People in an Australian study would rather have a pill than agree to eat chocolate daily for a chronic heart condition.
Some people have an idea why, but I will tell you the truth and the light.
After 30 years of practicing medicine in three different specialties, in three different countries, and in every kind of clinical situation anyone can imagine, I have come to a realization.
No matter how pleasant or non-invasive the alternative methods proposed, people want to just take a pill and get better. Read more on It’s Time For Your Daily Dose Of Chocolate…
Filed under Alternative Medicine by on Aug 17th, 2010. Comment. 
I — and everybody — seems to enjoy it when neurochemical research links the seemingly distant mysteries of the brain to real everyday behavior, to feel-good acts, and such.
I am not sure that it is the stuff people should spend their whole careers on. But a single association between neurochemistry and holding hands has been enough for a previous posting.
Now the association between feelings of gratitude and lowered cortisol has delighted me so there is a smile on my face. I guess this is because it validates some of the pure observation from life kind of anecdotal advice that my grandmother of blessed memory would come up with. Things like “Roughage is good for you,” which later became “eat
fiber.”
The idea that gratitude is good for brain chemistry is so delightful and potentially validating for otherwise not too tough to validate behavior, that it has been joyously co-opted by coaches. They are an entrepreneurial lot who never bother with footnotes, not any more than they do with credentials. I mean, there is no regulation known to me about using the nomenclature “coach.” But on the other hand, they build careers and get paid with the results of their ministrations, a situation which I believe would send a fair amount of physicians to the poorhouse. Read more on Lower Cortisol By Giving Thanks…
Filed under Research by on Aug 18th, 2010. Comment.
I guess the death of Anna Nicole Smith has become old news. All I found in the daily newspaper was a short item saying that the trial was going on in Los Angeles.
After more than one internet search, the only mention I found of what is going on online is this one, in what seems to be a Seattle tabloid.
I strongly suspect that this is a road that has been travelled more than I know. After all, I am not exactly a celebrity watcher. Nevertheless, from what we already know about folks like Michael Jackson, and from what Dr. Nathalie Maullin seems to have said under oath, I think we have a pretty good idea of what it is like to be a drug-seeking celebrity.
First, I think it worth noting that Dr. Maullin was on staff at Cedars-Sinai at the time. Now putting aside the PR of the latter (it is allegedly the best in L.A.; they have ads and some top notch publicity firm–) Cedars Sinai is a hospital. I can testify that to be on staff at any clinic or hospital, they do a background check. Read more on Anna Nicole’s Doctors Couldn’t Have Made Worse Decisions If They Tried…
Filed under Addictions, medicine, prescription drugs by on Aug 19th, 2010. Comment.
“Innovative Health Care Programs?”
This seems to be the era of backwards-definitions. “No Child Left Behind” means a diminished budget and fewer programs for child education. “Compassionate Conservatism” means cutting programs for the unemployed, the medical indigent and the hungry. “Strategic Defense” means a full-speed-ahead attack.
The “Innovative Programs” article talks about are mostly supplied by The Greenfield group, where improved medical care is provided if people fork in some cash to get it. Also “Harvard Vanguard,” who loves to be the first to do things.
Since there is nothing but Harvard hospitals on the reality TV show Boston Med, I wonder if the Harvard Public relations people have descended to some all-invasive biological state, to infiltrate all media, and to try to get us to believe that they do things medically and surgically that are more advanced than other providers. Read more on Walls and Barriers To Providing Health Care…
Filed under Healthcare reform, politics by on Aug 20th, 2010. Comment.
There seems to be a massive controversy about building a mosque near the site of the destroyed World Trade Center in New York City. This is bothering people so much that somebody has asked the president to say something.
Well of course the man said something. And of course his words were “measured.” People seem to have forgotten that the country was founded on religious freedom. This bit about the Founding Fathers (and mothers — yes they did as much as they could) intending the USA being only for Christians is pretty much rubbish.
Was George Washington a Christian? Thomas Jefferson wrote in his private journal, Feb. 1800 — “Gouverneur Morris had often told me that General Washington believed no more of that system (Christianity) than did he himself.” Read more on Politics, Religion and Sports: Forbidden Topics…
Filed under politics, Religion by on Aug 23rd, 2010. Comment.
I first found out about this list of so-called “Influential Doctors“ in the USA Today newspaper and did not finish the article before I became aware of two powerful realities: 1. This list does not sound like it will help people who need a doctor, but more likely it will benefit someone else in the health care industry. 2. Nobody compiling a list of influential doctors is going to add me because I’m a professional pain in the rear-end of the other doctors on the list.
It sounds like one of those times when somebody is making money from patients pockets by marketing drugs or services, via insurance companies or drug companies.
Hello “parasite!” Hello person-making-money-from-sick-people without adding “value” to healing them. Read more on Turning The Brain Back Ten Years And Slowing The Decline…
Filed under Alzheimer's Disease, Brain, Disease by on Aug 24th, 2010. Comment.
Of all the trials and tribulations we can suffer in life, none is so devastating as the loss of a loved one.
Unfortunately, we will all eventually suffer such a great loss and the grief that it brings.
Believe it or not, a properly trained professional can help minimize the grief and help those sufferers to cope. Much of this horrible experience can be truncated, if not removed, by people who know what they are doing.
But it seems that most people don’t believe this, and some people will never learn. Read more on No Need To Suffer Through Grief — Get Help!…
Filed under End Of Life, Family by on Aug 26th, 2010. Comment.
Tinkerbell has come a long way from the light reflected with a mirror in the original J.M. Barrie play of Peter Pan, back in 1904 — l argely through being part of the Disney stable of ideals for young girls. I remember, even though I have always been a lover of personal expression through the visual arts, being asked, as early as the second or third grade, to draw a princess.
Huh? Read more on Paris Hilton, Tinkerbell and Girl Bratz as a Role Model…
Filed under Addictions, Celebrities, Substance Abuse by on Aug 30th, 2010. 3 Comments.
My husband and I went to the movies yesterday. We are not excited by hype or first run or being the first on our block to see or do anything. So we went to a second-run movie and saw the third in the “Shrek” series. Now the story was fine and the animation was impeccable. But me, being me, I always look for the “meta-message” in movies. What “message,” what lesson are the children (and adults) who sit through this movie getting pumped into their subconscious mind? I am assuming we are talking about the subconscious mind, since I have never heard other people talk very much spontaneously about this issue, which to me is a very fascinating one. First, a little about Shrek III for those adults and children who may have missed it.
Shrek is bored with the non-ogre like life as a father of a family with Fiona, his own true love. So much so that he signs a pact with Rumpelstiltskin – who seems to have purchased the embodiment of evil franchise from Satan. This launches him into a plot that is essentially the same as Jimmy Stewart in “It’s A Wonderful Life” (and if you’ve never seen that movie, just wait until Christmas season and it will be on every TV channel night and day for a month). Read more on Movies Give Us The Meta-Message…
Filed under Family by on Aug 31st, 2010. 2 Comments.