Your Brain, Your Health

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The Alzheimer's Association reports that it believes the first person to be cured of this dreaded disease is walking around today .

The Human Rights Commission reports that violence and murder against trans people, especially trans people of color, is rising at an alarming pace. New research from Holland is quickly unraveling the mysteries of sexuality and sexual orientation to show that all sexuality takes place in the brain, in the uterus, and is out of the control of all parties, except to embrace it and love the baby and the child and the adult. 

Gene editing is being called the miracle of the future, which may be closer than we think. Imagine diagnosing and repairing some of our worst remaining diseases, which mostly have their basis in our brains. 

These examples show the importance of the brain for every person. Even from a budget perspective, brain-related diseases and disorders account for more than half of our health care bill each year. 

I think you might like this book – "A Thousand Moms' Sourcebook of Brain and Behavior: For Teachers, Parents and Students. Second Edition (Make America Smart Again)" by David Balog.

Start reading for free: https://a.co/05DIU6Sm

All of these facts make it important to be aware of the brain, it's capabilities, it's limitations, it's realities. Based on the widely used Dana Sourcebook of Brain Science, published from 1997 until 2006 and now updated, this sourcebook tells readers why the brain matters, outlines basic workings of this remarkable structure, and how self-inflicted wounds from substance abuse can produce an immediate euphoric feeling--at the cost of long-term, devastating addiction and damage. 

This source book office offers a panoramic overview of what has been called the most remarkable resource in the known, or even unknown, will world. 

Author David Balog created, wrote, and edited the Dana Sourcebook of Brain Science through its first four editions. He now is back editing this resource to help parents, teachers, and students understand more who they are and why they act the way they do. 

Available now at a reduced introductory price. Just some of the topics cover covered include: Alzheimer's disease, dyslexia, ADHD, stroke, speech disorders, eating disorders, autism, Parkinson's disease and more. David Mahoney, founder of the Brain Awareness Movement at the Charles a Dana Foundation, said, "One out of five people will have a brain disease or disorder. Five out of five will know or be a caregiver for someone with a brain disease or disorder."

I think you might like this book – "A Thousand Moms' Sourcebook of Brain and Behavior: For Teachers, Parents and Students. Second Edition (Make America Smart Again)" by David Balog.

Start reading it for free: https://a.co/05DIU6Sm

How Quitting Smoking Improves Your Health

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Quitting smoking can help most of the major parts of your body: from your brain to your DNA.

 Brain

Broken Addiction Cycle

Quitting smoking can re-wire your brain and help break the cycle of addiction. The large number of nicotine receptors in your brain will return to normal levels after about a month of being quit.

Head and Face

Sharp Hearing

Quitting smoking will keep your hearing sharp. Remember, even mild hearing loss can cause problems (like not hearing directions correctly and doing a task wrong).

Better Vision

Quitting smoking will improve your night vision and help preserve your overall vision by stopping the damage that smoking does to your eyes.

Clean Mouth

Nobody likes a dirty mouth. After a few days without cigarettes, your smile will be brighter. Quitting smoking now will keep your mouth healthy for years to come.

Clear Skin

Quitting smoking is better than anti-aging lotion. Quitting can help clear up blemishes and protect your skin from premature aging and wrinkling.

Heart

Decreased Heart Risks

Smoking is the leading cause of heart attacks and heart disease. But many of these heart risks can be reversed simply by quitting smoking. Quitting can lower your blood pressure and heart rate almost immediately. Your risk of a heart attack declines within 24 hours.

Thin Blood

When you quit smoking, your blood will become thinner and less likely to form dangerous blood clots. Your heart will also have less work to do, because it will be able to move the blood around your body more easily.

Lower Cholesterol

Quitting smoking will not get rid of the fatty deposits that are already there. But it will lower the levels of cholesterol and fats circulating in your blood, which will help to slow the buildup of new fatty deposits in your arteries.

Learn about your brain and addiction.

Lungs

Stop Lung Damage

Scarring of the lungs is not reversible. That is why it is important to quit smoking before you do permanent damage to your lungs. Within two weeks of quitting, you might notice it’s easier to walk up the stairs because you may be less short of breath. Don’t wait until later; quit today!

Prevent Emphysema

There is no cure for emphysema. But quitting when you are young, before you have done years of damage to the delicate air sacs in your lungs, will help protect you from developing emphysema later.

Return of Cilia

Cilia (The fine hairlike projections from certain cells such as those in the respiratory tract that sweep in unison and help to sweep away fluids and particles) start to regrow and regain normal function very quickly after you quit smoking. They are one of the first things in your body to heal. People sometimes notice that they cough more than usual when they first quit smoking. This is a sign that the cilia are coming back to life. But you’re more likely to fight off colds and infections when you’re cilia are working properly.

DNA

Lower Cancer Risk

Quitting smoking will prevent new DNA damage from happening and can even help repair the damage that has already been done. Quitting smoking immediately is the best way to lower your risk of getting cancer.

Stomach and Hormones

Smaller Belly

Quitting smoking will reduce your belly fat and lower your risk of diabetes. If you already have diabetes, quitting can help you keep your blood sugar levels in check.

Normal Estrogen Levels

If you’re a woman, your estrogen levels will gradually return to normal after you quit smoking. And if you hope to have children someday, quitting smoking right now will increase your chances of a healthy pregnancy in the future.

Erectile Dysfunction

Sexual Healing

If you quit smoking now, you can lower your chances of erectile dysfunction and improve your chances of having a healthy sexual life.

"The nicotine was making me dead, inside and out. Now I feel free, vibrant, energetic, focused, and so alive!"

-Smokefree Arwen

 

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Blood and the Immune System

Normal White Blood Cell Count

When you quit smoking, your body will begin to heal from the injuries that smoking caused. Eventually, your white blood cell counts will return to normal and will no longer be on the defensive.

Proper Healing

Quitting smoking will improve blood flow to wounds, allowing important nutrients, minerals, and oxygen to reach the wound and help it heal properly.

Stronger Immune System

When you quit smoking, your immune system is no longer exposed to tar and nicotine. It will become stronger, and you will be less likely to get sick.

Muscles and Bones

Strong Muscles

Quitting smoking will help increase the availability of oxygen in your blood, and your muscles will become stronger and healthier.

Stronger Bones

Quitting smoking can reduce your risk of fractures, both now and later in life. Keep your bones strong and healthy by quitting now.

SmokeFree.gov

5 celebrities we've lost to drugs

Which Celebrities Have Battled with Addiction?

Addiction affects everyone, but the tragic stories of celebrity overdoses affect the millions of fans who were entertained or inspired by their work. Drugs have claimed the lives of countless stars, but some celebrities survived their brush with addiction, sought treatment and are in recovery today.

 
 

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No person is immune to addiction or its consequences. When celebrities abuse alcohol or other drugs, they’re at the same risk for developing substance use disorders as everyone else.

Their actions, and the consequences of their actions, are displayed in magazines, on TV and on the internet. When a celebrity checks into rehab or overdoses from a drug, the public knows. The constant reporting of celebrity drug use can make it seem like addiction is more common in Hollywood than in the rest of the world.

But celebrities have the same anatomies as everyone else. The percentage of celebrities who suffer from addiction is likely similar to that of the general public.

Source: Drugabuse.com

Prince, Fentanyl.

Amy Winewouse, Alcohol Intoxication.

Health Ledger, Prescription Drugs.

Jimi Hendrix, Barbiturate Overdose.

Whitney Houston, Cocaine and multiple other drugs.

Learn about drugs and the brain.

Pain, Chronic Pain, and Opioids

Pain: What is it and how do you treat it?

Chronic pain is recognized by the World Health Organization as a leading medical issue, worldwide.

Pain also has been called a first possible step on the road to opioid addiction. A slip, a broken limb followed by a prescription to oxycontin or other powerful opioid, misuse of that prescription, and the path to heroin or fentanyl abuse can easily start.

Learn about the brain. Click here.

Pain is an unpleasant sensation and emotional experience linked to tissue damage. Its purpose is to allow the body to react and prevent further tissue damage.

We feel pain when a signal is sent through nerve fibers to the brain for interpretation.

The experience of pain is different for everyone, and there are different ways of feeling and describing pain. This can makes it difficult to define and treat.

Pain can be short-term or long-term, it can stay in one place, or it can spread around the body.

Fast facts on pain:

--Pain results from tissue damage.
--It is a part of the body's defense mechanism. --It warns us to take action to prevent further tissue damage.
--People experience and describe pain differently, and this makes it hard to diagnose.

--A range of medications and other treatments can help relieve pain, depending on the cause.

Pain chronic, acute

Pain can be chronic or acute and take a variety of forms and severities.


Pain is felt when special nerves that detect tissue damage send signals to transmit information about the damage along the spinal cord to the brain. These nerves are known as nociceptors.

The brain then decides what to do about the pain.

For example, if you touch a hot surface, a message will travel through a reflex arc in the spinal cord and cause an immediate contraction of the muscles. This contraction will pull your hand away from the hot surface.

This happens so fast that the message doesn't even reach the brain. However, the pain message will continue to the brain. Once there, it will cause an unpleasant sensation of pain to be felt.

How an individual's brain interprets these signals and the efficiency of the communication channel between the nociceptors and the brain dictate how people feel pain.

Source: Medical News Today

By Adam Felman   

Reviewed by Deborah Weatherspoon, PhD, RN, CRNA

Our health still going up in smoke

Cigarette smoking used to be cool. 

Ads (one even by Ronald Reagan) promoted the health benefits of smoking. "Reach for a treat, instead of a sweet." In 2014, the Nation marked the 50th anniversary of the first Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health. In 1964, more than 40 percent of the adult population smoked. Once the link between smoking and its medical consequences—including cancers and heart and lung diseases—became a part of the public consciousness, education efforts and public policy changes were enacted to reduce the number of people who smoke. These efforts resulted in substantial declines in smoking rates in the United States—to half  the 1964 level.

However, rates of cigarette smoking and other tobacco use are still too high, and some populations are disproportionately affected by tobacco’s health consequences. Most notably, people with mental disorders—including substance use disorders—smoke at higher rates than the general population. Additionally, people living below the poverty line and those with low educational attainment are more likely to smoke than those in the general population. As tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of mortality in the United States, differential rates of smoking and use of other tobacco products is a significant contributor to health disparities among some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

What is the scope of tobacco use and its cost to society?

Approximately one fourth of the population uses tobacco products, and 19.4 percent smoke cigarettes. According to the 2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), an estimated 63.4 million people aged 12 or older used a tobacco product during the past month, including 51.3 million cigarette smokers. Smoking rates continue to go down year to year; the percentage of people over age 18 who smoke cigarettes declined from 20.9 percent in 2005 to 15.8 percent in 2016, according to the 2017 National Health Interview Survey.

However, smoking rates are substantially higher among some of the most vulnerable people in our society. The 25 percent of Americans with mental disorders, including addiction, account for 40 percent of the cigarettes smoked in the U.S. More than 40 percent of people with a General Education Development certificate (GED) smoke—which is the highest prevalence of any socioeconomic group. Also, people who live in rural areas, particularly in the South Atlantic states, use all forms of tobacco at higher rates than people who live in urban areas. These differences cannot be fully explained by different levels of poverty or affluence.

Learn more about addiction, the brain, and our health.

Smoking among youth is at historically low levels. According to the NIDA-sponsored Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey, in 2015, an estimated 4.7 million middle and high school students used tobacco products during the past month, according to data from the National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS) e-cigarettes) were the most commonly used tobacco products among middle (5.3 percent) and high school (16.0 percent) students in 2015. E-cigarettes deliver synthetic nicotine and do not contain tobacco; however, they are classified as tobacco products for regulatory purposes. These findings are echoed by other studies, including the MTF survey. Scientists have not yet determined the medical consequences of long-term e-cigarette use or the secondhand effects of e-cigarette vapor. 

Between 1964 and 2012, an estimated 17.7 million deaths were related to smoking leads to more than 480,000 deaths annually. If current smoking rates continue, 5.6 million Americans who are currently younger than 18 will die prematurely from smoking-related disease.

In addition to the tremendous impact of premature deaths related to tobacco use, the economic costs are high. Experts estimate that between 2009 and 2012, the annual societal costs attributable to smoking in the United States were between $289 and $332.5 billion. This includes $132.5 to $175.9 billion for direct medical care of adults and $151 billion for lost productivity due to premature deaths. In 2006, lost productivity due to exposure to secondhand smoke cost the country $5.6 billion. About 70 percent of current smokers’ excess medical care costs could be prevented by quitting.

Large declines seen in teen substance abuse, delinquency

Surveys over a decade indicate positive behavioral shifts

Summary:

In recent years, teens have become far less likely to abuse alcohol, nicotine and illicit drugs, according to researchers. Teens also are less likely to engage in behaviors like fighting and stealing, and the researchers believe the declines in substance use and delinquency are connected.

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More than a decade of data indicates teens have become far less likely to abuse alcohol, nicotine and illicit drugs, and they also are less likely to engage in delinquent behaviors, such as fighting and stealing, according to results of a national survey analyzed by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

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Learn about how the brain governs our health.

The data come from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, an annual survey of 12- to 17-year-olds from all 50 states that is sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The data include information from 2003 through 2014, the last year for which survey numbers are available. A total of 210,599 teens -- 13,000 to 18,500 each year -- were part of the study.
The findings are reported Oct. 25 in the journal Psychological Medicine.

The researchers found that the number of substance-use disorders among 12- to 17-year olds had declined by 49 percent over the 12-year span, along with a simultaneous 34 percent decline in delinquent behaviors, such as fighting, assault, stealing, selling drugs or carrying a handgun.

The drop in substance abuse among teens parallels findings in other recent surveys, but until now no one has looked at how the drop-off may be linked to other behavioral issues.

"We've known that teens overall are becoming less likely to engage in risky behaviors, and that's good news," said first author Richard A. Grucza, PhD, a professor of psychiatry. "But what we learned in this study is that the declines in substance abuse are connected to declines in delinquency. This suggests the changes have been driven more by changes in adolescents themselves more than by policies to reduce substance abuse or delinquent behavior."

Other researchers have found that teens are delaying sex and using seat belts more often than their parents and grandparents. Grucza's team focused on substance-use disorders -- involving alcohol, nicotine, marijuana, opioids and the abuse of other prescription drugs or nonprescription drugs -- and delinquent behaviors.

"It's not clear what is driving the parallel declines," Grucza said. "New policies -- including things like higher cigarette taxes and stricter anti-bullying policies -- certainly have a positive effect. But seeing these trends across multiple behaviors suggests that larger environmental factors are at work. These might include reductions in childhood lead exposure, lower rates of child abuse and neglect, and better mental health care for children."

Although heroin and opioid abuse have become epidemic in many areas of the United States, the use among teens has fallen, according to the survey data.
"Opioid problems continue to increase among adults," he said. "But among the 12- to 17-year-old population, we saw a drop of nearly 50 percent."

Based on the survey data, Grucza and his team estimated that in 2014 there were nearly 700,000 fewer adolescents with substance-use disorders than in 2003. And because it's possible for a person to be addicted to nicotine while abusing alcohol or marijuana, the researchers estimate the total number of substance-use disorders among adolescents declined by about 2 million.

Source:

Washington University School of Medicine

Breaking the Chain: Dramatic Advances Loom in Drug Treatment

More than 200,000 people worldwide die every year from drug overdoses and drug-related illnesses, such as HIV, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and far more die from smoking and drinking.

Brain researchers often refer to "the toolkit" that exists for drug addiction. New additions to "agonist" drugs and psychologic "talk" therapy are emerging rapidly. We look at a promising one here: brain stimulation.

Addiction is a brain disease. Learn about the brain and your health. Click here!

BREAKING THE CHAIN 

A serious cocaine addict who’d relapsed several times after treatment, Patrick Perotti finally resorted to an experimental treatment—the application of electromagnetic pulses to his prefrontal cortex— at a clinic in Padua, Italy. It worked. Psychiatrist Luigi Gallimberti has used transcranial magnetic stimulation on other patients with similar success. He and his colleagues are planning a large-scale trial. The technique is now being tested for other types of addiction by researchers around the world.

Patrick Perotti scoffed when his mother told him about a doctor who uses electromagnetic waves to treat drug addiction. “I thought he was a swindler,” Perotti says.

Perotti, who is 38 and lives in Genoa, Italy, began snorting cocaine at 17, a rich kid who loved to party. His indulgence gradually turned into a daily habit and then an all-consuming compulsion. He fell in love, had a son, and opened a restaurant. Under the weight of his addiction, his family and business eventually collapsed.

He did a three-month stint in rehab and relapsed 36 hours after he left. He spent eight months in another program, but the day he returned home, he saw his dealer and got high. “I began to use cocaine with rage,” he says. “I became paranoid, obsessed, crazy. I could not see any way to stop.”

When his mother pressed him to call the doctor, Perotti gave in. He learned he would just have to sit in a chair like a dentist’s and let the doctor, Luigi Gallimberti, hold a device near the left side of his head, on the theory it would suppress his hunger for cocaine. “It was either the cliff or Dr. Gallimberti,” he recalls.

Gallimberti, a gray-haired, bespectacled psychiatrist and toxicologist who has treated addiction for 30 years, runs a clinic in Padua. His decision to try the technique, called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), stemmed from dramatic advances in the science of addiction—and from his frustration with traditional treatments. Medications can help people quit drinking, smoking, or using heroin, but relapse is common, and there’s no effective medical remedy for addiction to stimulants like cocaine. “It’s very, very difficult to treat these patients,” he says....

Source: National Geographic 

 VIEW IMAGESBREAKING THE CHAIN A serious cocaine addict who’d relapsed several times after treatment, Patrick Perotti finally resorted to an experimental treatment—the application of electromagnetic pulses to his prefrontal cortex— at a clinic in Padua, Italy. It worked. Psychiatrist Luigi Gallimberti has used transcranial magnetic stimulation on other patients with similar success. He and his colleagues are planning a large-scale trial. The technique is now being tested for other types of addiction by researchers around the worlGallimberti, a gray-haired, bespectacled psychiatrist and toxicologist who has treated addiction for 30 years, runs a clinic in Padua. His decision to try the technique, called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), stemmed from dramatic advances in the science of addiction—and from his frustration with traditional treatments. Medications can help people quit drinking, smoking, or using heroin, but relapse is common, and there’s no effective medical remedy for addiction to stimulants like cocaine. “It’s very, very difficult to treat these patients,” he says.

 VIEW IMAGBREAKING THE CHAIN A serious cocaine addict who’d relapsed several times after treatment, Patrick Perotti finally resorted to an experimental treatment—the application of electromagnetic pulses to his prefrontal cortex— at a clinic in Padua, Italy. It worked. Psychiatrist Luigi Gallimberti has used transcranial magnetic stimulation on other patients with similar success. He and his colleagues are planning a large-scale trial. The technique is now being tested for other types of addiction by researchers around the world.