. There is no understanding of the total load.

8. No belief that the body has a self-healing capacity and no ways to boost that capacity.

9. Everyone with the same disease gets treated the same way, patient uniqueness ignored.

10. We treat the disease, not the patient.

11. There is a reliance on numbers and tests rather than how the patient is feeling and what is found on examination.

12. We don’t take into account the importance of diet and lifestyle on health. How could we? We get a total of 6-8 hours of nutrition lectures in medical school.

13. We don’t recognize or understand the correct use of supplements to optimize health.

14. We don’t recognize the importance of toxicity on our bodies nor know how to boost the body’s own detoxification systems.

15. The Doctor patient relationship is not emphasized and the role of the patient as a partner in their own health care not encouraged.

16. The placebo has a negative connotation and ignored. The placebo is really the body healing itself and should be encouraged.

17. The Drug Industry is too enmeshed in the medical system The Pharmaceutical Industry has WAY TOO MUCH power and is “bribing” Doctors to use their drugs and researchers to produce positive results for their drugs.

18. More than 80 percent of all medical treatments used have been untested by rigorous peer reviewed study, yet the Medical establishment insists that alternative health treatments must undergo these before they can be used. The system of evaluation needs to be changed.

Enhanced flavoring in chicken: Simple Truth or Fake News

Health - opinions, Rants

Here is a blog post that I like. I assume she has done her homework, I came to the same conclusions, but called Kroger to ask what their “natural flavors” meant because I suspected that the “natural flavors” included MSG or some hydrolysed veggie protein that keeps me awake at night.  They told me they did not know, and could not find out so I stopped buying chicken with “natural flavors – up to 15% ha ha enhanced”.

It amazes me how the food industry mimics our current political system which has the tag line “I can do it, i don’t care whether it is good for you or not” .   Anyway, if you eat chicken, read this.

THe blog is written by Angela Pifer – Functional Medicine Nutritionist, MS, LCN, CN, FMN

Angela is one of the nation’s foremost functional medicine nutrition and health experts, and an accomplished speaker and radio personality. Her 25 years in the health and fitness industry and the past 12 years as a Functional Medicine Nutritionist focusing in the areas of digestive health, functional gut disorders, thyroid, autoimmune and SIBO (small intestine bacterial overgrowth), have earned Angela, recognition as the go-to gut expert who can show even the most health challenged, how to restore their gut health and vitality (according to her — ).

And from anothe whistle blower (class action suit against kroger for telling the Simple Lie instead of the Simple Truth, is this blog,  also, so similar to the political climate and the spouts of insane misinformation from the current administration, not the latest of which misquotes the New Testament ha ha, people better wake up. The Simple Truth may be Fake News.