But, what and when are we going to do about it? Hurry! Inflammation in the hypothalamus may underlie aging of the entire body, according to a study published today (May 1) in Nature. Over-activation of the inflammatory protein nuclear factor kB (NF-κB) in the brain region leads to a number of aging-related changes in mice, … Continue reading
I love being out in the sun if it’s not too hot. Could it be that my brain reacts the same way it would to desert? This is an interesting study comparing the activity of the brain when people who like to tan indoors are exposed to UV light and when the … Continue reading
In Multiple Sclerosis (MS), the immune system of a patient turns on his or her nervous system, destroying the myelin sheaths that serve as insulation around nerves, disrupting the transmission of nerve signals. The myelin damage often occurs in a patchy manner, at first. See the Medline Plus page from the National Institutes for Health … Continue reading
I mentioned last week that my Mama was ill. My family and I were dealing with very real, very painful real-life bioethics questions. Mama passed away Monday night, while in or on the way back from Magnetic Resonance Arteriography. I was with her, and I’m not sure whether she stopped breathing in the MRA and … Continue reading
While Wesley Smith and I agree on 99.9999% of ethics issues, we disagree on the Texas Advance Directive law. One portion of that law, 166.046 covers cases where the doctor refuses to carry out the end of life decisions of a patient and/or his or her surrogate. Mr. Smith is predicting the “repeal” of what … Continue reading
The Journal of the American Medical Association (This link is to the abstract. Subscription is required for the full article) published an article this week claiming to definitively settle the problem of whether or not children feel pain before birth. Some of you may have read that there are serious ethical questions about the authors, … Continue reading