OK, maybe that's a little exaggerated, but basically any drug causes a dopamine surge that changes your brain such that the rewards of normal life don't seem good enough anymore. This study actually found that pot smokers have a bigger nucleus accumbens (the brain area associated with pleasure, reward, and reinforcement learning). They say that 19 million Americans have smoked pot recently. That's a lot.

Here's the article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/04/16/even-casually-smoking-marijuana-can-change-your-brain-study-says/
( textCollapse )

This is great news in my book. I was out at the Imnaha river in spring and there is one of the first packs reported to have pups. I saw no sign of them. Now it sounds like most of the known Oregon packs have pups this year, even the newly discovered pack. Wild carnivores on the rise! We now have 53 wolves in Oregon. The ranchers hate it of course, but hopefully we can reach some equilibrium between livestock and canines that everyone can tolerate. I wonder if there might be some way to keep wild canines at bay that is as elegant as moving lights to keep away lions. Of course it's hard to protect your bovines when they're wandering far and wide...like those cows all along the Yampa. Need a wolf network up there too, keep the ranchers in line.

http://www.dfw.state.or.us/Wolves/index.asp
http://www.dfw.state.or.us/Wolves/wolf_program_updates.asp

Her name is Jody Powell, and she is brilliant, intuitive, and honest. She's also a serious athlete (rock climber especially). Basalt is a very small town and she says getting started is slow going. I have no doubts that she will attract visitors to their small town.
Here's her site: http://aspennd.com/Site/Welcome.html

http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html

You can check out the progress of America's increasing BMI by state, since 1985, on this govt page. The South leads the charge.


Colorado is the Rocky Mountain holdout but they are sliding too.

Fosamax works great for building bone density in the short term, but is it good for the long term?

Excess bone deposition + no bone resorption --> heavy bones that spontaneously fracture in strange places.

Science suggests patients on fosamax should take a break from the meds at 5 years.
Jacob Schor says in his practice he's suggesting a break after 3 years, to be conservative.
Bisphosphonates formerly used to soften water in orange grove irrigation systems.
( the latest from Denver NaturopathicCollapse )

http://denvernaturopathic.com/FastingandChemotherapy.htm

Interesting article. In short: they've found that fasting mice before a chemo dose eliminates side effects. The chemo doses they were giving the mice were so high that the non-fasting mice died. Now they're going to try a similar study on humans. The case reports mentioned support the idea that fasting for 2-3 days prior to a chemotherapy treatment, and continuing the fast until the longest acting drug has cleared the system, may eliminate side effects, and may also improve the efficacy of the drugs.

If you're interested, the Denver Naturopath who posted the info above has an email newsletter that is supposed to be quite good. Sign up at http://denvernaturopathic.com/. I just did.