I notice that my hair is getting more and more grey - which is not a surprise! But what is a surprise is that my hair looks less grey (more black) when almost any vegetable oil or cream is applied. That leads me to conclude that the greyness is somehow connected with the shedding of fat from hair, or the inability of hair to absorb such fats from the hair roots, as they could do when I was younger.
Possibly this fat-absorption matter also has to do with hair thinning and hair loss?
Therefore, instead of surgical interventions by trichologists to improve hair density, colour and tone, I wonder if research should not rather focus on what causes hair roots to stop being efficient at processing the relevant fats?
Incidentally, I notice that my body has started shedding fat as I am growing older (even though the processing of fats as well as of carbohydrates by my body has slowed down - which, I think is the main reason why older people put on weight). Is that related to the shedding of fat by one's hair? If so, might hair loss and greying be an early indicator of ageing?
Further, I notice that, as I am growing older (not yet very old, only in my early 60s), it takes more effort to learn new things as well as to recollect facts, faces and names: the links and connections seem much weaker, and it takes more time and effort to travel along them.
Finally, I notice too that my mental energy is declining: I used to be able to work hard for up to 20 hours a day, now I can deal with probably ten.
I think back to when I was an athlete: the biggest battle for an athlete in a race or in the middle of training is actually in the mind (one gets mentally tired and ready to give up long before one has to do so physically).
It is the same now in relation to my ageing. Things that I used to do spontaneously and effortlessly now take the mental effort of making a decision before one can engage with them.
At present, thank God, once I have made the initial effort in deciding to engage, the momentum carries me through most tasks on most days.
But I can imagine that the time is not far off when it will require not only an effort to start engaging, but also that the momentum of the decision will carry me for shorter and shorter lengths of time, and less and less complex tasks.
To deal successfully with ageing may therefore be a matter of ensuring enough stimulation to keep the brain active by forcing it to be reactive - though I should expect from observation of other old (and older) people, that there is a limit to that too.
Wednesday, 7 December 2011
Saturday, 19 November 2011
Natural cure for heartburn?
A friend tells me that having suffered from heartburn for some time, she took Western medicines which provided relief without side effects, though the tablets were expensive.
Then someone mentioned to her that, in order to fight heartburn, all that is needed is to take four Adzuki beans every night with a glass of water before going to sleep.
She tried it and - problem solved!
As I don't suffer from heartburn, I can't vouch for the treatment myself. But I am putting this information here as pharma companies don't like such information being around in the public realm - and if the information helps you that will be excellent.
If this natural remedy does not help you, you can always go back to expensive Western medicine.
Then someone mentioned to her that, in order to fight heartburn, all that is needed is to take four Adzuki beans every night with a glass of water before going to sleep.
She tried it and - problem solved!
As I don't suffer from heartburn, I can't vouch for the treatment myself. But I am putting this information here as pharma companies don't like such information being around in the public realm - and if the information helps you that will be excellent.
If this natural remedy does not help you, you can always go back to expensive Western medicine.
Wednesday, 16 November 2011
The Placebo Effect
Western medicine ("allopathy") seems to me to regard the Placebo Effect with less respect than it should.
What is the Placebo Effect? Basically: that a "placebo" or pill consisting of a substance which has no known medical effect, given to a sick person with the statement that it may improve his/her condition, actually (or at least in the perception of the patient) actually improves their condition.
Placebos are at present given as "controls" to patients suffering from a disease, with others being given "real medicines" in order to check the efficacy of the "real medicine".
The assumption is that people given the medicine should all benefit from the medicine, whereas the people given the placebo will not, in general, benefit from the placebo. The surprising thing is that some or many patients do respond to the placebo.
Western medicine then tries very hard to "explain" (that is, to discount and dismiss) placebos - for example, regarding homeopathic effectiveness as "merely a placebo effect".
To any skeptical person, this is surely completely the wrong way round. If the placebo effect is so powerful, and so cheap, should THAT not be what we should investigate in order to improve its effectiveness?
But no one in the West likes to think in politically incorrect ways. Psychologists and physicians who take the placebo effect seriously are regarded as stupid or even dangerous.
On the other hand, no one in the West takes seriously the costs of so-called "evidence-based medicine": it is obvious that Western medicine is extremely powerful and has dangerous side-effects. So the only justification for giving these "medicines" is that the benefits outweigh the costs. That can only be possible where the diagnosis of the disease is correct. But has any research been done on how many cases are mis-diagnosed, or how much people have suffered and are suffering from the wrong medicines being administered to them?
No. Researching neither misdiagnosis nor improving the efficacy of the placebo effect would be financed by the main financers of medical research (pharmaceutical companies) - and it would bring no researcher any any kudos in the world of Western medicine.
So we have the taboo around quantifying the prevalance and effects of misdiagnosis in Western medicine, and we have the continued non-investigation of what should be the cheapest way of treating people.
In other words, it is faith in Western medicine that enables it to continue its dominance against so-called "alternative" or "complementary" medicine, and that is why the Western medical tradition is so bent on stigmatising the placebo effect rather than in investigating it.
"Evidence-based medicine" has become today's equivalent of Roman Catholic or Hindu dogma: it is not supposed to be questioned by anyone who wishes to continue to be accepted in society as "rational" - when at least some of the rationality is on the side of those who wish to question it.
Perhaps I should put it more strongly: We will move to "genuinely evidence-based medicine" only when we begin to investigate how to decrease the rate of misdiagnosis, how to spot more quickly that the wrong medicine has been or is being administered, and how to improve the efficacy of placebos.
What is the Placebo Effect? Basically: that a "placebo" or pill consisting of a substance which has no known medical effect, given to a sick person with the statement that it may improve his/her condition, actually (or at least in the perception of the patient) actually improves their condition.
Placebos are at present given as "controls" to patients suffering from a disease, with others being given "real medicines" in order to check the efficacy of the "real medicine".
The assumption is that people given the medicine should all benefit from the medicine, whereas the people given the placebo will not, in general, benefit from the placebo. The surprising thing is that some or many patients do respond to the placebo.
Western medicine then tries very hard to "explain" (that is, to discount and dismiss) placebos - for example, regarding homeopathic effectiveness as "merely a placebo effect".
To any skeptical person, this is surely completely the wrong way round. If the placebo effect is so powerful, and so cheap, should THAT not be what we should investigate in order to improve its effectiveness?
But no one in the West likes to think in politically incorrect ways. Psychologists and physicians who take the placebo effect seriously are regarded as stupid or even dangerous.
On the other hand, no one in the West takes seriously the costs of so-called "evidence-based medicine": it is obvious that Western medicine is extremely powerful and has dangerous side-effects. So the only justification for giving these "medicines" is that the benefits outweigh the costs. That can only be possible where the diagnosis of the disease is correct. But has any research been done on how many cases are mis-diagnosed, or how much people have suffered and are suffering from the wrong medicines being administered to them?
No. Researching neither misdiagnosis nor improving the efficacy of the placebo effect would be financed by the main financers of medical research (pharmaceutical companies) - and it would bring no researcher any any kudos in the world of Western medicine.
So we have the taboo around quantifying the prevalance and effects of misdiagnosis in Western medicine, and we have the continued non-investigation of what should be the cheapest way of treating people.
In other words, it is faith in Western medicine that enables it to continue its dominance against so-called "alternative" or "complementary" medicine, and that is why the Western medical tradition is so bent on stigmatising the placebo effect rather than in investigating it.
"Evidence-based medicine" has become today's equivalent of Roman Catholic or Hindu dogma: it is not supposed to be questioned by anyone who wishes to continue to be accepted in society as "rational" - when at least some of the rationality is on the side of those who wish to question it.
Perhaps I should put it more strongly: We will move to "genuinely evidence-based medicine" only when we begin to investigate how to decrease the rate of misdiagnosis, how to spot more quickly that the wrong medicine has been or is being administered, and how to improve the efficacy of placebos.
Saturday, 29 October 2011
How radiation can become an epidemic
You will recollect that I have earlier warned of the effects of increasing radiation in our environment, from mobile phones to computers.
Yesterday, I met the first person that I have ever met, who described herself as suffering from "Radiation Sensitivity Syndrome". Of course that was simply her name for it, and there is no such disease in the medical lexicon. In fact, according to her, the existence of such a thing is denied by the medical establishment.
However, she told me that she used to work as the divisional leader in a software company and loved her job. She had some slowly increasingly medical symptoms, and decided to take a holiday in a rural area. When she returned to her work, she was violently affected whenever she came near a computer or whenever anyone turned on a mobile 'phone within about 10 meters.
She was most puzzled by it and went to her usual doctor but he insisted that she was suffering from a psychological problem, not a medical one.
She has since then gone to several other doctors, with the same (or similar result).
On researching her condition, she discovered some of the sort of research to which I have drawn attention, but of course lots of other research as well (I haven't kept up with the research since I drew attention to it here).
And she has discovered many other people on the internet who share such symptoms.
What convinced me about her story is two things:
1. She is obviously distressed about not being able to go back to her job, and she still enjoys chatting, reading, researching....
2. She was wearing special clothing manufactured by Swiss Shield (http://www.swiss-shield.ch/index.php?id=42&L=1) which manufactures cloth to address the problem from which the lady who I met is suffering. Clearly, if there were not a sufficient number of buyers of Swiss Shield's quite expensive cloth, the company would go out of business.
So there seems to be a kind of unrecognised plague of radiation-sickness which is creeping upon us, and will overtake us before we are aware of it.
Following the commercialisation of research, it is of course now nearly impossible to do any real research into such problems, where the interests of corporations are to avoid such research taking place.
In the old days of publicly-funded research, corporations had to go to great lengths if they wanted to suppress research that jeopardised the financial success of their products.
Nowadays, all that corporations need to do is to ignore the existence of problems, and to avoid funding research into those problems.
Yesterday, I met the first person that I have ever met, who described herself as suffering from "Radiation Sensitivity Syndrome". Of course that was simply her name for it, and there is no such disease in the medical lexicon. In fact, according to her, the existence of such a thing is denied by the medical establishment.
However, she told me that she used to work as the divisional leader in a software company and loved her job. She had some slowly increasingly medical symptoms, and decided to take a holiday in a rural area. When she returned to her work, she was violently affected whenever she came near a computer or whenever anyone turned on a mobile 'phone within about 10 meters.
She was most puzzled by it and went to her usual doctor but he insisted that she was suffering from a psychological problem, not a medical one.
She has since then gone to several other doctors, with the same (or similar result).
On researching her condition, she discovered some of the sort of research to which I have drawn attention, but of course lots of other research as well (I haven't kept up with the research since I drew attention to it here).
And she has discovered many other people on the internet who share such symptoms.
What convinced me about her story is two things:
1. She is obviously distressed about not being able to go back to her job, and she still enjoys chatting, reading, researching....
2. She was wearing special clothing manufactured by Swiss Shield (http://www.swiss-shield.ch/index.php?id=42&L=1) which manufactures cloth to address the problem from which the lady who I met is suffering. Clearly, if there were not a sufficient number of buyers of Swiss Shield's quite expensive cloth, the company would go out of business.
So there seems to be a kind of unrecognised plague of radiation-sickness which is creeping upon us, and will overtake us before we are aware of it.
Following the commercialisation of research, it is of course now nearly impossible to do any real research into such problems, where the interests of corporations are to avoid such research taking place.
In the old days of publicly-funded research, corporations had to go to great lengths if they wanted to suppress research that jeopardised the financial success of their products.
Nowadays, all that corporations need to do is to ignore the existence of problems, and to avoid funding research into those problems.
Sunday, 17 April 2011
How much sleep does a person need?
A friend draws my attention to an interesting story at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazinehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif/mag-17Sleep-t.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha210
As the story says: "There is a small portion of the population — he estimates it at around 5 percent or even less — who, for what researchers think may be genetic reasons, can maintain their performance with five or fewer hours of sleep. (There is also a small percentage who require 9 or 10 hours.)"
I am in a strange category: I will happily sleep for 24 hours a day, but I actually need about 4 hours to continue performing more or less normally for about a month; my optimal sleep is around 6 hours (though I get up by myself sometimes after 4 hours).
The problem is that unless you try, you don't know if you are in the 5% or whatever that needs 4 hours of sleep or 10 hours.
And the further problem is that, you don't know the answer for some weeks.
Finally, there is a question about the age at which one experiments. It is possible that if one does the experiment at 30, the learned behaviour of needing say 9 hours of sleep overrides the genetic need for only 4 hours. If I hadn't been inspired to try sleeping less than the 10 hours I did at the age of 17, I might still be sleeping 10 hours (or 9) every day. However, as I did experiment, I found that I could learn to perform more or less optimally with something like 4 hours for long stretches of time.
Naturally, as the scientists in the story believe that everyone is a poor judge of the relationship between sleep and performance, they will not place much reliance on my account of my experience.
Equally, why should I live my life on the basis of their results, which relate to 95% of the population, if I am lucky or unlucky enough to be in the 5% at the top or the 5% at the bottom of the scale?
As the story says: "There is a small portion of the population — he estimates it at around 5 percent or even less — who, for what researchers think may be genetic reasons, can maintain their performance with five or fewer hours of sleep. (There is also a small percentage who require 9 or 10 hours.)"
I am in a strange category: I will happily sleep for 24 hours a day, but I actually need about 4 hours to continue performing more or less normally for about a month; my optimal sleep is around 6 hours (though I get up by myself sometimes after 4 hours).
The problem is that unless you try, you don't know if you are in the 5% or whatever that needs 4 hours of sleep or 10 hours.
And the further problem is that, you don't know the answer for some weeks.
Finally, there is a question about the age at which one experiments. It is possible that if one does the experiment at 30, the learned behaviour of needing say 9 hours of sleep overrides the genetic need for only 4 hours. If I hadn't been inspired to try sleeping less than the 10 hours I did at the age of 17, I might still be sleeping 10 hours (or 9) every day. However, as I did experiment, I found that I could learn to perform more or less optimally with something like 4 hours for long stretches of time.
Naturally, as the scientists in the story believe that everyone is a poor judge of the relationship between sleep and performance, they will not place much reliance on my account of my experience.
Equally, why should I live my life on the basis of their results, which relate to 95% of the population, if I am lucky or unlucky enough to be in the 5% at the top or the 5% at the bottom of the scale?
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