MELATONIN SUPPLEMENTS SUBJECTED TO LIBEL Over the past month or so, I have seen no less than 6 headlines in my news feed, to do with the dangers of taking Melatonin Supplements. This one, a diatribe about an article from NCCIH (a branch of the NIH, the National Institute of Health), came in on the 3rd of Feb.I didn’t save the others. THE HEADLINE “Using Melatonin Supplements for sleep is on the rise, study says, despite potential health harms” THE “STUDY“DATED February 1, 2022, it totaled 669 words. It was a letter, not an in-depth research paper. Titled “Trends in Use…

Xenon Xenon is the ideal anesthetic. Xenon is a trace gas in Earth’s atmosphere, occurring at approximately 1 part per 11.5 million. It has 54 protons in its nucleus, so its atomic number is 54. It has a density of 5.894 kg/m3, about 4.5 times the density of our atmosphere at sea level, so it would sink if the air were still. This is a noble gas, one of the zero-valence elements, which don’t mix with “ordinary” elements (kind of a “Royal Family” – type thing)….. It will not take part in most common chemical reactions, such as combustion.Xenon is a…

A few folks have had a look at my book, entitled “XCRATH !” ! Isn’t that nice ? It’s a Science-Fiction novel, based on XENON’s anaesthetic properties. The hooker is that Xenon is in high atmospheric concentration on man’s new planet. ***It’s the chronicle of space exploration by a multinational crew, with Alien contact, Action, Ecology, Psychology, Philosophy and Medical Humour.It is an easily readable 264 pages, including a glossary of names and Xcrath – English translations. It just occurred to me – if you are interested in a 258-page SciFI novel with “how to exceed the speed of light”…

Herbert, age 66 Two of my healthiest patients ( humans, not cats! Herman, age 65 Back in 2006 two of my previously healthy, unmedicated male patients, Herman, aged 65 and Herbert, aged 66, developed “multiple extrasystoles” (random, extra heartbeats) at the same time. The 65YO was a light smoker (5-7 cigarettes per day) and had a couple of beers per day, while the 66YO didn’t smoke, or take alcohol. Both had normal blood tests (except for low DHEA levels), chest Xrays and EKGs. At the time, I had just started prescribing DHEA, so I advised them to take DHEA. Herman…

“ADRENAL FATIGUE” Transient stress causes short-term increase of cortisol output by the adrenal glands.Cortisol inhibits D1 (type 1, 5-deiodinase enzyme) and promotes D3, reducing conversion of T4 into T3, increasing rT3 production and increasing conversion of T3 into (inactive) T2. By these mechanisms stress, whether physical, as in terminal illness, catastrophic infection, severe injury, major surgery, burns etc., or psychological, produces Intracellular Hypothyroidism. We sometimes find that the adrenals no longer respond with high cortisol production and often, cortisol tests show reduced production. MANY ILL EFFECTS CAUSED BY INTRACELLULAR HYPOTHYROIDISM ARE BLAMED ON “ADRENAL FATIGUE” Medical practitioners unfamiliar with deiodinase…

INTRACELLULAR (FUNCTIONAL) HYPOTHYROIDISM Cardiomyocyte-specific inactivation of thyroid hormone in pathologic ventricular hypertrophy, by Christine J. Pol,Alice Muller, and Warner S. Simonides, was published in Nov. 2008. It proves Deiodinase-3 activity in ventricular hypertrophy, causing heart failure, associated with severe impairment of cardiac T3 signaling. If you have an interest in heart failure, especially cardiomyopathy, have a look at this paper (the abstract is not a difficult read and the article as a whole isn’t bad from the point of view of readability).

Alterations of host-gut microbiome interactions in multiple sclerosisThis admirable article is inconclusive, but suggests that MS patients might benefit from reduced meat consumption.See “INTERESTING URLs, to scientific papers”, # 10.