Neuronal Beauty

Martyrdom Today

2011-11-06T16:38:00.003-06:00

I found out about the “Voice of the Martyrs” organization through our pastor. I am sharing some notes from his teaching today. VOM is a legitimate organization and the problems are real…unfortunately.

If you live in the United States you may be surprised by the number of countries that do not allow Christians to openly worship, carry bibles, etc. Although there are various estimates, the number of Christians being martyred daily, largely in these countries, ranges from 400-450/day.

In the early days of Christianity, martyrs had a huge evangelical impact. If one is willing to die for their faith, it sends a really strong message to those watching or hearing about it from first hand witnesses. The second-century theologian Tertullian said, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” His wonderment at the faithfulness of those early martyrs brought him to their Christian faith. This was an absolutely an unintended side effect of the religious persecution of the early Christians.

Few realize that there is resurgence in martyrdom worldwide that far exceeds that in the early Church! Our pastor asked, “What should be our response to the martyrdom of today?” His answer is worth sharing: “Be informed, be prayerful, and be prepared to suffer as well.”

In most of the U.S. while it is very fashionable to believe in a loving higher power or energy source, it is not fashionable to be a Christian. Christians are branded as bigots and hateful. The socially acceptable ‘god’ does not require too much of his followers, has no absolute standard of right or wrong because that would be inconsistent with lovingness. The ‘higher power’ does not have a justice or holy side. Nope, that god is all whatever-fulfills-you-is-okay.

Interestingly, where I live in the Bible belt there is an opposite but still unhealthy situation. Most folks are “cultural Christians”. While it may be far more acceptable in the South to acknowledge a Christian God in public places than any other place I have lived, the majority of people here (estimated by various source to be 80%) are not part of any community of worship, Christian or otherwise.

I have witnessed first-hand the severe damage done when “Christians” act in a non-Christian ways—or just like anyone else that is not a Christian. Cute phrases abound, “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.” A more accurate phrase but less bumper-sticker-friendly might be, “Christians should have some life-changing evidence of their relationship with Jesus Christ.” Christians have the same divorce rate as non-Christians. That is except for one group of Christians—those marriages where husband and wife habitually pray together. Did you marry your spouse because they loved the Lord? For many professed Christians that is not even on this list.

All of this talk of martyrdom for one’s faith…is there anything that any of us are willing to die for? It is a hard question if you are honest with yourself. How about if you are being tortured? Might you survive the firing squad but not torture? The Christian martyrs of today and tomorrow have my utmost admiration. For eye opening information check out Voice of the Martyrs and, also, Frontiers ministering specifically to Muslim countries. Both are worthy of your support.

Whoz Yo Daddy?

2011-10-11T11:35:00.012-05:00

This is an addendum to my column, Genes-R-Us, in The UC Messenger that was published on Oct 12, 2011, #5 The “recent” family tree .

When in her 70’s my mother, Helen, told me of a conversation that we shared when I was a small child. I remember her telling me of this conversation, well over 30 years ago, as if it happened yesterday. Helen was ironing in the utility room, as this was one of the ways she supported our family. As I stood in the doorway looking into the utility room, I asked, “Who am I?” My mother told me her heart jumped as she had yet to tell me that I had been adopted as an infant—and that was exactly where her mind went. She replied, “You are Nancy Miller, that’s who you are!” My reply was, “No, who am I really?” I must have been quite young during this conversation because I keenly recall knowing that I was adopted as an infant from my earliest childhood memories.

After all those years this conversation still troubled my mother, Helen, because she realized, over time, just how hungry and desperate I was for some biological family connection. She confessed that she did not know what to say in the utility room, but she felt certain that I instinctively knew that she was not my biological mother. I know that my question hurt her. When I became old enough to understand that my continued and ever growing curiosity about my ancestry was painful to her, I finally stopped asking questions.

Although I have no recollection of that conversation as a small child, I do recognize, with a sad twinge, that child’s heart. Most of you probably take for granted what I desperately coveted as a child, a blood connection to a family history—an umbilical cord through time. I romanticized the connection to my biological family greatly. Eventually I located both my birth mother and several years later my birth father. My adoptive father died when I was 28; my adoptive mother, Helen, when I was 37—only weeks after I located my birth father.

In the last couple of years DNA testing has verified that both of the people that I call my birth parents are indeed my biological parents. DNA testing has also been the fairly recent impetus for serious research into my biological family tree.

Key people in the bible are always identified by their family lineage—often but not exclusively that of their father. Even Jesus Christ defined Himself by His relationship to His Father. Only in the last 10 years, did I finally claim my identity as a child of God. Finally that nagging hole in my heart was plugged by Jesus Christ, my kinsman redeemer. However, I am still grateful for the gift of biological identify that takes me back through time. What follows is the family line for one of my grandparents—my birth father’s mother. It connects to Charlemagne the most famous of the medieval kings. This is not so far from my many flights of fantasy as to who I really was as a child!

Family really is precious; do not take it for granted. You have been placed in your family whether biological or adoptive by God, the Father, for a purpose.

Your earthly family is not the end all. You have a place in an everlasting Family—but you do have to claim it. I claim mine fully!

Nancy’s birth father's grandmother’s line (through Mamie Mae Pitre 1901-1991)

Pepin of Landen (c580-640) + Saint Itta (-652)

Ansegisel (c606-bef679) + Saint Begga (615-693)

Duke Pepin II or Pepin of Herstal (c634 - 714)) + Alpaida( concubine) (-)

Charles Martel (c.688 – 741) + Rotrude of Treves, (690–724)

Pepin the Short (or Pepin the Younger or Pepin III) ( -768) + Bertrada of Laon (c. 710:727 – 783)

Charlemagne (742-814) + Regina (concubine) (c.780 - )

Hugh (802-844), Archchancellor of the Empire + unknown

Petronilla (825-845) + Tertullus of Angers (821-921)

Ingelger (845-893), Viscount of Orleans and Angers +Aelinde de Amboise (844-890)

Foulques I the Red (abt 870-abt 941), Viscount ofAngers, Count of Anjou + Roscille De Loches (874-920)

Foulques II the Good (909-11 November 958), Count ofAnjou + Gerberge du Maine (913-952)

Bouchard IV the Old (943-1012), Count of Vendome +Elizabeth

Adèle de Vendome (995-?) + Roger I (985-abt 1015),Seigneur de La Tour

Agnes de La Tour (1015-1092) + Guelduin de Maillé(1010-1067), Seigneur du Petit-Martigny

Gilduin de Maillé (1035-?) + Agnes de Vendome (1055-?)

Hardouin I de Maillé (1075-1110) + Beatrix de Tours(abt 1073-1122)

Jacquelin II (1115-1175), Seigneur de Maillé + Adèle

Hardouin II (abt 1154-?), Seigneur de Maillé + unknown

Hardouin III (abt 1175-?), Baron de Maillé + unknown

Hardouin IV (1200-1252), Baron de Maillé + Jeanne deThouars (1233-1258)

Hardouin V (1234-1306), Baron de Maillé + Jeanne deBauçay (1245-?)

Hardouin VI (abt 1264-1340), Baron de Maillé + Jeannede Montbazon (abt 1305-abt 1352)

Hardouin VII (abt 1300-?), Baron de Maillé + Mahaut deLa Clarté (?-?)

Hardouin VIII (1383-?), Baron de Maillé + Perronelled'Amboise (1400-?)

Hardouin IX (1428-20 February 1473), Baron de Maillé +Antoinette de Chauvigny (1445-20 February 1474)

Hardouin X (1462-25 January 1525), Seigneur deFontenay-Labatu et seigneur de Benais et seigneur de La Forêt d'Estampes +Françoise de La Tour Landry (1470-?)

Jean I (1512-1563), Baron de La Tour Landry & Baronde Saint-Chartier + Anne Chabot (1515-1573)

Francoise (1540-1598), Count of Châteauroux & Baronde La Tour Landry + Diane De Rohan Gie (1541-20 April 1585)

Claude Landry (1570-?) + Jeanne Dugast (1573-1648)

Jean Claude Landry (1593-1671) + Marie Salle(1600-1686)

Antoine Bourg1609-1686 + Antoinette Landry 1618-1686

Piere L’AineComeau 1653-1730 + Marie Jeanne Bourg 1659-1724

Claude Pitre1670-1775 + Marie F Comeau 1678-1707

Jacques Lavergne (1706 - 1759) + Francoise Pitre (1707-)

Etienne Hebert1746-1821 + Marie J Lavergne 1734-1778

Guillaume B Hebert1773-1816 + Marie Anne Dantin 1773-1833

Jean LouisHebert 1797-1850+ Marie Rose Gaudet1800-1859

Ozime Hebert 1845-191 + Marie Adeline Ledet 1843-1929

Mathurin G Pitre1872-1918 + Ernestine M Hebert 1875-1921

Harry F Clew 1897-1984 + Mamie Mae Pitre 1901-1991

William M Clew (1929- ) + Ann Kathryn Gleason c(1933 - )

Nancy (me)

Chaetochromophobia - A Story of Recovery

2011-09-22T18:30:00.007-05:00

My husband and I disagree on the degree to which everyday things must be perfect. We were married for about 3 years before Doug let me hang pictures without his oversight and indispensible help. Since moving to Union City I can load the dishwasher without having him reload it. Shopping is not something we enjoy doing with each other. I find something that is “good enough” rather quickly but my husband engages in real-time research checking out all possible prices and models before the optimal decision can be made.   Going clothes shopping with him is very…uh, let’s just say I need a Starbucks Frappuccino® and lots of dark chocolate.

Because I really love my husband, I never go with him to Costco or Sam’s Club. Going in with a list and buying only those items ruins the entire Disneyland experience for him. At this point if you are identifying more with my husband you will want to stop reading here.

When it comes to coloring my hair I am also a “good enough” girl.   About 15 years ago, when I decided that a small bit of grey was not attractive in my nearly-black hair, I paid to have my hair colored. After years of sitting in the salon chair mostly waiting for the color to take, I started taking detailed mental notes and asking copious questions.   Eventually I decided to give supermarket boxed hair color a try.

Although it just did not look that hard at the beauty parlor, I still had to conquer my fear of getting the color really wrong. The boxed hair color experiment worked out reasonably well, even if I now had black-black hair. The price was right and, at least, I did not have to spend hours confined to the beauty parlor chair.

But at some point, as the grey hairs began to increase, I needed to switch to a color that was lighter than my natural hair–not a darker color.   Actually I should have been doing that all along, in which case I could have skipped the whole gothic look. But somehow I did not connect those dots.

Several months ago, I got the idea that I would highlight my own hair, to make up for past hair coloring sins. After excellent instructions from the helpful and knowledgeable staff at the local beauty supply, I left with the best hair products one can buy in Union City: the infamous highlight “cap” and that crochet-like instrument of torture that is used to pry clumps of hair through the “wanna-be” holes in the cap.   I could not wait to get started.

Once at home, on went the cap. After 2 hours of literally pulling my hair (ok, through the holes in the cap) I called a neighbor for help on the back part of my hair. Another 2 hours later we were done—with the cap part anyway. Little did I know that it was possible to experience tedium beyond housework! The only problem was that almost all of my hair was now pulled through the cap. We did not know that one only uses the big holes or the little holes—not both.

Next I carefully painted the bleaching solution from the bottom of my hair strands up roots to get that natural look. I was prepared to keep the bleach on for 40 min, at 20 min I went to check my hair. I was more than surprised to see my once black hair now bright orange and a variety of shades of bright orange at that. I quickly washed out the bleach, dried my hair thoroughly with a hair dryer, and then put the golden brown color on the upper half of my hair. I ran out of golden brown so I had to use a different darker color on the underneath part of my hair. Amazingly my hair turned out just fine and I was pleased to see how much the natural movement of the hair itself and the gradations of color forgive a whole host of errors and inexperience.

Since that time I have nearly perfected the whole process. I color my roots every 2-3 weeks depending on my demanding social calendar. I only apply highlights every 6-8 weeks. To apply the highlights I do not use the cap--no cap ever again. I mix up the bleach and paint it on my hair with an art & crafts paintbrush (not a hair dye brush). I stroke in the stinky goo in the front of my hair and enlist Doug’s help to stripe the back. If he is not available, I just do it myself without looking. Everything else proceeds as before.

Nancy is shown here taking a snapshot of the

hair-bleach painting stage.

In the off-chance there are women out there with hair-color-phobia (chaeto-chromo-phobia) there is hope and there is much forgiveness. If at first you don’t succeed try, try again. You can always fix hair color, really. And it is only hair, right? It grows back. Well for some of us. There could be some guys still reading this article. If so, the methods described work perfectly well for adding in highlights to guy hair, too.

In the future plan I plan leave the bleach in for 30 min. I look forward to so much more gray hair as it bleaches to a lovely strawberry blond--my husband loves that color! My cost is about less than the half the price of a box of supermarket hair color each time I color my hair. And by the way, if your hairdresser “weaves” in 3 colors or pulls through a cap—make sure you give him/her a BIG tip.

Blooming where I am planted—pass the fertilizer, please!

2011-09-14T17:20:00.000-05:00

My husband and I have now been in Union City, TN for about 1.5 years. Doug has completely adjusted. I am making some progress in my adjustment. I’d like to think that I take 2 steps forward for each one step backward in my adjustment. However, sometime I feel like I am taking 2 steps backward for each step forward.

I confess that I am impatient. That same personality trait, coupled with a strong work ethic, and a dash of perfectionism, while rewarded with a six figure salary in San Diego, can stir up conflict in southern-style "slo-mo" community life. I have decided that it might be better to “hole up” for another year before I venture out like a native again. Perhaps in another year I can shed some more of my Type-A West Coast ‘Achieverism’.

So what does it look like to “hole up” for me? It consists of speaking less and writing more. It consists of judging less and observing more. It consists of trying to learn a positive lesson from every jab that I have felt or unintentionally hurled.

One of my new good friends here told me that there are a whole bunch of unwritten rules in the South. She said, “You can’t possibly know the rules if you haven’t grown up here.”   Perhaps some of those rules can sink in through osmosis. “Hole-ing up” may, therefore, have me planted in front of my computer more. But rather than vegetating, I am doing two things that are new for me.

#1: Today is the first day of my newspaper column “Genes-R-Us” in Union City’s newspaper, The Messenger. I hope to have one column each week, exploring some trippy scientific aspect of our bodies/health ala genomics. The challenge is to keep it accurate but keep it simple. My husband says that “funny” is good, too. He says that my funny needs work, but that I have the nerd thing down.

#2: I have set a goal to complete my first novel by this time next year. For the last week or so I have been plotting out the method that I will use to write my book. I don’t mean the story line, I already know that. I wonder if anyone has created a software package to assist novelists in mapping out their books--I am a visual thinker. I have the design for the map in my head.

"Nerd turns novelist"… has kind of a nice ring, don’t you think?   Of course, you’ll just have to take my word for it when I say I am done with my novel.  I will use a pseudonym.   I can’t wait for all this inspirational characters to die off-- I plan to write about them now.

The Cost of Being an Agent of Social Change!

2011-07-28T10:29:00.000-05:00

This last weekend I was in Knoxville visiting my oldest son. I passed by a life-sized sculpture of 3 women dressed in garb from a bye gone era--button up shoes, long dresses, and hair pulled back in tight buns. The monument, in the revitalized downtown square, was in honor of 3 women suffragettes. I do not remember their names—but something was mesmerizing about those women.   Wow, how many times have I not thought about their sacrifice!

Many times when you and I benefit from social change, we forget the price that was paid by the agents of social change themselves and their families. How ostracized these women would have been by those men in the community who really felt that women should not have the right to vote. How frightened other women would have been to associate with them.   Those individuals (male or female) who were against women’s suffrage for whatever reason were not necessarily bad—they just had a blind spot. This blind spot kept women from their full potential and our political and social system from benefitting in the many ways that women could contribute to society. For sure men were part of the change too—but the price they paid was very different.

My daughters might care little about what I went through in my career, as a women, trying to play professional in a man’s world.   Like all of us we take the battles of our predecessors for granted. I have been asked to go to bed with my male boss—before sexual harassment was even in the working vocabulary of this country. I have been told that I needed to stop having babies or I would never get advancement--before women could not lose their jobs for becoming pregnant. And I have never been part of any elite, wildly successful, boy's club. The laws that have come into existence on gender-based rights do have a history of need.

But really sexual harassment in the workplace dulls by comparison to the sacrifices the suffragettes made. Change is always painful—individually or collectively. Change is not always good and is not always bad. It depends on whose perspective one views things from. I must confess that my world is less black and white and more shades of gray. Sometimes it takes a war to pull the men out of the workforce for women to be accepted as part of the workforce. And sometimes it takes women doing work to realize that they can do the work--i.e. they are not their own worst enemies!

I now find myself living in a tiny town in the mid-south that feels like society must have felt 50 years ago. There are many unspoken rules that keep women in their place. I was dumbfounded to find out that women are excluded from membership in the local Rotary International (RI) club--as they have for the last 75 years. There is no argument that this local RI club does much good work in the community , however, the exclusion of women sets a very unwelcoming message to female professionals that move into the community. The networking potential through RI club, which is comprised of the most successful and influential men in the community is out of their reach.

Moreover, it sends an insidious message to the young women in the community, who might aspire to a profession, about their proper place. I can only hope they get out of the community long enough to know that it is not like this everywhere. But what about women who cannot afford to do so or will never have that opportunity? I have no problem with an all men’s club, or an all women’s club, or an all redhead’s club, or an all do-wah-ditty club. The problem is that RI club is supposed to promote change, social justice, and equal opportunities.   So why hasn’t Rotary International yanked their charter since the local RI club excludes women? Maybe part of the answer lies in the fact that there is allot of money in the club and they do absolutely accomplish good work that benefits the community. Okay—but why are they allowed to use the umbrella of RI when they are so in violation of the charter? Why not just be a civic club where they can have their gender segregation?

What has become obvious to me is that if I fight for equality on this issue—my husband will also pay a price in this community. Not only would I become ostracized for rocking the boat—he would share blame for not controlling his wife by the pillars of the community. Hopefully the powers that be in the TN state governance will vote to have the charter of the local club yanked and they can just become an all-men’s civic club. Honestly, no thinking professional women would willing become a member of such a community if she knew about this undercurrent in the town. Only family or economic conditions would keep them here or bring them here. This does not seem to be a recipe for urban growth. I can only pray that God gives me the courage to understand what I can change, the patience to accept what I can’t, and the wisdom to know the difference!

More on Science vs. Faith...BioLogos

2011-07-09T09:52:00.000-05:00

As a scientist for the last 27 years and one who was late to accept the truth of the Christian faith, I have experienced firsthand the effects of the faith vs. science polarization--in the scientific community, in the faith community, and most personally in my own family. My two sons identify Christianity with an arrogant ignorance of science. The Language of Science and Faith is a wonderful resource for both of them. The challenge is getting them to read the book and check out the great resources on the BioLogos website.

The mission of BioLogos is to provide a path of scientific and theological integrity to the God of the Bible. It is a wonderful ministry to those who believe they must leave their brains outside the Church doors, like my sons. There are those that try to discredit the BioLogos mission because they believe in Intelligent Design or a literal Genesis creation interpretation. However, if we take the Great Commission seriously and follow the example of the apostle Paul, we will reach out to those like my two sons with a website exactly like this one. As Darrel Falk mentions, in the long run (think death bed), will one’s beliefs on evolution and the Big Bang theory really matter? Those beliefs will matter ONLY to the extent that the science/religion polarization behind the theories has been an impediment to a relationship with Jesus Christ and the meaning that His death and resurrection has given to a life whose meaning is driven by the values of this world. We need not choose. I highly recommend the book.

BioLogos, keep up the good work. Many well-intentioned and highly vocal Christian proponents against evolution would have us believe that if we do not accept a literal interpretation of the Genesis creation story then the tenants of our Christian faith fall like dominoes. This is not the case. I wish more people would take the time to read the book and check out the wonderful resources on your website to understand how the BioLogos position supports God working through nature in His creation.

Faith and Science Need Not Be In Conflict

2011-07-06T09:34:00.000-05:00

Open letter to my Pastor -

I do not know if you are interested, but there is a large group of Evangelical Christians who do believe in evolution. Francis Collins the head of the National Institute of Health has co-authored an excellent book, The Language of Science and Faith: Straight Answers to Genuine Questions by Karl W. Giberson and Francis S. Collins, that wonderfully articulates the position of Evangelicals such as me. Unfortunately, there have been some very loud and well publicized proponents of evolution who are atheist; however, evolution does not lead necessarily to atheism or agnosticism. In fact for many of us, the beauty and mathematics of the big-bang, evolution and genetics, leads us naturally to worship God. To believe in the big-band or evolution as, a method that God used to accomplish his creation, only implies that He worked through His own laws of nature in His creation. A scientific belief in evolution does not imply a faith position that God could not or did not intervene at various points nor that He is constrained to do so.

Given that a day is a thousand years, and a thousand years is a day to God, this passage from the book captures my thoughts exactly:

“Consider the popular young earth creationism position where God creates everything over six days. Given God’s relationship to time, is this really any different than God creating over fourteen billion years? In either case we are confronted with the transcendent mystery of God’s action. Is it really any different to ask how God creates a cow in twenty four hours of twenty-four million years? “

And again, without going into the biology and chemistry of evolution and genetics as the book does at a layperson’s level…I believe that

“God created the world with an inbuilt capacity to explore novelty [at the genetic level] and to try new things, but within a framework of overall regularity. The key point is that the gift of creativity that God bestowed on the creation is theologically analogous to the gift of freedom God bestowed on us.”

The bible tells us why we are here and what our relationship is to God. The bible is not a scientific document describing the scientific details of how God did his work. In many cases the bible is also a historical document. However, in the mind of those scientists who are confronted daily with the scientific realities of evolution, we do not accept the first several chapters of Genesis as a scientific discourse. That does not mean we are in danger of rejecting other precepts of the bible.

Please do not feel that you need to respond to my email. But do know that your congregation does include at least one scientist who loves Jesus and accepts evolution, the big-bang theory, and see no faith conflict. I believe that God has given us a small window into his creative methods in science. The nature of the scientific method is self-correcting. When we discover more about ancient hominoids, dinosaur extinction, etc –nothing in my faith is jeopardized. In fact, I remain even more humbled and worshipful of the Almighty God and am awed that He would send His Son, Jesus to repair the damage done when man used his free-will to turn away from God as is symbolized in Genesis 1-3.

Coffee & ALZ prevention

2011-06-24T11:35:00.000-05:00

Coffee: wake up with an Alzheimer’s preventative
www.scientificcomputing.com verbatim

Courtesy of Aaron Logan

A yet unidentified component of coffee interacts with the beverage’s caffeine, which could be a surprising reason why daily coffee intake protects against Alzheimer’s disease. A new Alzheimer’s mouse study by researchers at the University of South Florida found that this interaction boosts blood levels of a critical growth factor that seems to fight off the Alzheimer’s disease process.
The findings in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. Using mice bred to develop symptoms mimicking Alzheimer’s disease, the USF team presents the first evidence that caffeinated coffee offers protection against the memory-robbing disease that is not possible with other caffeine-containing drinks or decaffeinated coffee. Previous observational studies in humans reported that daily coffee/caffeine intake during mid-life and in older age decreases the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. The USF researchers’ earlier studies in Alzheimer’s mice indicated that caffeine was likely the ingredient in coffee that provides this protection because it decreases brain production of the abnormal protein beta-amyloid, which is thought to cause the disease.
The new study does not diminish the importance of caffeine to protect against Alzheimer’s. Rather it shows that caffeinated coffee induces an increase in blood levels of a growth factor called GCSF (granulocyte colony stimulating factor). GCSF is a substance greatly decreased in patients with Alzheimer’s disease and demonstrated to improve memory in Alzheimer’s mice. A just-completed clinical trial at the USF Health Byrd Alzheimer’s Institute is investigating GCSF treatment to prevent full-blown Alzheimer’s in patients with mild cognitive impairment, a condition preceding the disease. The results of that trial are currently being evaluated and should be known soon.
“Caffeinated coffee provides a natural increase in blood GCSF levels,” said USF neuroscientist Chuanhai Cao, lead author of the study. “The exact way that this occurs is not understood. There is a synergistic interaction between caffeine and some mystery component of coffee that provides this beneficial increase in blood GCSF levels.”
The researchers would like to identify this yet unknown component so that coffee and other beverages could be enriched with it to provide long-term protection against Alzheimer’s.
Caffeinated vs. Decaffeinated Compared
In their study, the researchers compared the effects of caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee to those of caffeine alone. In both Alzheimer’s mice and normal mice, treatment with caffeinated coffee greatly increased blood levels of GCSF; neither caffeine alone or decaffeinated coffee provided this effect. The researchers caution that, since they used only “drip” coffee in their studies, they do not know whether “instant” caffeinated coffee would provide the same GCSF response.
The boost in GCSF levels is important, because the researchers also reported that long-term treatment with coffee (but not decaffeinated coffee) enhances memory in Alzheimer’s mice. Higher blood GCSF levels due to coffee intake were associated with better memory. The researchers identified three ways that GCSF seems to improve memory performance in the Alzheimer’s mice. First, GCSF recruits stem cells from bone marrow to enter the brain and remove the harmful beta-amyloid protein that initiates the disease. GCSF also creates new connections between brain cells and increases the birth of new neurons in the brain.
“All three mechanisms could complement caffeine’s ability to suppress beta amyloid production in the brain” Cao said, “Together these actions appear to give coffee an amazing potential to protect against Alzheimer’s — but only if you drink moderate amounts of caffeinated coffee.” Although the present study was performed in Alzheimer’s mice, the researchers indicated that they’ve gathered clinical evidence of caffeine/coffee’s ability to protect humans against Alzheimer’s and will soon publish those findings.
How Many Cups?
Coffee is safe for most Americans to consume in the moderate amounts (4 to 5 cups a day) that appear necessary to protect against Alzheimer’s disease. The USF researchers previously reported this level of coffee/caffeine intake was needed to counteract the brain pathology and memory impairment in Alzheimer’s mice. The average American drinks 1½ to 2 cups of coffee a day, considerably less than the amount the researchers believe protects against Alzheimer’s.
“No synthetic drugs have yet been developed to treat the underlying Alzheimer’s disease process” said Gary Arendash, the study’s other lead author. “We see no reason why an inherently natural product such as coffee cannot be more beneficial and safer than medications, especially to protect against a disease that takes decades to become apparent after it starts in the brain.”
The researchers believe that moderate daily coffee intake starting at least by middle age (30s – 50s) is optimal for providing protection against Alzheimer’s disease, although starting even in older age appears protective from their studies. “We are not saying that daily moderate coffee consumption will completely protect people from getting Alzheimer’s disease,” Cao said. “However, we do believe that moderate coffee consumption can appreciably reduce your risk of this dreaded disease or delay its onset.”
The researchers conclude that coffee is the best source of caffeine to counteract the cognitive decline of Alzheimer’s because its yet unidentified component synergizes with caffeine to increase blood GCSF levels. Other sources of caffeine, such as carbonated drinks, energy drinks, and tea, would not provide the same level of protection against Alzheimer’s as coffee, they said.
Potential Cognitive Benefits of Natural Ingredients
Coffee also contains many ingredients other than caffeine that potentially offer cognitive benefits against Alzheimer’s disease. “The average American gets most of their daily antioxidants intake through coffee,” Cao said. “Coffee is high in anti-inflammatory compounds that also may provide protective benefits against Alzheimer’s disease.”
An increasing body of scientific literature indicates that moderate consumption of coffee decreases the risk of several diseases of aging, including Parkinson’s disease, Type II diabetes and stroke. Just within the last few months, new studies have reported that drinking coffee in moderation may also significantly reduce the risk of breast and prostate cancers.
“Now is the time to aggressively pursue the protective benefits of coffee against Alzheimer’s disease,” Arendash said. “Hopefully, the coffee industry will soon become an active partner with Alzheimer’s researchers to find the protective ingredient in coffee and concentrate it in dietary sources.”
Alzheimer’s Disease Epidemic Calls for Preventive Measures
New Alzheimer’s diagnostic guidelines, now encompassing the full continuum of the disease from no overt symptoms to mild impairment to clear cognitive decline, could double the number of Americans diagnosed with some form of the disease to more than 10 million. With the baby-boomer generation entering older age, these numbers will climb even more unless an effective preventive measure is identified. “Because Alzheimer’s starts in the brain several decades before it is diagnosed, any protective therapy would obviously need to be taken for decades,” Cao said. “We believe moderate daily consumption of caffeinated coffee is the best current option for long-term protection against Alzheimer’s memory loss. Coffee is inexpensive, readily available, easily gets into the brain, appears to directly attack the disease process, and has few side-effects for most of us.”
According to the researchers, no other Alzheimer’s therapy being developed comes close to meeting all these criteria. “Aside from coffee, two other lifestyle choices — physical and cognitive activity — appear to reduce the risk of dementia. Combining regular physical and mental exercise with moderate coffee consumption would seem to be an excellent multi-faceted approach to reducing risk or delaying Alzheimer’s,” Arendash said. “With pharmaceutical companies spending millions of dollars trying to develop drugs against Alzheimer’s disease, there may very well be an effective preventive right under our noses every morning – caffeinated coffee.”
This USF study was funded by the NIH-designated Florida Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and the State of Florida.

Jeannette Walls and her Glass Castle

2011-03-09T09:28:00.000-06:00

Last night I had the opportunity to attend a dinner where author, Jeannette Walls, was the guest speaker. She was sponsored by the local Rotary Club. [This is the same Rotary Club that does not allow women to join. However, women are allowed to do the work for a dinner such as last night. But let's not go there...]

The entire town and a local high school were encouraged to read the book. Jeannette spoke about her book, The Glass Castle. This is a short bio from her publishers’page:

Jeannette Walls was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and grew up in the southwest and Welch, West Virginia. She graduated from Barnard College and was a journalist in New York City for twenty years. Her memoir, The Glass Castle, a triumphant account of overcoming a difficult childhood with her dysfunctional but vibrant family, has been a New York Times bestseller for over three years. A publishing sensation around the world, The Glass Castle has sold more than 2.5 million copies in the U.S. and has been translated into twenty-two languages. Walls is the recipient of numerous honors, including the Christopher Award for helping to "affirm the highest values of the human spirit," as well as the American Library Association's Alex Award, and the Books for Better Living Award. The Glass Castle was chosen as Elle magazine's book of the year. Walls lives in rural Virginia with her husband, the writer John Taylor.

Her talk was very animated, passionate, and sincere. I loved her gesticulation, which would have made the talk interesting even if I were deaf. She is quite tall, slim, and has really long fingers. Those long fingers were hypnotic as she painted a word portrait using her body's movement as the paint brush. The bone structure in her face is very unusual and altogether lovely. It is no wonder that she has so many speaking engagements.

I could relate much of what she said to my life growing up and the underlying shame. Her definition of growing up rich is that “you did not go hungry as a child”. By her definition, I grew up rich. I asked her if she or any of her 3 siblings had any children of their own. I was not surprised to hear that the 3 girls had elected to remain childless and only her brother had 2 children.

I spoke with her privately about how long it took to write this book. She told me that she had started writing her memoirs twice previously, when she was much younger. She had accumulated with 200 or 300 pages with each effort—each of which she summarily tossed. When she did finally write her first full draft of the current book, it took her only 6 weeks. However, it was 5 years in the refinement and editing process. That is something non-writers often do not realize. They think that the book they read is exactly what the author wrote.

The best part of Jeannette’s story is that she could find the things to rejoice in about her childhood while remaining honest and non-judgmental about her circumstances. She echoed precisely the 3 things that I have learned from my life:

1. No one is all good or all bad. Given the right circumstances we are all capable of doing most anything.

2. Without a dream of a better life, you get the crap you are dealt with and become a victim.

3. Education is the ticket to a different life than that of your parents.

I would have to add a 4^thpoint: Without Jesus Christ, I would still be condemned to my past, despondent in the present, and negative about the future.

This is the Descriptionof her book (from her Simon & Schuster page):

Jeannette Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity were both her curse and their salvation. Rex and Rose Mary Walls had four children. In the beginning, they lived like nomads, moving among Southwest desert towns, camping in the mountains. Rex was a charismatic, brilliant man who, when sober, captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and above all, how to embrace life fearlessly. Rose Mary, who painted and wrote and couldn't stand the responsibility of providing for her family, called herself an "excitement addict." Cooking a meal that would be consumed in fifteen minutes had no appeal when she could make a painting that might last forever.

Later, when the money ran out, or the romance of the wandering life faded, the Walls retreated to the dismal West Virginia mining town -- and the family – Rex Walls had done everything he could to escape. He drank. He stole the grocery money and disappeared for days. As the dysfunction of the family escalated, Jeannette and her brother and sisters had to fend for themselves, supporting one another as they weathered their parents' betrayals and, finally, found the resources and will to leave home.

What is so astonishing about Jeannette Walls is not just that she had the guts and tenacity and intelligence to get out, but that she describes her parents with such deep affection and generosity. Hers is a story of triumph against all odds, but also a tender, moving tale of unconditional love in a family that despite its profound flaws gave her the fiery determination to carve out a successful life on her own terms.

For two decades, Jeannette Walls hid her roots. Now she tells her own story. A regular
contributor to MSNBC.com, she lives in New York and Long Island and is married
to the writer John Taylor.

I highly recommend this book.

5 Cups/Day or Bust, Baby

2011-03-01T20:39:00.000-06:00

Caffeine and coffee as therapeutics against Alzheimer's
disease.

by: Gary W. Arendash, Chuanhai Cao

Journal of Alzheimer's
disease : JAD, Vol. 20 Suppl 1 (2010) doi:10.3233/JAD-2010-091249
Key: citeulike:7402814

Abstract

Epidemiologic studies have increasingly suggested that caffeine/coffee could be an effective therapeutic against Alzheimer's disease (AD). We have utilized a transgenic mouse model for AD in well-controlled studies to determine if caffeine and/or coffee have beneficial actions to protect against or reverse AD-like cognitive impairment and AD pathology. AD mice given caffeine in their drinking water from young adulthood into older age showed protection against memory impairment and lower brain levels of the
abnormal protein (amyloid-beta; Abeta) thought to be central to AD
pathogenesis. Moreover, "aged" cognitively-impaired AD mice exhibited memory restoration and lower brain Abeta levels following only 1-2 months of caffeine treatment. We believe that the cognitive benefits of chronic caffeine administration in AD mice are due to caffeine itself, and not metabolites of caffeine; this, because our long-term administration of theophylline to AD mice provided no cognitive benefits. In acute studies involving AD mice, one oral
caffeine treatment quickly reduced both brain and plasma Abeta levels - similarly rapid alterations in plasma Abeta levels were seen in humans following acute caffeine administration. "Caffeinated" coffee provided to AD mice also quickly decreased plasma Abeta levels, but not "decaffeinated" coffee, suggesting that caffeine is critical to decreasing blood Abeta levels. Caffeine appears to provide its disease-modifying effects through multiple mechanisms, including a direct reduction of Abeta production through suppression of both beta- and gamma-secretase levels. These results indicate a surprising ability of moderate caffeine intake (the human equivalent of 500 mg caffeine or 5 cups of coffee per day) to protect against or treat AD in a mouse model for the disease and a therapeutic potential for caffeine against AD in humans.

Israel - Abroad and Home

2011-02-28T16:23:00.001-06:00

Since returning from Israel in mid-January, I have yet to blog about that amazing experience. I am, in some ways, still living it as you will see if you read on. The land of Israel is geographically diverse. Galilee was my favorite area probably because of the green landscape, flowers, wildlife, the hills, and the giant lake. You know the lake as the Sea of Galilee, but it is also known as Kinneret, Lake of Gennesaret, or Lake Tiberias.

The climate in January is very favorable for touring; it was not too hot and not too cold, with some much-needed rain for Israel. Although our travel party, primarily composed of US citizen from the South, thought the weather cold, I thought 50-70 F was perfect. The crowds were minimal (a huge plus for me!). Jerusalem, the city built of white stone, was breathtaking in all ways. Everywhere we went volumes of history unfurled in the sounds, sites, and smells.

I would love to make my home in Israel for half the year (if I were rich ;-). I felt very safe. The country is modern, progressive, and clean compared to surrounding nations. If you love ancient history and archeological ruins, you really have to go. We were blessed with one the best guide in all of Israel, Mishi Neubach. Our traveling group $paid$ for that privilege but it was so worth it. If you are going to go, squeeze every drop of goodness out of the trip. To me, that means, excellent lodging and guides. You do have to pay for that--there are no real bargains.

My scientific business for has been a bit slow in getting off the ground this year. Hence that can hardly be the excuse for my absence from the blog scene. Rather I have buried myself in home-related projects like remodeling, designing wall hanging systems, and researching Doug’s and my genealogy augmented with some genomic data analysis, or vice versa. It is this later activity that has my mind fully occupied.

Perhaps it is time to trade in this blog for a serious writing activity. The genre could be described as science-based fiction. This is NOT science fiction, which I abhor, but fiction fed by genomic-based science findings. Doing the research to write such a book plus my volunteer work would leave no time for my business—so my mind is still divided. It would be the first time in my adult life I have not been a serious breadwinner so I have to get over that hump, to write a book of fiction.

I realize that much of what follows may be boring for those of you who are not into geneological research or genomics or who were not adopted. The following bits of information are exciting for me since I enjoy history and a good data analysis puzzle. I also think having no knowledge of my ancestry or birth parents until the age of 35 contributes substantially to my interest in all this.

Several of the most interesting tidbits that I have been able to uncover include:

· Doug is 1/3 Ashkenazi Jewish (decended from medieval German communities)

· His mother is ½ Ashkenazi Jewish and his father is a 1/16^th

o As it turns out in the mid-1800’s West TN had a thriving Jewish community close to Jackson. The population seems to have intermarried with Gentiles so although this is a surprise to all, there is a historical basis for this discovery.

· My mother is 100% NW European, Irish. No surprise there. But my father is predominantly SE European.
These results are derived from the EURO DNA algorithm.applied to the raw SNPs data. The raw SNPs data is available through 23andme. But the analysis you have to do on your own.

HAPLOTYPES
Haplogroup information comes directly out of 23andme and such companies--which is where I got our information. From Wikipedia: "In human genetics, the haplogroups most commonly studied are Y-chromosome (Y-DNA) haplogroups and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroups, both of which can be used to define genetic populations. Y-DNA is passed solely along the patrilineal line, from father to son, while mtDNA is passed down the matrilineal line, from mother to offspring of both sexes. Neither recombines, and thus Y-DNA and mtDNA change only by chance mutation at each generation with no intermixture between parents' genetic material."

Since I am female, I have to get my paternal haplotype history from my birth father, who agreed to the 23andme test. [BTW so did my birth mother. Their parentage of me was also confirmed as a side-effect of the 23andme analysis--but that was already known.]

Some of the haplogroup information is interesting but not mind-blowing:

o Doug and I both have similar mtDNA (through our respective mother’s lines, mtDNA)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_J_(mtDNA)) Doug is J1c3 and my mother is J1c2. There is an ancient Semitic connection with haplotype J through N in the figure below.

o On the paternal side the Y Haplotypes for Doug and my father’s are almost identical. My dad is R1b1b2a1 and Doug’s dad is R1b1b2a1a2. But this is a high level observation. See the figure below.

One observes the finer points of paternal inheritance in Doug and my fathers using the EURO DNA algorithm.

o My Dad is SOUTHEAST EURO with a Maximum Likelihood Estimate=71% (just think best
estimate if not a stat guru)

o Doug’s Dad is NORTHWEST EURO: with a Maximum Likelihood Estimate=84%

But I think it gets way more interesting for my paternal grandmother, whose mtDNA is readily observable in my dad.

· My father’s mother has a mtDNA haplotype X2b.

Although, X2b is fairly widespread globally, it is characteristic of 2 only groups:

o Druze

o Mi'kmaq (native american indians)

When in Israel we ate lunch at a Druze town and I learned about them and their customs firsthand. Prior to my Israel trip, the Druze meant nothing to me. I have been able to find many French Canadian, French Louisianan, and North American Native American Indians relatives through my Dad’s line on 23andme Relative Finder. My father and I both have some Asian ancestry that shows up in our DNA as does Doug, but Doug’s father does not. Therefore it has to come through his mother. My mother has no Asian ancestry. Below is my Dad’s ancestry painting from 23andme. The blue is European, the orange is Asian.

I have spent about 4 hours plowing through records available in www.ancestry.com. So far all has been consistent with everything I have found through the DNA work. In particular,

o On my mother’s side,

o her grandmother (my great grandmother) came over from Ireland as a widow with her
children and her adult sister to set up residence in NY.

o On my father’s side,

o His mother’s line is French through the Canadian maritime provinces, especially Nova Scotia.

o On Doug’s side, my interest is his Jewish connection. I think it will be easiest to unravel through his mother’s side given that she is half, especially since her grandmother was from Brownsville, TN in Humboldt County. Brownsville had the oldest synagogue in TN. I was told Doug’s great grandmother was from Brownsville. My plans include visiting the Jewish cemeteries in that area to get last names off gravestones. These old cemeteries are only about an hour from my house.

What I expected to find versus what I found was very different. My Dad, and especially his mother, looked very Jewish to me when I found them 20 years ago. Perhaps that dark look was Native Indian. Doug and his mother do not appear Jewish to me. But obviously this is not what I find in their SNPs. In part of my digging around, plus my interest in the Hebrew language I found this website (http://www.my-hebrew-name.com/) which I played around with to see what our family’s names were in Hebrew.

Doug and I have 6 adult children between us: Rachael, Jacob, Sarah, Danielle, Benjamin, and Justin. Hebrew reads from right to left. Ancient languages started out with hammer and chisel on stone tablets. They were “written” from right to left so that the author could see what he had previously engraved. Try it–you will see what I mean. My side (Nancy Elizabeth, Rachael, Jacob, Sarah, Danielle, Ben) all had direct translations to the Hebrew. From my early teens on I have been fascinated by Jewish history, hence I gave all 5 of my biological children Hebrew names. Douglas Neal and Justin are not derived from Hebrew names so their translations are based on the closest Hebrew equivalent based on the meanings of their names.

The Year in Science - 2010

2010-12-28T20:53:00.000-06:00

According to Science News...

2010 SCIENCE NEWS OF THE YEAR #1 Story

2010 Science News of the Year: Nutrition
2010 Science News of the Year: Genes & Cells
2010 Science News of the Year: Humans
2010 Science News of the Year: Technology
2010 Science News of the Year: Body & Brain
2010 Science News of the Year: Numbers
2010 Science News of the Year: Life
2010 Science News of the Year: Environment
2010 Science News of the Year: Science & Society
2010 Science News of the Year: Earth
2010 Science News of the Year: Molecules
2010 Science News of the Year: Atom & Cosmos
2010 Science News of the Year: Matter & Energy

Your Brain - 15 fascinating facts you didn’t know about your brain

2010-12-28T20:30:00.000-06:00

From the Amen Newsletter. I really enjoy reading these. Click here to SUBSCRIBE NOW!

This is from one of his Dec 2010 posts

■The average human brain weights about 3 pounds. Compare that to the brain of a sperm whale brain (17 pounds), dog (2.5 ounces), cat (1 ounce), and goldfish (1/333 ounce).

■The human brain may not be the largest of all brains, but it is the biggest when compared to body size.

■During waking hours, the brain generates between 10 and 23 watts of power—enough to light a light bulb.

■Information in the brain travels at speeds of up to 268 miles per hour, faster than the racecars in the Indy 500, unless of course you are drunk, then things really slow down.

■Your brain is approximately 80% water.

■Your brain is estimated to have more than 100 billion neurons (also called nerve cells or brain cells), which is about the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy.

■Each neuron is connected to other neurons by up to 40,000 individual connections called synapses.

■Your brain has more connections than there are stars in the universe.

■A piece of brain tissue the size of a grain of sand contains 100,000 neurons and 1 billion synapses all “talking” to each other.

■A wrinkled brain makes you smarter! The brain’s wrinkles, grooves, and ridges give it more surface area and more processing power.

■Your brain represents only about 2 percent of your body weight, but it consumes about 25% of the calories you consume, 25% of the total blood flow in your body, and 20% of the oxygen you breathe.

■The idea that we only use 10% of our brains is a MYTH! You may not use every neuron in your brain at the same time, but each is important.

■Your brain doesn’t fully mature until you reach about 25 years of age.

■Your brain NEVER turns off or even rests, not even while you sleep. Your brain is very active at night, especially during dreaming.

■Contrary to popular belief, your brain never stops changing and can continue to form new neural connections throughout your lifetime.

Your brain is the most complicated, amazing organ in the universe! It controls everything you do, feel, and think. Take care of it. Commit to better brain health in the New Year. You can find simply tips, daily reminders, and more in the Change Your Brain, Change Your Body Daily Journal.

By Dr. Amen
Posted in Brain Health and Wellness
Copyright 2009, Amen Clinics Inc., A Medical Corporation. All rights reserved.

(Yummy)^^10 -- Nancy’s Pecan Pie Cake

2010-12-21T18:15:00.000-06:00

This is the best Pecan Pie Cake on the planet. You really have to try it!! I wrote this up for a girlfriend. Her husband asked me to make it for him for Christmas.

Layer 1

1. 2 cups *cake* flour
2. 2 teaspoons of baking powder
3. ½ teaspoon salt
4. 1 cup sugar
5. ½ cup powdered milk
6. 1 egg
7. 1 stick of butter, melted

Use a wire whip to mix the first 5 ingredients VERY well. Wisk the egg and the melted butter together in a separate bowl. Mix the wet and the dry ingredients. I use a mixer. Warning: This mixture will be crumbly. To make sure that this is mixed thoroughly, I put on disposable gloves and mix with my fingers. I make a flattened ball in the bowl (like pie dough) so that I can cut out 1/3 of the mixture to reserve for the 2nd layer. I am kinda OCD about measuring--you can probably be less precise and still have good results--but I tend to be really precise. Press the remaining 2/3 mixture evenly into a greased and floured 9 x 12 pan. Bake this layer at 350 (or 325 if using convection) for 15 min. While this layer bakes, work of layer 2.

Layer 2

1. 2/3 cup butter, melted
2. 1 ½ cups white Karo syrup
3. 3 eggs
4. ½ cup of *dark* brown sugar (pressed)
5. 2 teaspoons vanilla
6. 1 cup chopped pecans

Wisk eggs, mix the rest of the wet ingredients with a mixer until well blended. Break up the reserved 1/3 layer 1 mixture into this gooey goodness and mix in until blended well. Add pecan and blend again.

Take cake from oven and pour pecan mixture over top. Bake at 350 (or 325 if using convection) for 40-45 min. Lick the bowl clean. This cake is delicious cooked or raw. I’ll take my chances with Salmonella.

Of Mice and Women

2010-12-02T19:04:00.000-06:00

This story is canabalized in full from GenomeWeb Daily News. All this good news is just in time for the holidays. If you are going to eat the goodies--you MUST enjoy them and NOT feel guilty and stress out over the calories. That only makes it worse ;-)

FYI - epigenetic changes are those that do not change our DNA (think genes) but does express how they express. Moreover, and this is the freaky part, those changes can be passed along to our offspring. Gives new meaning to the concept of generational "sin".

Mouse Study Uncovers Diet-Related Changes in Stress Gene Expression and Epigenetics

December 01, 2010

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – A new study in mice hints that dieting is linked to alterations in stress hormone patterns — including prolonged gene expression and epigenetic changes — that may lead to binge eating and cravings for high fat foods once a diet is done.

A University of Pennsylvania research team reported online today in the Journal of Neuroscience that curbing caloric intake over several weeks or restricting fat intake led to elevated levels of stress hormones in mice, as well as changes in the expression and methylation of stress-related genes in a specific region of the mouse brain. Those involved in the study say the findings highlight the link between stress and food cravings — hinting that successful weight management strategies may hinge, in part, on controlling stress.

"These results suggest that dieting not only increases stress, making successful dieting more difficult, but that it may actually 'reprogram' how the brain responds to future stress and emotional drives for food," senior author Tracy Bale, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Neuroscience Center, said in a statement.

Despite the health risks associated with being overweight or obese, the researchers explained, diets are notoriously difficult to maintain over long periods of time and many individuals regain weight lost through calorie restriction.

For their part, Bale and her co-workers speculated that such yo-yo diet patterns might be related to stress and stress-related hormones, which have been previously linked to a propensity to indulge in calorie-dense foods.

"The elevated weight regain and increased risk for diabetes and related metabolic disease after dieting make identification of novel therapeutic targets critical," the team wrote. "Current treatments predominantly focus on appetite reduction, although less is known regarding the central mechanisms contributing to treatment resistance and failure, especially that of the involvement of stress pathways."

To begin exploring potential ties to dieting lapses and stress, the researchers compared control mice fed a normal diet with calorically restricted mice that received three-quarters of the typical chow intake over three weeks. Mice in the calorically restricted group lost between 10 and 15 percent body weight on the diet, researchers reported, while mice in the control group gained weight.

When they stressed mice from both groups by restraining them for 15 minutes, the team found that mice from the caloric restricted group took longer to recover from the external stress, showing higher levels of the stress hormone corticosterone both before and after being exposed to stressors in the lab.

Under longer-term, chronic stress, they added, all mice were prone to "binge eating" —consuming more than half of their daily calories in the span of an hour. But mice that had previously been calorie restricted diet ate more calories — especially calories from high fat foods — under these conditions.

Using a TaqMan real-time PCR approach, the team found that mice in the caloric restriction group showed decreased expression of a gene coding for a stress-related hormone called corticotropin releasing factor in a region of the brain known as the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis.

Moreover, they explained, bisulfite sequencing of the CRF promoter region revealed a decline in CFR promoter methylation in the same brain area, even after calorically restricted mice returned to a normal diet.

Similar CRF expression and methylation patterns also appeared in mice that were exposed to — and then taken off of — a high-fat diet, the team noted, suggesting that "increased stress sensitivity may be a common component regardless of the method used to lose weight."

Meanwhile, when the control and formerly calorie restricted animals were presented with high-fat food options, the team detected enhanced expression of genes coding for two so-called orexigenic hormones — melanin-concentration hormone and orexin — in mice that had been on the lower calorie diet.

These hormones appear to contribute to food craving and binges, the researchers explained, since an MCH receptor antagonizing drug made post-diet mice less likely to consume excessive calories when high-fat foods were made available to them again.

"Together these results suggest that the stress associated with moderate caloric restriction promotes long-term alterations in genes critical in feeding and reward circuitry that influence food intake and stress-related behaviors," the team noted.

"These changes may in part be driven by epigenetic mechanisms," they added, explaining that epigenetic alterations "likely hold an evolutionary advantage in times of famine, but in our current environment of high caloric availability would function against our health and contribute to difficulty in weight management."

While the researchers conceded that more research is needed to see if the same patterns hold in humans, they argue that the results are consistent with the notion that managing stress may help individuals control food cravings over time.

Clearly God is a Mathematician ... Announcing the Marriage of Non-locality and Uncertainty

2010-11-23T16:46:00.000-06:00

I love math. I love math because it is a language that can be used to represent relationships in the physical world with profound beauty, elegance, and seductive simplicity. Math tames the wild, seemingly incomprehensible physical world and universe with its own language of precision, compactness, and conciseness.

I became aware of my crush on mathematics at an early age when the other kids were groaning about story problems for homework while I was thrilled by the assignment. By the time I took physics and calculus I had progressed well passed infatuation and was deeply in love. When I read this little blurb below excerpted from Scientific Computing, I felt that familiar sense of elation that only mathematical purity can produce. In this week's Science Journal a paper describes a major breakthrough in physics as Stephanie, yes, a woman and an outsider to physics but an expert in her own area of computer science, teams with an expert physicist, Jonathan to unite two seemingly unrelated concepts.

Surprise Link Between Heisenberg and Einstein

(from ScientificComputing.com Nov 19, 2010)

Attaining strong than quantum non-locality would require us to break the uncertainty principle -- but then there is no telling what may be unleashed!

Researchers have uncovered a fundamental link between the two defining properties of quantum physics. The result is being heralded as a dramatic breakthrough in our basic understanding of quantum mechanics and provides new clues to researchers seeking to understand the foundations of quantum theory. The result addresses the question of why quantum behavior is as weird as it is—but no weirder.

Stephanie Wehner of Singapore's Centre for Quantum Technologies and the National University of Singapore and Jonathan Oppenheim of the United Kingdom's University of Cambridge published their work in the journal Science. The strange behavior of quantum particles, such as atoms, electrons and the photons that make up light, has perplexed scientists for nearly a century. Albert Einstein was among those who thought the quantum world was so strange that quantum theory must be wrong, but experiments have borne out the theory's predictions.

One of the weird aspects of quantum theory is that it is impossible to know certain things, such as a particle's momentum and position, simultaneously. Knowledge of one of these properties affects the accuracy with which you can learn the other. This is known as the "Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle." Another weird aspect is the quantum phenomenon of non-locality, which arises from the better-known phenomenon of entanglement. When two quantum particles are entangled, they can perform actions that look as if they are coordinated with each other in ways that defy classical intuition about physically separated particles.

Previously, researchers have treated non-locality and uncertainty as two separate phenomena. Now Wehner and Oppenheim have shown that they are intricately linked. What's more, they show that this link is quantitative and have found an equation which shows that the "amount" of non-locality is determined by the uncertainty principle.

"It's a surprising and perhaps ironic twist," said Oppenheim, a Royal Society University Research Fellow from the Department of Applied Mathematics & Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge. Einstein and his co-workers discovered non-locality while searching for a way to undermine the uncertainty principle. "Now the uncertainty principle appears to be biting back."

Non-locality determines how well two distant parties can coordinate their actions without sending each other information. Physicists believe that even in quantum mechanics, information cannot travel faster than light. Nevertheless, it turns out that quantum mechanics allows two parties to coordinate much better than would be possible under the laws of classical physics. In fact, their actions can be coordinated in a way that almost seems as if they had been able to talk. Einstein famously referred to this phenomenon as "spooky action at a distance".

However, quantum non-locality could be even spookier than it actually is. It's possible to have theories which allow distant parties to coordinate their actions much better than nature allows, while still not allowing information to travel faster than light. Nature could be weirder, and yet it isn't – quantum theory appears to impose an additional limit on the weirdness. "Quantum theory is pretty weird, but it isn't as weird as it could be. We really have to ask ourselves, why is quantum mechanics this limited? Why doesn't nature allow even stronger non-locality?" Oppenheim says.

The surprising result by Wehner and Oppenheim is that the uncertainty principle provides an answer. Two parties can only coordinate their actions better if they break the uncertainty principle, which imposes a strict bound on how strong non-locality can be.

"It would be great if we could better coordinate our actions over long distances, as it would enable us to solve many information processing tasks very efficiently," Wehner says. "However, physics would be fundamentally different. If we break the uncertainty principle, there is really no telling what our world would look like."

How did the researchers discover a connection that had gone unnoticed so long? Before entering academia, Wehner worked as a 'computer hacker for hire', and now works in quantum information theory, while Oppenheim is a physicist. Wehner thinks that applying techniques from computer science to the laws of theoretical physics was key to spotting the connection. "I think one of the crucial ideas is to link the question to a coding problem," Wehner says. "Traditional ways of viewing non-locality and uncertainty obscured the close connection between the two concepts."

Wehner and Oppenheim recast the phenomena of quantum physics in terms that would be familiar to a computer hacker. They treat non-locality as the result of one party, Alice, creating and encoding information and a second party, Bob, retrieving information from the encoding. How well Alice and Bob can encode and retrieve information is determined by uncertainty relations. In some situations, they found that and a third property known as "steering" enters the picture.

They compare their discovery to uncovering what determines how easily two players can win a quantum board game: the board has only two squares, on which Alice, can place a counter of two possible colors: green or pink. She is told to place the same color on both squares, or to place a different color on each. Bob has to guess the color that Alice put on square one or two. If his guess is correct, Alice and Bob win the game. Clearly, Alice and Bob could win the game if they could talk to each other: Alice would simply tell Bob what colors are on squares one and two. But Bob and Alice are situated so far apart from each other that light – and thus an information-carrying signal – does not have time to pass between them during the game. If they can't talk, they won't always win, but by measuring on quantum particles, they can win the game more often than any strategy which doesn't rely on quantum theory. However, the uncertainty principle prevents them from doing any better, and even determines how often they lose the game.

The finding bears on the deep question of what principles underlie quantum physics. Many attempts to understand the underpinnings of quantum mechanics have focused on non-locality. Wehner thinks there may be more to gain from examining the details of the uncertainty principle. "However, we have barely scratched the surface of understanding uncertainty relations," she says. The breakthrough is future-proof, the researchers say. Scientists are still searching for a quantum theory of gravity and Wehner and Oppenheim's result concerning non-locality, uncertainty and steering applies to all possible theories – including any future replacement for quantum mechanics.

The Science Abstract follows:

The Uncertainty Principle Determines the Nonlocality of Quantum Mechanic

Jonathan Oppenheim and Stephanie Wehner

Science 19 November 2010:

Vol. 330 no. 6007 pp. 1072-1074
DOI: 10.1126/science.1192065

Two central concepts of quantum mechanics are Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle and a subtle form of nonlocality that Einstein famously called “spooky action at a distance.” These two fundamental features have thus far been distinct concepts. We show that they are inextricably and quantitatively linked: Quantum mechanics cannot be more nonlocal with measurements that respect the uncertainty principle. In fact, the link between uncertainty and nonlocality holds for all physical theories. More specifically, the degree of nonlocality of any theory is determined by two factors: the strength of the uncertainty principle and the strength of a property called “steering,” which determines which states can be prepared at one location given a measurement at another.

Oh, the pleasures of being a nerd.

The Female Brain Minus Estrogen and Progesterone--Not a Pretty Story

2010-10-26T20:13:00.000-05:00

I love the work that the Amen Clinc does. Putting brain dysfuntion on equal footing with other diseases coupled with the work going on in genomics should help dispell the many myths surrounding mental illnesses--like just think positive thoughts. I can really relate to this case study. I took a medication several years ago to help control my soaring calcium levels from a supposedly untreatable tumor. And so began my journey to brain hell. We found out nine months into that medication that it had knocked out my hormone pathways and had thrown me into a chemical menopause within several weeks of starting the medication. (Hence my brain was getting very little estrogen or progestrone.) My ladder out of brain hell was at the Amen Clinic in Newport Beach.

You can sign up for Dr Amen's blogs at this site. This is his blog from today (verbatim).

Case of the Week: Kendall—what was causing her moodiness?

Kendall was a very even-tempered child… until she hit her teenage years. Like many teens, she would go from being her normal, happy self to being irritable and negative. Her family was having a hard time dealing with Kendall’s mood swings.

It turned out that Kendall’s moodiness started at puberty. It was at 13 when her menstrual cycle started that she began to go through major mood swings. The two weeks before her period were filled with sad feelings, negativity, and irritability. At these times, she craved sugar, struggled with sleep, and felt surges of anxiety. Everyone in her family tracked her menstrual cycle because they were all affected by the “other Kendall,” as she was labeled during these times. Her symptoms subsided two to three days after she stated her period.

She was 17 when she came to our clinic. In the previous year, she had gone through six boyfriends—she tended to break up with them during the premenstrual periods.

Kendall had two SPECT studies as part of her evaluation: one several days before the onset of her menstrual period (during the worst time of her cycle) and one a week after her menstrual period started (during the best time of her cycle). They were dramatically different. During the worst time of her cycle there was a large focal hot spot in her deep limbic area.

During the best time of her cycle the spot was much less intense.

She was diagnosed with a cyclic mood disorder and treated to calm the overactive area. Her emotional state during her cycles improved dramatically over the next few months.

PMS is real.
From a hormonal perspective, the days prior to your period coincide with the days when your estrogen and progesterone levels hit rock bottom. For Kendall, this resulted in the deep limbic area of her brain heating up. Brain scans show that in some women, other areas of the brain are affected during the last two weeks of the cycle.

In some women, it’s the anterior cingulate gyrus that starts to fire up. That’s the part of your brain that helps you shift attention, be flexible, and go with the flow. This is due to a deficiency of serotonin, a natural antidepressant, feel-good chemical. We’ve seen that as estrogen falls, serotonin does too. In some women, the prefrontal cortex becomes less active during the worst time of the menstrual cycle. These women may struggle with focus and impulse control problems.

In my book, Change Your Brain, Change Your Body, I talk about ways to treat PMS to reduce bothersome symptoms.

Making Sense of Love

2010-10-26T13:59:00.003-05:00

I already knew that romantic love lights up the same regions of the brain as does cocaine...but this little article gives more info. The NGF connection is factinating--it is almost as if the brain needs love to stay healthy and running--literally! No wonder depression is a such risk factor for nasty diseases like Alzheimers. The trick is to understand what emotionally healthly love is and is not.

Falling in Love is More Scientific than You Think....

(taken directly from www.scientificcomputing.com/news )

A new meta-analysis study, "The Neuroimaging of Love," conducted by Syracuse University Professor Stephanie Ortigue, reveals that falling in love can elicit not only the same euphoric feeling as using cocaine, but also affects intellectual areas of the brain. Researchers also found falling in love only takes about a fifth of a second.

Ortigue is an assistant professor of psychology and an adjunct assistant professor of neurology, both in The College of Arts and Sciences at Syracuse University. Results from Ortigue's team revealed when a person falls in love, 12 areas of the brain work in tandem to release euphoria-inducing chemicals such as dopamine, oxytocin, adrenaline and vasopression. The love feeling also affects sophisticated cognitive functions, such as mental representation, metaphors and body image.

The findings beg the question, "Does the heart fall in love, or the brain?"

"That's a tricky question always," says Ortigue. "I would say the brain, but the heart is also related because the complex concept of love is formed by both bottom-up and top-down processes from the brain to the heart and vice versa. For instance, activation in some parts of the brain can generate stimulations to the heart, butterflies in the stomach. Some symptoms we sometimes feel as a manifestation of the heart may sometimes be coming from the brain."
Other researchers also found blood levels of nerve growth factor, or NGF, also increased. Those levels were significantly higher in couples who had just fallen in love. This molecule involved plays an important role in the social chemistry of humans, or the phenomenon 'love at first sight.' "These results confirm love has a scientific basis," says Ortigue.

The findings have major implications for neuroscience and mental health research because when love doesn't work out, it can be a significant cause of emotional stress and depression. "It's another probe into the brain and into the mind of a patient," says Ortigue. "By understanding why they fall in love and why they are so heartbroken, they can use new therapies." By identifying the parts of the brain stimulated by love, doctors and therapists can better understand the pains of love-sick patients.

The study also shows different parts of the brain fall for love. For example, unconditional love, such as that between a mother and a child, is sparked by the common and different brain areas, including the middle of the brain. Passionate love is sparked by the reward part of the brain, and also associative cognitive brain areas that have higher-order cognitive functions, such as body image.

Ortigue and her team worked with a team from West Virginia University and a university hospital in Switzerland. The results of the study are published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine. Ortigue's research is also featured in the current issue of Discover, and media outlets in the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Mexico and Belgium.

Is This Really Pro-Women or Pro-Pocketbooks? Think Again!

2010-10-12T13:09:00.000-05:00

We live in a time where it is politically correct to “save a tree” but it is politically incorrect to be pro-life. I believe that I am a coward if I fail to stand up for what I believe is morally correct. However, in our culture I would be honored as open-minded rather than dishonored as a coward. Yes, abortion is a very controversial topic in the world. However, I do not understand how it can be controversial for any Christian who is not of this world. The bible says that God knew us before he knit us together in our mother’s womb. Even before I was a true Christ-follower, I was politically incorrect as I was pro-life. Perhaps my reverence for life was seeded by the fact that I was adopted (and not aborted) and that I started having gorgeous (although not always planned) babies at a young age.

Is a Lack of Standards Pro-Women?

Did you know that abortion clinics do not have to have the same level of health standards as any other ambulatory surgical center in Tennessee? I assumed that those days were long gone. I was so wrong! Relying on the precedent in the Tennessee Supreme Court's 2000 ruling which established a 'fundamental right to abortion' in the Tennessee Constitution, abortionist Dr. Gary Boyle and his attorney, Thomas Jessee, won their lawsuit against the Tennessee Department of Health and, unbelievably, do not have to abide by the same health and safety laws as other surgical facilities! This actually came to my attention recently because one of the doctors who challenged the state law was arrested last week.

Gary Boyle lives in Northeast Tennessee where he and business partner Wesley Adams, along with their wives, own and operate the Bristol Regional Women's Center, an unlicensed abortion facility. The couples also own and operate similar abortion facilities in both Nashville and Charleston, South Carolina.

According to news reports, Dr. Boyle was arrested October 2, 2010 after pointing a loaded gun at pro-life protesters participating in a peaceful vigil in front of his Charleston abortion facility. The handgun held 15 rounds and Dr. Boyle was charged by local police for having illegally pointed the weapon at peaceful protesters. The protestors continued to demonstrate and challenge some bits of the story on the local news.

The incident is similar to one documented by Nashville pro-life advocates earlier in 2010 in which Boyle, brandishing a handgun, got out of his car to confront a pro-life supporter outside The Women's Center.

Dr. Boyle has been released on $25,000 bond and is free to continue performing abortions. But clearly Dr. Boyle has less and less peace about the gruesome practices which have financially enriched his family while leaving a poverty of heart, soul and spirit.
(Much of the blog was excerpted or edited with permission from the TN Right To Life Organization.)

Morality Makes Life Significant and Distinctively Human (quote from Moreland and Geisler, 1990)

2010-10-04T19:53:00.000-05:00

Recently I have finished reading 3 books and have started a 4th. They all relate somehow to origins of life as viewed through the scopes of theology and science, abortion, morality and ethics. Two of the books were particularly riveting: Gianna (Aborted … and Lived to Tell About It) and The Hand of God (A Journey from Death to Life by the Abortion Doctor Who Changed His Mind). Gianna is the story of a young woman, who survived a third trimester abortion as a fetus. The saline injection intended to kill her, only succeeded in “gifting” her with cerebral palsy. Her attitude towards life and what she has accomplished is simply mind-blowing, regardless of her cerebral palsy caused by the abortionist’s saline injection.

The Hand of God is an autobiographical work by Bernard Nathanson who knows very well the planning and politics of getting abortion legalized in this country. At one time, he operated the largest abortion clinic in the US. He witnessed first hand the false statistics that were used in the campaigns to get abortions legalized. After the invention of the ultrasound, which he used to watch a first trimester abortion performed by a colleague, Dr. Nathanson realized that this was a baby being aborted—not some hunk of flesh. He had been personally responsible for over tens of thousands of abortions in his clinics, including the abortion of his own child. Of course, now that abortion has gone “viral”, very few people really go back and study the history of that movement and what was scientifically know about embryos and fetuses at the time of "Roe versus Wade".

Dr. Nathanson writes that the science of fetalogy and ultrasound machines had not yet progressed sufficiently to allow the medical establishment to define life until months into the pregnancy when the quickening took place (or when a woman first feels movement). The famous "Roe versus Wade" case took place before all the wonderful scientific technological developments that allow us to view the life of the unborn. What many people fail to realize, was that abortion was legal up through the onset of labor—yes, even in the 9th month. That is why the partial birth abortion had to be made illegal. If you have never viewed the 27 min movie made in 1987, check out the “Eclipse of Reason”. Abortion is the classic case where the assumptions of the medical community were absolutely shown to be scientifically wrong–but yet the laws have never been overturned to reflect what we now know. Neonatal technology has advanced to where children who were aborted (and continue to be aborted) can surely live with medical intervention (and often without).

Abortion has become so common place that there seems to be little thought given to the morality of the procedure. But many acts of pure evil were commonplace at some point in various societies. We look in horror at those activities now but at some point the bulk of society thought it was okay. So is morality relative? Was child sacrifice okay in 6000 BC because the people did not understand science and thought that such an offering would appease their gods? Was abortion moral when we did not have the technology to know that the baby’s heart was beating and that he could feel pain? Again is morality relative to our state of knowledge? I think not.

I know many people are generally opposed to abortion but still feel that in certain cases of rape, incest, severe malformation and retardation, that it is humane to either the mother or the child to perform an abortion. I do not agree with this as I truly believe that life is life and that God confers personhood at conception. We get to participate in the creation of life but life is not our own to take or define. We cannot confer personhood on another and it is not a relative state conditioned on our best scientific knowledge at the time. It does take much courage to recognize an inconvenient truth. Abortion does not recognize the personhood of the embryo or fetus. What a slippery slope to climb when society takes the personhood definition into its own hands. The right to birth and death are then conferred by one human being onto another or oneself. I realize that my ideas are very unpopular. To the extent that you disagree with me and are offended, I challenge you to read the book “The Hand of God.” Nathanson is a wonderful writer. You will not be disappointed.

A woman shared a story with me about her rape that resulted in a pregnancy years ago. She was traumatized by the rape and then further traumatized to find out she was pregnant. Assuming that she would have an abortion, she met with a OB/GYN doctor. His comment that “every baby is a blessing” caused her to rethink her abortion choice and instead she carried the baby to full term. That baby has matured into an extraordinarily beautiful, loving, and gentle child, and the child simply glows. The mother told me that the baby changed the entire course of her life, in a good way, and that she cannot imagine that she ever thought of aborting her. God has promised us that He has our best interest at heart. How hard to accept that after a traumatic rape and a resultant pregnancy. But what Satan has intended for evil, God can bring to good if we follow His will and trust Him.

The Zoo

2010-09-08T09:18:00.000-05:00

The 8 siblings in earlier days. Zorra is on the extreme left.

Little Bit is 3rd from the left.

Yesterday on my husband's way out to work, he commented, "This house is a zoo." My reply was, "Yes, isn't it wonderful!" Last Saturday we drove to the Louiville, KY cat show to pick up Zorra's brother, Little Bit. He was the runt of the litter of 8 Ragamuffins and I had not able to get him out of my mind ever since bringing the gorgeous Zorra home. As an early birthday present, my husband said that we could bring Little Bit home to complete our animal family and he went to the show with me to pick him up.

Little Bit has almost caught up in size now to Zorra. He does not have the exotic "Elizabeth Taylor" eyes of Zorra but he is truly a luv muffin. Doug and I are his favorite toys, for sure. He is a laid back little boy.

Little Bit's walnut-shaped green eyes are in focus.

Here Little Bit sports the creme side of his "peaches and

creme" coat. He is ready for another car ride.

Little Bit's back side is his peachy side. He is as soft as an
angora bunny. So cool that ragamuffins hardly shed!

Missy and Zorra in the crate together.

Zorra and Missy are best friends now. However, Missy thinks that Zorra hogs HER crate at nap time. I think Zorra is getting back at Missy for pulling her ears when they play. Zorra never claws Missy, but does whack her with her delicately white- gloved front paws when she is tired of the "Bichon Buzzing."

Granny is 95 and her mind is sharper than mine!

Besides keeping me company during my husband's 10-12 hour workdays, these 3 beautiful creatures work for their keep. They are part of my pet ministry here in Union City. Sometimes they meet with the animals-loving residents in nursing homes one-on-one as shown here. And sometimes they meet with large groups of residents all at once.

This sweet lady disabled by a stroke is about my

age. She can no longer speak. Yet her mind is
clear. What if the words today were our last
utterance? See James 3.

With all the kids off to college and/or out the house, coupled with my being geographically and socially isolated in a tiny town where I have no roots, my pets are super important to me. I figured that if they can do so much for me then they could lift the spirits of others with truly heavy burdens. Hence the pet ministry was born.

My animal babies reflect the unconditional love, celebration of diversity, and essential beauty of our Creator. They are too amazing NOT to share!

My best human friends include the ladies in the teensy "small group" that meets in our home on Wednesday mornings, Rhema for Sisters, a couple of neighbors that are the best, and those rockin ladies at the nursing homes. I can only pray that when my body is so laden with infirmities that I can radiate so much love as they do! What a gift to be a weekly part of their lives. I never think about my headaches when I am there!

Marathon Catch-Up Blog...

2010-08-16T19:58:00.000-05:00

I have blogged in my mind many times since moving to TN. But given the many distractions and diversions of making a new home and setting up a new business, the words got lost somewhere between my brain and the computer. What follows is a “marathon” stream-of-conscientious blog to catch up.

So much has happened since moving to this little town. 90% of the “happenings” are amazingly wonderful and 10% have been hard or disappointing. The great Economist, however, never wastes anything that happens to me or anyone else. He uses that 10% to file my rough edges.

We live in what is called the bible belt. Have you ever wondered why the bible-belt is in the South and not elsewhere? The people in the bible belt are just like people anywhere else. They have the same failings, the same sorrows, and the same joys. I was surprised to see that folks here do say prayers before high school dinners and games and the like--which is very different from CA. Perhaps the lower per-capita income and educational levels make it easier to believe in something other than oneself here. I think the beauty of the natural habitat provides another reason for this. In his letter to the Romans, Paul writes that in nature God proclaims his existence leaving no excuse for not knowing Him.

"For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God." Romans 1:20 (New Living Translation)

After a short 4 months here I really get why they call this “God’s Country”. The flora and fauna testify to God’s glory, power, and beauty. In the spring I saw our land resurrect from the dead of winter to a full-on temperate forest. Our animal neighbors have mesmerized me: birds sporting dizzying wardrobes of reds, yellows, blues, and purples; far too clever squirrels defeating even the most intricate of anti-squirrel bird feeders; the graceful doe and her tentative twin fauns darting across our lawn to the safety of yet another clump of trees, the little red fox that calls our yard his home. My new animal babies, Missy and Zorra, have taught me so much about God’s unconditional love and have opened my eyes to see the love our Creator has for all His creatures.

I posted pictures of Missy in an earlier blog. She had surgery about 2.5 weeks ago to excise the head and neck of her right femur bone due to Legg-Calve-Perthes disease. The vet did a fantastic job during the surgery, and now Missy’s body is tasked with making a false joint. She will need lots of exercise to fully use her right leg again; if not she will be a “three-legged” dog with four legs. Watching Missy go through this painful surgery has been inspirational for me. This little animal is a natural encourager and is so up.

During Missy’s surgery and first days of convalescence I decided we needed a kitty to help Missy rehab—an estimated 6 month process. Also, I did not want Missy to be any only "child". My kitty-research narrowed the choices to Ragdolls and Ragamuffins due to their puppy-like temperament. My sister has a Ragamuffin cat and had already primed me on their virtues.

My newest baby is a blue-point 5 month old Ragamuffin kitty. She sleeps on my desk as I write this blog. I brought Zorra home not quite a week ago. She now thinks that I am her mommy and has bonded to me. She is comfortable with Doug and Missy as long as I am near her. She is very loving, gives me kisses, and wants me with her continuously. Zorra is bigger than Missy height and lengthwise—but Missy weighs more. Zorra will mature into a 10-15 pound cat, whereas, Missy will be around 7 -10 pounds.

Doug “allowed” me to get Missy because he promised I could have a dog when we moved here...kind of a trade thing. Allowing me to get Zorra was a huge stretch for him. (But now he vies for Zorra’s affection, too!) We named the kitty Zorra because she has a grey mask that reminds me of Zorro--my childhood hero and first crush. Only after I FINALLY accepted that having a cat was never going to be in Doug’s comfort zone and gave up, did he acquiesce. There is a lesson in there for me and one that I have to continually relearn: when I let go, I am often blessed. I think that God is challenging me to a new ministry that involves Missy and Zorra. We’ll see where that goes.

A scientific aside: DNA evidence has shown that my Missy and all domestic dogs, decended from the gray wolf. It is also mind boggling that all domestic cats came from the Middle Eastern wildcat. [Recently there was a very interesting publication on the genetics of domestic dogs in the journal Science. Contact me if you want this article and I will email to you.]

Adjacent to our county is one of the poorest counties in all of TN, Lake County. It is a 40 minute drive west to the LifeBeat women’s center from our home. The Center has as its motto: Offering Healing from the Past; Help for the Present; Hope for the Future. When I talked to the director several weeks ago, I found out how desperately the center needs sustaining financial support. They are only able to stay open 3 days a week due to lack of funds. They also need a 3D ultrasound. These machines save many babies each day by exposing the inconvenient truth that an unborn child dwells in the mother's womb as opposed to the soothing fiction of just “fetal tissue”. The bible tells us that every child was known by God even before conception and that God has orchestrated the knitting together of each child.

What impresses me about LifeBeat is that they not only teach the (often unwed) mother basic parenting skills, which she may not have experienced herself, but they also help the moms through a GED program if needed. They work with the moms before and after the birth to support them in the parenting process. There is a high rate of incest and domestic violence in this county and many women feel that they have no option but abortion. There is a pro-life center with essentially the same charter in different nearby county with a much higher average income and socio-economic level. This center has a much better financial base and has a 3D ultrasound. Please PRAY that the LifeBeat center can get sustaining donors who will care about these women and their babies. In God’s eyes we are all equal. He is an equal opportunity God.

The link from a video below has the song, Held, by Natalie Grant in the background. The words cut me to the core.

Two months is too little.
They let him go.
They had no sudden healing.
To think that providence would
Take a child from his mother while she prays
Is appalling.

Who told us we'd be rescued?
What has changed and why should we
be saved from nightmares?
We're asking why this happens
To us who have died to live?
It's unfair.

Chorus:
This is what it means to be held.
How it feels when the sacred
is torn from your life
And you survive.
This is what it is to be loved.
And to know that the promise was
When everything fell we'd be held.

This hand is bitterness.
We want to taste it, let the
hatred NUMB our sorrow.
The wise hands opens slowly
to lilies of the valley and
tomorrow.

(Chorus)
This is what it means to be held.
How it feels when the sacred
is torn from your life
And you survive.
This is what it is to be loved.
And to know that the promise was
When everything fell we'd be held.

Bridge:
If hope is born of suffering.
If this is only the beginning.
Can we not wait for one hour
watching for our Savior?

(Chorus)
This is what it means to be held.
How it feels when the sacred
is torn from your life
And you survive.
This is what it is to be loved.
And to know that the promise was
When everything fell we'd be held.

This is what it is to be loved.
And to know, that the promise
was when everything fell,
we'd be held.

This video breaks my heart. Click on the link for "The Cries That Are Never Heard". Warning: If you have gone through an abortion and have not experienced God’s healing—this video may be too much for you. A book was recently published about this woman's life, who as an infant, survived a saline abortion.

Case of the Week: Stacey—early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease – Amen Clinics

2010-05-25T14:25:00.001-05:00

Case of the Week: Stacey—early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease – Amen Clinics

Posted using ShareThis

Pictures Worth a Thousand Words

2010-05-09T21:54:00.000-05:00

There is a light at the end of this busy tunnel. May 22 is the first day of the rest of my life as a free-lance consultant. (Data-Mind-Consulting.com) But until then here are some of today's highlights.

True love - my little baby girl, Missy. Is she smiling?

Who could resist this little lamb? Is it a dog, is it a cat,

is it a little white fox? It is Missy--all 3 pounds of her.

She is now 3.5 months old.

The view from my office (sunroom).

A closer view.

Dense trees, just lovely. You can't see or smell the wild honeysuckle.

The wild dogwoods just finished blooming about a week ago.

Mental Diseases, Strokes, Java, and More

2010-02-28T11:18:00.000-06:00

Mental diseases are treated differently than other types of illnesses. Many times this difference equates to non-treatment. Insurance companies have less generous reimbursements for mental diseases. Many Evangelical Christians believe that a positive attitude or sufficient prayer will dash mental diseases. Certainly God is fully able to cure any disease as the bible clearly illustrates—but God also expects us to avail ourselves of his many blessings. Medications certainly fall into this category of blessings. Few people will hesitate to take an antibiotic for a bladder infection yet many will pass judgement for taking an anti-anxiety medication as a lack of faith or moral weekness.

Prejudice, based in ignorance, can keep what imperfect drugs we do have for the treatment of mental disease from those who could get benefit. The damage of untreated mental disease to relationships is dramatic, especially to the fabric of marriage and family. Two diseases that are especially concerning to me are schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s. They ravage the mind, body and soul. Schizophrenia typically strikes in late teens or early twenties, depending on gender. My maternal half-brother and grandmother were both afflicted by schizophrenia. One of today’s science clips talks about epigenetic effects in schizophrenia. Epigenetics refers to the changes in how our DNA expresses itself and is passed from generation to generation without changing the actual DNA sequence itself.

My mantra: the more we learn the more empowered we will be to base decisions in truth rather than fear and ignorance.

P.S. And for you java lovers, there more good news emerges about the bean

This Week's Science Stories, taken directly from Science News:

Early disruption of schizophrenia gene causes problems later
New study may help scientists to understand the sequence of events that can lead to schizophrenia
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/56542/title/Early_disruption_of_schizophrenia_gene_causes_problems_later

Compound might facilitate stroke recovery
Animal study finds regrowth of brain cells with natural protein fragment
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/56706/title/Compound_might_facilitate_stroke_recovery

'Ministrokes' may cause more damage than thought
A common test given to patients after the passing attacks appears to miss some cognitive impairments.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/56598/title/Ministrokes_may_cause_more_damage_than_thought

U.S. women still have higher stroke incidence than men
Research suggests possible link to abdominal fat
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/56708/title/U.S._women_still_have_higher_stroke_incidence_than_men_

Study finds similar stroke risks after surgery or stents
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/56710/title/Carotid_procedures_test_about_equally

Coffee associated with lower stroke risk
Study finds java drinkers 71 percent as likely to have had stroke as nondrinkers
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/56701/title/Coffee_associated_with_lower_stroke_risk

Inflaming dangers of a fat-laden meal
In overweight people, immune cells embedded in fat are sensitive to high levels of fat in the blood, triggering inflammation that can lead to heart disease and diabetes.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/56595/title/Inflaming_dangers_of_a_fat-laden_meal

Older adults’ brains boosted by more, not better, sleep
A study finds that older adults perform better on a learning and memory task if they have slept more, while uninterrupted rest matters more for younger folks.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/56505/title/Older_adults%E2%80%99_brains_boosted_by_more%2C_not_better%2C_sleep

Brain tells signs from pantomime
Different brain areas light up when deaf people use American Sign Language than when they gesture.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/56501/title/Brain_tells_signs_from_pantomime

IVF kids show shift in gene activity
Team finds differences related to metabolism and growth.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/56496/title/IVF_kids_show_shift_in_gene_activity

Possible prostate cancer culprit
Scientists identify a type of stem cell and a gene that play a role in the disease.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/56488/title/Possible_prostate_cancer_culprit

Germs in tobacco are potential source of respiratory infections blamed on smoking
Tests find hundreds of bacterial species in major cigarette brands
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/56721/title/Germs__in_tobacco_are_potential_source_of_respiratory_infections_blamed_on_smoking

Journal retracts flawed study linking MMR vaccine and autism & more

2010-02-21T11:22:00.000-06:00

If nothing else, please read the first 2 articles from Science News. Many, many mothers have opted out of these important vaccines because of *THIS* bad science. I also know that good science can get dismissed because of politics as can be observed in the mammograms article. Mammograms are plagued by many false positives and can initiate over-treatment of some breast cancers that will never spread. But no one wants to hear about that.

Journal retracts flawed study linking MMR vaccine and autism
Deleted Scenes Blog: Biomedical reporter Nathan Seppa describes latest chapter in controversy created by now debunked research.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/56008/title/Journal_retracts_flawed_study_linking_MMR_vaccine_and_autism

Making informed decisions about mammograms
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/55755/title/Making_informed__decisions_about_mammograms

Tumor tracking gets personal
A new method has the potential to use genome science to improve cancer care.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/56438/title/Tumor_tracking_gets_personal

Protein clumps like a prion, but proves crucial for long-term memory
Study in slugs hints that some molecular 'misbehavior' in neurons may help solidify learning.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/56105/title/Protein_clumps_like_a_prion%2C_but_proves_crucial_for_long-term_memory_

EPA reviews hints of weed killer's fetal risks
The Environmental Protection Agency will be convening meetings of its Science Advisory Panel on pesticides throughout 2010 to probe concerns about the safety of atrazine, a weed killer on which most American corn growers rely. The first meeting of these outside experts started Tuesday. And although a large number of studies have indicated that atrazine can perturb hormones in animals and human cells — and might even pose a possible risk of cancer amongst heavily exposed people, these outcomes were not the focus of EPA’s review Tuesday. Risks to babies were.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/56069/title/EPA_reviews_hints_of_weed_killers_fetal_risks

Brain at the breaking point
New research, showing how stresses can snap tiny tracks inside brain connections, may improve understanding of traumatic brain injury.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/56455/title/Brain_at_the_breaking_point

Dolphins may offer clues to treating diabetes
Insulin-resistance switch helps maintain glucose levels in dolphin brains, suggesting possible clues to treating diabetes in people.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/56441/title/Dolphins_may_offer_clues_to_treating_diabetes

Lunch time for stem cells
Kristen Brennand is trying to tease out how the cells in brains of healthy people differ from those in schizophrenic patients. The problem: No one wants to give up a chunk of brain for her to study. So she’s fashioning her own clumps of brain cells from tissue people willingly part with – skin.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/56434/title/Lunch_time_for_stem_cells

Small study hints SSRIs delay breast milk in new moms
Women taking the antidepressant drugs began lactating later.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/55978/title/Small_study_hints_SSRIs_delay_breast_milk_in_new_moms

Skeleton of Western man found in ancient Mongolian tomb
A genetic analysis of a skeleton from an ancient Asian tomb illuminates the spread of Indo-Europeans.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/55811/title/Skeleton_of_Western_man_found_in_ancient_Mongolian_tomb

The Humans Who Went Extinct: Why Neanderthals Died Out and We Survived by Clive Finlayson
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/55751/title/The_Humans_Who_Went_Extinct_Why_Neanderthals_Died_Out_and_We_Survived_by_Clive_Finlayson

Body fat linked to late puberty in boys
Boys can take a lot of ribbing from their peers for not being macho enough. A new study now indicates that it can take longer to begin transforming into a man if a boy starts out fat.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/55965/title/Body_fat_linked_to_late_puberty_in_boys

The Great State Of Tennessee

2010-01-26T23:08:00.000-06:00

Sorry for the long silence from Neuronal Beauty. Things have been super hectic. My husband and I have felt that we were supposed to be some place other than San Diego for quite a while. God answered our request to make this very clear. We put our house up for sale not quite 2 weeks ago. We reasoned that if our house sold in this lousy economy then maybe the prompting to leave San Diego was real and that we have work to do somewhere else for His kingdom.

2 pictures on right are from the property we hope to buy.

Within hours we started getting offers. After 2 days we stopped accepting offers (unless cash, of course ;-). We just received too many great offers…around a half dozen all but one above asking price. On day 3 after putting the house up for sale, we hopped onto a plane to TN to look at the one home that called to my heart in the ugliest month of the year in TN. I loved everything about the home. Everything was perfect or just a “small” exercise in creativity to move it one step closer to perfection. Doug was a bit slower to fall under the spell of the home. However, eventually he succumbed to the15 acres, aided by my dramatic begging. We got acceptance of our binding offer 2 days ago. Today my husband's position at work was terminated. I am amazed at how it all worked out.

Don't ask God for anything unless you really want it. :-) What is the next chapter? For my sweet Doug it is very clear what he will do in TN. For me, it could not be more blurry. Luckily for me, I can make a tentative peace with ambiguity. I have posted some pictures of the home that I hope God has picked out for us. Keep us in your prayers as we write the first chapter in our new book.

Oh and by the way, the hard drive for my work computer crashed tonight. I have 2 talks to give tomorrow, a poster to create for a conference next week, and a datasheet to create. Yeah all that is on the fried drive. I think I'll call it a night...

Graffiti - Bridge to Life - Borrowed

2009-12-24T14:16:00.000-06:00

My husband sent me this really neat video. This "rap-ified" song/message is one that I like. "Jesus loves you...and you get all of him through the Holy Spirit!" - Doug

Graffiti - Bridge to Life Video: Graffiti artists create new vision of the Gospel

Merry Christmas to you all. May you have the best gift of all. That is to know...

who you are (a child of God)
who loves you perfectly even though you aren't perfect (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit)
every day we get closer to an eternal home (that is so fantastic we cannot even imagine it)

All we have to do is accept the path to salvation through Jesus Christ. He paid the entry fee, we get admission, and the show never ends.

Blessings in 2010, Nancy

Best Science Stories of 2009 - Nancy's Pick

2009-12-20T17:29:00.000-06:00

All of these excerpts and links are from ScienceNews--a magazine that summarizes breaking science for those with an interest but who may not be scientists themselves.

Weirdest finding of the Year

Brilliant blue’s benefits
A chemical cousin of the blue dye found in Gatorade blocks a molecule that kills nerves following spinal cord injury (SN: 8/29/09, p. 10).

Yikes…Time to invest in new cookware

Chemicals stick around
Women who have trouble getting pregnant are more likely to have high blood concentrations of certain chemicals used in nonstick surfaces in their blood than are those who become pregnant within the first month of trying (SN Online: 2/3/09).

Gene Things…

Cancer-fighting roles
Scientists have discovered a new role in cancer protection for an already well-known tumor suppressor protein. The protein, called p53, protects cells from becoming cancerous by sensing stress and either shutting down cell division or triggering cell death. Researchers at the University of Tokyo and colleagues have discovered that p53 also plays a role in slicing stretches of RNA into regulatory molecules called microRNAs (SN: 7/4/09, p. 13). Mutations of the gene for p53 prevent proper assembly of microRNA-processing machinery, the researchers found.

MicroRNAs are tiny, containing only about 22 nucleotides, or chemical letters. But the molecules have a big influence on nearly every aspect of cellular function. The absence of some microRNAs has recently been linked to cancers. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University, along with others, replaced a microRNA missing from liver cancer cells in mice and either stopped growth of or shrunk tumors (SN: 7/4/09, p. 13). And scientists at MIT discovered that lacking just one copy of Dicer1, a gene that encodes a protein that helps snip RNAs into microRNA, can make for more aggressive cancer in mice (SN Online: 12/2/09).

Unexpected epigenetics
One study finds a similarity between identical twins in DNA’s chemical tagging; another finds tissue-specific methylation signatures in the genome (SN: 2/14/09, p. 5).

Mom and Dad not equally to blame for some bad genes
Common genetic variants may have different effects on disease depending which parent passes along the trait.

Disease-Related...

Sweet link
A liver protein may link high fructose corn syrup and diabetes: Reducing levels of PGC-1 beta in mice fed a high fructose diet protected the animals from insulin resistance and fatty liver disease (SN Online: 3/3/09).

Leukemia made worse
Mutations in any three genes in the JAK family render childhood leukemia especially dangerous (SN Online: 4/21/09).

Herpes re-rears ugly head
A single viral protein can trigger the awakening of a dormant herpes virus in cells (SN: 4/25/09, p. 10).

My body, Your body…

The other fat
Three studies show that adults have brown fat, a type of energy-burning fat previously thought to be found only in babies and animals. The fat (in black, above) could be harnessed to burn extra calories and fight obesity (SN: 5/9/09, p. 10).

Prostate screen
A test for the compound sarcosine may help distinguish fast-growing prostate cancers from slow-growing ones (SN: 3/14/09, p. 10).

Surgical preventive
A study shows that being circumcised can reduce a man’s risk of infection by the herpes virus, human papillomavirus and HIV (SN: 4/25/09, p. 10).

Pap smear alternative
Testing women for human papillomavirus is a better way to screen for cervical cancer than the standard Pap smear (SN: 4/25/09, p. 11).

Stopping nerve cancer
In a mouse study, neuroblastoma shows weakness against a new drug that works by freeing up tumor suppressor p53 (SN: 12/5/09, p. 10).

Rheumatoid relief
The anti-inflammatory drug golimumab eases rheumatoid arthritis in some people who fail to benefit from standard drugs (SN: 8/1/09, p. 8)

Quality of life…

Vitamins for chromosomes
The chromosomes of women who regularly take multivitamins, especially supplements enriched with antioxidants, stay younger-looking longer, a study finds (SN Online: 6/24/09).

Antiviral vitamin
Getting plenty of vitamin D — more than diet alone can offer — appears to provide potent protection against colds, flus and even pneumonia (SN Online: 2/23/09).

Better off dead
Probiotics that deliver dead microbes are just as effective as those that deliver the microbes live, and are safer, a study reports (SN Online: 8/26/09).

Alzheimer’s and Zzzzs
Sleep deprivation leads to more plaques in mice genetically susceptible to Alzheimer’s disease, suggesting a lack of z’s may contribute to the disease (SN: 10/24/09, p. 11).

Brain bounce-back
A study in rhesus monkeys shows that running protects dopamine neurons from death, adding to evidence that exercise is good for the brain (SN: 11/21/09, p. 8).

Urine signal
A compound in urine might help doctors distinguish appendicitis from other abdominal problems, avoiding needless surgery (SN: 7/18/09, p. 11).

Thrashers beware
Those who kick and thrash while sleeping may be at an increased risk of Parkinson’s disease (SN: 1/17/09, p. 9).

Food and Health

Milk concerns
Research points to hormones and related substances in milk as likely explanations for why adults who drink milk appear to face a slightly heightened risk of cancer (SN: 3/28/09, p. 5).

When licorice interferes
Licorice has long been used as a good treatment for plenty of ills, but the compound that gives the extract its healing powers may also interfere with certain drugs, a study in rats finds (SN Online: 3/25/09).

Stress benefits
Field trials indicate that the extra stress that organically grown crops typically face could explain their abundance of certain micronutrients — ones that protect the plants and aid human health (SN Online: 2/13/09).

Chemo-thwarting tea
Green tea’s polyphenol antioxidants inactivate the cell-killing activity of a drug used to treat blood cancers, according to new experiments on cancer cells and in animals (SN Online: 2/5/09).

Empty herbal gesture
A study testing pomegranate supplements — in the form of capsules, tablets or soft gels — found that most contain little or none of the beneficial plant material that they are supposed to possess (SN Online: 8/25/09).

Apple a day
Preliminary study results suggest that healthy postmenopausal women who eat apples daily may be lowering their cholesterol and protecting themselves from heart disease (SN Online: 4/20/09).

Loss of Part of Chromosome 16 Explains Some Obesity

2009-12-08T21:16:00.000-06:00

We are all capable of making unfair judgements of others, especially if that other's problem is not one of our own. This study points out that genetic factors can significantly impact one's battle with obesity. The advances in genomics will surely give us greater insight into the amazing hand of our Creator. Perhaps those insights will instill greater mercy in us towards those who suffer from metabolic challenges, such as obesity, and mental illnesses (another one of my soapboxes) that we, as a society, so stigmatize. I feel very blessed to have a job that pays me to build tools to help scientists understand how copy variation number variations in the genetic code impact our health.

This article if from ScienceNOW Daily News , 7 December 2009, with the link shown below:
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/1207/1?etoc

Lose Genes, Gain Weight

By Mitch Leslie

Obesity is a disease of excess, but a new study suggests that a few obese patients are actually lacking something--a piece of one of their chromosomes. The loss might remove a gene that helps the body manage blood sugar and appetite.

Obesity runs in families, and researchers have identified several genetic variants that seem to boost the odds of becoming obese. However, these variants only explain a minority of cases. In the last decade, researchers have discovered that genetic differences among people can stem from lost or duplicated sections of chromosomes, called copy number variants (CNVs). Because of CNVs, for example, you and your neighbor might carry different numbers of copies of particular genes. Previous studies have implicated CNVs in disorders such as autism that slow mental development or cause learning disabilities. Autistic patients sometimes have an extra segment on chromosome 15 or are missing a section of chromosome 16. Such patients are often heavy as well, suggesting a connection between CNVs and weight.

To search for that link, endocrinologist Sadaf Farooqi of the University of Cambridge in the U.K. and colleagues analyzed the genomes of 300 extremely obese children for missing or duplicated chromosome segments. As the team reports online this week in Nature, a number of CNVs were more common in the children than in a group of normal-weight people. The most prevalent of these was a deletion from chromosome 16, which occurred in 1.7% of the obese children but only 0.027% of controls. The same deletion also turned up in a separate group of more than 1000 heavyset children. Three subjects with this CNV inherited it from parents who were also obese, the researchers found. "This study shows for the first time that CNVs can cause a metabolic disease like obesity," says Farooqi.

The work also provides a clue about how. The missing segment of chromosome 16 holds nine genes, including one, known as SH2B1, that scientists had already fingered as a possible culprit in obesity. Mice lacking the gene become extremely fat and develop insulin resistance, a feature of obesity and diabetes in which cells become less responsive to insulin. SH2B1 is a key intermediary that enables insulin and leptin, a hormone that helps set appetite, to transmit their messages to cells.

"Given the biological plausibility, it seems to be an exciting finding," says geneticist Alan Herbert of Boston University School of Medicine. However, he cautions, it's too early to rule out the other eight genes on the deleted segment. The CNV on chromosome 16 is rare, and the search is on for other variants that contribute to obesity. "What it tells us," says Farooqi, "is that there is a lot more genetic variation to find."

A Case Terrifying Behavior Finally Understood -- But Why 7 Years?

2009-12-01T21:19:00.000-06:00

This article is copied verbatim from Daniel Amen's Dec 01 2009 newsletter. I have reprinted it here because it is SO DRAMATIC. Why, oh why, is there such resistance in the field of psychiatry to brain imaging as a tool to understand brain function or (as in this case) brain dysfunction. I know that Katrina's Mom would want you to read this, too. These guys saved my life! I cannot say enough about their imaging and Dr. A Dharmal at the Newport Beach Clinic.
.........................................................

December 01, 2009 By Daniel G. Amen, MD

Case Study: Katrina, 9 years old

Every so often, we get a case that is so fascinating, I want to share it with you, with the parents' permission. Her name is changed to protect her privacy.

Katrina, a nine-year-old girl, came to the Amen Clinics after a pediatric neurologist and six psychiatrists and pediatricians failed to help her.
Katrina's parents knew almost from the start that there was something wrong with their daughter. When she was a toddler, Katrina would get so angry that she would bang her head on things and go into uncontrollable tantrums and rages. She also engaged in several self-destructive behaviors - sticking her fingers in a pencil sharpener, mutilating her cuticles, and pulling out her hair and eating it to name a few.

One time she was so upset, she ran full-force head first into a wall and broke her nose. Then there was the time she ran away from home, walking miles and miles by herself. When her parents found her and asked her why she ran away, she said she did it because she was really angry.

The young girl would also antagonize the family pets, taunting them and trying to provoke them into attacking her. She had even started getting violent with others and often poked people in the eye.

On the flip side, Katrina was very intelligent but she struggled in school and tried to get herself kicked out of class. On top of that, she seemed to be out of touch with reality at times and talked to an "evil twin."

Katrina's conscientious parents started making the rounds to doctors when she was still a toddler. The diagnoses ranged from ADD to obsessive-compulsive disorder to possible Asperger's syndrome.

The doctors prescribed medications, but none of them worked. In fact, many of them made her symptoms worse.

Her parents were beyond frustrated, and they were scared that Katrina might try to kill herself one day. They were so worried about her that they were contemplating having her hospitalized for her own safety when someone recommended they bring her to us. That's when they brought Katrina to the Amen Clinics.

Surprisingly, in all their visits to doctors and neurologists, nobody ever suggested looking at Katrina's brain. That continually amazes me because Katrina's brain SPECT scans (see images above) revealed that something was terribly wrong with her brain.

The back one-third of Katrina's brain appeared to be missing!

The scans we do here at the Amen Clinics show blood flow activity in the brain and show us areas of the brain that are working well, areas that are working too hard, and areas that aren't working hard enough.
The back one-third of Katrina's brain wasn't working at all! No wonder she was having so many problems. The decreased activity in her brain explained many of her frightening and violent behaviors.

With additional testing, we realized that Katrina had a rare congenital condition in which parts of her brain failed to develop properly. Now that we know what the problem is, we can begin the process of treating her to try to improve her brain health and improve her behavior and her life, as well as the lives of her parents.

After seven years of seeking help for her daughter, Katrina's mother was so relieved to see her brain scans. Yes, it was a bit scary to see that a major portion of her brain wasn't working, but at least they knew what the problem was.

I talked to her mother about the ordeal they have been through, and she wanted to share this message with other parents who might be struggling with a child who is showing violent tendencies:

"We need a better way to deal with violent kids in our society," she said. "It is obviously something in the chemicals in their brains or the way their brains work. But so many doctors are so quick to hand out drugs for ADD, and they never look at the brain. When a child is violent, parents and doctors need to look more into scanning the brain."

I say Amen to that. How in the world would we ever know about Katrina's brain, or the brains of so many of our complex patients unless we looked?

More Chatter on DTC Testing

2009-11-23T19:52:00.000-06:00

I make no secret that I am very much in favor of direct to consumer genetic testing. I was shocked when I moved from WA to CA and had to go through so much red-tape to get my own medical records from tests performed in CA. CA “protects” me much more than WA did.

Consequently I do dread the idea that someone else would ever decide (for me) that I am not qualified to make judgments regarding the interpretation of my own genetic tests or limit the availability of this testing any more than it already is limited. Again this year I wanted to use my “birthday” money to do the 23andme DTC testing--but again choose to help defray airfare costs for our big family Thanksgiving celebration (15 family members this year and an unknown number of extras, as usual).

If you have any interest in genomics, personalized medicine, or direct to consumer genetic testing, I suggest that you read the letter posted to 23andme's web site in response to an article published this October in Nature magazine. It is excellent.

If you still want more, check out this blog entry by one of the 23andme founders who also discusses the letter. I would post the letter from Nature but am not allowed to do so. [ Ng, P. C., Murray, S. S., Levy, S., Venter, J. C.. An agenda for personalized medicine. Nature. 2009 Oct 08; 461(7265): 724-6. ]

MRSA Hits Home

2009-11-08T23:27:00.000-06:00

This weekend turned out quite differently than I had imagined…far less relaxing than I had hoped. My very athletic and cerebral son was diagnosed at the end of last week with MRSA. What he thought was an ingrown hair Wednesday on his upper thigh and a maybe a spider bite by Thursday, morphed into a red, swollen, hot area with enough pain to send him to the student health center by Friday. The doctor lanced the area, drained it, packed it, cultured it, and sent him off with an oral antibiotic prescription. He called me later on Friday. When I heard the dreaded MRSA word my stomach churned even though he minimized the now wound. By late Saturday afternoon he was at the ER. He was now receiving an IV antibiotic looking less invincible than usual. The pimple from Wednesday was now 9 inches in diameter, looking very angry, with a weird wick sticking out from the middle of it.

I made him spend the night at my house Saturday night. This was so that I could get him to the hospital during the night if this new IV antibiotic did not work. He agreed out of mercy for his worried mother. What about next steps if this IV drug did not work? He had received the best antibiotic available for MRSA. When we got home I sent email to the praying women of our family to ask God for healing for my son.

By morning the hot red area was still within the marker-drawn boundary from the night before. The inflammation had stopped growing but it had not shrunk either. Tonight when he went back for the required recheck, a different ER doctor was on duty. This doctor lacked any outward display of compassion or concern. He removed the packing, squeezed the wound, and said that it looked great, and sent my son out with different orders than the doctor had provided the night before. My son would have felt much more confident in the "looks great" pronouncement if the doctor had appeared to care about him or his leg.

While in the eye of this storm, I thought about all the parents who had ever lost a child. I thought how much easier it was for me to feel smug and secure in my faith when life is smooth and easy. If faith is like a muscle then if God does not test me or push me to my limits, how can my faith ever withstand a true tragedy? Today when reading Chapter 7 of Fearless by Max Lucado certain phrases resonated with this weekend: “Fear cannot be reasoned with.”

There “are fears, born out of legitimate concerns. Yet left unchecked, they metastasize into obsessions. The step between prudence and paranoia is short and steep. Prudence wears a seat belt. Paranoia avoids cars. Prudence washes with soap. Paranoia avoids human contact” (Yann Martel, Life of Pi, 2001)
…or mine: Prudence hopes that my son will increase his hygiene after contact sports. Paranoia wants him to stop playing contact sports.

When Jesus was in the garden of Gethsemane he agonized in his prayer to the Father. He was very specific and honest about his fears. Lucado emphasizes how important it is to articulate ones fears: "You must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attack of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you." (Yann Martel Life of Pi, 2001) Lucado says that “a HEALTHY church is where our fears go to die. …We pierce them through with Scripture, psalms of celebration, and LAMENT (my emphasis)… We extinguish them with the waterfall of worship, choosing to gaze at God, not our dreads.”

It really is a CHOICE. And it really is WORK, especially in the wake of a storm. Thanks Max. Thanks Yann. Thanks family. Thanks Jesus Christ, because in the end everything will turn out alright for those who have faith in You! Thanks for the workout--but it still hurts.

BTW I really do look forward to continued work on the human bacteriome.
Bacteria flourish in favorite ecosystems on the human body
Study offers most comprehensive inventory yet of the human microbiome and a basis for understanding how those microbes affect health

Lack of Sleep Should Not be Taken Lying Down!

2009-10-26T23:28:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the long blogging hiatus. Doug and I went on a great cruise and I missed about a month of blogging either preparing for the cruise or due to the trip itself. Upon my recent return, I discovered that my Science News magazine has several great articles about sleep. If you know me well, then you know that sleep has been my nemesis for the last 6 years.

Several years back I stopped sleeping like a normal human being. I would sleep for 45 min or so then I’d lay awake for several hours exhausted but unable to sleep. I was not particularly worried about anything—I just could not sleep. On a really good night I might get 3-4 hours cumulative. Needless to say this was not a happy state of affairs. Sleeping pills did nothing--I tried them all. I finally found a doctor that figured out what was going on in my brain (this is why I love the Amen Clinics so much http://www.amenclinics.com/).

The doctor that read my brain scans eventually talked me into taking a tiny dose of an anti-psychotic. This amounted to about 2% of the therapeutic dose (translate that to—about 2% of what I would take if I were actually schizophrenic). I was scared to death to take the pill--but eventually my anxiety relented and I took the pill. My sainted doc kept reassuring me that any side-effects of the drug were miniscule compared to the effects of not sleeping. The set of articles that I reference below makes his point in spades. Definitely check these out--especially if you are perimenopausal or menopausal. The change in hormones is great for screwing up sleeping patterns.

This first article really got my attention. It hit the press as I flew out to take the cruise:

Lack of Sleep Linked to Alzheimer's Plaques in Mice

People with Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases often have trouble sleeping. Now a new study suggests that sleep problems may actually contribute to the disease process. Researchers report that disrupted sleep can lead to the buildup of brain plaques—a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease—in mice. (Click title above for full article.)

Here are a set of fascinating articles from Science News on sleep…

The Science of Slumber: Special issue on sleep Oct 24, 2009

Despite its utter mundanity, sleep resists simple scientific explanation. It appears to recuperate the body and refresh the mind, but exactly how isn’t at all clear. The brain appears to be as active in some of the throes of somnolence as it is in sustaining wakefulness.

By inquiring into all that happens in the brain and body during sleep, researchers aim to paint a more complete picture of why people sleep — and why sleep sometimes goes awry, as Science News staff writers Tina Hesman Saey and Laura Sanders report in this special section.

Scientists seeking the reasons for sleep hope to discover some evolutionary insight: Mammals sleep presumably because it offers some survival advantage. But recent work suggests that explaining sleep as an adaptation for saving energy doesn’t add up. Scientists are skeptical that saving energy is the only (or even the main) reason that sleep has evolved, as described in the article “The why of sleep.”

Extreme fatigue is the closest humans ever come to sleep while still aware enough to ponder its mysteries. At those times, sleep pulls hard, like a current sweeping up a tired mind, carrying consciousness away. How the brain controls this transition between wake and sleep lies at the heart of disorders such as insomnia and narcolepsy, as discussed in “Sleep gone awry.” The third article, “Dying to sleep,” documents what happens when people go without enough sleep. Chronic sleep deprivation poses more serious health risks than many had thought, research shows.

In sleep, the very tool humans use to explore and analyze the world seems to go blank — or, in some dreamy interludes, apparently haywire. No wonder then that scientists, and especially those who study the brain, urgently want to fill in that blank and explain the still largely veiled experience into which most fall thankfully every night

The Why of Sleep: Brain studies may reveal the purpose of a behavior both basic and mystifying
Sleep Gone Awry: Researchers inch closer to causes, cures for insomnia, narcolepsy
Dying to Sleep: Getting too little sleep can impair body and brain and could even be deadly

My doctor told me about 4 months ago that if I had not gotten properly disagnosed that I would have ended up mentally disabled. Scary, huh!

Heaven On Earth

2009-09-29T23:56:00.000-05:00

It seems like forever since I have had the luxury of a free half hour to write. Last week I finished an amazing book entitled, Heaven, by Randy Alcorn. Rick Warren is quoted as saying that it is the best book on heaven that he has ever read. It is a big fat book—the kind that I love to burrow into and mourn when I have finished. Drinking in Randy’s answers to some of the toughest question about heaven had been my daily reward for the last 10 mins of my after work treadmill session for the past few weeks.

Here is an excerpt from the beginning of the book. His website has lots of other interesting material. It appears that Randy has harvested every hint of heaven from the Bible. He has also researched what theologians and scholars have had to say about this topic for centuries—hence the big fat book replete with footnotes and appendices. Yep, I need to know what resources he is using.

This book delighted me thoroughly. I would highly recommend it to anyone facing death or with a loved one facing death or with any sense of fear/dread about death. I would also recommend this book to anyone having a bit of trouble getting excited about a spiritualized heaven that is divorced from this physical world that feels like home on a good day. Randy argues that the Christoplatonist view of heaven, that is mainstream Church today, is very unbiblical and consequently leaves us less than thrilled as we look toward heaven:

“What God made us to desire, and therefore what we DO desire if we admit it, is exactly what he promises to those who follow Jesus Christ: a resurrected life in a resurrected body, with the resurrected Christ on a resurrected Earth.”

In some ways reading this book was like reading about the home that my beloved has gone off to create for me. This is not a place of boredom but of adventure, learning, challenges, feast, relationships, and joy. It is a place that fills my deepest longings to the brim in an infinite crescendo. One of the things that I struggle with about heaven is not being married to the husband that I am still madly in love with and totally committed to. (Yes, I know that sounds spiritually immature.) Yet, God does not subtract without adding something of much greater value and it is comforting to know that I do not lose the fellowship of the relationships that now reflect God’s love to me. My husband will not be my husband but surely he will be one of my most dear, intimate friends in Heaven.

Drama, art, poetry, music, dance, writing, laughter, family, beauty itself, the warm nose of a puppy, the sweet smell and feel of a baby’s head after his bath—are all gifts from God to his image bearers--you and me. It is inexplicable that One so complete and fully in relationship already, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, should call us to dwell with Him forever in Heaven, the New Earth. In fact, we are given to be the bride of Christ--the Son of God. I am really thankful to Randy for writing this book and helping me fall even more deeply in love with our Creator God, even more in awe of his plan for salvation, and the mystery of his desire to call us into existence to share in His glory.

I end here with a lovely piece of writing from Jade Brunston. I have never met Jade but we share a common friend who emailed this to me yesterday. ENJOY (with Jade’s permission).

Jade Brunston writes:

What do I see when I see me? I see beauty so reflective of His image that its almost unspeakable. I see a cleansed vessel ready to be used for His kingdom. I see a claimed open land preserved for use until God Himself declares what or who is to be placed there. I see wholeness. I see a full heart, no cracks or missing pieces. I see a heart illuminating with grace & confidence. I see a heart shining for God, and God only. I see a woman when I look at me, and I know my value now.

Can I be honest and tell you that I see myself for the first time. When I look inside myself I see thousands upon thousands of square miles of beauty to be explored. Me & the inner beauty that makes me Me is more grand the grand canyon, more captivating than of the Northern lights, more breathtaking than a thousand sunsets, more influential than billions & billions drops of rain in a single valley, more overwhelming than a hundred rainbows, more commanding than a loudest thunderstorm, more gorgeous than a million diamonds glistening in the sun. I am glistening in the Son. And to think I used to see an ugly heaping pile of trash…things look differently under the Son.

I am worth more than an ocean full of diamonds. Diamonds…some the size of a house, some the size of my hand, and some the size of an easy chair. And oh the colors…some are hot pink, some are purple, and some are green. Can you imagine an ocean emptied of its water & filled up with diamonds like I just described?

If I can see such beauty as a mere human can you imagine Gods perfect Glory? If I can gaze inside of redeemed yet sinful heart what would I see to peer into the heart of a perfect God in need of no redemption. Can you imagine the beauty your eyes would be met with if you saw just one attribute of His character? No wonder no one has ever seen God. Not only are we unworthy, our finite selves could not even comprehend or take in the beauty of an infinite God. Can you imagine what perfection would see looking at perfection? WOW! How hard it must have been for our perfect God to see His perfect Son die. Can you imagine what God sees when He looks at Jesus? Probably countless universes filled with glory & beauty our minds cannot wrap around. If God can allow us to see such beauty within ourselves can you imagine what heaven is like? The beauty, the awe, the…the…the….I guess I will have to finish writing this in heaven, for only then will I have the words to describe what I see.

Fearless by Max Lucado -- First 35 pages

2009-09-22T21:21:00.000-05:00


Buy		Read

Hormones – Installment #2 – Thyroid, don’t forget to cross your T’s!

2009-09-20T14:59:00.000-05:00

This article will help you understand the basics of thyroid hormones. For those frantic persons who can’t get Armour Thyroid this article will empower you to forge ahead with information to get a reasonable substitute in this period of shortage. Lastly if you ONLY take Synthroid or its generic equivalent and you take an anti-depressant or anti-anxiety medication, please read on. If you are under 40 but hope to have a better middle-life and old-age, then read on baby-sista.

Unless you are a taking thyroid medication and your internist/endocrinologist/GP prescribes a desiccated thyroid product, you probably don’t care that these products are not currently available in the US. Armour Thyroid is perhaps the best known desiccated thyroid product and has been unavailable for at least a month and who knows how long it will be off the market in the future. If you “google” Armour Thyroid you will see that this stinky little pill (yep, it smells yucky!) seems to generate lots of love or hate. Doctors who prescribe it are called quacks. Yet various other doctors and patients testify about how much they love it. I am in the love category BUT I am switching to a new thyroid cocktail because I need my prescription refilled. I am frustrated by not being able to get the Armour Thyroid prescription filled when I need it. Being an experimentalist—I am not opposed to trying something new—especially when I have no choice.

Three months ago, armed with a 13 year time-series of TSH, free thyroxine (T4), and total thyronine (T3) measurements, I talked my internist into prescribing Armour Thyroid again after a 10 years hiatus. My TSH had doubled and my T3 and T4, were below normal. I had gained 20 pounds in 2 years that I could not loose despite diet and exercise. (The biggest problem was that this weight gain was 2 sizes up ==> all new clothes $$ plus the weight kept increasing. I thought -- I weigh as much as I did with my first 3 pregnancies!) It took 2 weeks to get the prescription filled because of shortages. This is just a tiny dose--only 30 mg. After 6 weeks on Armour Thyroid I have lost 8 pounds, my skin has lost its yellow tinge, I do not wake up like the tin man on the wizard of OZ, have lots more energy and spunk, memory is better, less brain fog, and my headaches are better. There are other benefits but I prefer not to blog about them...There has been no degradation in my sleep, nor any increase in my anxiety.

HELP ME UNDERSTAND...
Synthroid and its various generic equivalents contain only T4 (levothyroxine). Armour Thyroid contains both T4(levothyroxine )and T3(Liothyronine). T4 is supposed to be able convert to T3. T4 is more associated with metabolism while T3 is more associated with non-metabolic functions like those of the nervous system (think brain, for example). As TSH increases, this indicates that one’s thyroid is working harder to produce the needed thyroid hormones. The current dogma is that until the TSH is above 5.0 mcIU/mL no one needs to medicate. Hence most doctors do not measure T3 and T4 at all until TSH goes way up. Some doctors are now using 3.0 as more reasonable cutoff and have started to measure both total T3 and freeT4. These doctors also tend to listen to how their patients feel! I always insist on the whole battery of tests as I was under 3.0 but my values of T3 and T4 were below the bottom of the range. Being able to show this data in conjunction with a doubling of TSH was the ammunition that I needed to get my prescription.

My new cocktail of necessity will contain generic Synthroid (T4) and generic Cytomel (T3). The synthetics have the advantage that they never go out of supply. (It takes two prescriptions to replace the one.) They are called synthetic because they are man-made as opposed to desiccated which are derived from dried-out porcine glandular tissue. Biochemically these synthetic hormone are identical to human hormone. That was important to me. Armour Thyroid also contains some T1, T2, and calcitonin due to its glandular origin—but I am assuming that these entities are negligible for this discussion.

If you wish to make the conversions between Armour Thyroid and the synthetics, go to this Armour web site: Dose Calculator. You can play around with the calculator to get the best dose. (Although the calculator is actually backwards for those wanting to get the Synthroid/Cytomel cocktail--by trial and error you can't puzzle out what is needed. It is designed for someone who takes Synthroid and wants to go to Armour Thyroid. Click the "Print" option and you get the full table that makes it easy to see everything simultaneously. )30 mg of Armour thyroid according to the dose calculator is about 50 mcg of Synthroid and 10 mcg of Cytomel. In Armour Thyroid the ratio of T4 to T3 is about 4 to 1. One of the big criticisms of desiccated thyroid is that in humans the ratio of T4 to T3 is more like 14 to 1. Hence my replacement will be more like 100 mcg of generic Synthroid and 5 mcg of generic Cytomel. Now I am using myself as the human guinea pig and will have no trouble demanding an adjustment to 50 mcg of T4 and 10 mcg of T3 should I prove to be more of the porcine than human persuasion. I will blog about this to be sure.

The problem with ONLY T4 is that different organs of the body have different propensities to convert T4 to T3. Clearly I was having some problems since I was too yellow and not pink enough. There are not many recent studies on T3 for depression and anxiety. Most of the one cited are old studies. There are encouraging results though. I have to say that every woman over 45 that takes I know taking Synthroid or a T4 generic also takes an antidepressant. My sample is tiny – but I think this is most interesting! There are some doctors who support T3 as a therapy for depression and anxiety: This doc likes Cytomel. And there are many non-medically-credentially people like me, who have strong feelings. This person is passionate about T3/T4 issues:

Thyroid hormones thyroxine (T4, as the storage hormone) and triiodothyronine (T3, as the converted and direct active hormone) not only play a part in the health of your metabolic endocrine, nervous and immune system, they in turn have an important role in the health and optimal functioning of your brain, including your cognitive function, mood, ability to concentrate, memory, attention span, and emotions. On her website, Christiane Northrup, MD states that T3 “is actually a bona fide neurotransmitter that regulates the action of serotonin, norepinephrine, and GABA (gamma aminobutyric acid), an inhibitory neurotransmitter that is important for quelling anxiety.” She also states that “If you don’t have enough T3, or if its action is blocked, an entire cascade of neurotransmitter abnormalities may ensue and can lead to mood and energy changes, including depression.”

The most complete overall link for symptoms of low thyroid is on Wikipedia. Read all the way to the bottom. (I had no clue that my yellow-tinged skin was due to low thyroid function until I noticed that that the yellow was gone and began researching for this particular article.) I love Wikipedia’s article on Thyroid in general, as well.

Hormones – Installment #1 –what you don’t know, can’t help you—but it sure can hurt you!

2009-09-20T12:12:00.000-05:00

This is the first of a series of articles that I will publish on my blog, each bearing titles that begin with the words “Hormones – Installment #”. Hormones are the generals of the amazing cellular army that we know and love (yes that is your goal!) as our body. Women are introduced to some of these bio-chemical generals around the time of puberty, and are in respectful awe of them throughout their lifetimes. There are, however, many more hormones than just the reproductive hormones which are the subject of lots of press. Likewise, the reproductive hormones have many functions that are not directly associated with sexual functioning. The topic of my first blog on this site was how estrogen mediates our perception of pain. (If you are a woman, please read this!)

As we grow older our supply of hormones tends to dwindle. Most doctors consider this a necessary consequence of aging. A book entitled, The Super Hormone Promise, published well over 18 years ago dramatically impacted my view on hormone replacement. My unfortunate interplay of personal genetics and environment (the study of which is called epigenetics by nerds like me) contributed additional motivation to transport me to my current positions on hormone replacement. When something goes seriously wrong with the any part of the endocrine system (as happened to me—I have yet to blog about this) all the other players in this system try to compensate. (The endocrine system is your hormone factory.) This can make the root cause of an illness difficult to diagnose because so many commanders are now jockeying for control. I found out the hard way to “Take charge of your hormones because no single doctor will!” By the time you are sick enough to fall outside the range of normal for many hormonal lab tests you may have lost all your ambition or will to even care. You will just feel so poorly, often depressed and in unecessary pain.

In an hour or so I will post Installment #2 on thyroid hormones. This is a hot topic today since no one in the US can get a prescription for desiccated thyroid hormones filled –like Armour Thyroid. I will blog about why you really do care about this—even though you may think you don’t!

Man vs. God - Two prominent thinkers debate evolution, science and the role of religion

2009-09-13T13:10:00.000-05:00

I am really enjoying my subscription to the Wall Street Journal, courtesy of “soon to be expiring” air miles, and those miles courtesy of many hours spent entombed in planes on job-related travel. The weekend WSJ is my favorite as then I have the luxury of time to indulge in both reading and blogging. The front page of the Weekend Journal featured an article entitled “Man vs. God” with juxtaposed pictures of Charles Darwin and Michelangelo’s Creator God.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203440104574405030643556324.html

“God is not dead. He was never alive in the first place.” Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins is the writer for the “Man” portion of the article. He makes his well-publicized argument against the existence of a God as an intelligent designer. He sticks to the logic of his argument and does not quite stoop to calling Christians ignorant buffoons. His most stinging remarks are quite tame for Dawkins, indeed, even as he dismisses the arguments of “modern” theologians that would make Dawkins objections irrelevant.

“Religion is a kind of art form that, like music or painting, introduces us to a new mode of knowledge.” Karen Armstrong

Karen Armstrong is the writer for the “God” portion of the article. Armstrong’s utility for religion can be reduced to a pragmatic coping mechanism to the world’s pain, and spawns the much needed compassion that justifies religion's place in culture. All religions are, thus, equally valid. To me this argument entirely divorces faith from any semblance of truth, as clearly, not all the world’s faith systems are logically consistent with one another. As such, I do not see that anything Armstrong says rebuts anything that Dawkins claims. I find her a curious choice for "God". Has humanism now risen to the pinacle of theology such that the WSJ readers find Armstrong a representative spokeperson?

I am a non-denominational Christian and, thus, do not consider my relationship with the Creator God to be a religion. In fact, I see myself as distinctly anti-religious for precisely the reason that my first experience with religion was simply a cultural experience. That experience catapulted me into a meaningless universe with no basis for morality except “Will my actions harm another?” Being one especially gifted in rationalization, this left me with sufficient latitude to hurt others while attempting to maximize the search for my own happiness. I’ll spare you the list of inflicted hurts--there may be a limit on the number of words which blogs may contain.

My scientific views of evolution may be more in line with those expressed by Francis Collins in the book, The Language of God. However, it is my relationship with a personal God that has pumped meaning and hope into my life and relationships, as well as my views on suffering and death. And, yes, He is a biblical God. My relationship with Him is not in any way hinged on a literal interpretation of Genesis 1:2 or the infinite degrees of freedom offered by a highly credentialed scientist-theist. I can absolutely say that Karen does not KNOW my God. She does however know the religion that left me cold.

Below are the last 2 paragraphs from each segment of the article…

Dawkins:

Now, there is a certain class of sophisticated modern theologian who will say something like this: "Good heavens, of course we are not so naive or simplistic as to care whether God exists. Existence is such a 19th-century preoccupation! It doesn't matter whether God exists in a scientific sense. What matters is whether he exists for you or for me. If God is real for you, who cares whether science has made him redundant? Such arrogance! Such elitism."

Well, if that's what floats your canoe, you'll be paddling it up a very lonely creek. The mainstream belief of the world's peoples is very clear. They believe in God, and that means they believe he exists in objective reality, just as surely as the Rock of Gibraltar exists. If sophisticated theologians or postmodern relativists think they are rescuing God from the redundancy scrap-heap by downplaying the importance of existence, they should think again. Tell the congregation of a church or mosque that existence is too vulgar an attribute to fasten onto their God, and they will brand you an atheist. They'll be right.

Armstrong:

Darwin made it clear once again that—as Maimonides, Avicenna, Aquinas and Eckhart had already pointed out—we cannot regard God simply as a divine personality, who single-handedly created the world. This could direct our attention away from the idols of certainty and back to the "God beyond God." The best theology is a spiritual exercise, akin to poetry. Religion is not an exact science but a kind of art form that, like music or painting, introduces us to a mode of knowledge that is different from the purely rational and which cannot easily be put into words. At its best, it holds us in an attitude of wonder, which is, perhaps, not unlike the awe that Mr. Dawkins experiences—and has helped me to appreciate —when he contemplates the marvels of natural selection.

But what of the pain and waste that Darwin unveiled? All the major traditions insist that the faithful meditate on the ubiquitous suffering that is an inescapable part of life; because, if we do not acknowledge this uncomfortable fact, the compassion that lies at the heart of faith is impossible. The almost unbearable spectacle of the myriad species passing painfully into oblivion is not unlike some classic Buddhist meditations on the First Noble Truth ("Existence is suffering"), the indispensable prerequisite for the transcendent enlightenment that some call Nirvana—and others call God.

'Kids' Smiles Predict Their Future Marriage Success' - Scientific American

2009-09-06T19:23:00.000-05:00

I guess it is time to go through some old pictures. I do remember my mother telling me that I was a very serious child and that she had a hard time getting me to smile. It would be interesting to read the whole article but no subscription. Does anyone out there have this article? "Say Cheese" was the title of the original article. I wonder how large the study was. The stats from the snippet below are somewhat shocking...

Pictures of grinning kids may reveal more than childhood happiness: a study from DePauw University shows that how intensely people smile in childhood photographs, as indicated by crow’s feet around the eyes, predicts their adult marriage success.

According to the research, people whose smiles were weakest in snapshots from childhood through young adulthood were most likely to report being divorced in middle and old age. Among the weakest smilers in college photographs, one in four ended up divorcing, compared with one in 20 of the widest smilers. The same pattern held among even those pictured at an average age of 10.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=kids-smiles-predict-their-future

Epigenetics and Yo’ Momma

2009-09-06T12:58:00.000-05:00

Epigentics is the study of the interplay between genes and environment. Epigentics is a hot area of research right now. There is a lovely definition in Wikipedia. Don’t you just love Wikipedia?!

In biology, the term epigenetics refers to changes in phenotype (appearance) or gene expression caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence, hence the name epi- (Greek: over; above) -genetics. These changes may remain through cell divisions for the remainder of the cell's life and may also last for multiple generations. However, there is no change in the underlying DNA sequence of the organism;[1] instead, non-genetic factors cause the organism's genes to behave (or "express themselves") differently.[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics

Here is a simple example of epigentics. Perhaps I find out from analysis of my spit at 23andme (I have not done this yet—but really want to!) that I have a 4 fold increase in the risk of Crohns disease compared to the “average” 55 year old Caucasian female. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crohn's_disease). However, like any autoimmune disorder, there must be something additional in my environment to trigger the onset. Further, suppose that I take antibiotics for several months non-stop, initiating a bad case of diarrhea, during a period of intense chronic stress at age 50. The confluence of these 3 factors plus my genetic predisposition might be enough to bring on the disease. Had the severe intestinal upset, the chronic stress, or the advancing years been eliminated, it is possible that the Crohns trigger could have been avoided. (I do not have Crohns but my birth father does.)

This article below focuses in on a particular tolerance to bad cholesterol and inflammation that appears to be conferred to babies via the environment of the maternal womb after obesity surgery. This is interesting to me as an adoptee, as a mother of 5 birth children, and, also, as I have wondered about the impact of a surrogate womb on the baby. Definitely food for thought…

Obesity Surgery’s Benefits Extend To Next Generation

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/46934/title/Obesity_surgery%E2%80%99s_benefits_extend_to_next_generation

The Exfoliation Secret That Men Don't Know That They Know

2009-09-06T00:34:00.000-05:00

Have you ever noticed that men’s faces often looks younger and better than women’s faces if you normalize for sun exposure? This seems odd given that women spend far more money than men on face lotions and potions in an effort to keep younger looking skin. I believe that this is due to shaving. If you were to scrape layers of skin off daily, would you really need all that retinol to increase cellular turnover?

My birth mother encouraged me to shave my face several years ago when I was complaining about facial hair. She assured me that this was the secret of Japanese women’s beautiful skin. Shaving does not increase the density of hair contrary to what you may hear or read. If you shave your face at night and then apply your (non-prescription strength) ROC night crème (that you can buy at Costco) you will definitely notice a difference in both the sting and the efficacy.

I don’t shave every day largely because I am less worried if my husband notices my facial hair and often I am just too tired. I definitely shaved every day before we were married though! My husband used to laugh at me when we would both be shaving our faces at the same time before retiring. Now he loves it because he says he notices all the hair on other women’s faces and likes the way my skin looks.

Why am I so focused on hair? I have really dark hair and really white skin. Once I started going to school I realized that I was the hairiest girl in the class. I would wear sweaters and tights well past their season of comfort to hide my hairy arms and legs. I remember borrowing my Aunt’s tweezers in an attempt to tweeze my legs. I succeeded in eradicating a quarter size area of black hair before I gave up. After that I fantasized about being granted my one wish. That one wish was to be rid of all the hair on my arms and legs.

I was overjoyed in 6th grade when I got to FINALLY shave my legs. At some point in junior high school I bought tweezers and managed to create two distinct eyebrows from the “wanna-be- one” eyebrow. In my thirties I discovered body hair bleach which I used on my arms to at least lighten the forest. I went the electrolysis route for a while to try to get rid of my mustache and hairs on my chin until I realized that that process seemed hopeless. Yes, I have even gone the laser route. I was supposed to be the ideal candidate—white skin, black hair. I won’t even bother to describe that painful experience.

Use the kind of razor’s men use to shave to exfoliate your face. Venus razors aren't good enough. They make 5-blade razors for men that leave your face smooth as a baby’s bottom. You may find that you don’t even need the expensive lotions and potions anymore. And all you other hairy mommas out there, shaving is a cake walk compared to all the aforementioned tortures! Talk to you later—gotta wash the chemicals out of my hair to keep the gray away. (Of course, my own mixture—chemistry class was never this rewarding ;-)

Are Red Yeast Rice Supplements A Waste of Money?

2009-09-05T16:46:00.000-05:00

My father-in-law requested that I do some research in order to recommend a replacement Red Yeast Rice (RYR) product. The very effective RYR supplement that he was taking is no longer available. He lives in the U.S. so these comments will be specific to what is available in the U.S. I was going to call him to relay the results of my research, but given the concern about high cholesterol (especially as our estrogen levels drop due to aging) and the popular preference for supplements over prescription products, I decided I would blog about this. I will send my father-in-law the link to this blog.

BACKGROUND

Red Yeast on Rice naturally contains the active substance, lovastatin, in many of most popular and effective cholesterol prescription medications. Once the FDA realized this in 2007 they sent warning letters to the manufacturers that had some of the better products on the market.

8/14/2007

FDA is warning consumers to avoid using certain red yeast rice products. Some products sold as dietary supplements contain added amounts of the prescription cholesterol-lowering medication lovastatin. Traditional red yeast rice products contain monacolins such as lovastatin, but only in trace amounts. Recently, the following three products were found to contain more than 5 mg lovastatin per capsule:

• Red Yeast Rice made by Nature’s Value and sold by Swanson Healthcare Products,

• Red Yeast Rice/Policosonal Complex made by Kabco and sold by Swanson Healthcare Products, and

• Cholestrix sold by Sunburst Biorganics.

FDA has asked the companies to stop marketing these products, which are sold over the Internet as dietary supplements to reduce cholesterol.Lovastatin may cause severe adverse reactions, including rhabdomyolysis and renal failure. Risk of these reactions increases with use of higher lovastatin doses and in patients taking interacting medications.

http://healthcare.utah.edu/pharmacy/alerts/247.html

However:

Small scale studies using pharmaceutical-grade red rice yeast have continued to demonstrate efficacy and safety. However, in the United States it is no longer legal to sell supplements of red yeast rice that contain more than trace amounts of cholesterol lowering substances. For example, the active ingredients of red rice yeast have been removed from Cholestin marketed in the United States. (Hypocol, another product containing red yeast rice is no longer being sold in the United States.)

The reasons the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has ruled that it is illegal to sell red yeast rice that contains more than trace amounts of the cholesterol-lowering substances and to promote red yeast rice for lowering cholesterol levels.

http://www.medicinenet.com/red_yeast_rice_and_cholesterol/article.htm

So now the problem is complicated by the possibility that any truly effective product is likely off the market. Maybe that is why my father-in-law's supplement is no longer available? (I am not sure as this request came 2nd-hand through my husband--at least one full week after my father-in-law made the request. This method of communication MAY be faster than the pony express…the jury is still out. :-)

This morning I started researching the companies that triggered the FDA warning because clearly they were manufacturing supplement with known active ingredients--the good stuff. Except for Swanson, the FDA-warned companies appear to no longer be making their RYR supplements.

Swanson Supplements

http://www.swansonvitamins.com/SW1182/ItemDetail?n=4294967183 It is not clear if this is the formulation that the FDA felt was too effective for OTC in 2007. Notice how the advertisement says reformulated. However, since there are reviews after 2007, if this product is available you might want to give this a try. It is so cheap, though, it hardly seems like it could work? Shipping is more than the product. The testimonials (if real) are impressive. If this were the price were per pill, then the price would make sense to me. It might be worth a call to the company to see if their web site has an error. But hey-- you may want to give this a try. Let me know how it goes, if you do.

Finding where Swanson’s might be a manufacturing supplier for a different company led me to GNC. If you want a supplement with a higher price tag, check out GNC’s RYR product. They appear to be getting their RYR product from Swanson. SOOOOOoooooo at this point if you want to go “natural”== non-prescription, I would recommend giving this product a try. Whether you order thru GNC or drugstore.com, the price is the same.

http://www.gnc.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3370486&cid=Google&gclid=CJThqaOb25wCFR5HagodHCk3KA&cp=2166467

http://www.drugstore.com/products/prod.asp?pid=221915&catid=10324&aid=335933&aparam=traditional_supplements_&CAID=a97d312d-1dbb-48fa-8d47-0acdf556a4ac

If you are worried about statin prescription medicine side-effects, I recommend that you go to http://www.23andme.com/ to get your spit analyzed. Yes, your spit! One of the many results they will provide, lets you know if you carry the particular variants of DNA (SNPs) that make you a likely candidate for experiencing problems with statins. And if you need help interpreting these results (although I think 23andme has done a great job on their reports!), let me know. I can blog about how to interpret "23andme" results in the future.

Closing words—

1. Please remember that I am NOT a medical doctor. I am just telling you what I would do. If my cholesterol were high, then I would have a cholesterol test before hand, as a baseline, and after 3 month on any supplement. I would get measurements on total, LDL, HDL, … Typically this is called a full lipid panel.

2. The size of the cholesterol molecule determines if high cholesterol will cause heart problems or not. Doctors can prescribe a test to measure size but most clinicians do not keep up on the research as they are just too busy enough seeing patients to make their bottom line. You can ask your doctor to perform this test.

http://www.healthandage.com/Cholesterol-Size-Does-Matter-(1) <== easy to understand
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10587455 <== geeky

3. You need cholesterol. Cholesterol is the precursor of your hormones. Your hormones help make you who you are. Your brain needs cholesterol to work. It is not your enemy--you just need to understand the good, the bad, and the interaction! http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090223221430.htm

We are all different as our DNA testifies. That is why foods, supplements, and medications don’t always work on everyone the same. You don’t have to be frightened of prescription meds. Just do your homework. Your doctor is a clinician, he is not a researcher. Most doctors in the clinic—don’t have the time keep to keep up on the research—even when they are specialists.

Further questions about these kinds of things make excellent fodder for future blogs as I am passionately interested anything body-related.

IN SUMMARY:

Q: Are Red Yeast Rice Supplements A Waste of Money?

A: If the FDA* can have their way, yes. But let’s wait to find out what my father-in-law tells us from his experiment. I think he has about 1 month left of his proven supplements. I am also interested in YOUR experience.

* The FDA is not the bad guy here. Their job is to regulate the very ingredients that constitute drugs. By definition this means when a supplement and a prescription drug contain enough of the same ingredient, the charter of the FDA calls it to act in a way that diminishes the amount of drug-acting ingredient.

Are ONLY Agnostics or Atheists Able to be Scientists?

2009-09-04T23:09:00.000-05:00

I must be in a bad mood tonight and low on patience. I do change my estrogen patches tonight--so maybe I am low on my happy hormone. The storm created by Francis Collins's appointment to the head of NIH simply shows no sign of calming.

"Francis Collins’ faith, science mix still cause for debate as he takes over NIH"
http://localtechwire.com/business/local_tech_wire/opinion/blogpost/5926138/

It is really a good thing that we only realized in the last quarter of a century how deadly the mix of personal faith and science was going to be! Just think if we could dismiss all the "raggedy" science by those who believe in God, we could have protected ourselves from allot technological advancement.

Gee whiz, no one would ever have to take higher mathematics and lots of physics just would be unknown. Of course there are many more things--this is just what comes to mind since my formal training is in mathematics. Poor Einstein, he'd even be in trouble! He would likely not be acceptable nowadays given that he was a deist. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1607298,00.html

Or maybe it is just that Dr. Collins is a Christian...

I attended a talk Dr. Collins gave in San Diego, perhaps a year ago, and I am quite pleased that he is now heading up NIH. He anticipated the furor and gave up his associated with BioLogos.

Sigh..Tomorrow I will post my first beauty secret. Get ready for some lightweight science that can brighten your skin :-)

The Puzzle of Existence

2009-09-02T00:00:00.000-05:00

My husband said that I was a nerd tonight. So I feel that I have to live up to this challenge...

I loved this article by Robert B. Mann* from the ASA quarterly publication (vol 61). If you want to understand what cosmologists have to say about their hot scientific issues and how those impact theological positions in elegant simplicity--then this is your article. I was awed by how truly atypical our universe is.

I thought I died and went to heaven when Mann explained the theory of relativity's implication for the theology/cosmology tension with basic algebra and logic. The article is pretty long--about 10 pages, but if you have any sort of interest in string theory and various other esoteric ideas--which you thought were too complicated to understand--Mann deftly illustrates that they are not!

Here is his into paragraph and his summary. If I can figure out how to post a pdf file, I will post it. If you want the pdf file, you can email your request to NEMLatimer@gmail.com.

How much of a nerd can I be if I don't know how to do this? REALLY, Doug!

INTRO

Grappling with the problem of existence is one of the central tasks of theology, one that is both challenged and illuminated by scientific inquiry. The traditional form of the problem has been that of understanding why anything exists at all. While science and theology are harmoniously complementary in addressing certain aspects of this problem, a key point of tension between them has been in evaluating the role of Mind relative to matter. This is theology’s oldest challenge. I contend that theology’s newest challenge is that of understanding the particularity of existence: why it is that some things exist instead of everything. This new form of the problem of existence is motivated by findings from modern cosmology, which have been interpreted as suggesting that our universe is part of a multiverse in which all things exist. The key problem—for both science and theology—is in understanding how to distinguish what exists from what is possible.

SUMMARY
I have outlined here what I believe is at stake in coming to grips with the puzzle of existence in view of modern science. The problem of creatio ex nihilo—why something instead of nothing—is one that continues to have an ongoing fruitful interaction in the science/theology dialogue. The key challenge is in understanding the role of Mind relative to that of matter. Though far from universally accepted, it does seem that a more coherently satisfying picture of reality is one in which the intelligibility of the universe is taken to be indicative of an Intelligence behind it. From a Christian stance, the challenge is both to understand in what way this Mind can be identified with the God of the Bible (since they clearly cannot be distinct) and to understand the relationship between this Mind and matter—how God both instantiates and interacts with the universe.

The other problem—why something instead of everything, or creatio ex omnia—is a new problem of considerably greater challenge, both scientifically and theologically. The central problem is that of the boundary between the possible and the existent. Asserting that there is no boundary—that everything that can exist, does exist—appears to undermine the basic foundations of scientific and theological reasoning. Yet the rationale for how such a boundary should be delineated is far from clear.

Even if one accepts provisionally that some boundary can be drawn, there are a considerable number of other difficulties a multiverse presents in both science and theology. The Duplication Dilemma is one example that I sketched out above. Further examples include problems with scientific elegance, empirical testability, spontaneous creation, unbounded evil, purpose, and free will. It might be argued that these difficulties are being exaggerated. After all, there is an active body of scientific researchers examining models of the multiverse, with a number of cosmologists arguing that it provides the best explanation for the atypicality of our universe. It has further been argued that the multiverse is not incompatible with a theistic perspective, as it essentially pushes arguments from design and intelligibility up to a meta-level.

Perhaps we simply need to relax our demands of science and broaden our concept of God. In my view, such arguments are too sanguine. It is not at all clear that the multiverse paradigm is scientifically beneficial. It is even less clear that this paradigm can be reconciled with any reasonable form of Christian theology. A far more critical analysis from scientific, philosophical, and theological perspectives needs to be applied in examining the multiverse paradigm. What ought we to expect from science in terms of providing a description of reality? What ought we to expect from theology in terms of providing an explanation for existence?

*Robert Mann has a BSc in physics from McMaster University and an MSc and PhD from the University of Toronto. Currently a professor of physics at the University of Waterloo, he has been a visiting researcher at Harvard University, Cambridge University, and the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics. He was president of the CSCA from 1996–2007 and chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Waterloo from 2001–2008. He is president of the Canadian Association of physicists and is on the Advisory Board of the John Templeton Foundation.

Doug headed upstairs just now. His parting comment on the blogging wife: "It works for me because you're a pretty nerd." I guess nothing has really changed from when Adam first saw Eve and exclaimed, "Wooooo-Man!" It is nice to be at a place in my life where I can just take this as a compliment :-)

Dyslexia Gene Further Linked to Specific Reading Disabilities

2009-08-31T23:52:00.000-05:00

It is pretty exciting to be working on tools to help scientists unravel the marvels of the our genetic code. It is nice when genetic linkage and association studies work so well. (This also hits close to home.)

If you like this, check out "23 and me".

KIAA0319 – A New Candidate Gene For Language
(http://anthropology.net/2009/08/29/kiaa0319-a-new-candidate-gene-for-language/)

The current issue of the Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders has published an open access paper announcing the discovery of a new candidate gene linked to language, KIAA0319.

The paper is titled, “Convergent genetic linkage and associations to language, speech and reading measures in families of probands with Specific Language Impairment.”

The gene sits on short arm of Chromosome 6. Through linkage analysis, it was found to be associated with variability in language abilities in a study of children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) and their family members, as well as with variability in speech and reading abilities. Specific alleles were confirmed with association analysis.

“A total of 322 participants, including 86 probands, 134 siblings, and 102 parents and other relatives were tested from an ongoing longitudinal study of Specific Language Impairment… The significant results cluster in the 5’ region of KIAA0319…
In particular, we replicate the associated alleles for rs4504469
(allele C); rs761100
(allele G); rs6935076
(allele T) and rs3756821
(allele A).”

It should be noted that KIAA0319 was already linked to dyslexia in previous studies. But, in this paper, the pleiotropic effects of KIAA0318 alleles on language ability, speech impairments, and text comprehension were correlated.

Rice, M., Smith, S., & Gayán, J. (2009). Convergent genetic linkage and associations to language, speech and reading measures in families of probands with Specific Language Impairment Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders DOI: 10.1007/s11689-009-9031-x

Full article: http://www.springerlink.com/content/6808305j34217466/fulltext.html

Paul Sheppard blows the crowd away

2009-08-31T09:32:00.000-05:00

Last night Doug and I attended the Shadow Mountain Church in SD to hear Dr. Paul Sheppard speak, who was a guest speaker. If I leave work late I get to hear him on the radio station as I drive home. He usually cracks me up. I imagined him tall and thin from the timbre of his voice. He was not. He spoke on John chap 11 and made observations that I have never made. The overall theme was "Has God Ever Confused You?" I am saying, "Yeeeeesssssss!"

Some of his points were too good not to share. He had the crowd in stitches:

God confuses us to lead us to trust and obey him, thereby teaching us deeper truths than we would have learned otherwise.

Anger is often hurt longing for justice.

Jesus was not rebuking Martha for cooking, he said Mary knew the better thing BUT he still wanted to eat! "He sure did not tell Martha to stop cookin, did He?"When Jesus showed up after Lazarus was buried, it was Martha who ran out to meet him and demonstrated great trust. Mary was in the house (perhaps) with an attitude, "Where was our best friend when we needed him?" Moral: Don't judge Martha harshly; Jesus was happy to have Martha cook for him. Why do you think he was there? :-)

Jesus was not crying because Lazarus was dead--he knew he would fix that problem. He was crying because his best friends did not understand the God that they served. For example, when the plumber comes to fix a problem he does not cry. If the plumber does, it is time to move. :-)

Just trust and obey--see what God will do in your life.

When Jesus called, "Lazarus, come forth." He called Lazarus by name, "otherwise every spook in the cemetery would have come out of their grave."

The amazing pomegranate -- but not from a pill?

2009-08-30T11:45:00.000-05:00

Herbal supplementation can be an empty gesture
By Janet Raloff
Web edition : Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/46696/title/Herbal_supplementation_can_be_an_empty_gesture

Various excerpts:

Chemical studies are finding that much can be lost when manufacturers try to pack the benefits of whole fruit, like this pomegranate, into a pill.
...
In animal studies, consumption of this fruit, and especially its juice, has been linked with slowing the development of atherosclerosis. In one three-year Israeli study conducted in volunteers with atherosclerosis, people who drank 50 milliliters of pomegranate juice daily experienced a 20 percent drop in systolic blood pressure and a beneficial reduction in the thickness of their carotid artery walls. Moreover, oxidation of their “bad” cholesterol (the low-density-lipoprotein type) — which is a pivotal step in fostering artery-clogging plaque — dropped dramatically. Those who had been drinking a placebo beverage attained no such heart benefits.

Ya gotta read this one!

Vitamin D may be heart protective

2009-08-30T11:36:00.000-05:00

A deficiency of the sunshine vitamin may worsen plaque accumulation in vessels of diabetes patients

By Nathan Seppa

Web edition : Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

Excerpt:

"Vitamin D deficiency may exacerbate the excess heart disease risk that people with type 2 diabetes face, a new study in the Aug. 25 Circulation suggests. In lab tests, researchers demonstrate that immune cells with very low vitamin D levels turn into soggy, cholesterol-filled baggage that can become building blocks of arterial plaques."

Here is more good news about vitamin D. At some point maybe the RDA will get bumped up to something more reasonable, especially for women. I take 5 times the RDA for vitamin D. You need to do you own research on vitamin D to determine what is right for you.

Girls have head start on snake and spider fears

2009-08-30T11:16:00.000-05:00

Widespread dread of slithery, crawly things may start in infancy

By Bruce Bower
Web edition : Thursday, August 27th, 2009

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/46784/title/Girls_have_head_start_on_snake_and_spider_fears

Excerpt:

"Gut-wrenching fears of snakes and spiders may start early for many women. Before their first birthdays, girls but not boys adeptly learn to link the sight of these creatures to the frightened reactions of others, a new study suggests."

I am old enough to remember the feminist years when I (feminist-wanna-be) wanted to think all gender differences were culturally learned. That misconception that took allot of energy to foster, especially after having kids :-)

Morality Play

2009-08-30T11:04:00.000-05:00

Universal concerns, not cultural values, may shape kids’ developing notions of right and wrong

By Bruce Bower
September 12th, 2009; Vol.176 #6 (p. 16)

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/access/id/46824/title/Cross-cultural_values_

Excerpt:

“It’s remarkable how little cultural variation we have found in developmental patterns of moral reasoning,” says Helwig, who presented his results in Park City,
Utah, at the recent annual meeting of the Jean Piaget Society.

I love and agree with the comment by Beverly Smith. Just because I post an article does not mean that I totally agree with everything that it says. It does mean that I found elements of the article intriguing. In this case, I do not agree with the researchers mechanistic explanation of why we all seem to develop a recognizable moral compass. My leanings are more with C.S. Lewis.

Managing Stress Helps Trim the REALLY Bad Tummy Fat

2009-08-29T20:23:00.000-05:00

Social Stress, Visceral Obesity, and Coronary Artery Atherosclerosis in Female Primates
Carol A. Shively, Thomas C. Register and Thomas B. Clarkson
Obesity 17: 1513-1520; advance online publication, March 26, 2009; doi:10.1038/oby.2009.74

http://www.nature.com/oby/journal/v17/n8/abs/oby200974a.html

Summary from HealthDay News:

Social stress may cause the body to deposit more fat in the abdomen, which increases the risk of heart disease, a new study suggests.

The findings could lead to new ways to combat rising rates of obesity in the United States and other Western nations, according to principal investigator Carol A. Shively, a professor of pathology at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

"Much of the excess fat in many people who are overweight is located in the abdomen, and that fat behaves differently than fat in other locations. If there's too much, it can have far more harmful effects on health than fat located in other areas," she said in a Wake Forest news release.

In the study, designed to see how social status affects the development of heart disease, female monkeys were fed a Western-style diet that contained fat and cholesterol. The monkeys were housed in groups and naturally established a pecking order from dominant to subordinate.

The researchers noted that the subordinate monkeys were not included in group grooming sessions as often as dominant monkeys, and were often the target of aggression.

The subordinate monkeys in this study then developed more fat in the abdominal cavity than other monkeys.

Social subordination causes the release of stress hormones that promote fat accumulation in the abdomen, the researchers said. This abdominal (visceral) fat promotes the build-up of plaque in blood vessels that leads to heart disease, the leading cause of death worldwide.

The study appears in the current issue of the journal Obesity.

Shively said the findings reinforce the wisdom of healthy eating, regular exercise and handling stress well.

SOURCE: Wake Forest University School of Medicine, news release, Aug. 5, 2009

Why the weird name for this blog, Neuronal Beauty?

2009-08-29T15:25:00.000-05:00

I think an active, inquisitive brain is sexy, attractive, and promotes physical health. Studies have shown simple things like cross-word puzzles (not my thing) can help stave off Alzheimer’s. So keeping up to date on some fascinating scientific research (okay, that I think is interesting) can’t hurt you. And exposing some of the design restrictons of scientific studies that may impact their interpretation and extrapolation to YOU may help you make more informed decisions about how to best care for your body.

I believe that you cannot ignore your spiritual walk in this life and have inner peace and true joy. I do not equate “Joy” with “Happiness”. I will share some theological/scientific publications, too, especially from American Scientific Affiliation. Maybe I can even entice you to join this awesome organization of world class scientists.

In the true female tradition of parallel processing (yes, the female brain invented this first as any woman knows who has had a demanding child to care for while preparing dinner!), I will also share some simple beauty aids/secrets that “beg” to be shared. Maybe the parallel processing thing is a stretch and this blog is just a place to share whatever random things I want to share. But isn’t that what blogging is?

I do not sell anything. I am not a medical doctor. I have many opinions and beliefs that guide my life choices as my blog will certainly reflect. My only credentials are degrees in math, and I ONLY have a master’s degree.

Estrogen Reduces Pain - From Daniel Amen's Newsletter

2009-08-29T12:50:00.000-05:00

I get the Amen Clinic's newsletter. I am impatient for this 8/20/2009 newsletter to be published at Dr. Amen's website, http://www.amenclinics.com/newsletter/, so I am posting here. You can sign up for his newlestters at his site.

I will have lots more to say about Estrogen in future blogs. Estrogen is one of my favorite hormones and mostly gets bad popular press. It is nice to read something that is SOOOOooooo true and so great about this hormone.

Estrogen Reduces Pain by Daniel G Amen, MD

These days, every time I pick up a newspaper or watch the news, I see something about aging baby boomers, the approximately 78 million people — like me — who were born between 1946 and 1964. About half of all boomers are women, and if you’re one of them, you should be very interested in a fascinating study about estrogen and pain perception I recently came across in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Most female boomers are either nearing menopause or are already postmenopausal. Menopause causes a woman’s estrogen levels to drop and is associated with a host of unpleasant symptoms, such as hot flashes and night sweats. Now, according to this study, you can add increased sensitivity to pain to that list of symptoms.

The study focused on the effects of estradiol, which is an estrogen hormone released by the brain, on pain. Researchers tested women at different times during their menstrual cycle — first during their period when estradiol is at its lowest and then after being treated with the hormone to raise its level. The women were subjected to a controlled amount of pain and were asked to rate their pain.

When estradiol was at its lowest, the women reported feeling much more pain than when the hormone was at its highest. This shows that when women’s estrogen levels are low, such as during menopause, they feel pain more acutely.

I thought this finding was so intriguing I called Angie Meeker, a doctor of pharmacy and my collaborator on a CD about hormones and hormone replacement therapy, to ask her opinion about it. She said, “This study teaches us that estrogen allows the brain to deal with pain in a normal way and that when we don’t have enough estrogen on board, our body loses the ability to produce our own natural painkillers.”

That means that women going through menopause who don’t take estrogen replacement therapy — also known as hormone replacement therapy (HRT) —may struggle more with pain. I’ve noticed this in my own practice. I treat a lot of postmenopausal female patients who complain of pain, whether it’s chronic backaches, neck problems, or even conditions like fibromyalgia. It’s exciting to think that taking some form of estrogen may offer pain relief to these women.

Usually, when we think about pain, we think about the body, not the brain. But this study clearly shows that pain perception occurs in the brain. And if you can fix your brain with the appropriate hormone treatment, you may be able to relieve your pain. For years, I’ve been telling my patients that balancing your hormones helps balance your brain. Now, we see that it might also make your pain go away. For women who are on the fence about taking HRT, this added benefit may make you reconsider it as an option.

To your brain health,
Daniel G. Amen, MD,
CEO, Amen Clinics, Inc.
Distinguished Fellow, American Psychiatric Association

"Brain in the News" is a weekly commentary on how brain science relates to the news. The brain is involved in everything we do. Wherever there are human stories the brain is involved. From the impact of war and natural disasters on the brain to drug abuse scandals to courtroom dramas to politics, the brain is in the news, and you can read about it here. From http://www.amenclinics.com/newsletter/