Your breath may soon offer valuable clues about your health. In a new study published in the journal Gut, researchers have developed a technology known as nanoarray analysis that can detect tiny changes in exhaled breath — like differences in the levels of compounds emitted by cells. The breath, analyzed by this device, could provide clues… Continue reading “‘Cancer breath’: Diagnosing cancer using a breathalyzer” →
Category: The Body Electric
Miraculous
Exploring magical worlds with ayahuasca drinkers
Genes linked to autism may also make people smarter
Hot sauce saved his life
Spicy food is good for lots of things, from helping with weight loss to simply tasting delicious. But for one man living in Orland Park, Ill., just outside of Chicago, it can be credited with saving his life.
Thirty-year-old Randy Schmitz doesn’t believe he would have discovered a cancerous brain tumor in its early stages if it wasn’t for sampling the Flashbang hot sauce from Pepper Palace in Myrtle Beach, S.C. while on vacation last August. After sampling the hot sauce, which is packaged like a grenade and contains Carolina Reaper, Scorpion, Ghost, and Habanero peppers, Schmitz fell the ground and experienced a seizure. He was immediately rushed to the hospital, where an MRI scan detected the tumor.
“If I hadn’t tried that, I think something eventually would have triggered the seizure and I would have found out, but the cancer tumor would’ve grown in my head,” Schmitz told the Chicago Tribune. The seizure and his subsequent diagnosis cut his vacation short; he flew home to undergo surgery to remove the 2.5-inch-by-1.5-inch tumor, which rested on his brain’s left frontal lobe. By discovering the tumor, Schmitz was able to undergo radiation and chemotherapy early enough to survive.
It’s unclear whether the hot sauce caused the seizure. Schmitz only tasted it off the tip of a toothpick, but with its spiciness and the fact he had to wait five minutes before drinking any water, it could be possible. Dr. Jeffrey Raizer, medical director of neuro-oncology at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where Schmitz was operated on, said the stressed and dehydrated condition he was in after the tasting matched possible triggers for seizures. “If you eat a habanero, it’s a big jolt to your system,” he told the Tribune.
Orland Park man credits hot sauce with triggering seizure that may have saved his life http://t.co/vNwwN1eiOO pic.twitter.com/qxuPV84dXm
— Chicago Tribune (@chicagotribune) March 13, 2015
With only a month left of chemotherapy left, Schmitz took it upon himself to send Pepper Palace an email thanking them for saving his life. The company, ecstatic about the news, sent him a box of products, including hot sauce, t-shirts, and golf balls.
While it might be better that Schmitz stays away from the Flashbang hot sauce, he might find the others inside the box useful for prevention. Research into capsaicin, the active chemical in chili peppers, has turned up evidence that it could force cancer cells to kill themselves, a process called apoptosis. Nevertheless, let’s hope Schmitz doesn’t develop cancer again.
Psychedelicized
The use of psychedelic drugs does not increase a person’s risk of developing mental health problems, according to new research published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.
Norwegian clinical psychologist Pål-Ørjan Johansen and neuroscientist Teri Suzanne Krebs said the findings show that most of the claims about the harms from psychedelic drugs like LSD, “magic” psilocybe mushrooms, and mescaline-containing cacti are unfounded.
“There is little evidence linking psychedelic use to lasting mental health problems. In general, use of psychedelics does not appear to be particularly dangerous when compared to other activities considered to have acceptable safety,” the researchers wrote in the study.
“Concern about psychedelic use seems to have been based on media sensationalism, lack of information and cultural biases, rather than evidence-based harm assessments.”
The study was based on 135,095 American adults who participated in the annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The researchers found no association between psychedelic drug use and psychological distress, depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, plans, and attempts. Those who used psychedelics were actually less likely to need mental health treatment than those who didn’t use the drugs.
“Over 30 million US adults have tried psychedelics and there just is not much evidence of health problems,” Johansen said in a news release.
Pain
A lot of the junkies in my neighborhood are people who got hooked on oxycontin after an injury. Pain is a big motivator — people will do almost anything to make it stop:
For decades, the World Health Organization has designated pain treatment as afundamental human right. Nonetheless, about 75 percent of the global population still doesn’t have access to basic pain relief medications, according to a new report from United Nations researchers — which means that about 5.5 billion people may suffer in pain if they become chronically or terminally ill.
Human rights scholars consider the uneven access to effective pain medication to be “one of the most neglected realms of global public health.” Even as palliative care has advanced, billions of people around the world continue to needlessly suffer in the final stages of painful diseases like AIDS or cancer. And dealing with chronic pain can also lead to higher rates of psychological distress and disability.
The new report, which was prepared by the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), documents where pain medication is currently concentrated. More than 90 percent of the world’s morphine is consumed by just 17 percent of the global population, mostly Westerners living in wealthy places like the U.S., Canada, Australia, and Western Europe. Meanwhile, even as the developing world has recently seen a rise in the incidence of cancer, there aren’t many opioids left for them.
Continue reading “Pain”
Soda’s caramel coloring will give you cancer
The main thing I hate about getting old
I was reading before I went to sleep last night when I saw a migraine scotoma appear. (See above picture.) I thought, “Oh shit,” turned off the light and went to sleep. But it was hard to sleep, because the scotoma was so much brighter and more colorful than usual.
I woke up two hours later — and the fucking scotoma was still there! After obsessing for an hour or two about the possibility that Lyme spirochetes are indeed invading my brain, I finally get back to sleep.
So I get up this morning, and a few minutes after I sit down at my desk, the damned thing is back. Which means I pop an Excedrin migraine pill and lie down with my eyes closed. After 20 or so minutes, it goes away. (I time it by how many songs played on the radio, since I can’t see.)
But when I went back to my desk, I noticed right away that my vision had changed. You know how when you lose your glasses, and you find an old pair, and you realize how much stronger your current prescription must be? Like that. Which is a little scary, since my computer glasses are pretty strong to begin with.
I know enough about these ocular migraines to know that, under some circumstances, doctors believe they’re more like mini-strokes. Until today, I haven’t had any of those symptoms. But vision change after a migraine isn’t such a good sign, so I contacted Penn to get an appointment with a neuro-ophthalmologist. (Maybe I should just call Rand Paul.)
And this is what I hate about getting old. You never really know which things to pay attention to.
If you can’t do this exercise, you’ll die!
You gotta love online news features, especially when they come from TV. This is from Fox 8 News in Cleveland:
It’s being called the exercise test that can predict your death. A physician in Brazil used something called the sit/rise test to show his aging patients the risk of losing strength and flexibility. The study found strength and balance are pretty good indicators of longevity.
Dr. Marc Gillinov, a Cleveland Clinic cardiologist, said the sit/rise test is a simple way to measure your overall health. “This is what we call an observation study, which means it’s not of highest level of medical evidence, but I believe it to be true…”
A scoring system for the sit/rise exercise indicates how fit you are. If you do the exercise and score 8-10 points, you’re in great shape. If you score 0-3, “you’re 6.5 times more likely to die than those who scored high.”
I asked Swamp Rabbit what the latter statistic means. He said, “It means what it says, I guess. If you score high, you ain’t likely to die.”
“That’s a relief,” I said. “I’ve always wanted to be immortal.”