#84: Ideology for Neurology - Installment #6 [26:28m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (624)

Ideology for Neurology: Working toward neurological perfection.

Ideology-related Case File: ‘Why I Would Choose Neurology Again.’ Would you?

And ideally, with scientific advancements someday we’ll have highly effective diagnostics and treatments related to these news items:

• Iron Accumulation in Gray Matter Tied to Multiple Sclerosis
• New Stem Cell Legislation Introduced
• Stem Cell Therapy For Patients With Sinusitis Successful
• E-Prescribing Called ‘Win-Win’
• Alzheimer’s Programs Recognized for Excellence

Next week’s show: It’s the start of our Summer series of Rapid Fire episodes. There’s so much news to report that we’ll employ our bulleted format of news items, and strive to keep the next 6-8 shows to 15-20 minutes in length. We’ll still report the neurology news using our theme specific installments: Next week it’s our 6th installment of Neurology’s Cutting Edge - Surgery and trauma-related issues for neurology professionals:

• What two classes of medications have recently been found to lessen the deficits resulting from traumatic brain injury?

• And the “jacket” of a delicious sea creature shows great healing and biostimulant properties.

• Recent research from New York and California shows either carotid endarterectomy or stenting is superior to the other.

Weblinks:

• Iron linked to: Cancer, Cardiovascular Disease, Migraine.
• European Scientists’ Call For Action On Stem Cell Legislation.
• Stem Cells Effectively Treat Sinusitis
• Alzheimer’s Foundation Excellence in Care Program

Citations:

• Cohort study of relation between donating blood and risk of myocardial infarction in 2682 men in eastern Finland. British Medical Journal. 2006-12-17.
• Red blood cell aging and risk of cardiovascular diseases. Clinical Hemorheology and Microcirculation 18 (1998) 67-74; 67

 

 #78 Ideology for Neurology - Installment #5 [37:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (745)

Publication Date: July 13th, 2007.

Installment #5 of Ideology for Neurology — working toward neurological perfection Focus: Stem cell therapy.

• Stem Cell Victory in California: CA Supreme Court just cleared the way for the state to use bond funding to pay for the Institute of Regenerative Medicine - a very large-scale stem cell research initiative.
• Stem Cells Treat Rat Paralysis: Paralyzed rats that received mouse embryonic stem cells (and differentiation factors) regrew motor neurons that resulted in roughly 50% recovery of strength in their limbs.
• Palliation Clinically Effective, Reduces Hospital Care Costs: In one patient group the savings were essentially $350 per day.
• Chronic Severe Pain Can Mean Death To Those Left Untreated: With adequate pain control, the % of patients with abnormal serum cortisol levels dropped to just 4% of the patients.
• Conduction Studies Don’t Imperil Cardiac Devices: Electrical output during nerve conduction studies probably don’t imperil implanted cardiac devices.
• Abusive head trauma easily missed in the ED: Shaken baby syndrome misdiagnosed in almost 30% of children.

And Last but not least: Honey-Maggot medicine–anyone?

Next week’s show: Nerve University — education, research and scholarship in neurology.

Weblinks:

• Harvesting one cell from the blastomere (image): www.sfgate.com
• Information on appellants to the CA stem cell legislation: www.curesforcalifornia.com
• Other than the official California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (the California stem cell agency) website, here’s the only other website devoted solely to news and information about CIRM: www.californiastemcellreport.blogspot.com/
• This website lists the hospitals which accept cord blood donations for stem cells, and has contact information for Cryobanks International, which accepts cord blood donations from anywhere in the continental US: www.marrow.org.

 

 #55: Ideology for Neurology, Installment #4 [26:04m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (354)

#55: Ideology for Neurology- Working toward neurological perfection Installment: #4.

Publication Date: Feb 2, 2007.

Show Notes: Some ‘alternative medicine’ approaches for treating Multiple Sclerosis (MS) are showing promise empirically, but controlled studies are largely lacking. If the scientific evidence of efficacy substantiates some of the treatments, it may then be time to integrate them more fully into ‘conventional medicine.’ Possible examples include omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin D, ginkgo biloba, cannabis sativa, bee sting therapy (’apitherapy), acupuncture, hyperbaric oxygen, and maybe even someday the avoidance of dairy in select people.

A French neurologist in the early 1990s conducted a prospective study on more than 200 women with MS. He found that the MS relapse rate dropped by about 80% during pregnancy. Early this year, investigators will start enrolling women with relapsing-remitting MS in a multicenter trial designed to evaluate whether treatment with physiologic levels of estriol - comparable with levels which can be measured during pregnancy - will induce the same reductions in MS activity that have been documented during pregnancy. And MRI measures will be used to assess the MS patients’ progression.

And finally: MRI has revealed that adolescents who play violent video games have less activation in their prefrontal lobes, compared to those who played non-violent video games. The pre-frontal region is not a part of the brain we want to be less active in our young (or older) society members!

Show links: www.vitasearch.com (review of vitamin D as possible preventive and treatment for MS).

 

 #28 - Ideology for Neurology [29:12m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (336)

Working toward neurological perfection.

Publication date: July 28, 2006

 

 #18 - Working toward neurological perfection [28:07m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (408)

Working toward neurological perfection

 

 #9 - Ideology for Neurology- Philosophy toward neurological perfection [34:17m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (9)

Publication date: March 17, 2006