New drug may protect against opioid overdose

This week researchers announced that a new drug, repinotan, has been produced.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101006132741.htm Repinotan allows an opiate user to receive the pain-relieving benefits of morphine, for example, without risking respiratory suppression since repinotan quickly increases the respiration rate which may be slowed by opiates. Repinotan is being trumpeted as a boon to the medical industry and patients alike since inadvertant, "permanent pain relief" can now be avoided when treating patients with opiates. This boon seems obviously true.

However, I wondered that nowhere in the announcement of repinotan was a mention of the potential boon to opiate addicts. It would seem to me that if an opiate addict takes repinotan before their fix, they will have much less chance of an overdose due to possible respiratory depression. This would be especially true when the addict is incorrect regarding the possibly lethal strength of the opiate dose they are using for any given fix.

My guess is that addicts are still so stigmatized by society in general that their protection is deemed far less important than for assumed non-addict patients in need of opioid pain relief. However, from a politically progressive or a spiritual point of view, every human's life is as valuable as the next. From this vantage point, the invention of repinotan is a potential boon to every mammalian (et al?) body that experiences a reduction of pain, as well as an increased likelihood of physical demise, when their receptor sites are exposed to opioids. My hope is that within my lifetime, all beneficiaries of an up and coming medical treatment such as repinotan will be mentioned along with the usual subjects!

Forgive this Dream

Forgiveness has been defined as 'the shifting of one's perception about one who might otherwise be perceived as one's adversary or antagonist, and instead recognizing the true holiness, even within such a one.' But what if the 'one' to be forgiven is the world itself, or creation as a whole? Many there are who dislike the majority of events they receive in life. Many others hold grudges for a lifetime against predictable individuals -- parents; teachers; lovers; spouses; children; bosses; politicians; gurus...

Yet according to the genius contributors at Wikipedia, and I hope you are one:

'Scientific polls have established that the need to forgive is widely recognized by the general population as an essential element of the healing process, however the exact means of attaining such a forgiveness is not well established. For example, in a large representative sampling of American people on various religious topics in 1988, the Gallup Organization found that 94% said it was important to forgive, but 85% said they needed some outside help to be able to forgive. However, not even regular prayer was found to be effective. The Gallup poll revealed that the only thing that was effective was "meditative prayer"'

So resentment is rife; forgiveness is the way to heal resentment; and meditation is acknowledged as the effective route to forgiveness. Yet how few meditate on a daily basis!

Hafez was a 14th century Persian mystic-poet, who included the importance of forgiveness within his works. Similar to the Yogic concept of 'Maya', or the dream-nature of reality, Hafez alludes to not merely forgiving individuals in one's life but also forgiving dream-creation as a whole. His poem 'Forgive the Dream' is an enduring classic, reminding us to forgive the storm of creation's maya, both once and for all -- and every ongoing day: Meditate!

All your images of winter
I see against your sky.

I understand the wounds
That have not healed in you.

They exist
Because God and Love
Have yet to become real enough

To allow you to forgive
The dream.

You still listen to an old alley song
That brings your body pain;

Now chain your ears
To His pacing drum and flute.

Fix your eyes upon
The magnificent arch of His brow

That supports
And allows this universe to expand.

Your hands, feet, and heart are wise
And want to know the warmth
Of a Perfect One's circle.

A true saint
Is an earth in eternal spring.

Inside the veins of a petal
On a blooming redbud tree

Are hidden worlds
Where Hafiz sometimes
Resides.

I will spread
A Persian carpet there
Woven with light.

We can drink wine
From a gourd I hollowed
And dried on the roof of my house.

I will bring bread I have kneaded
That contains my own
Divine genes

And cheese from a calf I raised.

My love for your Master is such
You can just lean back
And I will feed you
This truth:

Your wounds of love can only heal
When you can forgive
This dream

All hail insects

Having just started to reread Franz Kafka's "Metamorphosis" for the first time, it was a pleasure to read an article today on the potentially immense health benefits to be derived from the benign cockroach. Turns out the cockroach, locust, and likely other insects, have within their bodies a compound so toxic to bacteria that it kills ~90% of Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) and Escherichia coli (E.coli). This is striking because MRSA kills ~20,000/year in the US alone, while E.coli kills 250 more Americans per year. Tens of thousands more are infected per year, of course, and the global impact of these two lethal-to-human organisms is very difficult to calculate.

Kafka's novel metamorphosis from human to amorphous (but very cockroach-like) insect represented his decision to leave the 'normal' world of humanity behind and to become a writer to the exclusion of almost all other activity. To Kafka, both insect and writer are destined to be reviled, isolated, and ultimately killed by mainstream humanity. Fulfilling his prophecy, Kafka died prematurely and in typical hermitic isolation -- from the effects Mycobacteria tuberculosis or one of the few other bacteria types that cause TB.

Tuberculosis we can treat with a rigorous antibiotic regime in our more modern times. But MRSA is a nemesis, and sometimes is resistant to every single antibiotic within our hospital arsenals. Hence MRSA patients are usually isolated and often hooked to last-resort IVs. Another insect is used for treatment when MRSA can begun to kill human skin tissue. Maggots are applied to the wound, as they ingest dead tissue and speed healing time significantly.

Within our lifetimes we may be saving human lives via insect power in many different ways. Maggots to eat dead tissue; cockroach/locust compounds to treat resistant bacterial infection; and whole insects, caught by massive nets and nicely disguised, as a way to help feed the 7+ billion folks on our ever more challenged planet. Saving graces often come from the most surprising places, and I look forward to what other insect remedies present themselves as I make my way through my own metamorphosis.

Lifestyle Medicine gets an allopathic nod

Percentage wise, there are few MDs putting their reputations on the line to stand up for integrative medicine. Mark Hyman is one of these few and far between, and here he reports on the American Council of Preventive Medicine (ACPM) Lifestyle Initiative Program.

"Lifestyle medicine is not just about preventing chronic diseases but also about treating them. It is often more effective and less expensive than relying exclusively on drugs and surgery. Nearly all the major medical societies recently joined in publishing a review of the scientific evidence for lifestyle medicine both for the prevention and TREATMENT of chronic disease. That report is called the ACPM Lifestyle Initiative..."

Within this initiative are the core competencies required for physicians to practice their trades while prescribing the appropriate amount of lifestyle changes for each patient. This increase in lifestyle change prescription will be huge for most doctors, as most of our doctors are MDs and most MDs dont learn the connection between diet, exercise, stress reduction, sleep, interpersonal relations, environmental toxins, spiritual practice, etc, during their lengthy course of study. Naturopathic Doctors (NDs) do, but they are only licensed in ~13 states, and most residents of these states don't know we exist because most insurance doesn't adequately cover our services.

Thus, despite the overwhelming evidence-based reasoning for using lifestyle medicine in the treatment of every acute and chronic disease, now approved by the conservative Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), many millions of people in the USA suffer or die unnecessarily because our doctors don't know how to fully doctor.

The title of Hyman's article on this topic is,

"Millions Die Due to Withheld Medical Treatment" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/millions-die-due-to-withh_b_705114.html , though Hyman acknowledges that most doctors don't have enough awareness of lifestyle medicine to prescribe it in the first place. They aren't withholding treatment, since they're not holding this knowledge in the first place. Yet our MDs make 6 figures yearly, on average, while our NDs barely make 5 figures on average -- when they try to be NDs. Instead, they involuntarily withhold their knowledge as most end up paying their bills via work as UPS drivers, nurses, cooks, massage therapists, et al. A modern day tragedy, affecting the well being of every human, every day...

An excellent idea

In a bit of promising news, we now have packing material that grows itself!

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100727121933.htm

Named 'Mycobond', this new invention allows mushrooms to grow upon sterilized cotton dregs or wood pulp. This growth occurs within plastic molds of customizable shapes, and is stopped via heat treatment once the mold (pun intended!) has been filled. The final product looks and acts quite like synthetic packing foam, but takes only about 1/8 of the energy to create.

Upcoming changes in the sterilization process, from steam heat to essential oil application, are expected to lower that fraction to only 1/40 of the energy needed to make a comparable amount of petro-based plastic packaging. Quite the astronomical savings...plus the essential oil treatment will allow companies to grow their own packaging via a kit supplied by the company, Ecovative, that is responsible for all of these impressive improvements in the way we protect what we ship.

When the packaging is no longer needed for protecting shipments, it is best thrown into the compost. There it returns to nourish the soil, and perhaps to grow more mushrooms or cotton in a near perfect cycle. Hail human ingenuity; now to spread it from here to China.

Gluten News

Today researchers from announced that the trio of protein fragments partially composing the protein called gluten had finally been determined. As this article states:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100721141840.htm

gluten can cause coeliac disease and the skin ailment, dermititis herpetiformis, in those whose immune system reacts excessively to especially the three specific protein fragments discovered by the team of Dr Bob Anderson, head of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute's (Australia) coeliac research laboratory. Coeliac disease impacts an estimated 0.25% of the US population, and it's digestive impact is severe due to inflammation of the small intestine due to the excessive immune response to gluten's "toxic trio."

However, a much higher percentage of individuals are allergic or sensitive to gluten in a manner that does not produce the severe diarrhea of coeliac sprue or the specific skin rash of dermatitis herpetiformis. For these individuals, who make up approximately 5% of Americans (about 15% purportedly have an immune reaction to at least one food), nausea, hives, eczema, mental sluggishness, autoimmunune rheumatoid arthritis, migraines, and respiratory difficulties (anaphyaxis is rare) are the common symptoms.

The proclivity toward gluten sensitivity is genetically linked, and it can be lessened by waiting a full year before feeding a newborn infant any gluten products. Waiting in this way apparently gives the newborn digestive tract a chance to fully develop, and to not allow as many undigested (and therefore perceived by the immune system as foreign) gluten particles to attract babies' antibodies.

Currently little can be done for all of these gluten-related patients unless gluten from wheat, rye, barley, and maybe oats (with oats' avedin being similar to gluten) is avoided. Anti-inflammatories, naturopathic and allopathic, are the most common attempts to control symptoms. In my own case I can eat gluten without getting eczema if I am relaxed and getting plenty of sun. The more stressed I feel, and the less sun I get, the more eczema appears. Before I found out I was gluten sensitive, ten large eczema rings wept down my left chest and left arm and mental sluggishness soon after eating could be extreme -- especially if the gluten came along with sugar in a dessert.

This symptomatic experience of mine is quite common, and if gluten sensitive folks refrain from gluten assiduously for a year or more it is often possible to continue eating moderate amounts of gluten throughout life with minimal reaction. But some, such as my mother and sister, can simply never eat gluten without experiencing some dreaded symptom. Desensitization, using the toxic trio, may be a godsend for them and others who want to relax more around food choices -- often filled with gluten in our grain loving culture.

So this is how it works

We current humans consume and pollute (soon we'll be like the fremen in 'dune' who live in perfect ecological harmony with their environs) and think that eco-disaster is just over the horizon. Then Gaia reveals yet another buffering system that keeps things together just enough that sheer apocalyptic horror never materializes. Gradually we as a species wisen up and become more fremen-like; and Gaia continues relatively unimpeded.

The latest evidence for this encouraging (though I wont get carried away) phenomenon is the bearded goby fish of Namibia. Who would have guessed that such an unprepossessing character could save an entire ecosystem almost singlehandedly? Yet just look what this fish can do, and does: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/07/bearded-goby/

The goby ignores toxic mud and a low-oxygen environment, feeds on overwhelmingly excessive jellyfish populations, and act as necessary food for other species that would die without them. Their presence is called "lucky" by one of the biologists quoted in the article above. Gaia may beg to differ; and perhaps humanity can assist the cause by breeding goby or similar creatures for other toxic sea areas around the world.

There's a lot of big bad news out there right now. Let's celebrate the little, lovable, lucky(?) goby.