Back When It Was Over The Counter

[Stubby]

I recall reading during WWII, Soldiers in the Japanese Imperial army were killing themselves, and the problem became so acute that the Emperor had to issue an order that no man was to kill himself without specific authorization to do so.

Do you have a source for this? Just curious

[paperburn1]

Yes, illegally and legally, and neither works as the common mode of purpose is palliation, not cure.

We are closer on this issue than I previously realized. I have spent some real money on removing things I consider bad or not necessary for you from my food chain. My first inkling is when the water supply for the house I rented was considered hazardous. It was located near a old oil station. The guys taking samples put on hazmat suits after sampling my water. when they found out the house I rented was connected to that well they were visibly concerned. They ask me if I drank the water and I said no it taste funny I have water shipped in from culligan. There response was "Thank god don't drink any" When I ask what was wrong they said the landowner would have a report by Friday. It was Tuesday.
When I went to the landlord about it I was told by him don't worry about it. Went back to the hazmat guys and they gave me a laundry list of what was wrong (they were not suppose to show anything to me because I was not the landowner.) but they were more worried about my health than the law. In the mean time the rest of the landlords family connected to the well moved out of the surrounding houses in that month. I moved shortly after that buying my house. Thankfully because of my work at the time I spent very little time living there. Long story short, it is now a superfund hazardous waste site. Now I filter my own water. (Its amazing what is allowed in city water without regulation) and try to grow as much of my own food as possible with as little chemicals as possible. I too feel there is a lot of our physical problems are self induced by our lifestyles.

[ladajo]

Yes, I agree as well.

Another point to consider is that our tolorence for discomfort and pain has been civilized and marketed out of us. The system would have us convinced we can all live air-brushed perfect lives full of warm fuzzy happy and content.

The average person has some inability (on purpose???) to reconcile the disparity and thus becomes inclined to seek forms of escapism. Drugs being one of the popular methods for the more disaffected.

[mvanwink5]

There is another view, and that is that there is an infectious cause for all those "normal' problems (arthritis, arteriosclerosis, diabetes, cancers, CFS, fibromyalgia, sarcoidosis, ALS, multiple sclerosis, chronic lyme, crohn's disease, alzheimer's disease, hashimoto's disease, etc X1000, not to mention all the so called psychiatric diseases.

[ladajo]

I know some cancers have been proven to be based on a virus. Could be some of the other issues as well.

You have a point in that modern medicine is about treating symptoms, not the source. The primary symptotic complaint is "pain".

[mvanwink5]

Depression, lack of motivation, lack of mental will are heavily correlated with all the chronic diseases and shown to be a result of increased cytokines, which are themselves essential to the immune response (when the immune system is kicking ass, you feel bad, but not because of the illness, the immune response itself is the cause). Consequently the standard "treatment," palliation, is to dampen down the immune response, doc, just give me some relief! Wherein lies the rub, if the heightened immune activity is in response to an underlying common infectious cause (thousands of differing infection variations, all resulting in increased cytokine levels), dampening down the immune system (standard treatment) provides relief, but only at the expense of a downward disease spiral. It also shouldn't be a surprise that such treatment would invariable lead to other chronic infections resulting from immune system suppression from the standard palliative treatment (hence the 40% with one and 25% with two or more)... and everyone is taking pharma pills (or herbal "treatments"). So, successive infection leads to successive infection, leading to increased disease symptoms with age, and deteriorating immune efficacy.

So, the secondary symptoms (depression, mental jujitsu, not just physical pain) are tied to the heavy demand for palliation and not seen as collateral to ubiquitous, but varied, chronic disease. The problem is that treating chronic disease for cure has to involve returning the immune system to a functioning state with increased cytokine levels (misery) and avoiding the palliation for instant relief. Hard for medical professionals to sell. Hence the downward spiral.

Parasites have long been known for manipulation of complex behavior to suit their needs, that includes such "simple" bacteria, fungi, and viruses (not to imply intelligence or motivation, just adaptation over eons, they evolved alongside animals and plants, and are related at an earlier primitive stage).

[mvanwink5]

Cornerstone of modern medicine published in 1890 (just to give insight at medical "progress"):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch%27s_postulates
Koch's postulates are the following:
1. The microorganism must be found in abundance in all organisms suffering from the disease, but should not be found in healthy organisms.
2. The microorganism must be isolated from a diseased organism and grown in pure culture.
3. The cultured microorganism should cause disease when introduced into a healthy organism.
4. The microorganism must be reisolated from the inoculated, diseased experimental host and identified as being identical to the original specific causative agent.
Of course, the weaknesses in these postulates is generally understood, the paradigm, however, is one organism - one disease (so if you can't find it then it isn't the cause), and tools to find such organisms were primitive until about 2005 when the NIH began a catalog project to allow detection by genome sequencing of thousands of bacteria and fungi, plus the technological ability to rapidly sequence a sample. Therefore, the medical revolution in understanding chronic disease as infectious is shaking off 125 years of root bound medical guild and government regulation (FDA) procedure. In the Koch paradigm, there is no room for successive infection, of hundreds or thousands of bacteria and fungi synergistically working together to undermine the immune system to survive (under the radar). And how do you replicate that in a lab petri dish? Or see it when the bacteria require an electron microscope to see, where the bacteria are so small they can pass through a viral filter?

Just to give some examples of known bacteria that can defeat cellular innate immune function to survive inside cells, tuberculosis and leprocy are well known. Hystoplasmosis is another common fungi infection that can become chronic (joints, muscle, depression, etc symptoms). But, the issue is not disease by one or two or three agents, but by bacteria that are so small that you can have symbiotic communities in vacuoles inside lymphocytes, the very immune cells charged with killing the bacteria. Treatment for cure is extremely difficult as the minimum inhibitory concentration is cut down by two walls, the cell wall and the vacuole wall, so antibiotics rarely work 100%.

So, technologically we are just getting started in recognizing the bacteria are there due to the newness of tools (new field of metagenomics), and therefore the theory behind chronic disease is couched in Koch, guilds, and the heavy syrup of protective government regulations and agencies (not to mention the money to be made on treatment not for cure). Hence, no agent found, it must be an "autoimmune" disease, or genetic, or just bad luck. And the tie to cancer? Well, cancer is generally dealt with by the immune system. And another aside, the nuclear receptors responsible for stem cell expression are integrally tied to the intracellular innate immune system, so "aging" is married to an efficacious immune system.

Yeah, I have been reading on this for 3 1/2 years, sorry for the rant.

[ladajo]

Thanks for the input. Interesting.

On another note:

"The general public thinks marijuana is harmless, but information revealing the potential health dangers of marijuana use needs to be disseminated to the public, policymakers and healthcare providers," lead study author Émilie Jouanjus, a medical faculty member at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Toulouse

New French Study

I haven't looked up the actual study yet, but it looks interesting fomr the press release. Of note is the idea that Pot use complications are under-reported and under-documented, thus skewing perceptions and facts.

[mvanwink5]

Many think the major issue with smoking is the chemicals in the smoke. What is rarely considered is that the bacteria in cigarette smoke is the same bacteria that infests the lungs of those suffering the debilitating disease COPD. Marijuana would likely have its own microbiome.
Talking about the human microbiome, here is an article in "The Economist," titled The human Microbiome Me, Myself, Us

[mvanwink5]

Simplistic views of bacteria as large and unsophisticated is common. In the first article simple communication myth is dispelled. In the second article, biofilms outside of cells persists to cause chronic disease. What is commonly off radar is the thought that bacteria are so small that they can set up inside cells, long term...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 221420.htm
Microbes provide insights into evolution of human language
April 23, 2014

Research into Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a type of bacteria common in water and soil, shows that they can communicate in a way that was previously thought to be unique to humans and perhaps some other primates. The bacteria used combinatorial communication, in which two signals are used together to achieve an effect that is different to the sum of the effects of the component parts.

Older article, but related as communication is important for bacertia defense against our immune system
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 085832.htm
Bacteria 'Launch A Shield' To Resist Attack
November 3, 2009

Bacteria that cause chronic lung infections can communicate with each other to form a deadly shield against the body's natural defenses. Studying these interactions could lead to new ways of treating bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics.
Researchers from the University of Copenhagen and the Technical University of Denmark along with other collaborators in Denmark and the US found that the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa can 'switch on' production of molecules that kill white blood cells -- preventing the bacteria being eliminated by the body's immune system.
P. aeruginosa is responsible for many hospital-acquired infections and also causes chronic infections in those with pre-existing medical conditions such as cystic fibrosis (CF). The bacteria cause persistent lung infections by clumping together to form a biofilm, which spreads over the lungs like a slime. Such biofilms are generally resistant to antibiotics as well as the host immune response.
The study showed that P. aeruginosa uses a well-studied communication system called quorum sensing (QS) to detect approaching white blood cells and warn other bacteria in the biofilm. In response to this signal, the bacteria increase their production of molecules called rhamnolipids. These molecules sit on the biofilm surface to form a shield that destroys any white blood cells that encounter it. Interrupting quorum sensing to halt the "launch a shield" response could be a way of treating these bacteria that can resist antibiotics as well as the host immune system.

[mvanwink5]

In case there is doubt of infection of human immune cells by bacteria and how small bacteria can be:
Tiny "pleomorphic" bacteria have been photographed living within the cells of the immune system of sarcoidosis patients. Emil and Barbara Wirostko produced stunning electron microscope photographs of immune phagocytes each containing hundreds of tiny bacterial forms, around 0.01 to 0.025 microns in diameter, living in colonies within the very cells (phagocytes) which are supposed to kill these bacterial parasites. One of the Wirostko photographs can be found at
It is important to understand that these bacteria are "coccoid" (round, and very, very small), 10 to 100 times smaller than the shapes these same pleomorphic bacteria will take when they enter the bloodstream.






[mvanwink5]

Only the uninformed worry about chemicals when the microbiome is the sword hovering over our head. And illegal drugs are just our feeble attempt to deal this what we can't see screwing with our brains...and we blame our bizarre destructive behavior on every half cocked theory that comes along...

[mvanwink5]

Here is a new article published in Nature on the Microbiome, and mentioned in AAAS. These guys haven't wrapped their heads around the idea that the Microbiome extends to intracellular environments including the inside of immune cells such as phagocytes. The full article in Nature is paywalled of course, but here is what the editor said:

Sci Transl Med 30 April 2014:
Vol. 6, Issue 234, p. 234ec78
Sci. Transl. Med. DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.3009260

MICROBIOME
The Sum of One’s Parts? What Our Microbiomes Say About Us
. Ephraim L. Tsalik
+
Author Affiliations
. Emergency Medicine Service, Durham VA Medical Center; Department of Medicine, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27705, USA. E-mail: e.t@duke.edu
We have long known that our bodies are populated by a massive number of diverse microorganisms. As advanced DNA sequencing technologies emerged, so did the ability to comprehensively define these commensals. To that end, the National Institutes of Health oversees the international Human Microbiome Project (HMP), which characterizes the microbiome in health and disease. Advancing this effort, Ding and Schloss offer an analysis of the microbiome over time, at different body sites, and in relation to our lives—past and present.
Before making these associations, the authors first asked a more fundamental question: How to profile hundreds of bacterial genera so as to compare across sites, over time, and between individuals? Two models have been proposed, each associated with a different biological interpretation: partitioning around the medoid and the Dirichlet multinomial mixture. Applying both revealed the latter to be superior, suggesting that the types of bacterial communities represent clusters of relative abundance profiles, as opposed to partitioning of an abundance gradient.
Armed with this analytical strategy, the authors defined multiple community types in 300 healthy adults. Serial samples were obtained from 18 body sites (15 in men) in conjunction with clinical, demographic, geographic, and socioeconomic data. The first and perhaps most intriguing finding was the association between community type and history of breastfeeding (seen in stool community types), gender (stool and skin), and education level (vaginal sites). Sampling multiple body sites revealed high correlations at similar locations such as the hard palate and saliva. Last, the authors compared communities over time and found variable stability. Stool and vaginal communities were the most stable, whereas oral communities were the least.
There is a growing literature highlighting the importance of the microbiome in illness. By defining the spectrum of community types across the bodies of so many healthy individuals, Ding and Schloss provide a context for future comparisons and highlight the importance of incorporating personal history in future microbiome research.
T. Ding, P. D. Schloss, Dynamics and associations of microbial community types across the human body. Nature, published online 16 April 2014 (10.1038/nature13178). [Full Text]
Copyright © 2014, American Association for the Advancement of Science