Mathematical biologist Mark Tanaka of the University of New South Wales (Australia) wanted to know why ineffective health therapies, often called “quack therapies”, spread and develop reputations for working. He and other researchers interested in that paradox worked on creating a model of why people often try therapies and medicines which have no evidence of working and how they become more popular despite their ineffectiveness.
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Harmony DBT in St. Louis, Missouri, offers nine free audio tracks for people to learn about Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). DBT is a mainstay in psychotherapy treatment for people with certain personality and mood disorders. It was developed by Marsha M. Linehan for use in treating Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) patients.
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What is Autism?
Autism is a set of child developmental delays and disabilities. It includes impaired social interaction and communications, delayed and impaired verbal and language skills, and focus on repetitive activities. Autism is just one of several related disorders in the Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) classification. Asperger’s Syndrome is the second most common ASD illness after autism and generally differs from autism because language development is not affected as severely.
Early Detection of Autism Provides More Time for Intervention
Early detection of autism can provide parents, doctors, and therapists the time to intervene early in a child’s development, before autism becomes more severe. Although doctors recommend screening for autism starting at age 18 months, it is difficult to screen kids under the age of 2 (sometimes even older) because of typical developmental variations between children that are apparent in the verbal, language, emotional, and motor skills tests used to identify autism.
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Statins are a now famous (or infamous, depending upon your viewpoint) class of medicine used widely in American medicine. While studies do show they help reduce total and LDL (Low Density Lipoprotein) cholesterol and triglyceride levels, there are serious side effects to these medicines. They can lead to lethargy, headaches, muscle weakness, confusion, memory loss, and other side effects. More ominously, a recent study of Crestor (a statin drug) showed an increase in type 2 diabetes rates for those using the drug versus the control group using a placebo.
High Cholesterol Just Small Part of Cardiovascular Health Risks
Many people have the mistaken impression that high cholesterol is the biggest risk to your cardiovascular health. This isn’t likely true. There are a large variety of risks that are likely to be even more significant than high cholesterol levels. Many of them are not commonly tested for by doctors. Too many in the medical establishment have bought into “big pharma” pushing of statin drugs as the ultimate solution as they inaccurately believe high total and LDL cholesterol are the exclusive risk factors for cardiovascular diseases. As cardiovascular surgeon Dr. Michael Ozner points out in his book The Great American Heart Hoax: Lifesaving Advice Your Doctor Should Tell You About Heart Disease Prevention (But Probably Never Will)
, many of the therapies and surgeries for cardiovascular disease that are common in the United States are probably unnecessary, raise health care expenses, and don’t really improve overall outcomes. Much better than surgeries would be to prevent cardiovascular disease in the first place. But there are many risks that must be managed.
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Western societies value the lives of men less than those of women and more severely punish men than women for similar crimes. This constitutes a form of government institutionalized sexism against men. In the process, this sexism tends to legitimize and enable violence by women against men and children. It has been well-established for decades that partner violence is most often mutual, with both partners committing acts of violence upon each other. Pretending otherwise, as Western societies do, simply enables and encourages women to assault, victimize, and even murder their partners because they know the consequences to them for their crimes are often minimal. Sexism simply helps perpetuate the problem of partner violence and its related problems of child abuse, divorce, and mental illness.
Female DV Offenders Benefit from Gender Bias
Consider the March 2009 case of Surrey, British Columbia wife Ellie Cunningham whose violent assault against her husband Adam led to his death. Canadian authorities are likely to drop the charges against the wife because she managed to kill her husband, the only witness to the crime. They are doing this even though Statistics Canada government data shows very clearly that women are often abusing men and it is seldom reported. The message sent is that it’s OK for women to abuse and even kill men.
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Researchers at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California (USC) conducted a 16-week study to see if slightly modifying the diets of Latino teenagers would affect type 2 diabetes risk factors. The findings were reported in the April 2009 issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
Latino Teens Have High Obesity and Diabetes Risks
The research participants were Latino teenagers because previous research showed almost 40 percent of Mexican American children ages 12 to 19 were found to be overweight or at risk of developing diabetes.
“Latino children are more insulin resistant and thus more likely to develop obesity-related chronic diseases than their white counterparts,” the authors write. “To date, only a few studies have examined the effects of a high-fiber, low-sugar diet on metabolic health in overweight youth, and to our knowledge, none have tested the effects of this type of intervention in a mixed-sex group of Latino youth.”
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The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is celebrating a big improvement in its public perception. This year, only 47 percent of the US residents recently polled think the agency is doing a poor job. That’s a marked improvement for the agency, down from 58 percent of those polled expressing a “poor” rating a year ago. The public’s poor perception of FDA is based upon facts that show the agency is incapable of performing its mission and is not aligned with public health and safety interests. Unfortunately, the declining public disapproval ratings of the FDA have more to do with the amazingly short-term memory of the American public and media which is bombarded with government scandals and crises (real or imagined) on a daily basis.
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The Five Love Languages of Children
truly is a great and important book for every parent to read. It explains the five different approaches of providing love to a child and teaches parents to recognize and speak their child’s love language. By speaking the right love language, Moms and Dads can avoid many parenting issues and pitfalls by effectively connecting with their children and redirect their efforts to building family relationships that are filled with mutual and genuine respect, affection and commitment. Parents who read the book will also learn much about themselves, understand what their own love language is, and thereby improve relationships with their spouse or partner and even their own parents.
Apart from the basic physical needs of food, shelter and clothing, every child needs unconditional love; love that accepts and affirms a child for simply being who they are, not for what they do. Without unconditional love, a child will wither emotionally and can become stunted for life by feelings of inadequacy, fear, anger and resentment.
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As the misleadingly named “swine flu” spreads across the world killing a few people here and there, a combination of scientific illiteracy and emotional idiocy are hurting a lot of people and businesses.
The pork industry is seeing sales plummet as people errantly think eating pork is dangerous due to the virus.
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On March 20, 2009, Ellie Cunningham viciously attacked her husband Adam with a broken wine glass, repeatedly slashing him and leaving him with multiple severe cuts on his arms and legs and a broken ankle. When police arrived and found him on the steps outside of their home in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada, it was clear Ellie had badly assaulted him.
Ellie was arrested by police and a domestic violence (DV) investigation ensued. A restraining order was issued on the wife, and Adam moved in with his mother to recover from the assault. He had extensive stitches to hold together his slashed skin and surgery to repair his broken ankle. Unfortunately, he was found dead on his mother’s sofa three weeks later. An autopsy indicated the cause of death to be complications from the surgery to fix the damage from the DV assault.
During the time between the assault and his death, Adam was interviewed by police and wrote about his experiences during the nearly four years of marriage to Ellie. He recounted how Ellie would have outbursts and become verbally abusive.
Video news coverage of Adam’s death, including photos of his injuries and an interview with his sister Nikki, can be found at:
Global BC TV News Coverage of Death of Adam Cunningham
Oddly, his wife published this obituary claiming that she’ll miss him:
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