A ghost haunting our vets

The autopsy of a young vet's brain revealed something startling that may shed light on the epidemic of suicides and other troubles experienced by veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

His brain had been physically changed by a disease called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E. That’s a degenerative condition best-known for affecting boxers, football players and other athletes who endure repeated blows to the head. 

In people with C.T.E., an abnormal form of a protein accumulates and eventually destroys cells throughout the brain, including the frontal and temporal lobes. Those are areas that regulate impulse control, judgment, multitasking, memory and emotions.

Experts have since autopsied a dozen or more other veterans’ brains and have repeatedly found C.T.E.

The findings raise a critical question: Could blasts from bombs or grenades have a catastrophic impact similar to those of repeated concussions in sports, and could the rash of suicides among young veterans be a result?

“P.T.S.D. in a high-risk cohort like war veterans could actually be a physical disease from permanent brain damage, not a psychological disease,” said Bennet Omalu, a neuropathologist.

C.T.E. leads to a degenerative loss of memory and thinking ability and, eventually, to dementia. There is also often a pattern of depression, impulsiveness and, all too often, suicide. There is now no treatment, or even a way of diagnosing C.T.E. other than examining the brain after death.

Another weed you need to eat

Chew on this.

OK, it seems to be official: my yoga instructor, Nina Namaste, says she's eating nothing but kale these days, so, as I do in class when she's not looking, I'm not going to eat it.

But maybe you should.

Kale, also known as borecole, is one of the healthiest vegetables on the planet, WB MD says in an article entitled "The Truth About Kale," and lord knows it's time to get to the bottom of it.

A leafy green, kale is available in curly, ornamental, or dinosaur varieties. It belongs to the Brassica family that includes cruciferous vegetables such as cabbage, collards, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts.

Oh great. Broccoli and Brussels sprouts. So you live forever -- but in misery.

One cup of kale contains 36 calories, 5 grams of fiber, and 15% of the daily requirement of calcium and vitamin B6 (pyridoxine), 40% of magnesium, 180% of vitamin A, 200% of vitamin C, and 1,020% of vitamin K. It is also a good source of minerals copper, potassium, iron, manganese, and phosphorus. 

Kale’s health benefits are primarily linked to the high concentration and excellent source of antioxidant vitamins A, C, and K -- and sulphur-containing phytonutrients. 

Carotenoids and flavonoids are the specific types of antioxidants associated with many of the anti-cancer health benefits. Kale is also rich in the eye-health promoting lutein and zeaxanthin compounds. 

Beyond antioxidants, the fiber content of cruciferous kale binds bile acids and helps lower blood cholesterol levels and reduce the risk of heart disease, especially when kale is cooked instead of raw.

But too much vitamin K can pose problems for some people, the article warns. There you go. Bacon cheese burgers don't do that.

Try not to have a heart attack

Somebody call Louie!

I got some good numbers in my annual physical this week on cholesterol, blood sugar, triglycerides and a bunch of other things swooshing around inside me.

I took this to mean that I had another week to live, and that I wouldn't have to clean out those papers in the basement that my heirs and assigns will have to dig through to find the list of jokes I want told at my funeral.

And I was emboldened to put my latest idea to my doctor, Louie "Look to the Left and Cough" Lesion. Doc, I said, what if I get rid of all these meds and substitute an hour of strenuous exercise a day and a vegan diet?

Louie looked as though he was in prayer. He was probably asking the Almighty where he gets such patients. He was probably recalling the medical school stories of what was to come. He knew, as well as I, that I'd never do any of that. But he pretended to take me seriously. That's the mark of a good doctor.

It all depends on your arteries, he said. Let's take a scan of your chest and see what they look like. Good idea, I thought. Maybe I'll find my car keys.

All of which is a lead up to an article in The Wall Street Journal on heart attacks. I don't know if they'll let you through the paywall to read it, but they should.

What caught my eye was a section on exercise.

Guidelines urge three hours a week of brisk exercise to maintain heart health, but many people who can't find the time to work up a sweat for 30 minutes most days don't bother. "It's the all or nothing phenomenon," says Martha Grogan, a cardiologist at Mayo Clinic. 

But how about 10 minutes a day? While the 30-minute target is associated with a 70% reduction in heart-attack risk over a year, Mayo researchers analyzed the data and noticed that a brisk 10-minute walk a day results in a nearly 50% reduction compared with people who get hardly any exercise. 

The actual benefit varies depending on age, gender, weight and base line physical condition, and those at highest risk have the most to gain. "If you can do more, then you're better off," says Dr. Grogan. "But small amounts of exercise aren't nothing." Still, cardiologists say a 30-minute daily workout should be the goal.

And then there's what most of us do all day, sit.

Even regular exercise isn't sufficient if you're confined to a desk or a couch for the rest of the day. 

A study from Australian researchers published two years ago found that spending more than four hours a day in front of a computer or television was associated with a doubling of serious heart problems, even among people who exercised regularly. The researchers tracked 4,512 men and women, mostly in their late 50s, for four years and compared them against those spending less than two hours in front a screen. 

Prolonged sitting was associated with higher levels of inflammatory markers in the blood, higher body weight and lower levels of HDL, or good cholesterol, indicating that sedentary behavior has its own bad biology apart from whether you're physically active.

"For people who sit most of the day, their risk of a heart attack is about the same as smoking," Dr. Grogan says.

 I just did my 30-minute walk. Now I'm sitting again. I should probably do some cleaning up in the basement.

That apple a day thing

Bite me.

Eating an apple a day brings extraordinary health benefits, Kathy Freston writes.

A major review published in 2008 out of the German Cancer Research Center found that indeed, compared with those who eat less than an apple a day, those who eat one or more had less risk of oral cancer, cancer of the voice box, breast cancer, and colon, kidney, and ovarian cancer as well. 

This makes sense given new research from Cornell showing that apple peels have potent antioxidant and growth-blocking effects on human breast cancer cells examined in a petri dish, and the higher the apple concentration, the fewer the cancer cells. And apples seem to work best against estrogen-receptor-negative breast cancer, which is much harder to treat than the receptor-positive kind.

How do apples do what they do?

There are three stages of tumor formation. Carcinogens cause the initial DNA mutations (the initiation stage), and then oxidation, inflammation, and hormones cause it to grow (the promotion stage); finally, metastasis occurs, in which the cancer spreads throughout the body. Which steps have apples been found to block? All of them. Apples not only have antimutagenic, antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory effects, but they may even enhance our immune systems to help clear out any budding tumors before they get their start.

Apples will also help you lose weight, she says. Continuing eating as you do now, but eat an apple first. The special fiber in apples will make you feel full longer, and you'll eat less of everything else.

Enough with the tests already

If I ask my doctor for a test, he will almost always grant my request. He will also ship me off to a specialist if it looks like I have something spooky. Now this is what family dcotors are trained to do.

When I go to a specialist this begins a whole new relationship, mostly involving "I'd like to see you again in six months."

The last time I went to see such a specialist, I said, "Look, I"m not going to sue you. Don't practice defensive medicine with me. I like you, but I'd rather not ever come back here again.

I've calculated that there's about a 75 percent overlap between physical therapy and yoga -- meaning that yoga, which is not covered by insurance, is good enough for most of my aches and pains.

These are some of the reasons our healthcare system is so screwed up. Despite its thousands of pages, Obamacare has nothing to say about doctors' liiability. Most doctors aren't trained in nutrition or exercise or yoga or any of the wellness things. They are trained to spot symptoms and order a drug, a specialist or surgery. Marcus Welby is long dead.

All of this also pushes up costs, which Obamacare intends to deal with by denying you certain types of care. Some bureaucrats in Washington are going to make those decisions. Bad as your insurance company is in saying no, imagine that coming from some committee in Washington.

Today comes yet another example of our current system at work.

Doctors in urology groups that profit from tests for prostate cancer order more of them than doctors who send samples to independent laboratories, according to a study in the journal Health Affairs. 

The study found that doctors' practices that do their own lab work bill the federal Medicare program for analyzing 72% more prostate tissue samples per biopsy while detecting fewer cases of cancer than counterparts who send specimens to outside labs. 

Hiring pathologists boosts revenue for a practice and creates a potential incentive to increase the number of tests ordered, said Jean Mitchell, a Georgetown University economist and author of the study.

Given how many urologists want to biopsy my prostate, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that a) they don't want to get sued, and b) they may be trying to pay for some expensive biopsy equipment they've bought.

Maybe this is why Eve

Eat this, live forever.

gave Adam the apple.

Men who eat flavonoid-rich foods such as berries, tea, apples and red wine significantly reduce their risk of developing Parkinson's disease, according to new research by Harvard University and the University of East Anglia (UEA).

Around 130,000 men and women took part in the research. More than 800 had developed Parkinson's disease within 20 years of follow-up. After a detailed analysis of their diets and adjusting for age and lifestyle, male participants who ate the most flavonoids were shown to be 40 per cent less likely to develop the disease than those who ate the least. No similar link was found for total flavonoid intake in women.

This is the first study in humans to look at the associations between the range of flavonoids in the diet and the risk of developing Parkinson's disease and our findings suggest that a sub-class of flavonoids called anthocyanins may have neuroprotective effects. 

Prof. XiangGao said: "Interestingly, anthocyanins and berry fruits, which are rich in anthocyanins, seem to be associated with a lower risk of Parkinson's disease in pooled analyses. Participants who consumed one or more portions of berry fruits each week were around 25 per cent less likely to develop Parkinson's disease, relative to those who did not eat berry fruits. Given the other potential health effects of berry fruits, such as lowering risk of hypertension as reported in our previous studies, it is good to regularly add these fruits to your diet." 

Flavonoids are a group of naturally occurring, bioactive compunds found in many plant-based foods and drinks. In this study the main protective effect was from higher intake of anthocyanins, which are present in berries and other fruits and vegetables including aubergines, blackcurrants and blackberries. Those who consumed the most anthocyanins had a 24 per cent reduction in risk of developing Parkinson's disease and strawberries and blueberries were the top two sources in the US diet.

Basically, men have to start eating like women.

Supreme irony

(via American Digest)

Miracles and wonders: a healing "lamprey"

Swimming in your body?

Here is a glimpse into the future of medicine.

Tiny microelectromechanical machines running through our bodies are the pursuit of nano labs across the globe, but a team of researchers wants something more: a tiny biomimicking robot that functions like a living creature loaded with sensors derived from animal cells. Called “Cyberplasm,” this robot would mash up biomimicking robotic components with actual mammalian cells to create robot systems and sensors that respond to stimuli like chemicals and light the way living organisms do. “Eye” and “nose” sensors would be derived from animal cells, while an artificial electronic nervous system will record data from Cyberplasm’s surroundings and respond to external stimuli via artificial muscles that are powered by glucose.The whole Cyberplasm system would be modeled on the sea lamprey, an Atlantic-dwelling creature with a simple nervous system that should be relatively easy to mimic. Using the lamprey as a model, the researchers hope to produce a one-centimeter-long prototype capable of swimming around and sensing on its own.

Researchers have designed a new treatment approach that appears to halt the spread of cancer cells into normal brain tissue in animal models. The researchers treated animals possessing an invasive tumor with a vesicle carrying a molecule called imipramine blue, followed by conventional doxorubicin chemotherapy. The tumors ceased their invasion of healthy tissue and the animals survived longer than animals treated with chemotherapy alone.

A vaccine delivered in an injection or nasal spray to prevent heart attacks could be available within five years. Scientists have discovered that the drug stimulates the body's immune system to produce antibodies which prevent heart disease by stopping fat building up in the arteries. The vaccine can cut the build up of fat in arteries by up to 70 per cent.

Researchers have found a "universal" vaccine that could for the first time allow for the effective, wide-scale prevention of flu by limiting the influenza virus's ability to spread and mutate. Universal, or cross-protective, vaccines — so named for their effectiveness against several flu strains — are being developed in various labs worldwide and some are already in clinical trials. The new vaccines would make a bout with influenza less severe, making it more difficult for the virus to spread. At the same time, the vaccines would target relatively unchanging parts of the virus and hamper the virus's notorious ability to evolve and evade immunity.

Have a cup

(Happy to Serve You via American Digest)