Connecting the Mind and Body in Ancient Greek Medicine

I investigated Greek medicine and healing shrines in antiquity and focused on the issue of the mind-body connection and how this phenomenon was understood in antiquity. I researched the Athenian plague of 430-425 B.C., sleep and dreams, particularly in the Rites of Incubation, and Hippocratic medicine as well as religious medicine in order to understand more deeply the origins of Greek medicine and how the healing phenomena were practiced and understood. I have come to a greater understanding of this connection between the mind and the body and have come to redefine the placebo effect and argue that the mind can persuade the body, which can greatly aid in the healing process of mental and physical ailments

Gδ-Embeddings in Hilbert space, II

AbstractIn this paper—which is a continuation of [10]—we exhibit some topological conditions on a Banach space which ensure that it contains isometric copies of infinite-dimensional conjugate spaces. This result is used to identify a large class of Banach spaces that are hereditarily separable duals. A method of defining a “Jamestree sum” of a countable number of Banach spaces is given. It is used to construct various counterexamples; for instance, there exists for each integer n a Banach space that can be mapped into Hilbert space via the composition of n but not (n − 1) Gδ-embeddings. We also continue the investigation of the global structure of some geometrically defined Banach spaces. For example, it is shown that a separable Banach space X with the Radon-Nikodym property (R.N.P.) has a subspace y with a boundedly complete finite-dimensional decomposition (F.D.D.) such that XY has an F.D.D. and the R.N.P

Non-Traditional and Non-Invasive Approaches in Facial Rejuvenation: A Brief Review

While injectables, lasers, and surgical interventions have traditionally been used to reverse the changes associated with facial aging, other alternative therapies such as facial acupuncture and facial exercises are now being studied for facial rejuvenation. In this paper, we both summarize the concepts of facial acupuncture and facial exercises, and review seven studies that evaluate the efficacy of these modalities. Data from these studies suggest that both facial acupuncture and facial exercises have the potential to improve the skin laxity, wrinkle length, muscle thickness, and pigmentary changes associated with aging. Patients frequently reported improvement and experienced very few side effects. However, further research is necessary before these modalities are widely accepted as effective by the medical community, though the results of these studies may ultimately make providers less hesitant when patients seek out these services

Non-Traditional and Non-Invasive Approaches in Facial Rejuvenation: A Brief Review

While injectables, lasers, and surgical interventions have traditionally been used to reverse the changes associated with facial aging, other alternative therapies such as facial acupuncture and facial exercises are now being studied for facial rejuvenation. In this paper, we both summarize the concepts of facial acupuncture and facial exercises, and review seven studies that evaluate the efficacy of these modalities. Data from these studies suggest that both facial acupuncture and facial exercises have the potential to improve the skin laxity, wrinkle length, muscle thickness, and pigmentary changes associated with aging. Patients frequently reported improvement and experienced very few side effects. However, further research is necessary before these modalities are widely accepted as eective by the medical community, though the results of these studies may ultimately make providers less hesitant when patients seek out these services

Exploring the diversity of Gardnerella vaginalis in the genitourinary tract microbiota of monogamous couples through subtle nucleotide variation

© The Author(s), 2011. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PLoS One 6 (2011): e26732, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0026732.Bacterial vaginosis (BV) is an enigmatic disease of unknown origin that affects a large percentage of women. The vaginal microbiota of women with BV is associated with serious sequelae, including abnormal pregnancies. The etiology of BV is not fully understood, however, it has been suggested that it is transmissible, and that G. vaginalis may be an etiological agent. Studies using enzymatic assays to define G. vaginalis biotypes, as well as more recent genomic comparisons of G. vaginalis isolates from symptomatic and asymptomatic women, suggest that particular G. vaginalis strains may play a key role in the pathogenesis of BV. To explore G. vaginalis diversity, distribution and sexual transmission, we developed a Shannon entropy-based method to analyze low-level sequence variation in 65,710 G. vaginalis 16S rRNA gene segments that were PCR-amplified from vaginal samples of 53 monogamous women and from urethral and penile skin samples of their male partners. We observed a high degree of low-level diversity among G. vaginalis sequences with a total of 46 unique sequence variants (oligotypes), and also found strong correlations of these oligotypes between sexual partners. Even though Gram stain-defined normal and some Gram stain-defined intermediate oligotype profiles clustered together in UniFrac analysis, no single G. vaginalis oligotype was found to be specific to BV or normal vaginal samples. This study describes a novel method for investigating G. vaginalis diversity at a low level of taxonomic discrimination. The findings support cultivation-based studies that indicate sexual partners harbor the same strains of G. vaginalis. This study also highlights the fact that a few, reproducible nucleotide variations within the 16S rRNA gene can reveal clinical or epidemiological associations that would be missed by genus-level or species-level categorization of 16S rRNA data.This work is supported by funding from the Research Institute for Children in New Orleans and NIH grant 5RO1AI79071-2

Trade and health: how World Trade Organization(WTO) law affects alcohol and public health

The alcohol field is becoming more aware of the consequences of world trade law for alcohol policies. However, there is a need for greater clarity about the different effects of trade on alcohol-related harm. Methods A comprehensive review of all literature on alcohol and world trade [including World Trade Organization (WTO) disputes on alcohol], supported by amore selective review of other relevant cases, academic reports and the grey literature on trade and health. Results The burden of WTO law on alcohol policies depends upon the type of policy in question. Purely protectionist policies are likely to be struck down, which may lead to increases in alcohol-related harm. Partly protectionist and partly health-motivated policies are also at risk of being struck down. However, purely health-motivated policies are likely to be defended by the WTO—and to the extent that policy makers misunderstand this, they are needlessly avoiding effective ways of reducing alcohol-related harm. Conclusions WTO agreements contain genuine and substantial risks to alcohol policies, and various ways of minimizing future risks are suggested. However, the‘chilling effect’ of mistakenly overestimating these constraints should be avoided. Health policy makers should decide on which policies to pursue based primarily on considerations of effectiveness, ethics and politics rather than legality. As long as any effect of these policies on trade is minimized, they are overwhelmingly likely towin any challenges at the WTO

Hypothenar hammer syndrome: Proposed etiology

AbstractPurpose: Finger ischemia caused by embolic occlusion of digital arteries originating from the palmar ulnar artery in a person repetitively striking objects with the heel of the hand has been termed hypothenar hammer syndrome (HHS). Previous reports have attributed the arterial pathology to traumatic injury to normal vessels. A large experience leads us to hypothesize that HHS results from trauma to intrinsically abnormal arteries. Methods: We reviewed the arteriography, histology, and clinical outcome of all patients treated for HHS in a university clinical research center study of hand ischemia, which prospectively enrolled more than 1300 subjects from 1971 to 1998. Results: Twenty-one men had HHS. All had occupational (mechanic, carpenter, etc) or avocational (woodworker) exposure to repetitive palmar trauma. All patients underwent upper-extremity and hand arteriography, unilateral in eight patients (38%) and bilateral in 13 patients (62%). By means of arteriogram, multiple digital artery occlusions were shown in the symptomatic hand, with either segmental ulnar artery occlusion in the palm or characteristic “corkscrew” elongation, with alternating stenoses and ectasia. Similar changes in the contralateral asymptomatic (and less traumatized) hand were shown by means of 12 of 13 bilateral arteriograms (92%). Twenty-one operations, consisting of segmental ulnar artery excision in the palm and vein grafting, were performed on 19 patients. Histology was compatible with fibromuscular dysplasia with superimposed trauma. Patency of arterial repairs at 2 years was 84%. One patient (5%) required amputative debridement of necrotic finger tips. No other tissue loss occurred. There have been no recurrences of ischemia in patients with patent bypass grafts. Conclusion: To our knowledge, this is the largest reported group of HHS patients. The characteristic angiographic appearance, histologic findings, and striking incidence of bilateral abnormalities in patients with unilateral symptoms lead us to conclude that HHS occurs when persons with preexisting palmar ulnar artery fibrodysplasia experience repetitive palmar trauma. This revised theory for the etiology of HHS explains why HHS does not develop in most patients with repetitive palmar trauma. (J Vasc Surg 2000;31:104-13.

Don't break a leg: Running birds from quail to ostrich prioritise leg safety and economy in uneven terrain

Cursorial ground birds are paragons of bipedal running that span a 500-fold mass range from quail to ostrich. Here we investigate the task-level control priorities of cursorial birds by analysing how they negotiate single-step obstacles that create a conflict between body stability (attenuating deviations in body motion) and consistent leg force–length dynamics (for economy and leg safety). We also test the hypothesis that control priorities shift between body stability and leg safety with increasing body size, reflecting use of active control to overcome size-related challenges. Weight-support demands lead to a shift towards straighter legs and stiffer steady gait with increasing body size, but it remains unknown whether non-steady locomotor priorities diverge with size. We found that all measured species used a consistent obstacle negotiation strategy, involving unsteady body dynamics to minimise fluctuations in leg posture and loading across multiple steps, not directly prioritising body stability. Peak leg forces remained remarkably consistent across obstacle terrain, within 0.35 body weights of level running for obstacle heights from 0.1 to 0.5 times leg length. All species used similar stance leg actuation patterns, involving asymmetric force–length trajectories and posture-dependent actuation to add or remove energy depending on landing conditions. We present a simple stance leg model that explains key features of avian bipedal locomotion, and suggests economy as a key priority on both level and uneven terrain. We suggest that running ground birds target the closely coupled priorities of economy and leg safety as the direct imperatives of control, with adequate stability achieved through appropriately tuned intrinsic dynamics