the-psoriasis-treatment

For most people, dog attacks are not very common. But they happen occasionally, and the experience can be traumatic. Incidentally, they are also a good reason why I am not a big fan of barefoot walking or running. Broken glass pieces and nails can be a problem if you are barefoot; so can dog attacks. The photo below, from Dreamstime.com, shows a charging dog. It reminds me of an incident many years ago where a dog attacked my two oldest sons, who were very young at the time. They were unsuspectingly playing at a park in Southern New Jersey, when I saw a dog running in their direction across the park. Part of what I will say in this post is based on experiences like that. I should also say that I grew up around dogs. My grandfather had a farm that was managed by my uncle, and dogs were critically important in managing the farm. One problem we had was that domesticated pigs would often become feral, or would mate with wild boars, in some cases leading to a particularly vicious breed ...

There are many published studies with evidence that cholesterol levels are positively associated with heart disease. In multivariate analyses the effects are usually small, but they are still there. On the other hand, there is also plenty of evidence that cholesterol is beneficial in terms of health. Here of course I am referring to the health of humans, not of the many parasites that benefit from disease. For example, there is evidence ( ) that cholesterol levels are negatively associated with mortality (i.e., higher cholesterol leading to lower mortality), and are positively associated with vitamin D production from skin exposure to sunlight ( ). Most of the debris accumulated in atheromas are made up of macrophages, which are specialized cells that “eat” cell debris (ironically) and some pathogens. The drug market is still hot for cholesterol-lowering drugs, often presented in TV and Internet ads as effective tools to prevent formation of atheromas. But what about macrophages? ...

Low testosterone (a.k.a. “low T”) is caused by worn out glands no longer able to secrete enough T, right? At least this seems to be the most prevalent theory today, a theory that reminds me a lot of the “tired pancreas” theory ( ) of diabetes. I should note that this low T problem, as it is currently presented, is one that affects almost exclusively men, particularly middle-aged men, not women. This is so even though T plays an important role in women’s health. There are many studies that show associations between T levels and all kinds of diseases in men. But here is a problem with hormones: often several hormones vary together and in a highly correlated fashion. If you rely on statistics to reach conclusions, you must use techniques that allow you to rule out confounders; otherwise you may easily reach wrong conclusions. Examples are multivariate techniques that are sensitive to Simpson’s paradox and nonlinear algorithms; both of which are employed, by the way, by modern software to...

The War of Canudos took place in Brazil in 1896 and 1897. Canudos was a settlement of several thousand deeply religious Christians, led by a man known as Antonio Conselheiro. They opposed the recent establishment of the Republic of Brazil, particularly the institution of income taxes and civil marriage; the former was considered government-sponsored theft and the latter a sacrilege. The republic had been declared in 1889 following a military coup that deposed Dom Pedro II, an emperor beloved by the common people and under whose rule slavery had recently been abolished. Canudos was located in the Brazilian sertão , an inhospitable semi-arid region in the northeastern part of the country. The inhabitants of Canudos were the sertanejos . The term jagunço was used to refer to the males, especially the outlaws. Many of the sertanejos lived in semi-starvation, in poor sanitary conditions, and with very limited (if any) access to healthcare. Infant mortality was very high at the time. Thos...

I love to read about Robert Sapolsky's baboons. They give me a kind of peace -- the kind received when you succeed in letting go of a stressful situation by thinking, "we're all just a bunch of baboons." What you get from Sapolsky's books, apart from its enjoyable wittiness, is a unique snapshot on how baboons are affected by stress, which is more or less the same way that we are affected by stress. Only, while baboons are stressed occasionally -- by a more dominant baboon or to escape a predator, for example -- we humans have built ourselves an environment where we're stressed chronically. This chronic stress of modern life leads to constant release of stress hormones (glutocorticoids) that continually harms the body, the brain, and brings about possible stress-induced disorders or even chronic diseases. In honor of Stress Awareness Month, it's a problem worth talking about. In fact, the results of a study presented April 4 at th...

Undoubtedly one of the big differences between life today and in our Paleolithic past is the level of stress that modern humans face on a daily basis. Much stress happens at work, which is very different from what our Paleolithic ancestors would call work. Modern office work, in particular, would probably be seen as a form of slavery by our Paleolithic ancestors. Some recent research suggests that organizational power distance is a big factor in work-related stress. Power distance is essentially the degree to which bosses and subordinates accept wide differences in organizational power between them (Hofstede, 2001). (Source: talentedapps.wordpress.com) I have been studying the topic of information overload for a while. It is a fascinating topic. People who experience it have the impression that they have more information to process than they can handle. They also experience significant stress as a result of it, and both the quality of their work and their productivity goes down. Recent...

The figure and table below are from Vieth (1999); one of the most widely cited articles on vitamin D. The figure shows the gradual increase in blood concentrations of 25-Hydroxyvitamin, or 25(OH)D, following the start of daily vitamin D3 supplementation of 10,000 IU/day. The table shows the average levels for people living and/or working in sun-rich environments; vitamin D3 is produced by the skin based on sun exposure. 25(OH)D is also referred to as calcidiol. It is a pre-hormone that is produced by the liver based on vitamin D3. To convert from nmol/L to ng/mL, divide by 2.496. The figure suggests that levels start to plateau at around 1 month after the beginning of supplementation, reaching a point of saturation after 2-3 months. Without supplementation or sunlight exposure, levels should go down at a comparable rate. The maximum average level shown on the table is 163 nmol/L (65 ng/mL), and refers to a sample of lifeguards. From the figure we can infer that people on average will p...

Many animals take naps during the day. Our ancestors probably napped during the day too. They certainly did not spend as many hours as we do under mental stress. In fact, the lives of our Paleolithic ancestors would look quite boring to a modern human. Mental stress can be seen as a modern poison. We need antidotes for that poison. Power napping seems to be one of them. (Source: Squidoo.com) Power napping is a topic that I have done some research on, but unfortunately I do not have access to the references right now. I am posting this from Europe, where I arrived a few days ago. Thus I am labeling this post “my experience”. Hopefully I will be able to write a more research-heavy post on this topic in the near future. I am pretty sure that there is a strong connection between power napping and stress hormones. Maybe our regular and knowledgeable commenters can help me fill this gap in their comments on this post. Surprisingly, jet lag has been only very minor this time for me. The time ...

Cortisol is a hormone that plays several very important roles in the human body . Many of these are health-promoting, under the right circumstances. Others can be disease-promoting, especially if cortisol levels are chronically elevated. Among the disease-promoting effects of chronically elevated blood cortisol levels are that of excessive gluconeogenesis, causing high blood glucose levels even while a person is fasting. This also causes muscle wasting, as muscle tissue is used to elevate blood glucose levels. Cortisol also seems to transfer body fat from subcutaneous to visceral areas. Presumably cortisol promotes visceral fat accumulation to facilitate the mobilization of that fat in stressful “fight-or-flight” situations. Visceral fat is much easier to mobilize than subcutaneous fat, because visceral fat deposits are located in areas where vascularization is higher, and are closer to the portal vein. The problem is that modern humans often experience stress without the violent musc...

Cortisol is a hormone that does a number of different things; a jack of all trades among hormones, so to speak. It tells the liver to produce glucose, preventing hypoglycemia. It also tells the liver to synthesize glycogen, which is in some ways the opposite of producing glucose. It tells the stomach to secret gastric acid. It is an anti-diuretic hormone. It suppresses the immune system, which is why it is frequently used to reduce inflammation, and treat allergies and various autoimmune diseases. It jump-starts an increase in free fatty acids in circulation, thus helping provide an important source of energy for endurance exercise. Cortisol, together with epinephrine (a.k.a. adrenaline), even contributes to the creation of surprise-induced memories. It is because of this action of cortisol that Americans reading this post, especially those who lived in the East Coast in 2001, remember vividly where they were, what they were doing, and who they were with, when they first heard about th...

The idea that heavy physical activity is a main trigger of heart attacks is widespread. Often endurance running and cardio-type activities are singled out. Some people refer to this as “death by running”. Good cardiology textbooks, such as the Mayo Clinic Cardiology , tend to give us a more complex and complete picture. So do medical research articles that report on studies of heart attacks based on comprehensive surveys. Reddy and colleagues (2009) studied sudden cardiac arrest events followed by death from 2002 to 2005 in Multnomah County in Oregon. This study was part of the ongoing Oregon Sudden Unexpected Death Study. Multnomah County has an area of 435 square miles, and had a population of over 677 thousand at the time of the study. The full reference to the article and a link to a full-text version are at the end of this post. The researchers grouped deaths by sudden cardiac arrests (SCAs) according to the main type of activity being performed before the event. Below is how...