Just ran across a nice southern article about eating the leaves as salad, and painting the skin with the toxic berry juice. I have been taught to use an alcohol extract of the root as a "lymphogogue" meaning it is supposed to stimulate lymph movement, or at least a strong immune response. Far as I know there is no science to support this use. The juices of the root are very strong and caustic, and it should not be handled with bare hands.

Not just for the Chinese medicine practitioners... I've been taking note of tongues for a couple years now and they do tell quite a tale of a person's insides.

Nice article here from someone at Stanford U:
http://stanford25.wordpress.com/the-tongue-in-diagnosis/

Newly Emerging and Resistant Infections--Can Plan Antimicrobials and Probiotics Help?
greatest threat to human health: acquisition of resistance by micro-organisms
now there's a strain of Neisseria gonorrhea which is resistance to all antibiotics

less than 100 years ago we didn't have abx
average RX of Abx in US: 1/person/year
( notesCollapse )

Terri Warren
this lady is THE reigning expert in this field and she is an excellent speaker
over 30 papers about HSV in her name
degrees are in psych and nursing
owner of Westover Heights Clinic x30years
( notes already pulled to black bookCollapse )

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Breaking News Alert: Studies show AIDS drugs can prevent infection
July 13, 2011 5:45:56 AM
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Two new studies done in three African countries have shown for the first time that AIDS drugs taken daily can cut by more than half a person’s chance of becoming infected with HIV through heterosexual intercourse.

http://link.email.washingtonpost.com/r/WUOQBH/QFHR1Y/Z8G8SN/WYSZHH/PW5T2/1G/h

For more information, visit washingtonpost.com

The inclination to dilute boredom chemically for a while is part of the reason sociopaths tend to be alcohol and drug abusers. A major comorbidity study published in 1990 in the Journal of the American Medical Association estimates that as many as 75 percent of sociopaths are dependent on alcohol, and 50 percent abuse other drugs. And so sociopaths are often addicts in the usual sense, in addition to being figuratively addicted to risk. With its "peak experiences" and its dangers, the drug culture holds more than one form of appeal for the conscienceless, and the drug culture is where many sociopaths feel most at home.

Another study, published in 1993 in the American Journal of Psychiatry, found that 18 percent of intravenous-dug abusers diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder were HIV-positive, while only 8 percent of intravenous-drug abusers without antisocial personality disorder tested positive for HIV. The higher odds ratio of HIV infection among sociopaths is presumably due to their greater risk-taking behaviors.

--Martha South, Ph.D. in The Sociopath Next Door, p187.

I've been hearing a lot about circumcision lately. This morning I hear that the CDC has determined that circumcision reduces a man's chance of contracting HIV by 60%! This is news to me. I even have it in me to doubt it, having not heard it until just now after so much previous noise about the question. I suspect the mechanism of resistance to the virus has to do with the thickening of the skin on the glans when it is exposed all the time, as versus the thin-ness of such skin, more like a mucous membrane, when it is permanently covered. One kind in Africa has issued an edict that all men must be circumcised, and young Zulu men are getting cut as a rite of manhood. Cultural change is in progress in Africa.

Anyway, other mentions include a pack of people in San Francisco who tried to get a law passed BANNING circumcision as male genital mutilation. They didn't get very far, but they did get a lot of attention. And also, in pediatrics class I heard that here on the West Coast 60% of new baby boys are NOT being circumcised, and that number is increasing. The pediatrician's perspective is that we will have a generation of men for whom either circ or non-circ is accepttable, and then the next generation will probably be almost entirely noncircumcised. Cultural change is in progress in America, but in the opposite direction from Africa...

FASCINATING FACTOID:
12% of caucasians (Zwickey) are immune to HIV because they are descended from bubonic plague survivors. The Black Death had a 90% death rate and killed 147 million people. It swept Europe 3 times, in the 6th, 14th and 17th centuries. Those who survived (natural selection) don't have a certain chemokine receptor (CCR5) which is necessary for HIV to get into host macrophages. This may explain why some partners of HIV positive people never get the disease even though they do not practice "safe" sex.
( lots of info hereCollapse )

Test will be case based multiple choice and matching.
The test will be for 30% of your grade. Lecture will start at 9:10 on GI health.
( original from KP, revision in process, goldmine here, dig for conditionsCollapse )

Kary Mullis is a surfer dude and brilliant molecular biologist who got a Nobel prize for his idea. In 1985 he dreamed up an in vitro method for gene amplification. His method is called PCR, polymerase chain reaction. The process is brilliant because it can be completely automated and the starting material can be impure.
( PCR detailsCollapse )