Dear Thyroid guest blogger Dr. Sara Gottfried wrote a fascinating post about the endocrine madness caused by the hormones released by the adrenals, thyroid and sex glands. “Once I got how all these crazy thyroid, adrenal and sex hormones fit together, much of the thyroid chaos fell away, both for my patients and myself.” Dr. Gottfried writes. Read on for some fascinating lessons on this wild hormonal soup that can wreak havoc on your thyroid and how you can balance your system.
Archive for the ‘Medical Guts’ Category
Hormonal Circus
Posted: Friday, June 25th, 2010We Heart CHLA!
Posted: Monday, June 21st, 2010
Children’s Hospital Los Angeles officially has the coolest and spunkiest transplant unti ever — a bunch of the amazing nurses on staff there participated in a recent Donate Life walk outfitted in I Heart Guts tees and carrying stuffed guts as they walked. They made fab posters (“Lungs, Livers and Kidneys, Oh My!”) and raised money to support organ donation awareness. So cool! Thanks, Cassandra, for these great photos, and for including the guts in your amazing work!
Longevity Meds
Posted: Thursday, June 10th, 2010
Scientists at the National Institute on Aging may have found a fountain of youth in the transplant anti-rejection drug rapamycin. A medication long used to help prevent the rejection of transplanted organs, the drug has recently been found to extend life in other ways — lab mice who took rapamycin had their life expectancies extend as much as 38%. {via CNN}
Mind Your Guts
Posted: Friday, May 21st, 2010
We most often think of serotonin as being a mood-altering chemical that works the nerves in our brain to make us happy or sad, but did you know that most of the body’s serotonin is actually produced in the gut, where it works to regulate your bowels? “Such a copious amount of serotonin is released into the gut every day, in fact, that it would be lethal if the excess were not disposed of by certain cells in the gut lining that contain serotonin transporters,” says an article on Psychiatric News, which describes this interesting brain-gut connection. While you’ve still got serotonin on the brain, check out this gorgeous serotonin molecule necklace by Made With Molecules.
Glucose Robot
Posted: Wednesday, May 19th, 2010
Could a robotic pancreas someday regulate blood sugar levels for diabetes patients? Perhaps. This gadget measures blood sugar levels and delivers insulin so you don’t have to, however, don’t expect to see it on store shelves anytime soon, the manufacturers have a lot of hoops to jump through before this thing is perfected and approved. {via Ubergizmo}
Biological Legos
Posted: Friday, May 14th, 2010
Scientists haven’t improved much on biology when it comes to rebuilding human organs, but a new technology that allows a new way to create and assemble artificial tissues may change that soon. Tissue engineers at MIT-Harvard Division of Health Sciences and Technology found a way to gather cells together like bricks that bind into larger structures like tissues and organs. Cool! {via Science Daily}
Slobbery Cell Phone
Posted: Wednesday, May 12th, 2010
Cell phones and cancer have yet to be definitively linked, but a recently launched study will take a serious look into the long-term effects of cell phone usage on the human body. The Cohort Study of Mobile Phone Use and Health (COSMOS) will follow 200,000 mobile phone users in five countries over 30 years, monitoring their health for higher risk of brain cancer, head tumors and salivary gland cancer. The radiation risk seems plausible — a 2009 World Health organization found that long-term mobile users had a higher risk of cancer, a 2008 American Journal of Epidemiology study suggested a link between big-time cell users and salivary gland cancer, and a 2006 study in Sweden indicated a 240% risk increase for head tumors on the side of the head used most often for talking. Thirty years is a long time to wait for results of this big study, so in the meantime maybe use that land line for long calls!
Fun With Your Prostate
Posted: Wednesday, May 12th, 2010
Getting men to pay attention to their own health isn’t easy. When given the chance to read Maxim or schedule a prostate gland exam with the doc (yup, it’s the one with the finger up the butt), I think we all know which is more appealing to the dudes. A few different organizations are wisely using things that men love — drinking beer and growing mustaches, namely — to get them thinking about screening this very important male gland. Pints for Prostates uses the glory of hops to get men to think about getting screened. Some recent studies that swigging beer is actually good for your prostate will prolly help their cause as well! Movember Australia also focuses on prostate health, and raises awareness by getting the gents to grow a moustache in November (Australia’s men’s health month, American prostate health month is in September). So even though it’s months away, our prostate stopped shaving and donned a nice ‘stache in honor of this awesome organization.
Robotic Surgery
Posted: Wednesday, May 12th, 2010
A dear friend recently underwent a radical prostatectomy and told me all about the robot that removed his prostate. His successful operation was done by a giant robot called the da Vinci, where several mechanical arms inserted in the patient’s abdomen do the surgeon’s bidding via a laparoscopic camera. Although the robot arms entered my friend’s body in seven different places (doesn’t it look like some kind of evil Star Wars torture device, like the IT-O interrogation droid Darth Vader used on Princess Leia or the Cloud City scan grid Vader used on Han Solo?), I guess the recovery time is still faster than one big giant cut. The robot is used not only for prostate cancer, but also provides a minimally invasive way to take out cancerous kidneys, conduct hysterectomies and deal with complex conditions like colorectal cancer. Even cooler than robotic surgeons? That same robot doing origami.
Transparent Brain
Posted: Tuesday, May 11th, 2010
Creating cross-sections of human brain can’t be easy, but scientists at UC San Diego are such pros that they are slicing and photographing brains to create a digital neuroanatomy library for study. Read about the fascinating process of removing brains and thin-sectioning them in this preview of Discover magazine’s special Brain issue, out June 28. Fun factoid: the act of removing a brain from a cadaver is called “fenestration,” which also describes the arrangement of windows in a building, and is the root for one of my fave words, “defenestrate” which is a fancy way of describing the act of throwing something out a window.
