After performing a series of recently-developed tests, doctors and scientists report that an 84-year-old man, presumed to be in a vegetative state since 2006, showed “significant” brain activity when shown family pictures and offered other stimuli. A statement from Ben Gurion University in Israel, whose scientists participated in the tests, is quoted here:

“[The patient], presumed to be in a vegetative state since 2006 due to brain haemorrhage, was scanned to assess the extent and quality of his brain processing using methods recently developed by Professor Monti and collaborators,” it said.

“Scientists showed [the patient] pictures of his family, made him listen to his son’s voice, and used tactile stimulation to assess to what extent his brain responded to external stimuli,” it said in a statement.

“To their surprise, significant brain activity was observed in each test in specific brain regions, indicating appropriate processing of these (stimuli).”

Although this sounds dramatic—and rightly so—it is not unprecedented. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2010 (and noted then in this space) found similar results in a number of patients who were also diagnosed as “vegetative.”

Why then are the results for this particular patient in the news today? It is because the patient’s name is Ariel Sharon, and he is a former prime minister of Israel. Back in 2007, a year after his medical crisis, a hospital manager involved with the care of Sharon was quoted as saying that “The part of the brain that keeps his body functioning, his vital organs, is intact, but beyond that there is nothing, just fluid.”

Yet, although he remains incapable of speaking or of making substantial communicative gestures, the results of these tests will make his family feel vindicated in believing that Mr. Sharon is in fact still “there,” despite what various medical professionals have maintained, and despite the voices of all those who have advocated disconnecting the feeding tube and “allowing” him to die (of starvation). Will he ever recover something like normal consciousness and the ability to communicate? No one can say. [Read more →]

From section: Commentary, Health and Living by Sean Curnyn

Yours truly usually chooses not to participate in flu epidemics, but it seems possible I may have been drafted into the one currently sweeping the country. At any rate I’ve been experiencing a variety of the associated symptoms for some days.

The most annoying is probably the persistent cough. Perhaps no medications have been purchased at such cost, for so long, and with such futility as those labeled as “cough suppressants.” They seem pretty good at producing a variety of effects, but rarely much in the way of cough suppression.

Most people would already know that honey is good for a cough, but some may not know that studies have shown (see NIH and Mayo Clinic) that simply imbibing a teaspoon or two of the pure stuff seems to work as well and better than common cough medicines, and I would attest to the truth of that. Especially at night, when you’re not going to be drinking anything else, swallowing some and letting it coat your throat and lay there seems to have definite soothing effect on the coughing demon. [Read more →]

From section: Commentary, Health and Living by Sean Curnyn

Are you worried that eating that high calorie lunch is going to leave you with no room for dessert? Fret no more: With the new Bacon Sundae from Burger King, you can satisfy cravings for sugar, fat and salt all in one go.

The Bacon Sundae, being rolled out for a limited time to participating restaurants nationwide, includes vanilla ice-cream, chocolate fudge, caramel and crumbled bacon bits along with one honest-to-goodness-no-kidding crispy slice of bacon. [Read more →]

From section: Health and Living, Shorts by Sean Curnyn

The world seems agog at New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s latest attempt to forcibly improve the health of his subjects. He is proposing—and seems very likely to be able to fully implement—a ban on the sale of sugary drinks in containers larger than 16 oz at restaurants, movie theaters, sports arenas and street carts (i.e.: pretty much anywhere other than standard grocery stores, where fortunately you’ll still be able to take home a 2-liter Pepsi and embrace death by high fructose corn syrup).

A move like this is tailor-made for lengthy expressions of outrage over the incremental loss of freedom in modern American society. And, you know, have at it, by all means—but as for me (who happens to be a citizen of New York City), this particular effort is only good for chuckles. Is reducing the size of the available drink actually going to keep those who want to drink more from doing so? Are such people too dumb to realize that they can just order two 16 oz drinks in order to get the more fully-thirst-quenching 32 oz quantity which they desire? No one is really being prevented from doing anything here. It’s merely a perfect example of government nannyism run amok, expending pointless effort and over-regulating private enterprise with the vain goal of altering gluttonous human nature. A good knee-slapper is what it is.

As to the broader question of the rise in power of the health fascists, I believe the decisive turn in that battle was fought and lost (or won, depending on your point of view) years ago, and it too happened in New York. [Read more →]

From section: Commentary, Health and Living, New York Interest by Sean Curnyn

It seems that I’ve traversed a line of some sort, and passed a milestone detectable only by elite marketing professionals. Age-wise, I am somewhere in my forties (I make a conscious effort not to keep precise records anymore), and I was as of this afternoon feeling reasonable healthy. I returned from a quick run around in the park with my dog, and opened the mailbox to find a single item addressed personally to me. [Read more →]

From section: Commentary, Health and Living by Sean Curnyn

A psychologist named L. Alan Sroufe who was there in the beginning when conditions like “A.D.D.” were first characterized as problems, and who believed treatment with drugs like Ritalin was correct and helpful, pens an interesting column in the NY Times: Ritalin Gone Wrong: Children’s A.D.D. Drugs Don’t Work Long Term. Read it and weep. [Read more →]

From section: Commentary, Health and Living by Sean Curnyn

There has been considerable evidence accumulated through various studies that sitting for many hours each day—as so many people do as a matter of course at work, not to mention in recreational screen-watching—is extremely hazardous to one’s heath, especially when it comes to heart disease. A new report today has a cardiologist stating that it is every bit as dangerous as smoking. [Read more →]

From section: Commentary, Health and Living by Sean Curnyn

With the news full of the nuclear reactor crisis in Japan, it seems that there is a run on potassium iodide tablets, pretty much across the world. In the United States, the president of a company in Virginia (which ran out of the product on Saturday) reports that they continue to receive about three new orders a minute for single $10 packages of the anti-radiation pills. He’s quoted as saying, “Those who don’t get it are crying. They’re terrified.”

Since experts, governments and the World Health Organization are insisting that the risk to people far away from Japan is negligible, I guess this is all evidence of just how little trust people have in their leaders and their supposed betters, and I can’t say I blame them one bit. [Read more →]

From section: Commentary, Health and Living by Sean Curnyn

There’s a really remarkable story in the New York Times today, titled Giving Alzheimer’s Patients Their Way, Even Chocolate. It demands a complete reading, and will leave you moved and amazed — at least it did me. It follows the work being done at the Beatitudes nursing home in Arizona, where a very different approach from the norm is being followed in the care for Alzheimer’s patients, with dramatic and heartwarming results.

It amounts to an enormous testament to the dignity and value of human life, at all stages, and the tremendous power that comes from giving that dignity and deserved respect to people, especially when hardship seeks to rob them of it.

The Times doesn’t refer to the source of the name for this facility, i.e. Beatitudes. But I don’t mind making the reference at all.

From the Sermon on the Mount (ESV):

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

From section: Commentary, Health and Living by Sean Curnyn

The evidence just keeps piling up. From the Beeb:

Having low vitamin D levels may increase a person’s risk of developing Parkinson’s disease later in life, say Finnish researchers. [Read more →]

From section: Commentary, Health and Living by Sean Curnyn