Froodee

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Now, a way to delete bad memories

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At last, a cure for humankind’s worst affliction – bad memory.

It is the worst affliction because unlike cancer or some other fatal diseases, bad memory inflicts a kind of enduring pain that won’t go away with even the strongest dose of Alaxan!

Spotless Mind

Now, researchers at Harvard and McGill University in Montreal, Canada are working on an amnesia drug that blocks or deletes bad memories. The technique seems to allow psychiatrists to disrupt the biochemical pathways that allow a memory to be recalled.

In a new study, published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, the drug propranolol is used along with therapy to “dampen” memories of trauma victims. They treated 19 accident or rape victims for 10 days, during which the patients were asked to describe their memories of the traumatic event that had happened 10 years earlier. Some patients were given the drug, which is also used to treat amnesia, while others were given a placebo.

A week later, they found that patients given the drug showed fewer signs of stress when recalling their trauma.

Similar research led by Professor Joseph LeDoux has been carried out at New York University on rats; scientists were able to remove a specific memory from the brains of rats while leaving the rest of the animals’ memories intact. An amnesia drug called U0126 was administered.

The rats were trained to associate two musical tones with a mild electrical shock so that when they heard either of the tones they would brace themselves for a shock. The researchers then gave half the rats the drug when playing one of the musical tones.

After the treatment, the rats that had been given the drug no longer associated that particular tone with an imminent shock but still braced themselves upon hearing the second tone, demonstrating only one memory had been deleted.

Science fiction fans have a number of associations with the idea of banishing unwanted memories. In the 2004 film “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey play lovers who have a falling out. Winslet’s character goes to a company called Lacuna, Inc. to have her memories of the relationship removed; Carrey’s character also has the procedure performed.

In the film, the process involves showing the person a memento of the relationship and then encouraging them to bring up specific memories while an electric shock is given. Not to give away the film, but this technique does not work as planned.

Well, if they can now erase bad memory, the next best thing is to inject good memory. Just imagine popping a “happy” pill any time you feel lonely. Of course, there should be no side effects and it should not be addictive. Otherwise, it’s just going to be like the banned Ecstasy drug.

How Not to Vomit In Your First Trimester

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dd

I am ten weeks pregnant and I count the days until the first trimester is over (14 days, yipee). I dont remember ever feeling this sick with my eldest (now a spirited 5 year-old) nor my second (the sweetest 2 year-old boy in the universe). Ok, I vaguely recall running to the bathroom after taking a whiff of a sausage roasting in the oven when I was pregnant with my son. The aroma of stickily burnt Cumberland still makes me feel queasy to this day. Or the time we were touring vineyards in New Zealand during our honeymoon and one particular glass of chardonnay had me spewing more that a swig into the spit bucket (or whatever you call those things).

My point is, that no matter how any of your other pregnancies went, you have no way of knowing what your present one will be like. In the past when I was asked whether I ever suffer from morning sickness, I would smugly reply, “No, I was lucky. Just a bit of nausea very rarely”. HA! This time around the nausea struck me as early as week 5 and has plagued me every day for the past 5 weeks. Not just in the morning, but pretty much all day. And the worst part of it is that I am starving too. So for the first time, I am having to live with this unsetttling condition, and although there are days where the nausea is so furious that all I can do is lie down in a darkened room, here are the three tips that have actually worked for me:

1. Keep plain crackers on your person at all times.
For some reason, the cheap, trans-fat laden kinds work much better than your wholegrain organic variety. Keep them at hand to munch any time of the day (even the middle of the night, mid-dream), and do so.

2. Drink club soda with lime
Ah, the magick elixer to get the bile down and head sorted. Have large stocks in your fridge and serve with lots of ice and a few drops of honey to curb the acid burn.

3. REST
I’m talking 2 hours MORE than your regular hours at night (that is, if you arent having a night of pregnancy insomnia which strikes mercilessly and often throughout the 9 months), and as many naps as you can possibly sneak in between meals. I just had one now, (after thinking I may suddenly pass out after writing point #2) and I feel great (ish). Remember, making a human being is the most exhausting thing in the world, and during this time your body will have spontaneous bouts of what probably feels like narcolepsy. Dont fight it.

Feeling sickly? 2 Hershey’s Kisses and you’re ready to rock and roll

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Don’t be too surprised. Next time you’re feeling sick, your doctor may simply write on your prescription: “Eat two Hershey’s Kisses.”

A new research from Germany showed that dark chocolate seems to lower blood pressure, and it requires an amount less than two Hershey’s Kisses.

Hershey's Kisses

The latest research adds to mounting evidence linking dark chocolate with health benefits, but it’s the first to suggest that just a tiny amount may suffice.

Volunteers for the study ate just over 6 grams of dark chocolate daily for almost five months — one square from a German chocolate bar called Ritter Sport, equal to about 1 1/2 Hershey’s Kisses. People who ate that amount ended up with lower blood pressure readings than those who ate white chocolate.

University of Cologne researcher Dr. Dirk Taubert, the study’s lead author, said the blood pressure reductions with dark chocolate were small but still substantial enough to potentially reduce cardiovascular disease risks, although study volunteers weren’t followed long enough to measure that effect.

The research involved just 44 people aged 56 through 73, but the results echo other small studies of cocoa-containing foods. Cocoa contains flavanols, plant-based compounds that also are credited with giving red wine its heart-healthy benefits.

One problem is chocolate bars containing cocoa tend to have lots of calories, so Taubert and his colleagues tested small amounts containing just 30 calories each.

The study appears in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association. It was funded by University Hospital in Cologne.

The results are interesting but need to be duplicated in larger, more ethnically diverse populations, said Dr. Laura Svetkey, director of Duke University’s Hypertension Center.

She stressed that the study results should not be viewed as license to gorge on chocolate.

“I would be as happy as the next person if I got to eat more chocolate,” she said, but cautioned that weight gain from eating large amounts of dark chocolate would counteract any benefits on blood pressure.

Oh well, you can’t have your cake and eat it, too, can you?

First global warming, now health care

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Another film, not by Hollywood, has been generating buzz in today’s times. Probably picking up from where Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”, Michael Moore’s “Sicko” puts into the spotlight another issue that affects everyone; health care.

healthcareImpeccable timing for Moore especially now that the political climate of the US has shifted towards the coming Presidential elections in 2008, Moore has once again pulled a fast one. Some are saying that the issue about the war in Iraq is old-news, global warming and now health care issues are now at the tips of the electorates’ tongues and so the politicians are having a hard time catching on.

After all, politicians are amongst the last to catch on the latest buzz out on the street. Ironic and funny when you think that these people are elected by the public, clothed, sheltered and well-provided for by the same public they were voted to represent. Maybe elections should be ditched and citizens just take turns in running the government, but that’s for another story.

Word on the street and in the world of new media is this; private or universal health care?

Pretty tough choices huh? Conservatives, liberals, neo-liberals, fake-liberals, the whole circus have started to weigh in on the issue.

Turtlebella says that universal health care is a right and a necessity, she even quips that it may be just what the doctor ordered.

So, what the hell is wrong with the US? Why are we the richest country in the world and yet so backward when it comes to health care? We appear to buy so wholeheartedly into the myth of rugged individualism where one is responsible for one’s self and no one else and too bad if someone can’t afford to get the health care they need or get denied by their insurance company, it’s not my fault or my responsibility. We so clearly believe that capitalism is so the right system, even for something like health care. The insurance companies are there to make money, not to help people. The doctors that work for insurance companies get bonuses if they deny more claims.

Now three words are very interesting in this issue, not at the forefront or center of the issue, but it’s still worth mentioning because the words “Cuba”, “United States” and “health care” present some jaw-dropping picture of reality. Sweetness and Light is irked by a story in Reuters, Cuban Health Care Better Than US.

This “lie” according to him should not be repeated otherwise it would become the truth. Which is quite strange, for the figures used in the Reuters story came from the WHO which is partly dominated by the US.

The opening of his post elicits an interesting question; “Who would you go for? The dictator who provides one of the best health care system in the world or the elected war-monger who rather kill people from other countries while leaving his own people at the mercy of corporate health care?”

Moving away from the Left-Right view of things, Ezra Klein espouses what is not so common among so many, common sense. In a nut-shell, Health Insurance is Not Like Car Insurance. Amen!

To end this column, Jo Swift presents a rich selection of articles about how “Free market” health care kills Americans by as much as 18,000 a year.

Instead of greeting the film with hosannas or challenging it head-on, however, the leading Democratic presidential candidates have sidestepped direct comment on Moore’s proposals.

Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois and former Sen. John Edwards of South Carolina all have staked out positions sharply at odds with Moore’s approach. But none of them is eager to have that fact dragged into the spotlight.

If Moore’s fire-breathing proposal catches on among party activists, who tend to be suspicious of the private sector and supportive of direct government action, the candidates’ pragmatic, consensus-seeking ideas could look like weak-kneed temporizing — much the way their rejection of an immediate pullout from Iraq has drawn heated criticism from antiwar activists.

So the buzz goes on, private or universal health care? Which presidential candidate will have the guts to take a stand and actually run on it in 2008.

XDR-TB: No, It’s Not An Android

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XDR-TB may sound like  an android from a science fiction novel but if you’ve been reading up on recent news developments, you would know that the acronym actually stands for Extensively Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis. Despite the fact that tuberculosis still claims a lot of lives yearly, advances in pharmaceuticals and disease management has dramatically improved the prognosis for patients who have the unfortunate burden of bearing the disease. Tuberculosis is a caused by  a mycobacterium that inhabits various organs in the human body. Though the disease is commonly associated as a disease of the lung, the microbe can also colonize parts of the gastrointestinal tract, bone and even the skin.  Currently, a multi-drug approach is the strategy of choice in combating tuberculosis.

Unfortunately, there are types of the disease that are already resistant to the usual drugs that is used to cure the condition. The cases that fall under that category are called MDR cases – Multi-Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis. In the developed world, cases of TB are rare. That is why American lawyer Andrew Speaker’s condition has been much publicized. Since TB can be transmitted from person-to-person via the oral secretions that may get suspended in the air once a patient sneezes, the fact that he was able to take a plane (a closed environment) raised red flags all over the US.

How do MDR and XDR cases arise? For the most part, this is due to the insufficient treatment that a patient receives. Tuberculosis needs to be treated with multiple drugs for six or more months to ensure that the infection will not return in the future. If a person stops taking the drugs midway into the treatment, the disease might come back and when it does, it will already be resistant to the available drugs to the disease. When that happens, doctors will be forced to use stronger medications with worse adverse effects and higher costs. Countries with markedly high cases of drug-resistant forms of TB include China, India, Russia and Argentina. This can be attributed to their poor or failing national health program in controlling TB.

Epidemiology and statistics is on our side though, it has been shown that drug-resistant forms of TB are less likely to be transmitted compared to the garden variety and more easy-to-treat type of the disease. Though the chances that you’ll get it is almost nil, it’s still best to give your body a fighting chance against infection by having a balanced diet and seeing your personal physician regularly for check-ups.