We Speak For Earth
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ikenbot CWL -
mohandasgandhi Mohandas Gandhi -
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perscientiamlibertas A Matter of the Most Pleasant Fraternal Confidence
Centella asiatica, commonly centella (Sinhala: ගොටුකොල, gotu kola in Sinhala, Mandukaparni in Sanskritमधुकपर्णी,Kannada (ಒಂದೆಲಗ). Tamil: வல்லாரை, vallarai in Tamil, Kodakan in Malayalam(കൊടകന്)), is a small, herbaceous, annual plant of the family Mackinlayaceae or subfamily Mackinlayoideae of family Apiaceae, and is native to India, Sri Lanka, northern Australia, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Melanesia, Papua New Guinea, and other parts of Asia. It is used as a medicinal herb in Ayurvedic medicine, traditional African medicine, and traditional Chinese medicine. Botanical synonyms include Hydrocotyle asiatica L. and Trisanthus cochinchinensis (Lour.).
Centella is a mild adaptogen, is mildly antibacterial, antiviral, anti-inflammatory, antiulcerogenic, anxiolytic, nervine and vulnerary, and can act as a cerebral tonic, a circulatory stimulant, and a diuretic.
Centella asiatica may be useful in the treatment of anxiety.
In Thailand, tisanes of the leaves are used as an afternoon stimulant. A decoction of juice from the leaves is thought to relieve hypertension. A poultice of the leaves is also used to treat open sores.
Richard Lucas claimed in a book published in 1966(second edition in 1979) that a subspecies “Hydrocotyle asiatica minor” allegedly from Sri Lanka also called fo ti tieng, contained a longevity factor called ‘youth Vitamin X’ said to be ‘a tonic for the brain and endocrine glands’ and maintained that extracts of the plant help circulation and skin problems. However according to medicinal herbalist Michael Moore, it appears that there is no such subspecies and no Vitamin X is known to exist.
Several scientific reports have documented Centella asiatica’s ability to aid wound healing which is responsible for its traditional use in leprosy. Upon treatment with Centella asiatica, maturation of the scar is stimulated by the production of type I collagen. The treatment also results in a marked decrease in inflammatory reaction and myofibroblast production.
The isolated steroids from the plant also have been used to treat leprosy. In addition, preliminary evidence suggests that it may have nootropic effects. Centella asiatica is used to revitalize the brain and nervous system, increase attention span and concentration, and combat aging. Centella asiatica also has antioxidant properties. It works for venous insufficiency. It is used in Thailand for opium detoxification.
Followers of Sri Sri Thakur Anukulchandra, commonly known as Satsangees, all over the world take one or two fresh leaves with plenty of water in the morning after morning rituals. This is prescribed by Sri Sri Thakur himself.
Many reports show the medicinal properties of C. asiatica extract in a wide range of disease conditions, such as diabetic microangiopathy, edema, venous hypertension, and venous insufficiency. The role of C. asiatica extract in the treatment of memory enhancement and other neurodegenerative disorders is also well documented. The first report concerning the antitumor property of C. asiatica extract was on its growth inhibitory effects on the development of solid and ascites tumors, which lead to increased life span of tumor-bearing mice. The authors also suggested the extract directly impeded the DNA synthesis. “In our study, C. asiatica extract showed an obvious dose dependent inhibition of cell proliferation in breast cancer cells.”
The Effects of Gotu Kola on the Brain
Traditionally, Gotu kola has been used as a brain tonic to support memory. It has been called a “brain food” and has been recommended for overstressed people, mood, to improve reflexes and to support feelings of calmness. Gotu kola has also been studied in humans and was found to have a positive influence on enhancing peripheral circulation.
Scientific research into Gotu kola extracts and its effects on the brain really only began in earnest in the past decade. In 2002, Gotu kola water extracts were administered to rats, where it improved their cognitive function in terms of learning and memory in a standard shuttle box avoidance and step through test. Brain levels of malondialdehyde (MDA), an indicator of overall oxidative stress, was reduced, and brain levels of the endogenous antioxidant glutathione were increased.
I’ve been wanting to create an herbalism blog strictly sticking to the scientifically accurate side of herb life and medicine. But then Idk it sounds corny a little, I’m undecided. I mean I’ve seen a lot of pharma blogs and traditional medicine ones. but I’d like to see some quality content on the science of herbal medicine in general, the entire spectrum of medicinal herbs showing both physiological and psychological benefits, basically an herbalism blog that’s not just about cannabis and lulz420b*tch. What say you? Yay-yay or nay-nay? I’d obviously need some volunteers to join and help with the content. If anyone’s interested shoot me a message if not; I’ll scrape the idea.
How Drug Company Money is Undermining Science
When Robert Lindsay chose to become a medical researcher in the early 1970s, he did not do it for the money. His field—the effect of hormones on bone—was a backwater. It was also a perfect opportunity for a young researcher to make his mark and, he hoped, help millions of people who suffered from the bone disease osteoporosis. As the body ages, sometimes bones lose the ability to rebuild themselves fast enough to keep pace with the normal process of deterioration, and the skeleton weakens. Neither Lindsay nor anyone else understood much about why this happened, but there was reason to think that hormones might play a role. Some women develop osteoporosis shortly after menopause, when their hormone levels drop sharply, perhaps upsetting that balance between bone creation and destruction. If so, Lindsay reasoned, replacing the hormones with a pill might halt or even reverse the progress of the disease. From a tiny, underfunded clinic in Glasgow, Scotland, he set up one of the first clinical trials of estrogen replacement therapy for bone loss in postmenopausal women. Lindsay’s star was rising.
His next project had big commercial implications and got the attention of the drug industry. Having moved to Helen Hayes Hospital, a rehabilitation center north of New York City, in 1984 he published work that established the minimum effective dosage of an antiosteoporosis estrogen drug called Premarin. Because the findings suggested that fighting osteoporosis was tantamount to encouraging millions of women to use the drug, it made Lindsay an important person in the eyes of the drug’s manufacturer, Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories. Indeed, the company gave him a role as an author of its informational video Osteoporosis: A Preventable Tragedy.
By the mid-1990s, when Wyeth got caught in a patent battle over Premarin, Lindsay was a staunch Wyeth ally. He came out against approval of a generic version of the drug that would have cut into sales even though the generic form would have made it easier for osteoporosis patients to receive therapy. His reasoning was that such versions might not be precisely equivalent to the brand-name drug, a fact that can be true with certain drugs but was also a position that happened to echo the company line. “All we’re asking is that we don’t approve something now and regret it” later, he told the Associated Press in 1995. Lindsay’s close relationship with Wyeth and other drug companies carried on for decades, in ways that were sometimes hidden. He started allowing Wyeth to draft research articles and began taking tens of thousands of dollars from pharmaceutical interests that stood to gain from his research.
The scandal is not what Lindsay did so much as that his case is typical. In the past few years the pharmaceutical industry has come up with many ways to funnel large sums of money—enough sometimes to put a child through college—into the pockets of independent medical researchers who are doing work that bears, directly or indirectly, on the drugs these firms are making and marketing. The problem is not just with the drug companies and the researchers but with the whole system—the granting institutions, the research labs, the journals, the professional societies, and so forth. No one is providing the checks and balances necessary to avoid conflicts. Instead organizations seem to shift responsibility from one to the other, leaving gaps in enforcement that researchers and drug companies navigate with ease, and then shroud their deliberations in secrecy.
“There isn’t a single sector of academic medicine, academic research or medical education in which industry relationships are not a ubiquitous factor,” says sociologist Eric Campbell, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Those relationships are not all bad. After all, without the help of the pharmaceutical industry, medical researchers would not be able to turn their ideas into new drugs. Yet at the same time, Campbell argues, some of these liaisons co-opt scientists into helping sell pharmaceuticals rather than generating new knowledge.
(via drugpolicyreform)
Clown doctors bring levity to serious situations
(Photo: Srdjan Zivulovic / Reuters)
Since 2004 15 clown doctors, inspired by the U.S. Doctor ‘Patch’ Adams, visit different hospitals throughout Slovenia 2-3 times a week, using laughter to help aid the recovery of young and elderly patients suffering from serious illness or injury.
That is just too awesome.
The clamshell-shaped machine made of DNA is the first to work with a mission in mind.Shawn Douglas grew up building R/C cars and planes, using skills he picked up from his repairman father. Two decades later, he’s still assembling machines—only they’re now a billionth the size, made from DNA, and designed to destroy cancer cells.
Other labs have worked with DNA to build distinct shapes—a process colloquially known as DNA origami—but most have produced nonfunctional objects. At the University of California at San Francisco…
Read More Here
Marijuana Linked To Better Brain Function In Bipolar Patients
Results from a new study show indicate that bipolar patients with a history of marijuana use have better neurocognitive function than those who have never used cannabis.
The team, from The Zucker Hillside Hospital in Glen Oaks, New York, found that patients with bipolar I (BD I) disorder who used marijuana performed better on tests of attention, processing speed, and working memory than other BD 1 patients, reports Mark Cowen at News Medical.
“This data could be interpreted to suggest that cannabis use may have a beneficial effect on cognitive functioning in patients with severe psychiatric disorders,” said lead researcher Raphael Braga.
CNET article.
Medical science, boosted by manufacturing and information technology, is on the cusp of being able to grow human tissue.
So believes Nina Tandon, a senior fellow at Columbia University’s Lab for Stem Cells and Tissue Engineering, who for her Ph.D. thesis grew cardiac cells that beat like tiny hearts.
A third age of medicine is beginning, she said in a speech here at the TEDx Berlin conference held in conjunction with IFA consumer-electronics show. The first age, most of human history, had only a primitive understanding of the body. The second age ran from the first dialysis machines in 1924 to today’s organ replacement procedures dependent on human donors and limited by the fact that many tissues are rejected by the body they’re being transplanted into.
The third age builds replacement materials through tissue engineering.
“We’ve gone to growing pieces of the body that are living — from scratch,” Tandon said. Though she’s careful to give credit where it’s due: humans provide a framework and the correct environment, but “the real tissue engineers are the cells.”
Her work so far has focused coaxing cells into activity with electrical impulses inside what she calls a bioreactor. Some of her work is shown in a video of a pulsating cube of lab-grown rat heart tissue. It’s about 5mm on a side, a scale that makes her ambition — growing a patch of heart tissue that could be applied after a heart attack — seem more achievable.
“We have some tissue-engineered products on the market,” she said, including a replacement bladder one patient has had for several years. The early products are relatively inactive tissues such as tracheas, she said, adding that “cartilage is probably next.”
And she’s got commercialization on her mind, too.
“We’re in the beginning of a startup doing a bone implant,” Tandon said. “Cardac is probably much further down the line. It’s probably more like 15 to 20 years.”.
Engineered tissues have less glamorous but equally useful applications, she said. For example, drug developers could use them to test new drugs on actual human tissue, not just that of other animals.
“We could shrink down the time it takes to discover new therapies,” she said.
And medical researchers could study health problems in a new way, she said. “If we grow more diseased tissues in the lab, we can learn a lot more about disease mechanisms and disease cures.”
Stem cells are amazing. The fact that we all carry some of these undifferentiated cells in various parts of our body opens the door for a new branch of medicine. The success of this operation shows that it is possible. Transplant rejection could eventually become a non-issue. Having said that, being on the cutting edge means that this sort of therapy is still very prohibitively expensive.
We have stem cell sprays for burn victims and now this. Leave your thoughts on the state of regenerative medicine below.
(via ikenbot)
Nanomedicine Able to Penetrate Bodily Defenses
Tears and a runny nose can be unpleasant on a windy day, but these mucosal secretions play a vital role in protecting the body from viruses and other malicious microbes. Unfortunately, mucus is also adept at washing away medication designed to treat infections and inflammation that occur when an infectious agent is successful in penetrating the body’s defenses.
Knowing that even nanoscale particles of medicine are apt to get caught up in layers of mucus and cleared before they can treat an ailment, a team of Johns Hopkins University scientists has developed specially coated nanoparticles that can penetrate deep into the body’s defenses and remain long enough kill harmful microbes. More specifically, the researchers broke down the herpes-fighting drug acyclovir into nanosize units coated with low–molecular weight polyethylene glycol (PEG) and applied them to female mice using a vaginal gel.
HIV may have returned in ‘cured’ patient
A man whose HIV seemed to disappear after a bone marrow transplant may be showing hints of the disease, sparking debate over whether he was cured.
