Source: The fabulous internet

Exercise…

Subsequent trials have repeated these results, showing again and again that patients who undergo aerobic exercise regimens see comparable improvement in their depression as those treated with medication, and that both groups do better than patients given only a placebo.

This makes sense.  I wish doctors would prescribe exercise more instead of offering up the latest pill.

Alas, few studies on it because it doesn’t sell drugs. Maybe Nike should fund a study.

I have plantar fasciitis. It affects me in three major ways. First, my feet hurt unless I wear proper shoes. Second, I can’t really go barefoot at all or my feet will ache madly. Third, my shoe costs have exploded. No more Payless for me. My closet is full of Ecco, Dansk and other shoes costing $100 or more.

I bought a pair of Skechers Cadence Shapeup sandals yesterday.  Skechers recommends wearing them in small doses initially, but I wore them out of the store and walked about 1.5 miles around the large outlet center I bought them in.  I then wore them the rest of the evening, to dinner, and around the hotel.

AND MY FEET FEEL GREAT. Often my feet keep me awake after a long day on them, but not today – they felt great.

I can’t attest to the posture, weight and strength claims Skechers makes for these shoes. I’ll report on that after a month or two wearing them.  But I can say that if you have plantars fasciitis you will definitely want to try them on.

Nickki Buck hears her first words in 10 years after having cochlear implants installed.

It is shocking, and silly,  to me that many in the deaf “community” oppose this.  Being deaf may not be a disability from many parts of life, but it still sucks.  To not hear music? Or my kids singing, or birds chirping – when I could again?  Not partaking of all of natures bounty, when you can, just seems silly.

I visited MIT and Massachusetts Eye and Ear researchers working on these 15 years ago, and I’m glad their research has come far enough to help the typical deaf person.

Check out 8 other videos of people hearing for the first time.

H/T Ace

It is exciting, learning about this newly discovered protein that disrupts cancer expansion:

Using mice, it was also discovered that the COMMD1-deficient cells were more invasive when implanted. The researchers then generated mouse melanoma cells that produced an overabundance of COMMD1, and injected those cells back into healthy mice. The number of metastatic lung tumors that resulted was greatly reduced when the cells expressed greater levels of COMMD1.

but then I feel bummed because they are so cautious:

The next step, Dr. Burstein said, will be to investigate what changes in the tumor environment may be responsible for reducing levels of COMMD1 in cancer cells.

I would suggest, instead, that the next step be to directly raise levels of this protein in some dying humans, just like they did the mice.  Risky?  Yes.  Would they have had volunteers?  Thousands. 

Why don’t they do this? I don’t know. I’m not a doctor.   I suspect it is because they are bound by the Hippocratic oath, and/or lawyers.   Perhaps that oath needs modified to “Do no harm, unless the informed patient agrees”.

I see no reason, other than timidity, for advances like above to not be capitalized on in months, not decades.

http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/25440/?a=f

Faster, I need this please.

I have to wonder how the people I know that support Obama deal with the constant revelations of lies from him.  They seem like normal relatives, friends, neighbors and acquaintances on the outside, but they must be quite warped to continue to support such a blatant liar.

The latest Obama scam is that while he was touting how much the Obamacare would save the nation and cut medical costs, his administration actually had a report  from Health and Human Services saying it would increase costs:

The economic report released last week by Health and Human Services, which indicated that President Barack Obama’s health care "reform" law would actually increase the cost of health care and impose higher costs on consumers, had been submitted to the office of HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius more than a week before the Congressional votes on the bill, according to career HHS sources, who added that Sebelius’s staff refused to review the document before the vote was taken.

You have to wonder why the HHS staff didn’t leak it.  Everybody else leaks in DC and I have trouble believing they are honest, because, well, nobody is honest in DC.

Anyway, back to Obama supporters who ignore his lying ways… I just don’t understand you.  You seem…. well, you seem sick.  Get better. The nation needs you.

There they go again… investing, risking, and inventing drugs that take on awful diseases. How dare they! What do they seek? They want to prevent the awful descent into the madness of Alzheimer’s Disease, all for a buck of two. The scum!

The current vaccine is therapeutic, meaning it is aimed at treating patients already affected by the disease. But if results are positive, the technology could also be used to manufacture a prophylactic, or preventative, vaccine, Jelitto said.

There should be a law that stops this kind of evil profiteering.

Dave Kopel summarizes the main Constitutional arguments against Obamacare quite nicely.  I’ll summarize his summary:

1. violates commerce clause of Constitution because it is an individual mandate.
2. violates privacy rights by forcing disclosure of private information to a 3rd party
3. violates the takings clause by forcing spending without due process

I would add that it violates the 5th amendment (equal protection) by not being applicable to all classes of people. For instance, only those 18 to 65 must purchase, others are covered by government programs.

If this isn’t struck down as unconstitutional then I don’t know why we have federal courts and a Constitution, because they obviously don’t care what it reads.

Force us to buy insurance. Force us to have insurance goodies we don’t want. Force insurance companies to offer unprofitable plans. Force them to insure those who only sign up when they get sick. Deny them rate increases.  Watch insurance companies die. Force us onto a government single payer plan. Make it free to 51% of the people, rape the rest of us.

It would be nice if he at least told us the plan. Those of us smart enough to figure it out are also the rape targets.

Those of you who voted for this guy (Obama) really should be ashamed of yourselves.

Nanoparticles get busy delivering bad stuff to cancer cells
Photo: Caltech

http://media.caltech.edu/press_releases/13334

A California Institute of Technology (Caltech)-led team of researchers and clinicians has published the first proof that a targeted nanoparticle—used as an experimental therapeutic and injected directly into a patient’s bloodstream—can traffic into tumors, deliver double-stranded small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), and turn off an important cancer gene using a mechanism known as RNA interference (RNAi). Moreover, the team provided the first demonstration that this new type of therapy, infused into the bloodstream, can make its way to human tumors in a dose-dependent fashion—i.e., a higher number of nanoparticles sent into the body leads to a higher number of nanoparticles in the tumor cells.

But this part makes me think it all might work out:

Caltech, Davis, and Heidel have a financial interest in Calando Pharmaceuticals.

Obama said anything to get elected. Now he’ll do anything in his first and only term.

Can we survive him?  Not easily.

Words can’t really describe how disgusted I am with Jim Matheson.  Here is the letter I sent him today:

Soon to be Ex-Congressman Matheson:

I can’t believe you are going to vote for this health care monstrosity.

You’ve fooled Utahans for years, but this year it is over.  I will work for and donate to Morgan Philpot to ensure you need to beg for a judgeship like your brother got in return for your vote betraying Utah.

Ken Nelson
St. George UT

It isn’t policy differences that have me disgusted with Matheson, it is that he continues to LIE to Utahans about his real beliefs and positions.

Between 1985 and 2003 Federal Judges took over Kansas City, Missouri and channeled 2 billion dollars to the school district. 

Not only did they double property taxes to pay this huge bill, but they imposed an income tax surcharge on everyone who lived or worked in the city.

…

Despite this massive effort, litigation failed either to improve the quality of education or to reduce racial isolation. Test scores continued to drop, and the percentage of minority students continued to rise. Eventually, black parents—who had long opposed the court’s heavy emphasis on "magnet schools" designed to draw whites into the school system—insisted upon a return to neighborhood schools.

Yesterday, the district voted a plan to shut down half their schools and fire 700 of their 3000 employees.

Why, exactly, do we think the Feds can run our health care any better?