The Old Numbers Racket One way to keep a population unhealthy is to endlessly worry them about getting sick. For the last few decades, purveyors of cholesterol as the core of heart disease have created a medical industrial complex that has been hard to suppress. Now that complex is changing its spots again with new […]
Does Depression Age You? (12/2/13)
The Tale of the Telomeres If you ever get depressed, you will age much faster. Or at least that’s what some recent articles proclaim. The latest – a study from Amsterdam of 2400 people and their genes – looked at their telomeres, the “buffers” of DNA sequences at the end of chromosomes which prevent them […]
Treating Depression Effectively – Getting People To Sleep (11/25/13)
Treatment of Depression Is Often Ineffective The key to successful treatment of depression may be treating the insomnia that accompanies it. What New Research is Changing Attitudes? Rachel Manber at Stanford studied cognitive behavioral treatments for insomniac, depressed people. When their insomnia was fixed following CBT, depression treatment success doubled. Get them to sleep and they stopped being depressed. […]
Multiple You (10/7/13)
One Person – Several Genomes You probably think you possess a single genome – one set of genes. Mom meets Dad, sperm penetrates egg, nine months later you appear. And your life is marked by a single set of genetic instructions that let you enjoy cartoons and ten food commercials every day, master calculus and […]
Psychotherapy While You Sleep (9/30/13)
Thinking While You Sleep Can’t we get people to learn stuff while they sleep? It’s been a dream (pardon the pun) of physicians, psychologists, industrialists and teachers for many many years. Why should eight hours – one third of life – be spent in such a “wasteful” manner? Now, media hype-hopes are rekindled anew with […]