Professor Holick on Vitamin D

This news link from Physorg has an interview with the man who kept promoting vitamin D when everyone else thought the sun was enough.

The Price of Freedom

US War Crimes: Cancer Rate in Fallujah Worse than Hiroshima

....

“This is an extraordinary and alarming result,” said Busby, a professor of molecular biosciences at the University of Ulster and director of scientific research for Green Audit, an independent environmental research group. “To produce an effect like this, some very major mutagenic exposure must have occurred in 2004 when the attacks happened. We need urgently to find out what the agent was. Although many suspect uranium, we cannot be certain without further research and independent analysis of samples from the area.”

Busby told an Italian television news station, RAI 24, that the “extraordinary” increase in radiation-related maladies in Fallujah is higher than that found in the populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the US atomic strikes of 1945. “My guess is that this was caused by depleted uranium,” he said. “They must be connected.”

Cannabis, Schizophrenia, Cognition, and Autoimmunity

When I was writing up the earlier piece last night I came across some searches from Norml, the rabidly pro marijuana organisation. The search page had the extract - schizophrenics have improved cognition if smoking pot. At the time I dismissed it but today I realised I was being silly, there is a very good neuroimmunological explanation for why cannabinoids can be helping schizophrenics.

"Spontaneous recovery" in schizophrenia

I just found this article from the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 2007. This statement is striking ...

Patients with schizophrenia who had removed themselves or been removed from antipsychotic medications showed significantly better global functioning and outcome than those still being treated with antipsychotics. Detailed analyses of those patients with schizophrenia on antipsychotic medications versus those not on medications at the 15-year follow-ups also were conducted. These analyses indicated that in addition to the significant differences in global functioning between these groups, 19 of the 23 schizophrenia patients (83%) with uniformly poor outcome at the 15-year follow-ups were on antipsychotic medications.

Not good, not at all. Lots of issues involved here, especially that the possibility that those who go off medication did not have such a severe condition. Much more worryingly though is that those on medication generally declined in function, whereas those on medication had a much greater chance of improvement.

Do Neuroleptics Increase an Aberrant Neurodegenerative Autoimmune Response?

Long, 2250 words, difficult, give yourself a chance. My conclusion is that the current approach to treating schizophrenia could very well be inducing neurodegeneration through an autoimmune mediated pathology. I examine this from the perspective of heat shock proteins, autoimmunity, and neuroimmunology. This raises very serious questions about the current emphasis on "pre treating" so called "pre-psychotic" individuals.

This recent news item caught my interest because it relates to a set of immune cells that play a cardinal role in autoimmunity and cancer prevention. The news item addresses gamma delta T cells, a set of T cells that respond to one of the most abundantly expressed stress proteins in our body, heat shock protein 60. This protein is very strongly associated with autoimmunity. While autoimmunity is typically associated with pathology it plays a fundamental role in our health by eliminating dangerous cells that could become cancerous or induce the release inflammatory mediators that initiate tissue damage.

The Good News on Saturated Fat

Must be that time of year when all the long held myths concerning health and nutrition are held up for scrutiny. About time, many people believe that saturated fat is bad. That is bollocks. You need saturated fat. This obsession with the terror of saturated fat is what drove many people to avoid eggs and dairy products. This in spite of good literature showing that eggs are an excellent food and FULL FAT dairy is good for you, albeit keeping in mind total fat intake and the balance of fatty acid intake.

Thus, from the news article ...

A recent meta-analysis of epidemiological and intervention studies of milk fat conducted by Peter Elwood, DSc, MD, FRCP, FFPHM, DUniv, Hon DSc, Honorary Professor at the School of Medicine, Cardiff University, found that milk and dairy consumption actually was associated with a decrease in CVD risk.

The above has been known for years. What many people don't realise is that dairy products contain a very beneficial fatty acid - conjugated linoleic acid.

Cannabis and Memory Loss

This finding from the British Journal of Psychiatry is very consistent with the known pharmacology of THC. It is found that the higher the THC content, the greater the memory loss. Modern breeds of marijuana undoubtedly have higher THC content, though this increase is greatly exaggerated by the authorities.

This modern change in the ratios of THC to CBD probably explains the rise in cannabis associated psychosis. This recent research piece, a nice piece of work, highlights the differing roles.

Blowing up Cancer Cells

Remarkably creative and clever approach to attacking cancer ...

In the zebra-fish study, Lapotko and his collaborators at Rice directed antibody-tagged gold nanoparticles into the implanted cancer cells. A short laser pulse overheated the surface of the nanoparticles and evaporated a very thin volume of the surrounding medium to create small vapor bubbles that expanded and collapsed within nanoseconds; this left cells undamaged but generated a strong optical scattering signal that was bright enough to detect a single cancer cell.

A second, stronger pulse generated larger nanobubbles that exploded (or, as the researchers called it, "mechanically ablated") the target cell without damaging surrounding tissue in the zebra fish. Scattering of the laser light by the second "killer" bubble confirmed the cellular destruction.

A Natural Response to Alzheimer's Disease

It was only a few years ago that most believed amyloid plaques and protein tangles could not be removed from the nervous system. We now know better and recent findings have important implications for our cerebral health. Over recent years there have been a number of studies highlighting that in contradiction to another once well established opinion, age associated cognitive impairment is not inevitable and there exist a wide range of strategies to ameliorate cognitive decline with aging. Achieving that goal, and in these days that is a realistic goal, is no easy task. It requires a variety of strategies but the long term pay offs are potentially enormous. This possibility first occurred to me on yet another afternoon when I had the energy of a bamboo deprived panda, I was flicking through TV stations and caught a glimpse of an interview with BF Skinner. He related that at his age, 85, he felt he was still going work but he stressed that throughout his life he had been very careful about his health. There is a very important for those who wish to live long and prosper: if that truly is your goal you had better start living towards that goal before you are 35 years old.

Patrick Lockerby: Arctic Ice Update

Every month or so Patrick provides update on the ice dynamics in the Arctic. Here is the latest report. Thanks Patrick!