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itakecareofsickpeople · 3 years ago

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Why Do I Hate Ivermectin?

I was asked to do an article on ivermectin and I feel that it is important to understand the science behind ivermectin (and HCQ). I think if you know the science, you will be as skeptical as I am.

I was once being quizzed by an Attending Physician when I was a resident. I stuttered as I was answering and said, “I think…” He stopped me mid-sentence and said, “Son, you are a second year internal medicine resident, I don’t give a shit what you think. What do you know?”

You see, it really isn’t relevant to all of you what I think. You aren’t interested in my opinion. You are reading this post because you are interested in what I know. I don’t take anything at face value and I always read all of the studies that people are using as a reference to prove a point. The thing is, most “studies” aren’t worth the paper they are printed on and don’t actually “study” anything. Worst thing is, sometimes it’s a fake.

We all know about the faked anti-vaccine trial by Andrew Wakefield, the completely discredited, former doctor, who started the anti-vaccine movement by faking data on autism and vaccines. In case you didn’t, he faked the original anti-vaccine study and In 2010, the British General medical council found that Wakefield “had been dishonest in his research, had acted against his patients' best interests and mistreated developmentally delayed children.” That’s right anti-vaxxers. That’s your start, one giant lie.

I have read all of the studies that I will make reference to in this post and regrettably, every study I can find on ivermectin. As of now, I do not see any evidence that supports the use of ivermectin for Covid in humans outside of a clinical trial. Hey! That’s what the cdc says too….odd.

In general, American doctors are snobby. We want studies from Europe, Israel, Australia, Canada and the good ole USA. We don’t want studies from countries with dictatorships or totalitarian regimes. These countries have a long track record of producing fake studies and bad studies. Countries such as China, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Brazil, Venezuela, etc. You know, the same governments that hack us and steel info from us, those ones. It is in their governments interest to make all of their people think they have a treatment for covid, otherwise there would be revolts. American doctors generally would never consider a study from Egypt as high quality, unless it was published in a very well respected journal. There just isn’t any quality control.

The science behind HCQ is basically the same, except with ivermectin, a large clinical trial showing it helped, was all fake. HCQ just didn’t work. Lots of us used HCQ at the beginning of covid until real studies were done showing it didn’t work and may actually worsen outcomes.

Remember, most drugs are safe in normal doses, but toxic in doses outside of the ��therapeutic window” that is the dose that both will have the desired effect, but also is safe and well tolerated. Too little drug, it doesn’t work, too much drug, it causes toxicity.

First, It is very important to test all drugs that are easily available for activity in covid. This starts in a test tube. Ivermectin was approved in 1996 for the treatment of strongyloides and hookworms. In animal studies, it is lethal in overdose and causes toxicity at 10x the approved dose. It also was found to be a teratogen (birth defects) and is not approved for use in pregnant women. Otherwise, it is quite safe and effective in comparison to approved treatments of the time and was approved after being studied in about 1700 patients (half given ivermectin, half given old treatments). It is widely available and is pretty safe (Except in pregnancy).

Ivermectin was found to have in vitro (test tube) activity against the SARS COV2 virus. I know that sounds great, but remember what we said about the therapeutic window. It was shown, in the test tube, to inhibit activity of covid by 50% at a concentration of 2 μM (1,750 ng/mL), which is > 35× higher than the maximum plasma concentration (Cmax) of 0.05 µM (46.6 ng/mL) after oral administration of the approved dose (~ 200 μg/kg) and ivermectin showed little to no activity at 1 μM in vitro.

Wait, so that means you would need 35 times the approved dose to inhibit covid and ivermectin is toxic at 10x the dose. It also causes birth defects? Count me out.

As you might imagine, based on this knowledge it is very hard for me to believe that you can safely dosed ivermectin could have any benefit for covid. Now, on to the bad studies.

Remember what I said about studies from certain countries?

In November, an article from Egypt was published without review in an online site called Research Square. Never heard of it? Me either? It showed a 99% reduction in mortality. Holy crap, that’s amazing, right? Of course. Despite it having such a completely unrealistic outcome, many doctors picked this up and ran with it. In America, a group of doctors that named themselves the FLCCC, led by two guys named Paul Marik and Pierre Kory, latched on to this and started spouting its effects. I personally have a lot knowledge and not a lot of respect for Marik’s work predating covid. His FLCCC “treatment guidelines” have never been evidence based and in general he has never been able to publish studies that prove his claims.

So after this first study from Egypt comes out, a bunch of studies follow and are picked up by Marik’s group. They did a “review” of them and included the Egyptian study. Most of the studies aren’t even reviewed and are published online as “preprint.” They are from Egypt, India, Iraq, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Peru, Nigeria, Mexico, and Argentina. None of these places are exactly known for being in the 1st world and none of the other studies showed the massive effect as the Egyptian study.

Then, a medical student in the UK is assigned the Egyptian study for a report. He actually reads the study. It doesn’t make sense. He then requests more information from the authors and they sent him the “patient data.” It was clearly faked and he got some journalists involved. After they involved an expert on faked studies, the study was then taken down from Research Square over “ethical concerns.” Too bad Marik didn’t bother to do what the med student did.

Unfortunately, this has led to a massive amount of confusion. If you think that there is a treatment for covid, you might not take the vaccine. Even If it worked, we would be taking about a minimal effect. Heck, it could even be toxic if you give it to that many people. The other big problem is we have to do a bunch of American studies to see if it does work. Studies that could have been done with another treatment. What a waste of time and lives.

So why do I hate ivermectin? Well, I don’t. I hate the waste of time I have spent writing this article to discuss a drug that could only be effective for covid if you took enough to kill you. I hate the people that faked the study, they have cost lives. I don’t hate Marik, but I definitely think he is crazy and I’m not interested in what he thinks and that isn’t new. Unfortunately he has a big microphone and I just have this little one.

My biggest recommendation is ask your doctor if you should have the vaccine. If you trust YOUR doctor, listen to HIM or HER. Not some YAHOO online like ME. Remember, you trust your doctors to take care of your babies, born and unborn, cut you open, give us anesthesia and put cameras in all our holes. You trust them to help you make major medical decisions about your life. Keep doing that, they care about you. We care about you.

Please, don’t post any articles in support of ivermectin. I read them and found them lacking. Also, don’t post another doctors opinion of ivermectin. I don’t care what they think, just what they know.

PS: I am a Critical Care Pulmonologist, I take care of sick people. Hopefully that won’t be you.

Oh yeah. Feel free to share. I should really charge for these.

#itakecareofsickpeople #covidsucks #covid

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meg91596 · 3 years ago

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Life, and Love is not Simple

Chapter 2: Suprises and Happiness

It has been three months since Scout’s incident and I’m still shocked that a 19 year old could do that to an infant. Amelia is terrified to leave Scout and Chris with a sitter unless it is her brother, Maggie, and my parents. She won’t go out unless we know someone who won’t hurt our boys and our two puppies Stella and Nuggie. Those dogs have been protecting Scout since we got them and they let us know when he is awake and crying. I think Nuggie should be trained to be a service dog for Chris who is traumatized by what happened to his brother. I think Amelia is too. She is also 8 months pregnant with our baby that we still don’t know the gender to so it’s either Ariel Elizabeth, or Cooper James. We decided that Ariel Elizabeth sounded better than Ariel Grace.

“Honey, I think It's time.” Amelia said. “Are you sure? Remember you did this with Scout.” I said. “Well I'm having contractions every 5 minutes lets go in case these are real ones which I know they are.” Amelia said. “Okay what about Chris and Scout? And it isn't a little too early, you're only 34 weeks” I said. “Bring them with us, let's go now.” Amelia said doubled over in pain. “Okay I’ll get Scout in his carseat.” I said. “Link what is wrong with mommy is the baby coming?” Chris asked. “Yes, so we have to go to the hospital.” I said. “Okay I’ll get the diaper bag, and stroller for Scout.” Chris said. “Thank You Chris you are a good big brother to Scout and the new baby already.” Amelia said. “Mommy do you think the baby is coming or do you think it’s like Scout when you thought he was coming and yet he wasn’t ready just yet.” Chris asked. “Well we won’t know till Aunt Jo assesses mommy.” I said.

We got to the hospital around 5:30pm. Chris was getting hungry so he decided that he would take the Scout in his stroller to the cafeteria while Amelia and I went to see if the baby was coming. We waited for a half and hour as Jo was in surgery delivering a baby. Jo was originally going to go home with Luna but she stayed to find out what was going on. Amelia was right the baby was coming. She wasn't looking forward to the delivery part again, especially so close to Chris’ birthday which is in the morning. With the baby coming we ended up rescheduling Chris’ birthday which he was very understanding of. He’s a good kid, even though he has a hard time in school due to his developmental delays doesn’t defy him.

“Scout would you like a mushed up pizza I had the nurses blend up a pizza for you.” Chris said to his little brother. “Yes Pizza.” Scout said. “You are a good big brother when the baby comes would you like to stay and Auntie Meredith can watch Scout so you have the privilege of naming the baby?” Amelia asked. “Really Mommy?” Chris asked. “Yes Chris you are going to be 10 in a few hours and you can have the privilege of being in the room.” Amelia said. “Link I want to do this at home can we do this at home?” Amelia said. “I’m Sorry Amelia but the babies are still breech and I want you here and if you have to have a Csection which you might if these babies don't progress in the next hour I’m sorry this is the only way to get the babies safely out.” Jo said. “Well Chris you might not get to see the baby born after all.” I said. “It's okay. I can go spend time in the observation area with Scout, Auntie Meredith, Uncle Derek. I think Uncle Derek is doing a really cool removal of a tumor in a back.” Chris said. “Yes he is, I was supposed to help him and so wasn’t daddy.” Amelia said.

I knew Amelia and I were preparing for this long surgery but unfortunately we aren’t going to be able to finish with our patient because Amelia went into labor and may have to have a C-Section. A half an hour had passed when Jo came into the room. Chris, and Scout were sleeping when she came to see if the baby had progressed. The baby had not progressed so she had to give us the most devastating news that our baby was likely not going to make it if Amelia chose a natural birth because the baby’s heart rate keeps dropping. She decided that It was best to have the surgery and that Amelia would have to go through Rehab after the baby is born just to ensure that she didn��t want more drugs. Jo didn’t want to have her put under general because of the danger that can come with that. Five minutes after the news we were in the operating room.

“We're having this baby.” Amelia said. “Yes we are, I'm looking forward to meeting the baby.” I said. “Me too lets just hope no complications are happening.” Amelia said. “Okay Amelia a little pressure, and baby A is out.” Jo said. “The baby is here, wait did you just say baby A?” I asked. “Yes there is more than one didn’t I tell you guys months ago?” Jo asked. “Not that we can recall.” I said. “Well surprise, here is baby B.” Jo said. “How are the babies Link?” Amelia asked. “Beautiful wait there is another coming.” Link said. “Perfect triplets, what are we going to do? We only planned for one, not three.” Amelia said. “I know we will work something out because we are great parenting Christopher, and Scout.” I said. “Poor Chris will have to share his birthday with the triplets.” Amelia said. “Here you go daddy baby A is ready to meet her family.” the Nurse said as she handed me a baby girl. “Elsa Mae is her name.” Amelia said. “Elsa Mae it is then. I said as the nurse brought the second baby over and it was another girl. “Madeline Elizabeth is her name. I decided that Charlotte wasn’t a perfect name for our baby.” Amelia said as Elsa, and Maddie were placed on her chest. “Here you go daddy.” the nurse said handing me a baby boy. “Cooper James is his name.” Amelia said.

Shortly after the triplets were born the nurse took them to the NICU because they were early but we were still shocked how we ended up with triplets Maddy and Elsa are identical twins and it turns out Cooper was just another egg that was released when Amelia got pregnant during our short separation time near Scout’s first birthday. We have five kids when it was only supposed to be three. When Amelia got back to her room Meredith, and Derek were there waiting on the news of whether the baby was okay. We had quite a surprise for them as Amelia said that they were beautiful.

“They? You are doing gender binary talk for the baby?” Derek asked. “No Elsa, Madeline, and Cooper are perfect.” Amelia said. “WHAT?” Derek asked. “We had triplets two girls and a boy.” I said. “Triplets wow so you have 5 kids after all now.” Derek said. “Hey I wasn't playing on it as we were only supposed to have one but I guess Maddie was hiding behind Elsa, and Cooper was higher up and Link and I never really paid much attention to the ultrasound as we were talking about either Chris or Scout.” Amelia said. “Well surprises are always good though even if it’s babies.” Meredith said. “Don’t worry we will get you things for babies.” Derek said before leaving the room with Meredith as Chris entered the room with Scout.

Chris was surprised by the news but he couldn’t wait to hold his siblings. When Maddie, Elsa, and Cooper came in the room Amelia started to hold Cooper when Scout started to fuss. I picked him up and brought him to Amelia where he met baby Cooper. Scout lit up and started patting Cooper like he was a puppy. We thought it was a good thing because we were nervous about how he would react considering he is still a baby not quite two years old yet. We were a happy family, and Chris was proud to share his birthday with the triplets.

#amelia shepherd #derek shepherd #meredith grey #atticus lincoln #christopher shepherd #greys anatomy #scout lincoln #fanfiction

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gloriousxdarkness · 4 years ago

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5, 12, 16, 18

{ 42 Character Development Questions } — @thatslayer

5. How do they dress? What styles, colors, accessories, and other possessions do they favor? Why?

In her professional/“fancy person” life, her outfits are expensive and tailored. I think every business-related instance she’s in heels and a skirt or dress. She leans predominantly into red and black for show aesthetic reasons, but also because black is always in style and red is a power color. She favors high necklines, soft blouses, leather, outfits that flatter her legs, and gold jewelry (primarily bracelets and rings). Her nails are almost always manicured black, occasionally bright red. She gets hair extensions added or removed at will based on how much and how frequently the length of her hair changed during S2.

More casually we see her in jeans/leather pants, a silk red robe, sometimes dark green or white tops, and flat shoes. She has three fighting outfits, two relating to Daredevil: her first is an inverted version of Matt’s to be black with the red cowl covering her face, and the second is the battle armor designed by Melvin that she dies in. Girl can’t resist a couple’s costume. Her third is a gift from the Hand, a predominantly red battle dress. Wasn’t her choice to wear so I don’t consider it her personal style. In cwrp, she wears all black with maybe a dash of gold for her cowl. She’s forgone red in combat for now.

12. How are they bodily expressive? How do they use nonverbal cues such as their posture, stance, eyes, eyebrows, mouths, and hands?

Putting fighting as a language aside for the moment, it’s a lot in the subtleties— half ninja and half politician’s daughter. I think her eyes/eyebrows give her away the most. When she’s terrified, astounded, pissed, being sarcastic, intensely focused, or questioning her entire life, it’s there. On the flip side, it’s pretty easy to see when she’s holding things back, and that can be just as telling as when she’s trying to convey something non-verbally.

Her posture will almost never totally relax. She’s too well trained in poise and there’s always a string of tension there. The only time I can see her fully relaxing is if she feels safe, either a safe place or in someone’s arms. Smiles and laughter came a lot easier before she died. After, her lips twitch into smiles and frowns but they are usually small and brief. It doesn’t mean the emotions aren’t there. Under the Hand’s control, she had to be extremely careful not to give herself away when she started remembering and plotting against them. Elektra reaches out to touch arms, shoulders, hands, faces, anywhere with light caresses. Eventually she’ll warm up to someone and give out touches like that fairly often. It’s just affection and human connection that she’s asking for without words.

You get more out of her the looser she is, whether from getting shaken up by something or sparring/physical interaction. (faith hugs & kisses ;) extra potent)

16. Do they dream? What are those dreams like?

We have a lovely dream sequence where Elektra dreams of Matt, of being at peace and full of light and hella domestic. I’m sure it’s not the only time she’ll dream of him. Not only because of love, but because he represents the happier times in her life. I think her worse dreams are haunted by being in the empty abyss and the resurrection process, and by the memories of the murders she committed for the Hand. She visited the heavenly city of K’un L’un only to kill all the monks there, not by choice but still by her hand. I don’t think she sleeps for long stretches.

18. What kind of person could they become in the future? What are some developmental paths that they could take, (best, worst, most likely?) what would cause them to come to pass, and what consequences might they have? What paths would you especially like to see, and why?

The best path — Elektra gets some tough love, finds a good sensei to re-instruct her and help her heal, mentally. She finds someone worthy to sit at the feet of, finds purpose in acts of service that have nothing to do with mystic wars. She feels understood. She develops a sense of identity that isn’t rooted in being a weapon, where her value and self image isn’t only as a tool for killing. She develops a healthier relationship to fighting/martial arts. She has a support network. The Hand leaves her alone. Maybe she opens a dojo.

The worst path — Elektra sinks further into this mentality that a killer is all she is and nothing matters. She cuts off all personal relationships. She could try to infiltrate the Hand and they would then trick her into killing someone she cares for, like her mother. The absolute worst thing is if she stopped resisting them and gave herself over. But more realistically, if her sense of self devolved enough, she could start selling her skill because she feels like she has nothing else worthwhile to give. Show!Elektra becoming an assassin for hire rather than for a higher purpose would be an extreme low point for her and eat away at her soul.

The most likely path — I’ll stick to crossed worlds for this.* Elektra right now is floundering with lack of purpose. She’s aiming herself in a bunch of different directions hoping something sticks. She’s going after the Hand because it’s the only thing she can think to do with her time and skills, as a preemptive strike. She likes killing monsters with Faith but it’s not her true calling, it belongs to the Slayers. She’s trying romance in hopes it’ll make her feel something. She doesn’t always feel like she’s being herself, whether out of habit of distrust, or because pretending is easier than being a drag around her new super friends, or because she doesn’t know who she’s supposed to be now. She’s on track to get the dragon bones, after which she’ll have to make a pretty terrible choice to either torment someone innocent to preserve herself or accept her death (and if it’s the former, become the very thing she despised in her first life — which is one reason she’s engaging in local vigilantism in our one thread). She’s slowly and quietly spiraling and feels on the verge of either running away or having a breakdown, or both. This is what happens to her in the comics, but has been delayed in the verse by the presence of friends and potential love.

The Hand will not leave her alone once the bones are uncovered and she’s defending them. If Elektra works her way up to Gao in Gotham, Gao is more likely to offer her a deal to be allies instead of enemies. A deal I’m pretty sure she’d refuse. Even if she kills the leaders she knows about, the Hand is legion and there is like 100x more wild and weird stuff to do with them. At some point she’ll die and resurrect and the unknown aftermath of that will effect a lot for her.

*subject to change since our group verse has a lot of moving parts/characters that obviously influence her choices

I’m interested in ALL of the above. It’s possible for Elektra to go on a long journey of ups and downs, or I am happy to split it up with many people and verses. The cycle of violence is a theme for her as a character, so her attempts to get out (with temporary success or outright failure) and/or sink deeper into it repeatedly as circumstances change all tracks. There’s room for a lot of different storylines.

#thatslayer #ty bby #answered #ask meme #crossedworldsrp #free universe;#v; crossed worlds #this got long af apologies #headcanons;#queue;

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scriptautistic · 7 years ago

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OK so I might be wrong but I recall one of the admins here saying they're French (or that they got diagnosed in France ???)...if I'm not mistaken, could they say more about the diagnosis process & how autistic people are treated in France (do you have accomodations, is there a lot of ableism, etc) ? I'm writing a French autistic character and I'm lacking a lot of information because most of the info about autism in France is in French, and I haven't learned the language.

Hi! You’re remembering correctly, I am indeed French, and I can answer that question.

Autism Diagnosis in France

French healthcare is set up with a primary care system with general healthcare providers(such as general practitioners or family doctors), and then you’ve got specialists, and you’ve got to go through primary care to be able to access the specialists and be reimbursed properly. It works like this for all kind of healthcare specialists, and it’s also the case for autism.

I don’t know the age of your character when they’re getting diagnosed, so I’ll cover different situations. Basically, there are three different times in your life where you can get adressed to a specialized team for diagnosis:

As a young child: It is possible the parents noticed that there was something “wrong” with their child and brought it up with the pediatrician. It is also possible that the pediatrician noticed some developmental delays or tell-tale signs of autism during one of the developmental checkups that are (theoretically) scheduled regularly during the child’s first years.

As a school-age child or as a teenager: difficulties (of an academic or social nature) at school can trigger questions from teachers or parents. Typically, the child would then meet the school psychologist who would do a first screening/evaluation. If the school psychologist thought there was ground for a diagnosis, they’d refer the child to a child psychiatrist.

As a teenager or an adult: Self-diagnosis can lead the character to seek an official diagnosis, they’d then go to a psychiatrist (people younger than 26 can go see a psychiatrist directly, people 26 and older need to be refered by their G.P. if they want to be reimbursed) to talk about it. Another possibility is the character seeing a psychologist or psychiatrist for mental health problems, and the professionnal bringing up the possibility of an autism diagnosis. If it was a psychologist who brought it up, the character would need to go and see a psychiatrist anyway, because only doctors can make official referals to specialists.

In any case, the character would end up seeing a general healthcare provider, who would ask them (or their parents) a lot of question about autistic traits, their impact on daily life and on professional/academic life, etc. If what the doctor hears lets them think that there is ground for a diagnosis, they’d then write a letter to a specialized team, with all the information to justify their demand.

Specialized teams can be composed of psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, speech therapists, occupational therapists, psycho-motor therapists… There is at least one “official” team per admisitrative region in France (so that means 8 total), in what is called a Centre Ressource Autisme or C.R.A. (which means Autism Resource Center). There can also be teams in other places such as in CAMSPs (Center for Early Medico-Social Action, for children younger than 6), CMPPs (Medico-Psycho-Pedagogical Center, for children up to 18 yo), child psychiatry or pediatry services in hospitals, special evaluation units, or coordinated independant practices.

Your character can probably count a couple of months before being refered to one of these teams. It’s going to be quicker for a young child than for an adult, because it’s considered as more of a priority. For me it took 6 months but that’s because they lost my contact info, I think one-two months is more representative.

As for what the actual autism evaluation would look like, I am going to describe mine, but it’s slightly different from place to place and from team to team. It probably would also be slightly different with a child, i went through the evaluation process as an adult.

First I had a preliminary interview with a psychiatrist, it was a general discussion of my autistic traits and of the things that made me suspect being autistic. I also showed him my health report and my school report. After that he said he’d recommand me for a full evaluation and he told me to wait for them to contact me. I had the full evaluation two months later. It consisted in:

A full cognitive assessment, they used the WAIS-IV

A language (and more) assessment, which included a spelling test, a reading speed test, a thing where I had to come up with as many words as I could in two minutes, a theory of mind test, a test in which I had to identify and then imitate intonation, a test in which I had to identify emotions on faces, give definitions or synonyms for words, and maybe more stuff that I can’t remember.

What they called a “functional assessment” which consisted in them asking questions about my daily life, about how I manage activities of daily living, how studying and working is going for me, and so on. I think they had a booklet they took questions from. They also made me do some things like telling the story from a picture and from a picture book, telling a story with objects, playing a kind of pretend game… I was filmed during all of this. They also left the room for a few minutes while leaving me with distractions (a big basket of books and stimmy things), they said they needed to talk but I think they wanted to film how I’d react while alone.

An interview with my girlfriend about my daily life, how I manage activities of daily living and whether I put myself in danger and whether I know how to manage money and stuff. Basically assessing my level of independence I guess.

There was supposed to be an interview with my mom to ask about my early development but she couldn’t come, so they gave her a paper form with questions to answer.

After that, there is one more appointment with the psychiatrist to give me the results.

That’s about all I can say about diagnosis. The whole process took about a year for me but it’s supposed to be shorter, it would have been if they hadn’t lost my contact information. It didn’t cost me anything. It all took place in my local hospital, in a special evaluation unit for adult autism diagnosis. If you have any more questions I’d be happy to answer them.

Attitudes towards autism in France

First I’d say autism is not as well-known in France as it can be in English-speaking countries. If you ask the general population what autism is, chances are you’ll be met with faint memories of Rain Man and not much else. There’s also a certain awareness of rocking with one’s hands over one’s ears as an autistic thing, and it sometimes is used for ableist jokes and mockery. Mostly, if your character were to try and explain they are autistic to people, they’d probably have to explain everything from the beginning because people don’t really have a working definition of autism.

There’s a lot of ableism towards autism among professionnals, even though most specialists I’ve encountered were well-meaning. Asperger’s is still a very commonly-used diagnostic term here, and chances are your character would have to talk about Asperger’s rather than autism to be understood and taken seriously by professionals. If they don’t have contact with an international community, that’s also probably how they’d identify. All French communities of autistic people I’ve found centered around this word. There are not a lot of these communities, and I’m not aware of any big organization run by and for autistic people. Your character may feel isolated and have trouble finding people like them. Some hospitals or autism centers run discussion groups and meetings for autistic teens, I think.

Regarding autism, things that are well-established in the U.S. are often seen as the Brand Great New thing in France. Basically I think you can say we are about 10 years late in that regard. For instance, I’ve met a lot of professionnals who were excited to work with me because they were very interested in how autism presents in girls, they’ve read there are some differences, and so on. This is not a new researc subject in the U.S., but it is here. Another, less pleasant example of this phenomenon is that here, ABA is seen as the Great New Thing, a new efficient treatment that’s commonly used overseas but barely even known here! We’ve got to train specialists and to develop it! That’s one aspect for which I wish we wouldn’t be making progress.

Most non-specialist mental health and medical professionnals know very little about autism. Once I tried to talk about it to a psychiatrist, and he confused it with schizophrenia and schooled me on why I wasn’t psychotic. I had to teach more than one therapist about it. There are still very backwards “treatments” of autism that are sometimes in use, such as psychoanalysis (on nonverbal 5 year olds...). But as a psychology student I can say we’re mostly getting up-to-date information about autism, so hopefully this should get better in coming years.

As to accomodations, I’ve never had to ask for any so I’m not best placed to answer this question. It is law that people with disabilities (I’m pretty sure you have to have an official diagnosis for this) have to get the accomodations they need in the workplace, in school and in higher education, but I’m not sure how easy it is to get them or how well the laws are respected. I’ve seen a few disabled fellow students who got accomodations, one of whom was autistic (he had someone else take his notes for him and was allowed to record lectures). I can tell you a bit more about how to get accomodations in university; if that’s relevant for you to know you can shoot us another ask once the askbox is open again.

That’s all I can think of off the top of my head, if you have follow-up questions I’d be happy to answer them.

-Mod Cat

If this post was useful to you and you want to support me, please consider buying me a coffee!

#question #mod cat #france #diagnosis #ableism #ableism cw #accomodations

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stephenmccull · 4 years ago

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Syphilis Cases in California Drive a Record-Setting Year for STDs Nationwide

In certain circles of San Francisco, a case of syphilis can be as common and casual as the flu, to the point where Billy Lemon can’t even remember how many times he’s had it.

This story is from a partnership that includes NPR, KQED and KHN. It can be republished for free.

“Three or four? Five times in my life?” he struggles to recall. “It does not seem like a big deal.”

At the time, about a decade ago, Lemon went on frequent methamphetamine binges, kicking his libido into overdrive and silencing the voice in his head that said condoms would be a wise choice at a raging sex party.

“It lowers your inhibitions, and also your decision-making abilities are skewed,” said Lemon, who is 50.

He’s sober now and runs the Castro Country Club in San Francisco — which is not a resort, but a place where gay men come to get help with addiction, especially meth. Lemon said syphilis comes with the territory.

“In the 12-step community, if meth was your thing, everybody had syphilis,” he said.

In 2000, syphilis rates were so low that public health officials believed eradication was on the horizon. But the rates started creeping up in 2001. From 2015 to 2019 alone, cases rose 74%. There were nearly 130,000 cases nationwide in 2019, according to data released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In California and the U.S., about half of syphilis cases are in men who have sex with men. More than a third of women in the West who have syphilis also use meth, which has surged in recent years. These are just some of the trends causing overall national cases of sexually transmitted diseases to hit an all-time high for the last six years in a row, reaching 2.5 million. And the consequences are now trickling down to babies, who are contracting syphilis from their mothers: Congenital syphilis rates nearly quadrupled between 2012 and 2019.

This was all before the coronavirus pandemic took hold in the U.S., and with contact tracers and testing supplies diverted from STDs to covid-19, the CDC is predicting 2020 numbers will be no better.

“We are quite worried about this and have seen this trend over time,” said Dr. Erica Pan, California’s state epidemiologist. “Unfortunately, with years of not having enough funding and infrastructure in public health, and then in this past year, of course, both at the local and state level, a lot of personnel who had been focusing on STDs and syphilis follow-up have really been redirected to the pandemic.”

There’s No Single Cause

Many factors have contributed to the rise of STDs, and syphilis in particular.

In San Francisco’s gay community, for example, the rise of mobile dating apps like Grindr and Tinder made finding a date “faster than getting pizza delivered to your home,” said Dan Wohlfeiler, an STD prevention specialist and co-founder of Building Healthy Online Communities, which uses these apps to improve gay men’s health.

When the dating apps first came on the scene around 2009, they made it harder for disease investigators to track the spread of STDs and notify people who may have been infected, because men don’t always know the names of the men they hook up with.

“They sometimes only know their online handle,” said Dr. Ina Park, associate professor at the medical school of the University of California-San Francisco and author of “Strange Bedfellows,” about the history of STDs. “And if the sex didn’t go well, then sometimes they will block the person from their app and they don’t even know how to reach that person again.”

Online dating began back in the late 1990s, around the same time effective medications to prevent the transmission of HIV became available: first, antiretrovirals that suppress the virus in those who are HIV-positive, and then later, in 2012, pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, which prevents new infections in people who are HIV-negative but considered at risk for contracting the virus.

With the risk of contracting a deadly disease falling to almost zero, condoms fell even more out of favor than they already were, said Park.

“If one man is taking PrEP and the other one is virally suppressed, there’s no HIV risk at all,” she said. “So why use condoms if you don’t mind having a touch of syphilis?”

Diagnosing Syphilis Is Tricky

While syphilis is not benign – it can cause blindness, deafness or brain damage — it is easy to treat. Typically, a shot of penicillin in the butt will cure it.

But diagnosing syphilis can be tricky, said Park, who treats patients with STDs at the San Francisco City Clinic. She often finds herself crouched low in the exam room, “lifting up their scrotum and lifting up their penis,” craning her head to get a look from all angles.

She does these gymnastics to find rashes associated with syphilis. Some are obvious, others subtle. She said doctors in regular family medicine clinics often aren’t trained on where to look, or when.

“The patient came in saying, ‘I’m tired,’” Park said, referring to a common symptom of syphilis. “How many people are going to say, ‘Take off your pants and lift up your scrotum. I want to look’? We only do that at the STD clinic because that’s what we do.”

But specialized public STD clinics, like the one where Park works, have been shutting down nationwide. One reason is persistent underfunding of public health programs, a trend laid bare during the pandemic. Another reason is the Affordable Care Act. In a strange way, the 2010 law, intended to expand access to health care, actually contributed to the closure of STD clinics.

“Honestly, I think everyone thought they weren’t going to be necessary,” Dr. Karen Smith said in 2019, when she was the director of the California Department of Public Health. She said that, once Obamacare was in place, the thought was that STD testing would happen in primary care clinics.

“We sort of all assumed that if you’ve got health insurance and you’ve got access to a doctor, that’s all that you need,” she said. “It turns out that that’s not really all that you need.”

People still had affairs they didn’t want to talk about with their family doctor. And some family doctors didn’t want to probe into patients’ sex lives. Young people, in particular, prefer clinics geared to them, out of their parents’ purview.

“That loss of anonymous care really was a problem,” Smith said.

The Syphilis Epidemic Reaches Babies, Too

When Christian Faulkenberry-Miranda decided to become a pediatrician, she never thought she’d become an expert in syphilis.

In 2010, shortly after finishing her medical training and starting work at Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno, California, she began seeing babies with a rash on their tummies that looked like a blueberry muffin. She thought it was a common viral infection, until these babies tested positive for syphilis.

In those early days, Dr. Faulkenberry-Miranda saw perhaps a few instances of congenital syphilis each year. Now she sees two cases every week. It’s important to start the 10-day antibiotic treatment right away, to avoid complications, but she still follows her patients through their first year of life, and often through childhood, to watch for vision and hearing problems, developmental delays, attention deficits and learning disabilities, all of which can result from congenital syphilis infections. In 2019, 128 cases resulted in stillbirth or neonatal death.

“The disappointing thing is that syphilis is very treatable,” she said. “This is something that’s completely preventable, with proper screening and treatment of these moms during pregnancy.”

Congenital syphilis cases hit a troubling milestone in 2019, reaching a high of 1,870 cases, an increase of 279% in five years. That is higher than the number of mother-to-child HIV cases at their peak in 1991.

“How could this be happening? Testing is cheap and widely available. The same treatment we’ve been using since the ’40s still works,” said Park, who has also seen an increase in congenital syphilis cases in San Francisco. “And yet we have this completely out-of-control epidemic among the most vulnerable babies in our society.”

Many of the women who give birth to babies with syphilis have had no prenatal care. They often use drugs — mainly methamphetamine — and are often homeless, said Smith, the former California public health director. This makes them more likely to trade sex for housing, food or drugs. Drug use, in particular, makes women less likely to recognize they’re pregnant at all, and less likely to seek health care if they do.

“They’re very concerned about what’s going to happen when they’re found to be pregnant and using drugs,” said Smith. “They’re concerned that their drug use will be reported and then … their children will be taken away.”

The complications of these women’s lives also make disease investigation and contact tracing very challenging. Veteran contact tracer Romni Neiman remembers the difficulty she has had tracking down pregnant women in her career. Neiman works for the CDC, and before she was redirected to covid last year, she worked on preventing STDs, including congenital syphilis, in California.

She remembers looking for one woman in the late ’80s in Chicago. The pregnant woman used drugs and had been exposed to syphilis. Her housing was so unstable that Neiman went to three places before finding her. The woman had no car, so Neiman offered to drive her to the clinic to get tested. The woman had no safe place to leave her toddler, because a man in the place she was staying was abusive, so Neiman took care of the child while the woman saw the doctor.

“She was just trying to do the best that she can, and she was really afraid,” Neiman recalled. “Sometimes it’s really taxing and really sad. And you come home at the end of the day and you’re like, ‘Wow. Wow.’”

Challenges like those, combined with persistent underfunding for public health, are what led to the initial spike in congenital syphilis in Fresno County in the 2010s, said Park. Local contact tracers couldn’t keep up, and the state had to step in with reinforcements.

The state is taking new measures to address the rates, said Pan, the state epidemiologist, like requiring women to be screened for syphilis twice during pregnancy instead of once. And, rather than wait for women to come in for prenatal care, the state is doing more outreach and screening pregnant women in the emergency room and in prisons and jails.

Pan believes the covid pandemic has created an opportunity to invest in a nimbler response to emerging and reemerging public health issues like syphilis.

“It’s been a really long, hard year responding to this pandemic, but people have really acknowledged and realized the impact of divesting in public health infrastructure,” she said. “I hope that a lot of the resources that we hope to bring to bear in the longer term after this pandemic will benefit STDs as well.”

This story is part of a partnership that includes KQED, NPR and KHN.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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gordonwilliamsweb · 4 years ago

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Syphilis Cases in California Drive a Record-Setting Year for STDs Nationwide

In certain circles of San Francisco, a case of syphilis can be as common and casual as the flu, to the point where Billy Lemon can’t even remember how many times he’s had it.

This story is from a partnership that includes NPR, KQED and KHN. It can be republished for free.

“Three or four? Five times in my life?” he struggles to recall. “It does not seem like a big deal.”

“It lowers your inhibitions, and also your decision-making abilities are skewed,” said Lemon, who is 50.

“In the 12-step community, if meth was your thing, everybody had syphilis,” he said.

In 2000, syphilis rates were so low, public health officials believed eradication was on the horizon. But the rates started creeping up in 2001. From 2015 to 2019 alone cases rose 74%. There were nearly 130,000 cases nationwide in 2019, according to data released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This was all before the coronavirus pandemic took hold in the U.S., and with contact tracers and testing supplies diverted from STDs to covid-19, the CDC is predicting 2020 numbers will be no better.

There’s No Single Cause

Many factors have contributed to the rise of STDs, and syphilis in particular.

With the risk of contracting a deadly disease falling to almost zero, condoms fell even more out of favor than they already were, said Park.

“If one man is taking PrEP and the other one is virally suppressed, there’s no HIV risk at all,” she said. “So why use condoms if you don’t mind having a touch of syphilis?”

Diagnosing Syphilis Is Tricky

While syphilis is not benign – it can cause blindness, deafness or brain damage — it is easy to treat. Typically, a shot of penicillin in the butt will cure it.

“That loss of anonymous care really was a problem,” Smith said.

The Syphilis Epidemic Reaches Babies, Too

When Christian Faulkenberry-Miranda decided to become a pediatrician, she never thought she’d become an expert in syphilis.

In 2010, shortly after finishing her medical training and starting work at the Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno, California, she began seeing babies with a rash on their tummies that looks like a blueberry muffin. At first she thought it was a common viral infection, until these babies tested positive for syphilis.

Congenital syphilis cases hit a troubling milestone in 2019, reaching a high of 1,870 cases, an increase of 279% in five years. That is a higher number of mother-to-child cases than at the peak of mother-to-child HIV transmission in 1991.

“She was just trying to do the best that she can, and she was really afraid,” Neiman remembers. “Sometimes it’s really taxing and really sad. And you come home at the end of the day and you’re like, ‘Wow. Wow.’”

Pan believes the covid pandemic has created an opportunity to invest in a more nimble response to emerging and reemerging public health issues like syphilis.

USE OUR CONTENT

This story can be republished for free (details).

Syphilis Cases in California Drive a Record-Setting Year for STDs Nationwide published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

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frenchraisins · 4 years ago

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I decided to write a mid-year blogging recap and life update because I felt like a lot has happened in the past few months that are worth sharing. That is even if we were confined in our homes most of the time because of the quarantine. View of Metro Manila Mid-Year Blogging Recap + Life Lately IN THIS ARTICLE In particular, I would also to share some of my learnings with regard to blogging, my experience (and travails) as a working professional amid the lockdown, reflections during the lockdown, and life in general. It’s my first time to do this type of update, something really personal, so please bear with my if I sound incoherent at times. Anyway, let’s start. Blogging The COVID-19 lockdown has hit the blog hard in terms of traffic. I once shared that I achieved a blogging milestone last year when I hit 10,000 monthly page views starting July. I was able to maintain that until the end of the year. If you are curious to know that’s about 70% to 80% organic traffic and around 30% or 20% social media traffic. All my effort to learn SEO has finally paid off with the page view achievement. Being a non-techie person, I found it quite hard to understand the technical stuff of SEO but I eventually learned it through a lot of research. I was also fortunate to have met some amazing bloggers who were kind enough to share their knowledge when it came to SEO. One of those bloggers that I wanted to give credit to is Mr. Jonathan Espina of the popular Jon To The World Travel Blog who was very generous with his SEO know-how and would not hesitate to provide answers when I would consult him, even if I have not met him in person yet. I would probably treat him to a bottle of beer or a cup of coffee when I get the chance to meet him. On the other hand, the social media traffic, though small, involved a lot of effort and ate up a lot of my time because I was participating in a lot of blog engagement groups. I immediately realized that it would be hard to depend on social media traffic so I put more effort to increase my search engine traffic. However, at the start of the year, the COVID-19 pandemic grew in proportions. It affected mainly travel blogs; since nobody was searching for travel-related articles and destinations, traffic plummeted. My content is mostly food and travel, both industries that were greatly affected by the pandemic. My traffic went down to as low as 3,700++ page views in June, but that’s also because I stopped participating in blog engagement threads because I wanted to really gauge how bad my organic traffic is. I also wanted less time from social media and more time with my kids. Anyway, when I observed the decline in traffic, I again made adjustments with regard to SEO. Probably one of the best SEO lessons I learned during the last few months was to remove zombie pages from the blog. That means looking at and assessing content that are not getting any traffic or are essentially dead. From there, you can consolidate and repurpose content or totally delete those that you think are non- salvageable. The idea is that when Google sees that majority of your content is getting good traffic, the search engine giant would take it to mean that you are providing valuable information to your readers. Therefore, Google will elevate your search engine results rankings. In my case, I removed my old personal entries like poems and rants from almost a decade ago since they do not have any SEO value. I consolidated some of the poems into one personal post, like a collection of stories, that was getting good traffic. I also removed old press releases, optimized old posts with new information, and rewrote some articles to make them evergreen. I made a lot of consolidations because my tendency before was to create daily journal entry types instead of coming up with one whole travel guide about the places that we visited. I also optimized photos which meant reducing file size to make them lighter and adding alternative text (alt text), things that I knew nothing about when I was just casually blogging. It was hard work but it kept me busy during the quarantine. On top of these, I did my best to come up with new content because I wanted to replace the old content that I was removing so that it would not negatively impact my domain authority (DA). Over the three months that I did it, was able to raise my DA from 29 to 31. In terms of traffic, I observed some positive results with regard to organic search although it is still a long way to go before I hit the 10,000 page views again. Speaking of new content, I had the confidence to submit entries in blogging competitions again. The prize money was enticing so I wanted to try my luck again and partly because I want to force myself to create new content for my blog. I joined the RedDoorz blogging content, which I did not win but I received a consolation prize which is a free overnight stay in one of their properties. I also submitted an entry to ComCo Southeast Asia’s Write to Ignite Blogging Project, which aimed to collect positive stories during the pandemic. Fortunately, I placed 7th among 70 participants in the Write to Ignite Blogging Project, which was not bad at all. It was definitely a welcome change after losing in the previous contests that I joined, despite the fact that I knew I had a good fighting stance. No matter, what’s important is the experience that I gained from those competitions and the determination to try again despite failing. In terms of revenue from blogging, it came as a surprise that I had higher income from Google Adsense despite this blog’s low traffic. I also have income from two more ad networks but they have not been meeting the payment threshold during the lockdown as compared to Adsense. But the main revenue stream of this blog is sponsored posts. As such, I can only be thankful to the clients for their trust. Working from home Since April, I had been working from home except two weeks last June when I had to report every day to the office. But all throughout the lockdown, I can only be thankful to our company for continuing to provide us with income despite the work suspension during the early days of the quarantine. Hoping for the day when we can enjoy the simple pleasures Honestly though, I find working from home a lot stressful because our outputs and tasks are more closely monitored as compared to when we were in the office. And since it’s we from home, expect a lot of distractions from the kids as well as from household tasks that need attention. Again, I’m trying to look at the situation positively in the sense that I am with my children and I can take care of them in the morning and immediately after work. Furthermore, because of the pressure to businesses brought about by the pandemic, it’s a natural tendency to have shake-ups within the organization. Sometimes, you would also hear words from your leaders that you may find to be unfavorable. Just think that they are also pressured but they are doing what they can to boost employee morale and keep the business afloat during these trying times. In the end, the hard truth is that we can all lose our jobs and livelihood anytime during the lockdown because of income loss. I pray that it does not happen though because I do not have big savings to support our family in the months to come. Reflections during the lockdown I think my thoughts during the quarantine resonate with most people’s thoughts and that is being appreciative of the things that we have, no matter how small and simple these things are. In a snap, things can change and disappear right before our very eyes. I remember our last date, that was in February. It was our Valentine’s date but we were so busy the days before so we had to postpone it for a week. Even so, we were glad that we pushed through with it because that was our last date in the old normal. I might sound selfish in this statement but I would say it anyway. I probably needed the quarantine, or at least the time off from office work provided by it. Several months ago, I was wishing for more time with my children. In fact, I was considering to shift to a home-based job. That way, I can at least keep watch on my children. But with the lockdown, I suddenly had so much time with my kids. We spent most of it playing out in the yard every morning and afternoon. I can only be grateful that I was able to spend so many happy moments with my babies. In a way, what we get is actually what we prayed for. It may not be in the form that we were expecting (or hoping) it to be but if we look closer, it’s really what we asked for. Life lately Aside from working from home, there’s nothing new with our life lately. We had all plans postponed because of the pandemic such as finding a new condo, finding a house that we could possibly buy, and traveling to Boracay and Nueva Ecija. Hoping things turn out for the better soon so that we could go on with life. One thing that had us concerned was when my son’s therapy had to be postponed. Earlier this year, he was diagnosed with global developmental delay (GDD). With that, the recommendation was to enroll him to play school and undergo occupational therapy sessions so that he could catch up. However, two months into school, all classes had to be suspended because of COVID-19. We were worried that, with the postponement of the therapy, he would not be able to catch up. The school proposed that we do online therapy but we were doubtful of its efficacy. We were offered a trial online session but, admittedly, we did not try it because we had reservations. Our pediatrician also told us that she was skeptical with the online therapy and said that it might be best to postpone it for now since he is still young anyway. Anyway, we can continue with the activities for our son and involve him in chores and a lot of play, of course. So far, we are seeing improvements when it comes to his concentration and eye contact. Our son also remembered some of the letters that we showed him. It’s not just memorizing the ABCs; he would pick up random letter and read it. Nevertheless, it would be best if we get the help of a professional occupational therapist. As for our younger son, we are resigned to the fact that we will hold a quarantine first birthday for him. We wanted to give him a memorable first birthday like his Kuya but that might prove to be a challenge given the current scenario. On a positive note, we can always do the party at home with some friends and family. Epilogue That’s it for now. I know this entry is too long but I do hope that I was able to help you in some way. Keep in mind that we are all struggling and we are all fighting our own personal battles each day. Do not lose hope, reach out to people who can help you, reach out to people whom you think might need help. Tomorrow is a new day Don’t hesitate to tell us your story if that will make your load lighter; the comment section is open as well as our email and social media inboxes. We will do our best to help you to the best of our abilities. These will all pass. For now, take care of yourself and your loved ones. Stay safe at all times! mbtTOC();

http://www.ivankhristravels.com/2020/07/blogging-recap-life-lately.html

#Travel #Family Travel #Lifestyle #Food

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opioidjusticeteam · 5 years ago

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What Birth Defects Does Oxycontin Cause?

Felecia Coleman is still angry at her doctors. That’s not because they prescribed her opioid painkillers when she underwent three surgeries for a herniated disc a few years ago. It’s because none of her physicians warned her that her medication, OxyContin, could cause birth defects.

“I’m very bitter inside – I can’t help it,” says Coleman, now 35 and living in upstate New York. Like millions of Americans, Coleman became addicted to opioid painkillers after her doctors legally prescribed OxyContin to address her back pain. And like hundreds of thousands of women, Coleman also became pregnant and gave birth to a son, who was born with neonatal abstinence syndrome, or NAS.

At birth, Coleman’s baby spent two months in the hospital before doctors could send him home. Today, her son is 3, and childhood has been a struggle. He’s still smaller than the other kids his age, and he’s very shy around them. Sometimes it’s a challenge for the boy to communicate.

For Coleman herself, it took medical assisted therapy to end her addiction to painkillers such as Oxycontin, and it also took time to lose her sense of shame and to realize that so many moms are in the exact same boat. When she learned online about a lawsuit targeting Oxycontin birth defects, Coleman was eager to join and to endorse one of the main goals of the legal action – to raise awareness for other would-be parents.

What we know about Oxycontin and birth defects

The frustrating part is that many doctors and leading research centers had begun piecing together the information about Oxycontin and other opioid painkillers and their links to birth defects as early as the early 2010s, long before Coleman and thousands of other moms would expose their children to opioids in the womb.

In March 2011, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a warning that pregnant women taking opioid pain killers such as codeine, oxycodone or hydrocodone faced an elevated risk of birth defects, including congenital heart defects — then the most common type in the United States. Other birth conditions shown with an increased risk by the CDC included spina bifida, hydrocephaly, congenital glaucoma and gastroschisis.

Nonetheless, the medical community failed to implement procedures that could reduce or end prescriptions of Oxycontin and other opioid painkillers to women who were pregnant or could become pregnant – even though such protocols have been implemented for other drugs such as the acne medicine Accutane after an elevated risk for birth defects was established.

Other the course of the 2010s, as prescriptions for opioid painkillers rose and a national addiction crisis took root, hospitals began seeing a huge spike in a condition called Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome, or NAS. These NAS babies had been exposed to opioids in the womb and were now showing classic symptoms of drug withdrawal.

In the early weeks of a child’s life, NAS causes symptoms such as body shakes, excessive crying or yawns, feeding problems, diarrhea, sleeping problems, fever, or runny noses. But mothers say that coming home from the hospital is often just the beginning of their problems. Like Felecia Coleman, the mother in upstate New York, they report their children continue to experience behavioral problems, cognitive delays, mental or motor deficits, or attention-deficit disorder (ADD) as they grow.

The government has underestimated the number of cases

And the numbers of children coping with the aftereffects of NAS are much larger than either the public realizes or than the government cares to admit. In our efforts to seek justice on behalf of NAS kids and families, our experts came to discover that actually about one-in-three pregnant women in America — or roughly 1.3 million out of the 3.8 million women who gave birth — were given a prescription for opioid painkillers. We estimated that a baby with serious problems related to opioid exposure is born somewhere in the United States every 19 minutes, which amounts to as much as 250,000 children every year.

Dr. Neil S. Seligman, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Rochester Medical Center, told NBC News that birth defects can occur when an expectant mother takes opioid painkillers in the 4th to 10th week of a pregnancy, which is often before a women knows she is pregnant or given guidance on pre-natal care.

As America’s opioid crisis enters a new decade, doctors are gathering even more damning information about links between opioid use and birth defects. Another study funded by the CDC found that using painkillers such as Oxycontin, Vicodin and Percocet during pregnancy doubles the risk of having babies with devastating neural tube defects such as spina bifida.

Neural tube defects, which often take place during the first month of pregnancy, include conditions such as spina bifida, where the spinal column doesn’t close completely, and anencephaly, where most of the brain and skull don’t fully develop.

In 2019, doctors became alarmed by a rise in U.S. cases of gastroschisis, in which a baby is born with its intestines hanging outside the stomach, due to a hole in the abdominal wall. There are about 1,800 American cases of this rare illness every year. The CDC research found that rates of gastroschisis are about 60 percent higher in the counties that had the highest rates of prescription opioid use. At the same time, the CDC’s director wrote in an op-ed that the new reports are “an early alarm for the need to increase our public health surveillance on the full range of fetal, infant, and childhood outcomes potentially related to these exposures.”

New hope from the legal system

There is new hope that the mothers of children who were exposed to opioids in the womb can get help through the American legal system. Our team of attorneys has gone into federal court to get children born to prescription opioid-dependent-and-using mothers recognized as their own legal class within the national opioid litigation, which is currently before U.S. District Court Judge Daniel A. Polster in Cleveland. We’ve already filed lawsuits in a number of states seeking recognition for the legal rights of these kids and their families.

We are seeking a number of changes, including a requirement that doctors conduct pregnancy testing for women of child-bearing age before prescribing opioids, similar to the protocol now in place for Accutane. More importantly, we are looking for a legal settlement in which the pharmaceutical companies that manufactured and aggressively marketed these painkillers – including Purdue Pharma, the firm behind Oxycontin – pay to create a medical marketing fund for these kids. This would allow public health experts to collect data that will help doctors understand the scope of the problem and share best practices.

One of our motivations is that many of us, as attorneys, remember the Big Tobacco settlement of the 1990s, in which the billions of dollars that were paid out by America’s cigarette makers for decades of lying about the health hazards of smoking were absorbed by cash-poor states and cities — with little or any money going toward public health. We are determined not to let that happen to the kids and parents who were harmed by Big Pharma.

One mother who is completely on board with the goals of the lawsuit is Felecia Coleman, who said that now that her son has turned 3-years-old, she wants testing to better understand if he’s experiencing developmental difficulties or needs early intervention. She said she agrees with the goal of the class-action suits to make that kind of testing routine.

“I feel like there should be studies or more research,” she said, adding, of her son: “Yes, he’s three, but how will this affect him later on? We need more research from more kids, so that people will know more in the future.”

There is limited time for new plaintiffs to join Coleman and our team of attorneys in our legal fight. Please join us, and help us make sure that any national financial settlement over the opioid crisis goes to the families and the communities that need the money the most.

The post What Birth Defects Does Oxycontin Cause? appeared first on Opioid Justice Team.

from Opioid Justice Team https://opioidjusticeteam.com/birth-defects-oxycontin-cause/

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thomasalwyndavis · 6 years ago

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New Science On Teen Sleep You NEED To Know

The article New Science On Teen Sleep You NEED To Know Find more on: Thomas Alwyn Davis

I’m a parent of two teenagers, a boy, 16 and now driving, and a girl, 14. They’re full of energy (just not so much first thing in morning) and they’re busy all day long. School, sports, music, friends – their jam-packed schedules and wide-ranging interests make for lots of long days and nights.

I’m The Sleep Doctor—and getting my teens to sleep as much as their growing bodies and minds need is a challenge. If you’re a parent of a teenager, I’m right there with you in the trenches.

We’ve been learning a lot of important new information about teens’ sleep in recent weeks. I thought I’d bring that information together in one place, to take a closer look at some new details that are important for every parent to know.

A quick primer on teens’ sleep

Before we dive into the latest science on sleep in teens, it’s important to remember that teen sleep works differently than adult sleep. It’s also different from the sleep patterns that teenagers had as younger children. Teenage sleep is a unique time in the sleep lifecycle.

When boys and girls hit puberty, the timing of their biological clocks begins a dramatic shift toward a preference for evenings, a shift that lasts throughout adolescence. Teens’ bio clocks are delayed by much as two hours or more. They are true Wolves, based on my archetypes from my book, The Power of When. Their bodies start producing the sleep hormone melatonin later in the evenings—usually around 11 p.m. And melatonin levels stay elevated later in the mornings, which is why they are so hard to wake up!

Biologically, teens are programmed to be up and alert later at night and less awake in the morning. That puts their natural, biological sleep at odds with social time—particularly on school days. A teen who has to get up at 6:30 a.m. for school is equivalent to an adult who needs to get up for work at 4:30 a.m., or earlier.

This biological-social clash for teens puts them especially at risk for sleep deprivation. During the school week, teens may lose as much as 2-3 hours of sleep a night. Biological clocks typically begin a shift back to earlier timing around the age of 20. But the years of adolescence can bring prolonged sleep deprivation during a critical time of physical, social, emotional, and intellectual development. During teenage years, the brain continues to undergo significant development—and sleep is essential fuel for that developmental growth.

Teenagers a sleeping less than a generation ago

Teen sleep amounts have been on the decline for decades. A first-of-its-kind, nationally representative study of teen sleep in the US found that teenagers’ sleep dropped significantly over a 21-year period from 1991-2012, with only about half of teenagers reporting sleeping 7 hours a night or more. The study also found that older teens reported sleeping less than younger teens, and that girls were more likely to report sleeping less than 7 hours a night than boys.

There is no single magic number that is the exact right amount of sleep for all teenagers. As with sleep throughout our lives, individual sleep needs vary. It’s important to be alert to the signs of sleep deprivation rather than to focus too narrowly on a nightly number. That said, the National Sleep Foundation recommends that teenagers 14-17 need somewhere in the range of 8-10 hours of sleep a night. (Young adults ages 18-25 need 7-9 hours.)

With so many teens not even reaching 7 hours of nightly rest, it’s clear there’s widespread sleep deprivation among our teenagers today. And as some of the latest research demonstrates, that can have serious health consequences for teens.

Poor sleep in teens boosts heart and diabetes risks

A brand-new study on teens’ sleep shows that both the quality and the quantity of their nightly rest may have a significant impact on their heart and metabolic health. The study, published in the journal Pediatrics, looked at sleep amounts and sleep quality in more than 800 teenagers, and analyzed how sleep habits affected important markers of cardiovascular and metabolic health.

They found nearly a third of teens in the study slept less than 7 hours a night. And many of the teenagers had low sleep efficiency scores, a key indicator of poor sleep quality. Sleep efficiency is a measurement of time spent fully asleep compared to total time spent in bed. If your teen spent 10 hours in bed and 9 of those hours fully asleep, her sleep efficiency score would be 90 percent. A threshold sleep efficiency score is 85 percent. At that number or higher, sleep quality is considered fair—or better, as the number goes higher. In this new study, researchers the median sleep efficiency score was 84 percent—meaning half of all teens were no higher than 84, and not quite reaching the low end of a healthy sleep efficiency range.

Scientists then looked at how sleep quantity and sleep quality affected what is known as a metabolic risk score. That’s a score tabulated from measurements of:

Blood pressure

Cholesterol and triglyceride levels

Waist circumference

Insulin resistance

As its name suggests, a higher metabolic risk score indicates greater risk for metabolic and cardiovascular diseases, including heart disease and diabetes. The scientists found teens who slept longer and experienced higher sleep quality (sleep efficiency) had lower metabolic risk scores. On the other hand, teens who slept less and had lower sleep efficiency scored higher for metabolic risk. These teenagers were more likely to have larger waist circumferences, higher blood pressure, higher cholesterol, and higher fat mass.

Here’s a key detail: The scientists took into account other factors in teens’ lives that might increase their metabolic risk, apart from sleep. In their analysis, they factored for diet, television watching, and levels of physical activity. Independent of these factors, sleep amount and sleep quality affected teens’ metabolic risk.

We’ve seen substantial evidence showing the connection between poor sleep and obesity in teens. This new research goes further, giving us more detailed information about the risks to heart health and metabolic health that teens face if they don’t get enough high-quality sleep.

Teen girls more negatively affected by sleep loss than boys?

Sleep deprivation and poor-quality sleep are harmful for all teens. But new research suggests that adolescent girls may be more affected by lack of sleep than boys. Canadian scientists looked at possible gender differences in sleep’s impact on teenagers’ daily functioning. They found teenager girls were more likely than boys to:

Have a harder time staying awake in class, in the morning and afternoon

Have more trouble staying awake to do homework

Feel less motivated about school

Miss school as a result of feeling tired

Feel too tired to spend time with friends

Take naps on the weekends

The results of this study are preliminary, and I’ll be interested to see what the full results show. I’ve long been interested in the gender differences related to sleep. This remains an under-studied aspect of sleep science that could have tremendous impact on how we understand and treat sleep. We need more research exploring the differences in the way gender influences how children, teens and adults experience sleep.

We know from other research that teenage girls appear to be at greater risk for sleep deficiency than teenage boys. We need to pay attention to all our teens’ sleep—while also recognizing that boys and girls may face different needs and challenges when it comes to staying rested and able to function at their best.

Is sleep loss behind screen-time-related depression in teens?

I talked recently about a new study that points to sleep problems as the key link between teens’ screen time and an increased risk for depressive symptoms. Researchers at several universities collaborated on a study which found that poor sleep explained the association between greater amounts of screen time and higher rates of depressive symptoms in teenagers. Essentially, the scientists found that teens who spent more time looking at screens got less sleep, and that lack of sleep led to greater risk for depressive symptoms.

The study looked at four different types of screen time: social media messaging, web surfing, watching TV and movies, and gaming. Different types of screen time had different relationships to depressive symptoms: social messaging was less strongly connected to depressive symptoms than gaming. And sleep only partially accounted for depressive symptoms in gaming, according to the study’s analysis. But greater amounts of all four types of screen time were linked to higher rates of depressive symptoms in teens, with sleep appearing to play a significant or determinative role.

As I said a few weeks ago, I think depressive symptoms are likely to be a result of several factors—sleep deprivation via screen time being one significant one. We’ve seen rapidly accumulating evidence of just how much screen time cuts into sleep for teens. There’s really no question that the light and stimulation from screens can interfere with teens’ (and adults’) ability to get enough high-quality, restful sleep. But we’re still working to unravel the very complex relationship between depression, technology, and sleep.

How to help teens sleep better

I’ll start with the screen time issue. Setting enforceable limits around technology and sleep with teenagers is important. Charging phones overnight outside the bedroom is a good one. That keeps them from middle-of-the-night texting that can truly sink their sleep. Even with that limit in place, teens are likely to have their heads in screens, watching YouTube or Snapchatting, long after we’d ideally have them stash their phones for the night. I recommend having your teens wear Swanwick Glasses for evening, pre-bed screen time. These are terrific, comfortable, blue-light-blocking glasses. I use them when I need to look at screens at night (which I typically avoid). They’re a great way to make a reasonable compromise with your teens you both can live (and sleep) with.

Here is a recent guide to my strategies for parents (and grandparents) to use helping teens get more sleep. I will say I think it is important to engage teens in the process of making a sleep plan. Nothing stirs rebellion like a rule handed down without discussion or explanation. You can’t force a teenager to sleep. And it doesn’t make sense to tell a teen to “go to bed” at 9:30 p.m., when in most cases, their bodies just won’t let them fall asleep. Talk with your teens about the bigger picture—how the things they want to achieve in life are fueled by sleep. Even better, get a trusted adult who isn’t the parent—like a doctor or school counselor—to have that conversation.

And keep advocating for later school start times in your community! Even a modest shift to later morning start times is consistently shown to make a real difference for teens, both in their sleep and their classroom performance. Just this spring, new research was released showing that middle school students who started school at 8 a.m. rather than 7:20 got more sleep on school nights and felt less tired and more alert in class.

We’ve got to do all we can to help teenagers get the sleep they need today, and help them establish strong sleep habits they can take with them throughout their lives.

Sweet Dreams,

Michael J. Breus, PhD, DABSM

The Sleep Doctor

www.thesleepdoctor.com

The post New Science On Teen Sleep You NEED To Know appeared first on Your Guide to Better Sleep.

from Blog | Your Guide to Better Sleep https://www.thesleepdoctor.com/2018/07/10/new-science-on-teen-sleep-you-need-to-know/

from Thomas Alwyn Davis - Feed https://thomasalwyndavis.com/new-science-on-teen-sleep-you-need-to-know/

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foursprout-blog · 7 years ago

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Our brains sometimes create 'false memories' — but science suggests we could be better off this way

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/wealth/our-brains-sometimes-create-false-memories-but-science-suggests-we-could-be-better-off-this-way/

Our brains sometimes create 'false memories' — but science suggests we could be better off this way

We all trust our own memories, but we might not be remembering things exactly as they happened.

Memories can be distorted, or even completely made up.

False memories have been manipulated to make people confess to crimes they didn’t commit.

‘Fuzzy trace theory’ helps explain where false memories come from.

In some cases, having adaptable minds could be advantageous to us, rather than looking at things objectively all the time.

Have you ever had an argument because you disagree about the way something happened? You were both there, you saw the same thing, but you remember it differently.

This happens quite a lot, because human memories are imperfect. As much as we all like to think we can trust our own minds, memories can be altered over time.

Elizabeth F. Loftus is a researcher and professor of cognitive psychology and human memory. She is well known in the field for her work on the creation and nature of false memories, and how people can be influenced by information after an event has happened, event consulting or providing expert witness testimony for hundreds of court cases.

Her research has shown how memories can be distorted. For example, in one study, subjects were shown videos of simulated crimes or accidents, then were afterwards made to believe the car in the accident went through a stop sign instead of a yield sign, or the thief running from the scene of the crime had curly hair instead of straight hair.

“It’s pretty easy to distort memories for the details of what they actually saw by supplying them with suggestive information,” Loftus told Business Insider. “But then later we began to ask just how far could you go with people. Could you implant entire false memories into the minds of people for things that never happened?”

The answer was yes. Loftus and other researchers such as Julia Shaw have successfully planted memories into the minds of otherwise healthy people. For example, in one study, 70% of subjects were made to believe they had committed a crime such as theft, assault, or assault with a weapon, simply by using memory-retrieval techniques in interviews.

False memory research began over a hundred years ago…

Salvador Dali famously said: “The difference between false memories and true ones is the same as for jewels: it is always the false ones that look the most real, the most brilliant.”

This could help explain why we are so quick to believe false accounts of something that happened.

The idea of memory distortion dates back over a hundred years to the work of psychologist Hugo Münsterberg, who in 1906 was the chair of the psychology laboratory at Harvard University and president of the American Psychological Association.

Münsterberg wrote in the Times Magazine about a case where a woman had been found dead in Chicago. A farmer’s son was stopped and accused of the murder, and after being questioned by the police he confessed to killing the woman — despite having an alibi.

“He was quite willing to repeat his confession again and again,” Münsterberg wrote. “Each time it became richer in detail.”

He wrote that on every telling of the young man’s story, it became more absurd and contradictory — a bit like his imagination was running away with the story, but he couldn’t tell he was making it all up.

Münsterberg concluded it was clear that the man was falling victim to “involuntary elaboration of a suggestion” from the policemen interrogating him.

…but it took several decades for it to be studied in detail.

Unfortunatley, Münsterberg’s ideas were too radical for the time, and the boy was hanged a week later.

It would be decades until the idea of false memories and memory distortion would be studied properly, and considered to be able to influence confessions.

Nowadays, it is quite well understood that false confessions happen under intense interrogation for crimes, like murder. This is what a lot of people think happen in the Netflix series “Making a Murderer,” for instance.

Whether a false confession involves someone really believing they committed a crime, or whether they just want the interrogation to end is determined on a case-by-case basis. But Loftus said that unless you have reason to suspect somebody’s memory is distorted, then there’s no way you would be able to tell they are recounting a false memory just by listening to them.

However, more hope may lie in our biology.

Neuroscientists have looked at brain scans of people having real memories and false memories to see if there’s a difference. In one study from Daegu University in South Korea, 11 people were asked to read lists of words that fall into categories, like “farm animals.” Then they were asked whether specific words appeared on the original lists, while functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) detected changes in blood flow to different areas of the brain.

When study participants had confidence in their answers and were correct, blood flow increased to the hippocamput — the region of the brain that is important for memory. If they were confident in their answer but were wrong, which happened about 20% of the time, the frontoparietal region lit up — the area associated with “a sense of familiarity.”

‘Fuzzy trace theory’ helps explain the phenomenon

One theory for why our brains come up with false memories is called “fuzzy trace theory.” The term was coined by researchers Charles Brainerd and Valerie F. Reyna, and was the first theory offered to explain the Deese–Roediger–McDermott (DRM) paradigm.

The DRM paradigm is less complicated than it sounds. It involves giving people a list of related words, like bed, sleep, tired, dream, and yawn, and then asking them to recall as many words as possible. Typically, subjects recall words that are related to the words listed, like snooze, or nap, which weren’t actually on the list in the first place.

“People will produce words reliably that weren’t on the list, and they’ll be really confident about that, so that’s definitely false memory,” Reyna told Business Insider. “It’s a really powerful, psychological phenomenon. A reality mismatch. It’s not ‘I can’t remember,’ which is forgetting, but ‘I remember vividly something that didn’t happen.’ So fuzzy trace theory was the first theory applied to explain that.”

There are two types of memory — and they both have benefits

At first, researchers assumed it was something to do with associations between words. But when this was accounted for in experiments, the same results were shown. Instead, fuzzy trace theory puts forward the idea that there are two types of memory: verbatim and gist.

Verbatim memory is when we can vividly remember something in detail, whereas gist memories are fuzzy representations of a past event — hence why the theory is called “fuzzy trace.”

“As we age, we rely more on gist and less on verbatim,” Reyna said. “Almost everything important happens in life after a delay. For example, if you’re a student you have to apply your knowledge not just on the quiz, but you have to remember it for the next semester, or in a job situation… It’s not what you’ve just memorised that day or that week, it’s remembering over a longer period. And gist has a much more powerful influence after a delay, as opposed to verbatim.”

Fuzzy trace theory correctly predicts this dramatic effect of age on our memories, called a “developmental reversal effect.” It basically means that as you go from childhood to adulthood, you get an improvement in verbatim memory — you can recall events in detail a lot better — but at the same time you also get an increase in gist memory.

This means you become more likely to say that a related word appeared on a list that actually wasn’t there, but you’ll also be more likely to remember the whole list.

“What that means is the net accuracy of children is higher than the net accuracy of adults, if you consider all of what they got right and what they got wrong,” explained Reyna. “So your tendency to connect the dots of meaning and then to report that rather than just the verbatim reality, that tendency to rely on the gist, that goes up with age. [A person becomes] much more of a meaning maker.”

So it’s not that your memory necessarily gets worse as you age, but our brains get more biased towards finding meaning at a faster rate. Since the theory was presented, it has been replicated over 50 times by other researchers.

False memories aren’t always cause for concern

Many were skeptical of the theory at first, as adults tend to do better than children at almost everything. But that’s perhaps because we rely on our minds a lot, and any suggestion they are not to be trusted, or they get less accurate as we age, is a frightening prospect.

In reality, even though all of us will have manufactured false memories at some point, according to Reyna, we get along just fine.

From an evolutionary perspective, it might even be beneficial for us to get better at relying on gist memory.

For example, Reyna’s research found that gist memory helps people make healthier decisions in terms of risk taking. If we went through life only looking at things objectively in a black-and-white sense, we might see things mathematically, and go for the highest expected value every time.

The Allais paradox — a choice problem designed by Maurice Allais in 1953— helps explain this. In the problem, people are given the choice of taking Gamble A, which was a 100% chance of $1 million, or Gamble B, which offers a 89% of $1 million, a 10% chance of $5 million, and a 1% chance of nothing.

From an economic perspective, if you do all the maths, the highest expected value is actually Gamble B. But that doesn’t mean most people go for it. In fact, most people choose Gamble A and walk away with $1 million for sure — because why wouldn’t you?

“Most people say wait a minute, a whole lot of money is better than the possibility of getting nothing — which is gist,” said Reyna. “The gist and the tendency to pick things in that way goes up in age to adulthood. It’s not about maximising the money, it’s about looking at these categorical possibilities.

“That bottom line realisation is what drives your preference there. Just like the gist drives your memory for the words in the word test.”

Reyna said that false memories can make people concerned about the way they see the world, but they shouldn’t think of it this way. Rather than thinking of imperfect memory being a negative impact of ageing, it’s more likely to be something that actually helps us make safer, more informed choices.

“People can rely on gist very well in the world,” she said. “The average college student has a very affluent memory on average, but they have all sorts of inaccuracies too, they just don’t realise it. So it’s not that memory is this stable accurate record all the time. We just have that illusion because our minds fill in the gaps.”

Gist memory is another way our brains have shown how good they are at adapting to our surroundings. That’s not to say the idea of losing your memory as a result of dementia is any less scary, but until that point, it isn’t something you should necessarily worry about.

“Folks as they age will have good days and bad days, they’ll have days where they don’t remember the literal details, but they can compensate a lot by relying on their memory for gist,” Reyna said. “So I think as we get older we shouldn’t be quite as concerned that our memories are somehow broken. They were never really fully intact to begin with.”

SEE ALSO: Scientists have created brain implants that could boost our memory by up to 30%

Join the conversation about this story »

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infernusaquas-blog · 7 years ago

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Lessons on Raising Ethical Children

Raising Children

Their is no app you can download, book you can read, or doctor you can talk to, that will know the best way to raise your children. We all have heard different methods of parenting, but which one is the right way? People often say their is no right way to raise your children, and they might be right, but recent studies indicate there might be more we can do as parents to prepare our children for adulthood. Research in human development shows signs of empathy, care, compassion being present in the early stages of life. However, that to become compassionate, caring, ethical people, children parental guidance to aid them along the developmental stages of childhood, and the influences of poverty stricken areas on children. Did you know, 28% of parents said they regularly assign chores. While 82% grew up doing chores, but do not assign them. (Ami, Albernaz. (December, 8th, 2015.) research-indicates-sparing-chores-spoils-children-and-their-future-selves)

In a recent Harvard grant study on raising caring, respectful, ethical children, seven tips were found to help assist in the development of your child. Julie Lythcott-haims discussed in her Ted talk a little bit about this study and the correlation between having done chores as a child, leading to “professional success.” A mindset that says I will contribute my effort to the betterment of the whole. That is what gets you ahead in the workplace. While it can be tempting to give kids a pass on busy homework nights, Lythcott-Haims said, “real life is going to require them to do all of these things. When they’re at a job, there might be times that they have to work late, but they’ll still have to go grocery shopping and do the dishes.” Provide opportunities for children to practise caring and gratitude.

Children who expressed appreciation for the people in their lives, were more likely to be: helpful, generous, compassionate, forgiving, happy and healthy. Having an open democratic home, where we ask our children to express their views while they listen to ours. You can also try to expect your kids to routinely help around the house. When these kinds of routine were put in place, it was found the child was more likely to be become ingrained in everyday actions. If change is a little out of reach you could always have your children “expressing gratitude, a daily routine at dinnertime, bedtime, in the car or on the subway.” Research from The Center for Parenting and Education also “indicates that children who have a set of chores, had higher self-esteem, are more responsible, and are better able to deal with frustration, and delay gratification, all of which contribute to greater success in school.” So what else can you do to help your child?

Helping your children develop self-control and manage feelings effectively. How come this is important? Have you ever felt too disgruntled to offer assistance to somebody? Often the ability to care for others is hindered by negative feelings, shame, envy and anger. To help keep your kids cool, calm and collective try to help them identify their feelings, try to resolve conflicts and clear limits. Set some bounds for your children but, do not become excessively indulged in their life or you might find yourself living their life for them. Assist your child with bubbling out and making friends.

We want our children to be able and empathize with the other people, such as a foreign exchange students, a new student at school or if somebody trips and falls in front of everybody and is embarrassed. I don’t want my daughter to be the one that glances down, maybe has a quiet chuckle to herself and moves on because it may have never happened to them. So, I will invest the time to help my child empathize with the hardships of other people, have her really listen and try to understand the importance of listening to others. What is the most common way for a child to learn?

Interpretation through sight. Children who are regularly engaged in community services, reflected with others about what is going on in their life and to take care of yourself. We all need to be spoiled at times and give our self a break. This will help enable you to be more caring and attentive to others. As well as being more caring and intentive to your kids. As humans we need an emotional bond, somebody that we can attach to.

In the early 1950s a psychologist named Harry Harlow conducted an experiment on monkeys. Where he would take the newborn monkeys away from their mother and place them with two fake mom parents. One was made of only wire and a bottle to feed them while the other was made of wire and a bottle, but was covered in warm fur to cuddle with. This study found that after 90 days, these critical periods, no amount of exposure to mothers or peers could alter the monkeys’ abnormal behaviors and make up for the emotional damage that had already occurred. It was concluded this time, in humans, to be six months. So, we’ve talked mostly what you can do post-birth, but what about pre-pregnancy?

Poverty… It is inevitable to have in this world. We do not get to choose the life we are born into or the parents we have. So what can we do as humans and parents? We can practice safe sex. The findings from the British birth cohorts have been both prolific and far reaching. Studies have found that children that are born into poverty will grow up earning less money, have a lower gpa, live an unhealthier lifestyle and slower educational start than the rich. Does this mean that you can’t escape poverty? No, people do it often, but is that the life you want for your child to struggle, be cold and worry about their next meal. However, even when in consistent poverty, data showed even when parents did “everything right”, that only got the children so far. Good parenting only reduced the education gap by 50%. During the study, it showed some interesting facts, that children who had engaged parents were more likely to escape a difficult start. Also, that reading for pleasure in children at five and ten were more likely to score better on average in reading, math and spelling. So do not wait for change, you be the change you want to see reflected in your own life.

As a child we’ve all had our parents comes tell us to take the garbage out, empty the dishwasher, mow the yard, or whatever it might have been. Then, at times we fight and argue because we lack realistic judgement, impulsiveness and are self-absorbed. Now, we look at a future for our children and need to ask our self is it worth the struggle? At times there may be instilled fears of wanting to demand a request from your child, in worry of damaging their relationship with their children, or you could feel guilty or believe that the child is not of a proper age. (The Center for Parenting Education. (2006, 2017). Part 1 – Benefits of chores) All of these are methods in which, have lead parents to lack of enforcement upon children. Lastly, key points to remember being…

When I said in the beginning “ People often say their is no right way to raise your children, and they might be right, but recent studies indicate there might be more we can do as parents to prepare our children for adulthood.” As you can now see, there is strong evidence in which way should dictate a preferred parenting method. That will let you raise: responsible, caring, ethical adults by using some of the tips discussed in this article. As parents we need to build a strong moral, emotional, entrusted bond with our children to help ensure a successful future. Doing chores growing up is a useful method to help give back to your parents, teach responsibility, function independently in the outside world and build a character with self-efficacy. It has been shown that not spending enough time with your kids in the maternal stages of life can lead to emotional anxiety.

(Harlow, Harry. F. (2012, 02, 12). Harry F. Harlow, Monkey Love Experiments.http://pages.uoregon.edu/adoption/studies/HarlowMLE.html)

(The President and Fellows of Harvard College (2014) parenting-resources-raising-caring-ethical-children/raising-caring-childrenhttps://mcc.gse.harvard.edu/parenting-resources-raising-caring-ethical-children/raising-caring-children)

(David, Lunbinski and Camilla, Persson, Benbow. (2006.) Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth After 35 Years.https://my.vanderbilt.edu/smpy/files/2013/01/DoingPsychScience2006.pdf)

(The Center for Parenting Education. (2006, 2017). Part 1 – Benefits of chores http://centerforparentingeducation.org/library-of-articles/responsibility-and-chores/part-i-benefits-of-chores/)

(Ami, Albernaz. (December, 8th, 2015.) research-indicates-sparing-chores-spoils-children-and-their-future-selves https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/2015/12/08/research-indicates-sparing-chores-spoils-children-and-their-future-selves/ZLvMznpC5btmHtNRXXhNFJ/story.html)

(Aala, El-Khani.) (February, 2016) What it’s like to be a parent in a war zonehttps://www.ted.com/talks/aala_el_khani_what_it_s_like_to_be_a_parent_in_a_war_zone/up-next)

(Julie Lythcott-Haims(October, 2015) How to raise successful kids — without over-parentinghttps://www.ted.com/talks/julie_lythcott_haims_how_to_raise_successful_kids_without_over_parenting/up-next)

(Helen, Pearson.(April, 2017)helen_pearson_lessons_from_the_longest_study_on_human_developmenthttps://www.ted.com/talks/helen_pearson_lessons_from_the_longest_study_on_human_development/up-next)

Blog: Transparent Theories

#how to raise good kids Parenting raising ethical children Research

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helatherwhite · 7 years ago

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Does Juicing Work for Detox–or Is It Just a Fad?

Today, please welcome Erin from Eat Real Stay Sane who is sharing about juice detox with us. Erin is a juicing enthusiast because of how it has helped her in many ways, and because of the science behind it.

When Erin asked if I would be open to her sharing a post on juice detox, I was hesitant.

Here's why I was as well as why my thinking has changed.

My Personal Thoughts on Juicing for Detox

I personally have shied away from juice cleanses or juicing for detox since I have always been concerned about blood sugar levels and adrenal issues and any kind of juicing or fasting. However, I have been rethinking all of this in recent days.

First of all, in this post on the benefits of intermittent fasting, I learned that fasting can have real health benefits that I never would have thought possible.

Secondly, I always thought about juice cleanses or juice detoxes as being something that focused on a lot of fruit. As such, I felt that the glycemic load would be way too much for almost anyone.

However, I am now rethinking things.

First of all, juicing can be totally focused on veggies and not on fruits. And as long as you aren't juicing tons of carrots, you can keep the carbs way down. I personally would add a bit of stevia to the juice to make it more palatable without adding additional sugar.

Additionally, while Erin is her talking about doing a juice cleanse for detox for about a week, I think that this concept is pretty flexible and that the benefits of juicing don't need to be something that one is “all or nothing” about. I'll share more about that at then end of the post, but let's just say that I personally have been experimenting with doing some basic forms of juicing, and I too have been having some amazing results.

So here's Erin….

Does Juicing Work?

I love when people ask me, “Does juicing work for detox?”

I usually reply with, “YES!!!” Really the only downside to juicing is not being able to eat and chew the food you want – which is a big deal for some people. But amazing results usually come with some sort of sacrifice right?

Since my real foodie journey started in 2011, I’ve discovered that good health comes down to two main things:

Diet and

Toxin Removal

I can go on for days about diet – like how 60% of American calories come from ultra-processed foods!

But today I want to talk about toxins in our bodies and how we can help our body detox and answer the question, “Does juicing work?”

But first, why do we even need to detox in the first place?

Toxins in our food, personal care products, cleaners, and beauty products are known endocrine disruptors. That means that the hormones our bodies produce are not able to perform their function and get our cells to work together. That can lead to obesity, autoimmune disorders, diabetes, developmental delays, birth defects, stunted growth, infertility, and cancer to name a few. No biggie, right?

Toxins destroy your gut health. Philippe Pinel (father of modern psychiatry) said “the primary seat of insanity is in the region of the stomach and intestine.” When toxins destroy your helpful gut bacteria, that can lead to body-wide damage and disorders./

Our bodies aren’t perfect at detoxing and toxins can accumulate in the body:

“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conducted the Fourth National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals. On average, the CDC’s report found 212 chemicals in people’s blood or urine, 75 of which had never before been measured in the U.S. population. It is known that many of the detected chemicals can be harmful to human health and capable of contributing to chronic disease and other health concerns.” (source)

Some argue that our bodies are already great at detoxing and there’s no need for stuff like a juice cleanse. If that were true, then why did that CDC report come back full of toxic chemicals?

Even though certain toxins are easily excreted from our bodies, those same toxins come back over and over again and cause damage. I think about how I used to use Clorox wipes on my counter every single day for an example.

Our bodies naturally form free radicals, but toxins can exacerbate free radical production. Free radicals are unpaired electrons that go around and cause damage to our bodies by breaking molecular bonds.

Fruits and veggies contain massive amounts of usable antioxidants, which mean they neutralize free radicals. Free radicals in your body cause you to use up your antioxidant stores, leaving the free radicals to wreak havoc (like cause cancer). (source)

So does juicing work you ask? Well, what better way to provide your body with an abundance of antioxidants than through a juice cleanse?

Toxins are in the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, and many of the products we use in our everyday lives. Unfortunately we can’t get away from them. Adrienne thankfully gives lots of great advice of how to avoid toxins!

Plus, most of us just don’t have our bodies firing on all cylinders!

Does Juicing Work? Yes and No

Now, you’ll certainly find a ton of information and opinions out there answering the question, “Does juicing work?” Most will say a juice cleanse detox is unhealthy, unnatural, it will make your hair will fall out, and will cause all sorts of issues.

I partially agree – there’s certainly a right way and a wrong way to do it. And the wrong way can make you sicker. There’s more to juicing than just drinking juice. But you also have to remember, you’re not going to only be drinking juice for the rest of your life – just a week or so. I know you can do it!

If you are taking certain medications or have a certain diagnosis then you will definitely need to talk to your doctor before doing a juice cleanse. Hopefully you have a doctor who will listen to you and work with you.

My Personal Experience with Juice Cleanses

I’ve studied juice cleanses extensively, including learning under my naturopath. I’ve written a book about juice cleanses and I’ve frequently done them and I feel amazing afterwards.

My skin is clearer, my injured knee no longer hurts, my brain is clearer, and I have more energy to chase my kids.

Why should I do a juice detox?

Before we answer that question, let’s have a quick nutrition talk.

Your diet consists of food (obviously) which is made up of nutrients. Nutrients are separated into macronutrients and micronutrients. Macronutrients are fat, protein, carbohydrates. These are necessary for energy and structure like building muscles.

Micronutrients are pretty much everything else and make the rest of your body function. Goodies like vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, antioxidants, etc. Micronutrients are mostly found in fruits and vegetables. Consuming fruits and veggies has been proven to prevent a whole slew of health issues and chronic diseases.

And yet, in 2015 less than 18% of the American adult population ate the recommended amount of fruit, and less than 14% consumed the recommended amount of veggies. (source)

I don’t think it’s gotten any better. No wonder we’re all getting sick!

Bad Food = Bad Gut

Another problem is that most of us have crappy gut health because of things like SAD (standard American diet), antibiotics, and toxin build up. That makes it so our gut can’t break down the food into the nutrients our bodies need. The meager nutrients your body does manage to get goes toward keeping everything running and not so much towards healing.

There’s a reason why Hippocrates said “all disease begins in the gut.” Without our gut getting proper nutrients out of our food, our body can’t function, detox, or heal properly.

Your gut works hard ALL DAY EVERY DAY. In fact, about 5-15% of your daily calories go towards keeping your intestines sorting micronutrients from garbage. That’s hard work, made worse because most of us have atrocious gut health.

It’s time to make healing our nutrient-sorter a priority – and that begins by giving it a rest and going on a juice cleanse.

On a juice cleanse, there’s minimal work your gut will have to do and no bad toxins are going to interfere with your digestion. These micronutrients are giving your body the stuff it needs to first maintain your body, and then get out there and unclog your systems and get stuff working right again.

It’s like giving Bob the Builder an energy drink with a toolbox.

Our bodies are machines that are ALWAYS working towards optimum health. It uses nutrients to enhance the immune system, boost the liver and kidney detoxing functions, and get the mechanics for detoxing and healing fired up and working.

A juice cleanse means you’re drinking insane amounts of vegetable and fruit juices in an effort to flood your system with massive amounts of beneficial micronutrients. In real life you’d have to eat like 46 cups of spinach to get enough micronutrients to cause a healing effect and be sustainable.

Ain’t nobody able to eat that much green stuff! That’s why you want to do a juice cleanse detox! Throw it all in a juicer and drink it all in one fell swoop.

Does juicing work to detox our bodies?

Now as far as detoxing, the main way a juice cleanse works is by supporting your natural detox mechanisms. It’s not really about the juice itself. Now that your body’s hopped up on healing nutrients, all of your internal mechanisms start working better. And now you can flush out some toxins you haven’t been able to before.

Your body isn’t so hung up on trying to just keep it running!

One study showed that after a 3 day juice cleanse, participants showed significant changes in the intestinal microbiota that are associated with weight loss, decreased lipid oxidation (free radical damage), and higher levels of nitric oxide in the blood and urine which play a significant role in reducing cardiovascular disease. (source)

Some veggies (like cilantro and parsley) are known as chelators, meaning they actually help with heavy metal toxicity from things like lead and mercury and remove them from your body.

Also, we know that fruits and veggies are proven to reduce inflammation in our bodies and neutralize free radicals (both issues can be caused by toxins). In other words, you’re less likely to experience chronic disease and pain – especially cancer.

Here are some examples of the benefits of different fruits and vegetables for health.

Benefits of Fruits and Vegetables for Juicing Detox

Beets are proven to lower blood pressure. They are nutrient powerhouses, including betacyanin that may help the liver to produce more detoxifying enzymes.

Cruciferous vegetables lower cancer risk.

Blueberry and mulberry juice prevent obesity development, insulin resistance, and decrease cholesterol levels.

Garlic has been found to protect against heavy metals.

Onions contain a source of sulfur-containing nutrients that help our livers to produce detoxifying enzymes.

Pineapple contains bromelain, a nutrient that may help to promote digestion and may also help cleanse the colon.

Artichokes contain a nutrient called silymarin which is an antioxidant that helps the liver process toxins. Artichokes also contain another nutrient, cynarin, which is an acid that supports liver’s ability to break down fatty foods.

Apples contain pectin that helps our bodies remove food additives and metals from the system. Apples also contain quercetin that may help to promote production of detoxifying enzymes by the liver.

Parsley contains nutrients that can help stimulate production of bile that is key for the detoxification process.

Broccoli and cabbage are members of the cruciferous vegetable family that contain sulfur-containing nutrients that can help the liver to produce more detoxifying enzymes.

Citrus fruits like lemons, limes and oranges contain vitamin C. This may help to clear the digestive tract and also promote cleansing of the liver too.

(Sources 1) (Source 2)

And that’s just a teeny sampling of how produce helps us heal!

The point is, ALL produce contain nutrients, minerals, enzymes, bioflavonoids, and other phytonutrients that are meant to heal our bodies. And it’s delivered in the most easily digestible form possible – liquid.

So, does juicing work for detox? Oh yes siree!

People get too hung up on the macronutrients you’re missing on a juice cleanse. You aren’t going to die without your macronutrients for a week.

And one final thing: I read this testimonial on Reboot With Joe. It almost sounds like magic how this guy went from on death’s door to feeling like a teenager. Read it! You’ll feel like a juice cleanse is the missing part of your healing process.

That isn’t the only testimonial I’ve read about or heard straight from the source about the truly miraculous healing effects of juicing.

And if juicing sounds like something you might be interested in doing, we can help! Download our free eBook “10 Surefire Signs You Need a Juice Cleanse.” You’ll see if some of the symptoms you experience in life could be cured by a juice cleanse!

Making a Juice Detox work for you

This is Adrienne back with some of my thoughts on this whole topic in addition to my personal experience. I might write more later on this, but here are some basic thoughts.

Plus I have an offer for you.

What to use for juicing:

I have never bought a juicer. Personally, I have a Vitamix that I love for making smoothies and juices. It's great since it leaves the pulp and everything in with the juice, which helps to mitigate the blood sugar issues, plus it keeps all of the benefits of the produce in with the juice. Using a whole food juicer like the Vitamix remove, or at least reduces, some of the common concerns that people have about juicing such as:

impact on blood sugar

waste

time

I think that the idea of using and cleaning up a standard juicer would just keep me from doing this at all. And I have a blogging friend who just posted about how much she LOVES juicing, but doesn't do it often. I suspect this is the reason why.

Another thought, however, is to use powdered produce that you would just rehydrate using water.

I can personally attest to the benefits of this from recent experience.

About a month ago, I heard about a company that had a supplement that was being tested for its ability to remove glyphosate from the gut. I was super interested in this and actually it has now been proven to do so in clinical trials, PLUS it has also been proven to reduce C Reactive Protein by almost 75%. That's really amazing.

Anyhow, the company has super high quality standards for purity and nutrition, and I can tell you that I have my energy back. I am taking the supplement for gut health (Biome Medic) and using the Bio Fruit and the Green Spectrum with Lemon and also have really enjoyed adding in the Power Shake and a protein shake now and then, as well as their Apothecherry for sleep. I truly think I'm removing toxins and flooding my body with goodness.

For me, it's like super fast, lazy person juicing. If you are getting high quality powders, I don't see any difference between this and buying a bunch of produce and juicing.

Anyhow, if you are a likely lazy juicer like me, and you would like to try these products, just use code wholenewmom to save $50 off your purchase of $75 or more. You'll also get 15% off of any future order and 25% if you order within 30 days, making their products quite affordable. Plus your body will thank you!

How Long and How Often to do a Juicing Detox

While Erin talked about doing a juice cleanse for detox for about a week, I say do what you think is best.

First of all, just adding juicing to your diet for detox is a great thing to do, even if you aren't avoiding all other foods.

You could just juice once a week or once a day and add that to your routine.

Or you could do a juice detox once a day as a substitute for a meal Or do a juice cleanse for detox for one day or longer.

Really, it's up to you and regardless, you should see some kind of benefit

I can tell you that I for sure am!

Please, however, consult with your physician if you are concerned about juicing for any period of time.

Have you ever done a juice cleanse for detox? What was your experience? Would you do a juice detox after reading this?

Erin and Cameron Smith teach people how to adopt a healthy lifestyle that includes eating real food, eliminating toxins, and overcoming chronic illness.

The post Does Juicing Work for Detox–or Is It Just a Fad? appeared first on Whole New Mom.

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