Excerpt from Sarah Berry's article in The Age. The evidence is clear, our bodies can and do, change our brain. Norman Doidge, FRCP(C), is a Canadian-born psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and author. He shares how research into neuroplasticity is broadening what we know and how we can apply it to enhance our health and lives. Sarah Berry's article in the Age was based on an interview with Doidge to get some deeper insights into where this understanding was leading us.Doidge shares this case where he describes a remarkable brain work around. John Pepper, whose diagnosis of Parkinson's disease in his 30s, meant he struggled with the sorts of movements - like walking - that he previously took for granted. He took them for granted because the sorts of automatic movements that we do without having to…
Reuters Health have published their results from a small, preliminary study looking at infants in households with furry pets. The finding was that these infants were found to share some of the animals' gut bacteria. This could possibly explain why early animal exposure may protect against some allergies, researchers say. In this study the infants' mothers had a known history of allergy, so the babies were considered at increased risk of also developing allergies. Traditional thinking is that fury pets cause or trigger allergies in such children.
New-generation cytopathological staining platform could be a reliable diagnostic tool to help determine whether and when to perform a prostate biopsy. Called CellDetect, trials for accurate cancer detection, demonstrated successful detection of prostate cancer cells in urine samples with 91.3% sensitivity and 75% specificity. Current screening tests for prostate cancer deliver a high rate of false positive results (as low as 25% specificity), leading to unnecessary invasive diagnostic tests such as biopsies. CellDetect has proven effective in diagnosing cervical and bladder cancer and it is expected that the technology can be implemented for use in additional cancer detection indications. For the prostate cancer indication, a blinded study is planned to confirm these exciting findings. ~ Israel21c…
Debate on organic versus conventional produce and relative health benefits has been going for decades. The good news is we now have enough medical studies to help us make a more educated decision. The “definitive study” on organic versus conventional produce was published in the prestigious British Medical Journal. It combined the results of the 343 smaller studies comparing organic to non-organic produce. The main three findings of this study are: Organic produce has more antioxidants. Organic produce has 4 times less pesticide residue. Organic produce has less of the toxic metal, cadmium. So how is this important? In many medical studies, there is evidence that more antioxidants from food may decrease your risk of cancer, heart disease, and dementia. Experts still can’t agree if the pesticides you are exposed to with…
