New Vitamin Regimen - And A Less Fuzzy Brain

So one of the upshots of the medical research that I've been doing recently is that I'm slowly figuring out how a lot of things work - especially for myself.

Normally, I'll wake up feeling like I have a hangover. Dry eyes, slight headache, very groggy. This tiredness doesn't stop during the day - and it doesn't go away no matter how much I sleep.

I think I've figured out how to fix that though. And the results are surprising. I've been borderline for type II diabetes for a while, with high cholesterol. And I do get coldsores. Those symptoms (high blood sugar, high cholesterol) are something that can be caused by a subclinical herpesviridae infection (if the papers I'm reading are correct). Add in the fact that I get some scintillating scotoma, and it looks like I've had a subclinical migraine for quite a while that was getting ready to rear its ugly head.

So a little research online, and I arrived at this solution (I take this morning and night):

• Curcumin (Turmeric extract)
• Resveratrol (Red Wine phenols)
• A good MultiVitamin
• Omega 3 fatty acids
• Lecithin
• L-Lysine
• Vitamin C

... and hey presto, I wake up feeling absolutely fantastic. Which is a nice change for me.

Still in the "is this a placebo or is it real?" phase, but the results are promising.

How does it work?

Well, assuming that herpesviridae are the cause of my symptoms (by the way, we can add migraines and cluster headaches to the list of potential herpesviridae-caused symptoms now after spying a few papers on this), it works something like this:

Curcumin - interferes with herpesviridae reproduction, also tones down TNF inflammatory response (kind of like a natural Enbrel/Etanercept).

Resveratrol - interferes with herpesviridae reproduction, turns down TNF inflammatory response, and inhibits reactivation (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10551373)

Multivitamin - to replenish Vitamin B stores (I use one high in the cyanocobalamin form of B12). Mainly to help repair nerves, but also to act synergistically with interferon in the body to increase its efficacy (http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6908611.html); adding high doses of B12 massively reduces the amount of interferon-beta necessary to hold an infection in check by about half.

Omega 3 fatty acids - modulates the structure of cell lipid rafts, making it harder for the herpesviridae (and rhinoviruses, adenoviruses) to enter or exit the cell membranes.

L-Lysine - interferes with herpesviridae replication by masquerading as L-Arginine (the virus can't tell the difference, and L-Lysine substitution produces faulty viruses).

Vitamin C - for healing (used by the body with Lysine to create collagen). This is really a buffer for the high levels of Lysine, allowing it to be effectively used, and to ensure that Vitamin C stores don't run low as a result.

Theoretically, this mix could also act as a good weight-loss treatment too; if you think about it, if this can shift the balance away from type-II diabetes and high cholesterol (which Omega 3, resveratrol and curcumin are shown to help with in some studies), weight loss should come as a natural consequence.

Anyway, it's all theory at this point. But the papers I'm using to do this research are pretty promising.

Viruses as a cause for Cancer - and other diseases (part 3)

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This article is not about the clinical side of this theory of mine - it's about the path that led me to believe in it.

For a long time now, I've been utterly convinced that most kinds of cancer (except those caused by really faulty genetics which cause childhood mortality) would eventually be discovered to be caused by either a bacterium, a fungus, or a virus.

This is a pretty bold statement, but it's one that I can trace back a long way. It's also proving fruitful - especially with the recent discovery that certain strains of HPV (human papilloma virus) can cause cervical cancer and oral cancers.

The Discovery of H. Pylori and its role in Ulcers

Back in 1982, a link was discovered between Heliobacter Pylori and ulcers - namely, that most ulcers are caused by a bacterial infection of the stomach lining. This theory took 10 years of research to confirm, and is now widely tested for - and treatable with a combination of proton pump inhibitors (to allow the stomach lining to heal) and antibiotics.

I first heard of this in 1994 when a friend of mine who had suffered from ulcers for some time finally went and got treated. (I can't remember if I came across a reference to the treatment in New Scientist and I told her, or if she already knew of it and told me). Either way, a light went off in my head. Some things - some things previously considered untreatable, or a part of the human condition, are caused by things that we just hadn't had the tools to look for, or that we just plain didn't put two and two together for.

Cholangio Carcinoma - and my mom

My mother died in September 1996 of Cholangio carcinoma - a particularly nasty kind of gallbladder cancer which wrapped itself around the hepatic portal artery, making it (at the time) inoperable. It was a drawn out affair; from original diagnosis as stomach pains, to a stay in hospital due to hemorrhaging, to her final death at home while being treated with radiation therapy and chemotherapy, and on a nearly constant morphine drip for the pain.

At the time, I spent a long time searching for all of the information I could, trying to find a cure. It wasn't easy - the internet was in larval form back then, pretty much the domain of university students and academia.

I always wanted to know why this happened. I finally think I've figured it out - but unfortunately too late for her. Sorry mom.

Crohn's Disease and my dad

Around the time that my mom died of cancer, my Dad came down with Crohn's disease. He had a section of his bowel removed, and he's mostly fine today. I'm hazy on the timeline, but I'm pretty sure that he was suffering from it during my mom's illness, and put off seeing a doctor about it until after she died and he had some room to start thinking about himself again, instead of the woman he loved more than anything (I really should share the story of how they met some time).

Is this just another case of broken heart syndrome, where the surviving spouse - through extreme stress - ends up contracting some kind of illness? I don't think so. I believe the two are intimately connected.

Warts and P52

I was reading a paper in 2001 on Human Papilloma Virus and P52. HPV causes warts in some forms, cancer in others, and in some forms, it's just a dormant thing that causes a lesion - or nothing at all. By the time you're in your 50s, you will have some form of exposure to HPV.

Apparently HPV does its magic by interfering with the expression of gene P52, a factor in cell death (apoptosis). By doing so, it's able to cause the cells to grow rapidly without being killed by the immune system - or themselves.

This got me thinking. If a virus can cause warts, and cause skin cells to grow out of control within a limited area... what's to stop it from causing other problems elsewhere? Such as cancer.

It would only be much later - in 2005 - that HPV would be making the news because of vaccines designed specifically to target it. Unfortunately, although cervical cancer had already been identified as a potentially sexually-transmitted disease, the discovery of a link between it and HPV was made in the 1970s. Why unfortunate? Because it took 35 years for a potential cure to be discovered, and for the role of the virus in the disease to become common knowledge. For some reason, that information remained locked up in medical research for way too long.

When news of the vaccine came out, it was something that I took as a personal vindication - my theory could be true!

Alzheimer's and Herpes

The connection between Alzheimer's and Herpes made the news in 2006, but I didn't catch wind of it until December 2007, at which point I was doing research on the subject because I'd heard that one of my favorite authors (Terry Pratchett) had recently been diagnosed with an early-onset form of the disease. Research in January points to a new treatment for Alzheimer's in the form of an anti-inflammatory drug known as Etanercept or Enbrel. I believe I've identified a missing link between the virus and the treatment, which you can find in my post.

Why was I researching this in December 2007? The father of someone I know well is currently dying of Glioblastoma Multiforme - a particularly nasty kind of brain cancer. I'd already seen a connection here between the alphaherpesvirinae (HSV1, HSV2, Varicella Zoster Virus) and this particular disease. I now feel that this connection is pretty solid, based on the symptoms of his wife (Multiple Sclerosis), and the fact that he had a virulent outbreak of shingles during the first round of chemotherapy. Coincidental? I hope not. I believe that all three of these conditions can be explained as varying immunity and genetic predisposition in the face of a particularly nasty Varicella Zoster Virus infection.

Further research has lead to a number of other similar connections. I'm posting this information in the hope that it spreads and people start using it.

What Changes Can We Make Today?

I would like to see, at a bare minimum, doctors start to take the history of patients as well as their spouses and children, including anyone they have been living with for a long time who has any kind of disease or condition. I'll explain this further in a later post. Let's just put it like this for now - this is essential data that we're missing, especially if it's possible that multiple conditions are caused by the same basic cause. In the case of my parents, I believe that a variant of Cytomegalovirus was the cause for both my mother's cancer, and my father's crohn's disease. This is something that could have been picked up on if medical records included this information.

My Cancer/Late Stage Of Life Disease Theory

Here's how the theory l have put together over the years lies right now:

1. There is no such thing as a "human condition" disease

Okay, so basic aging aside (that is, architectural problems that only show up in old age because the system itself is clogged), I don't believe that any disease just happens by itself. Particularly cancer. Why?

2. With the sheer number of cells in the human body, late-stage diseases such as cancer should always occur in childhood

Your body contains billions upon billions of cells, all replicating, all exposed to free radicals. Except during breastfeeding, your food supply doesn't change much through adulthood. Antioxidants, vitamins, etc, which protect cells should always affect you the same way - you shouldn't need more protection as you get older. It's a limited supply, that needs to be replenished regularly.

If you're going to see problems with replication, or other random malfunctions, then they should be as likely when you're young as when you get older. If you're going to get them when you're older, you should get them at the end of puberty if there's any magic involved in still being a child.

3. Chronic conditions build up over time, except in the case of active infection

Unless you are actively infected by something, a chronic condition will be caused by a subclinical condition occurring for a very long time. At some point, there's a tipping point, and your body is no longer able to handle the subclinical condition, or the condition is exacerbated, and it becomes full blown and noticeable as something we can point to as a disease.

4. Cancer is caused by a variety of agents, such as bacteria, funguses or viruses, meddling with the body's own machinery

Wart viruses are the best example of this. Alzheimer's is rapidly becoming a solidly defined disease that is caused - in part - by HSV1 infection of the brain.

5. Subclinical viral infection - particularly by viruses which can go "latent" or "dormant" - causes late stage diseases

We only see the active part of the infection - not the subclinical, latent phase. A latent infection can still cause symptoms and problems - look at the literature on genital herpes, where viral particles are still shed even though the virus may not be in its "active" phase.

I think that this is a reasonably solid theory, and gives us something to work with. Unless you're unlucky enough to have a genetic malfunction, we should look at other causative agents as well in most diseases - not just at the body itself.

In the next article, I'll cover the connection between Glioblastoma Multiforme, and Multiple Sclerosis, as well as other diseases which appear to be caused by Varicella Zoster Virus.

The Herpes Virus - what is it? (part 2)

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This is a picture of a herpes virus. It's a virus that most people come into contact with at one stage or other during their lives - usually when they're children. Different forms of this virus cause:

Virus Subtype	Classification	Disease
Herpes Simplex Type 1 (HSV1)	HHV1	Coldsores
Herpes Simplex Type 2 (HSV2)	HHV2	Genital Herpes
Varicella Zoster Virus (VZV)	HHV3	Chickenpox, shingles
Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV)	HHV4	Mono (infectious mononucleosis), Burkitt's Lyphoma, CNS symptoms in AIDS patients, post-transplant lymphoproliferative syndrome (PTLD), nasopharyngeal carcinoma
Cytomegalovirus (CMV)	HHV5	Mono-like symptoms (infectious mononucleosis-like syndrome), retinitis, cytomegalovirus colitis, cytomegalovirus hepatitis
Roseolavirus	HHV6, 7	"Rose rash" (roseola infantum), "sixth disease", "three day fever", "baby measles"
Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV)	HHV8	Kaposi's sarcoma, primary effusion lymphoman, some types of Castleman's disease

Table taken from Wikipedia.

There may be other forms of this virus associated with other diseases in humans; there are over 100 known herpes viruses - there may well be many more.

The viruses are classified into three groups based on the types of tissue they exhibit affinity for in the body.

Viruses	Tissue type	Classification
HSV1, HSV2, VZV	Nervous system tissue	Alphaherpesvirinae
CMV, Roseolavirus	Lymph tissue and lymphatic system	Betaherpesvirinae
EBV, KSHV	T or B lymphocytes; also lymphotropic	Gammaherpesvirinae

As many as 90% of the population carry one or all of these viruses in their systems. After infection, the virus hides in a latent form, where it can stay dormant for years - possibly forever - until the conditions are ripe for it to come out and replicate again.

In the alpha viruses, it hides inside the cytosome of the nervous tissue awaiting reactivation, often caused by stress or inflammation. I mentioned this previously in an earlier post on Alzheimers, Herpes and Etanercept; the key trigger for alpha virus reactivation appears to be the presence of TNEF-alpha in large quantities, telling the virus that it's safe to come out because the immune system is currently busy.

In the beta viruses, they hide inside the nucleii of the lympahtic cells themselves, causing what are known as "Owl's Eye" inclusion bodies - so called from their appearance:

The gamma viruses behave similarly to the beta viruses, but target specific lymphocytes.

When the virus replicates, it often destroys the host cell in the process, or severely distorts it.

The Herpes Virus - A cause for more diseases than we give it credit for?

Most of the literature on the web tends to only consider the problems with chronic and acute infections by herpes viruses. These typically form in children (upon first exposure), in the form of sexually transmitted disease (HSV2), or in immunocompromised patients (for example, people with AIDS, organ transplant patients, cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy).

They don't tend to consider the long-term effects of a sub-clinical infection; after all, if there are no symptoms, then the body is looking after itself - it's why we have an immune system.

However, I believe that it is important to consider sub-clinical infection and asymptomatic infection as potential causes or cofactors in a wide number of diseases - ranging from heart disease to most cancers.

This is becoming more possible now, partly because of the creation of gene-chip technology - especially viral chip assays, which allow any tissue sample to be tested for the presence of a virus quickly and efficiently. This is something that was not easily possible before, and has lead to the discovery of the presence of herpesviridae in many cancers. However, the researchers are not yet willing to draw a conclusive line between these results and the cause of the diseases themselves. In the case of Alzheimer's disease, however, we can definitively say at this point that there is a direct connection. And much of the research is showing other connections too.

The next article in this series will cover the path that led me to this conclusion. After that, I'll start tackling each disease, with references to the research. And finally, some proposed treatments that can if not cure the diseases, at least slow them down as long as doctors are willing to prescribe common medications off-label.

CMV Owl's Eye Inclusion picture source: Dan Wiedbrauk, Ph.D., Warde Medical Laboratory, Ann Arbor, MI. Used for educational purposes.
Herpes Virus picture source: taken from http://www.health-news-blog.com/blogs/permalinks/11-2007/suppressing-infectiousness-of-hiv.html; original source unknown

Public Enemy Number 1 - The Herpes Viruses as Causative Agents For Most Later-Life Diseases (part 1)

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This is the story of a life-form. A very small, tiny encapsulated bundle of DNA that can replicate by itself, with the help of a host - specifically, in this case, human beings. It is also the story of its siblings - a set of viruses called 'herpesviradae' - which together form a large family of viruses which infect humans and other animals.

This is also a personal story, which touches on the death of my mother in 1996, and on the lives of other friends and family, all of whom are in some way or another inextricably tied to this virus.

And this is a story of hope. The hope that as soon as this is published, people can start taking preventative measures, and active measures against a great many diseases.

If I am correct in my hypothesis - which I hope to shore up with as much direct data as possible, along with references to many medical research papers - then I hope to prove that all of the following diseases are in some way caused by the family of herpes viruses.

If this is the case - and I believe this to be true - then there are direct nutritional and pharmaceutical measures that can be taken to stave off the progress of these diseases. Hopefully this series of blog posts will help to focus the medical community, and lead to the creation of cures, treatments and preventative measures against all of these diseases.

The diseases and symptoms I will cover in this series of posts include:

• Alzheimer's Disease
• Type-II Diabetes
• High Cholesterol, including high HDL and high triglyceride levels
• Heart disease, including atherosclerosis (aka arteriosclerosis)
• Cancer of the gallbladder (cholangiocarcinoma)
• Colon cancer
• Crohn's disease
• Multiple sclerosis
• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Arthritis
• Osteoporosis
• Multiple myeloma
• Glioblastoma multiforme
• Bipolar disorder
• Schizophrenia
• Hodkin's Disease
• Lymphoma
• Breast Cancer
• Kaposi's Sarcoma

There may also be other diseases for which I have not made this association yet.

I will also touch on:

• Parkinson's disease
• Prostate cancer

- both of which may be caused by other viruses, and as such are not as eminently treatable, but are similarly caused.

While I cannot prove a direct link between the virus and the symptomatic disease in all of these cases, I will be collecting enough papers together and also mechanisms of action that will provide enough evidence to show that we should be looking at the herpes viruses as the major causative agent (in combination with specific genetic variations) for these diseases.

When I have completed this series, I will collect the information together, remove most of the personal anecdotes, and attempt to publish in a medical journal. However, I believe that this information is important enough to publish in pieces while I put together the final paper.

The next post in this series will detail the changes in medical approaches to disease agents over the last 20 years or so, and my original hypothesis as to fungal, bacterial and viral agents being the underlying cause of non-juvenile cancers.

(If you are new to this series, you may want to read this post regarding the treatment of Alzheimer's with Etanercept, and how the mechanism of action may involve the herpes virus, and not simply be due to the action of TNF-alpha on synaptic function)

For some reason, Technorati isn't resyndicating this post. I'm trying to post it again to see what I can do on my end to fix it before I talk to their support people.

A Call for the Open Publication of Scientific Papers

Science has a long institution of collaboration; ideas flourish and multiple when they're shared, and that creates progress.

Until the 1990s, the only way to readily share that information was via published journals; an expensive, slow way of sharing information that requires the movement of little pieces of paper from place to place.

There's no reason it should be like this any more. And I argue that this is actually hurting our ability - as a species - to progress.

The Internet (and specifically Google at the time of writing) is the biggest source of information on the planet. Potentially, everything could be out there, readily accessible by everyone. It has way surpassed my wildest dreams in that.

But the information isn't itself useful (and this is where Google comes in). What's really useful is the mining of that information. The ability to enter keywords, and find related articles. The stuff that lets you take data points and connect A to B.

We are on the cusp of a revolution in science. For the first time in the history of humanity, you don't actually personally have to do experiments to test a theory. The sheer weight of numbers of other people out there, doing the research, and publishing their results removes the burden of performing those experiments themselves from the individual scientist. We're democratizing science, and making it accessible to the intelligent individual in a way that previously was only possible for the theoretical sciences. You no longer need tenure, or to be working in a research facility, to actually draw conclusions from research.

And data-mining allows that to come to the fore. In the near future, I can even imagine a world where Google itself could be mechanized. Computers themselves could draw conclusions from all of the research data, and come up with useful correlations. It's the Kurzweil singularity; at some point the system feeds off itself, and will spiral off to infinity.

But what's stopping that now?

The problem we have right now is that for most papers, only abstracts are available online. The actual detailed information is stored in academic publications, such as Phys. Review Letters A, and the Journal of Neuroimmunology - but the barrier to entry is too high for the skilled individual. It just plain costs money to read those papers. Scientific progress isn't supposed to work that way. It's supposed to be for the benefit of all of us.

That's not to say that there aren't considerable advantages to the peer review and publishing of papers. In fact, it's still an essential part of the scientific method. And it could continue, but not in the way it stands right now.

A proposal

We should change the way academic papers are published. We need to democratize this system. And partly, this has already happened. Pubmed, run by the US National Library of Medicine, and the National Institutes of Health is a good example of how to collect papers online. arXiv is another example - it's Cornell University Library's database of preprints of papers in Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Quantitative Biology and Statistics.

How should it work?

• All papers get published online, either in collector sites such as those mentioned above, or on the individual author's sites - preferably both, so they can be archived for the future.
• The journals take the papers, they are reviewed and refereed, and the papers which pass muster are published by them. This allows a bound archive of the best of the best work; the stuff that we know is real. It also provides an instantly accessible catalogue of verified high quality work, which those journals could charge for. What they're providing here is convenience, and a level of trust - which in an increasingly growing, polluted internet information space is becoming more and more important. (I've noticed recently that it's much more difficult to search for something on Google now, than 2 years ago... without serious AI advances, that problem is only going to get worse).
• The authors and collector sites mark the papers as "peer reviewed", and provide references to where they were published, after they are published. This means that people can still access the useful information, and still have a hope of finding out which papers are valid - or not.

Sure, the scientific publications will make less money this way. But frankly, I don't have much sympathy for them; we're way past that business model's useful lifetime (as much as I, an ex-freelance journalist, regularly bemoan that). We could entirely bypass this system by providing something like Digg for scientific publications. At least this way, they're still involved in the game.

Come on people. Let's get some science done here, and use the singularity to our advantage.

Amazing Alzheimer's Treatment - And Why It Works

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News today hit the interwebs of a fantastic new potential alzheimer's treatment that works on a timescale of hours. Yes, you read that right, hours.

The drug involved is Etanercept, which is used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis, and has been used off-label for Alzheimer's.

Of course, this kind of scoops the posts I was planning on making here - but in a really good way :) I'll explain how all this ties into my hypotheses when I make my big posts.

(Which I'm still working on - but it's a big topic so I'm still trying to figure out how to approach it).

But as a sneaky teaser:

Etanercept is a TNF-α antagonist; TNF-α being a cytokine created by white blood cells which is used to signal an inflammation response in the host.

So why does that help? Is Alzheimer's merely an inflammatory disease? And Etanercept turns that inflammation off, letting your body get back to business as usual?

Nope, that's not what's going on here... not entirely... Here's my hypothesis - you'll see my theme starting here:

The trick here is another part of the equation. Recent research has shown that Herpes Simplex Virus I is found in huge quantities in plaque riddled brain tissue in Alzheimer's patients.

Other recent research in mice shows that when the body has an inflammation response, it creates cytokines such as TNF-α - which cause the latent herpes viruses to re-activate.

So if HSV-1 is a primary cause of Alzheimer's, TNF-α increases its activity, and Etanercept decreases the amount of TNF-α in the bloodstream (decreasing its activity), then the case for HSV-1 being a cause of Alzheimer's is strengthened. And what's more, you can help it along with other drugs and nutritional supplements that are antagonistic towards herpes viruses.

So why is Etanercept prescribed for rheumatoid arthritis? The answer lies with another herpes-class of virus - Varicella Zoster. And that part I'll save for the series...

Meanwhile, my suggestion and recommendation to anyone dealing with this, and doctors treating it:

Supplement any treatment with Etanercept with Interferon-α/β, acyclovir (or valcylovir, or any of the other related antivirals), L-lysine supplements matched with an equal ratio of Vitamin C supplementation, and a low sugar (fructose, glucose, mannose) diet.

I'll explain more about why in coming posts. You can get L-lysine and Vitamin C over the counter. Most doctors would probably be willing to try acyclovir (Zovirax) or valcyclovir (Valtrex). Interferon may take a bigger push - in which case, give him the links in this article. They're listed at the bottom.

NOTE: I am NOT a doctor. Do not take any advice from this page without consulting with a certified physician. I'm just someone who's really good at Googling and building models.

Supporting Documentation:
ScienceDaily report on the use of Etanercept as a miracle Alzheimer's cure
Herpes Simplex 1 and Alzheimer's link
Latent HSV-1 infection reactivation due to TNF-α
Journal of NeuroInflammation paper on the use of Etanercept (the ScienceDaily report is based on this)

The Teaser: Medical Science and the Quest for the Cures...

You know, I'm not sure where to start with this post... but I think it's going to be a big one. I'm about to embark on a series where I explain how medical science is currently progressing, and how within the next 20 years we will have cures for most kinds of heart disease, type II diabetes, arteriosclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, arthritis, osteoporosis, multiple myeloma, high cholesterol, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, glioblastoma multiforme, prostate cancer and a whole host of other cancers and diseases, particularly those that strike in later life.

Yes, I know, this is a bit of a departure for me, but this is the culmination of several months worth of research (a basic pubmed search that anyone with a willingness to wade through the vocabulary can do) into the subject. And while we don't have those cures today (possibly...), I can point you in the direction that medical science is going. And possibly give you a nudge in the direction that will help you stave off any of these effects in the near future. Bear with me, I'm not crazy, I promise. I'll be backing up these statements with links to papers on pubmed, and the latest medical research from as many sources as I can. The only thing I'll be doing that is a little out there is giving you a hypothesis and a connection which ties all of these together. There's a pattern here, folks.

Thus begins a whirlwind tour of the current medical research, and a story that will sound like something out of the recent movie I Am Legend. I'll be covering human endogenous retroviruses, xenotropic mouse retroviruses, herpes viruses (of which there are several, 8 of which are well known at this point), influenza type-A, adenoviruses and more. We'll see how herpes is connected to Alzheimer's disease, how chickenpox is connected to arthritis, and how to stave it off. We'll see how coldsores can increase your cholesterol level, how having the flu can give you (in exceptionally rare cases) Parkinson's disease, and how a virus originally found in mice could give you prostate cancer. And I'll also, while I'm at it, I'll explain why high fructose corn syrup could cause high cholesterol and diabetes - and in some people, why they have those problems anyway, no matter how they shift their diet. We'll cover why statins work, and what you may need to take in conjunction with them to get things going.

Now the disclaimer:

I am not a doctor. I have no medical training. I have a degree in Pure & Applied Physics with a minor in Electronic Engineering. I work as a programmer, and I'm damn good at spotting patterns and debugging.

I MAY BE TOTALLY WRONG ABOUT ALL OF THIS.

DO NOT USE ANY OF THIS ADVICE BY YOURSELF - WORK IN CONJUNCTION WITH A DOCTOR OR SPECIALIST IN THE FIELD.

I have to put that there, because my advice may be flawed, and I don't want to hurt anyone. All I'm aiming to do here is to push people in the direction of recognizing a pattern here, and hopefully saving a few lives along the way.

Hold on folks, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Cheap Safe Drug Kills Most Cancers

New Scientist recently posted an update to their story on DCA, a cheap chemical which is so readily available in industry that pharmaceutical companies are unable to get a patent on it - so the funding is not available for human clinical trials to see if it can safely cure cancer in humans.

The initial research at the University of Alberta is exceptionally promising, and represents an entirely new approach to attacking cancer.

The gist of it is this. Normal cells use their mitochondria to create the energy they need to live. In cancer cells, which tend to be oxygen-starved, the mitochondria can't do their job (no oxygen!), so the cell switches them off and reverts to an older survival mechanism - glycolysis.

Unfortunately, the mitochondria themselves are what controls cell death (apoptosis), and with them out of the way, the cells become "immortal", and will not commit suicide, even though they're now cancerous.

The chemical DCA turns the mitochondria back on, enabling the faulty cells to commit suicide, and then the immune system cleans up the rest of the mess.

Please DONATE money to the University of Alberta Dr.Michelakis - Cancer Research Fund (make sure you select this from the list of funds they allow you to donate to) to allow them to perform the necessary human trials to get this drug into the hands of doctors.

I've donated $100 in memory of my mum, Linda Marie Cooke, who died of cancer in 1996 at the age of 37.

They also have a site you can sign up for email updates when they have new information on the progress of the research.

This represents possibly the most amazing medical research I've heard of in recent years. Well, that and the use of enzymes extracted from the intenstines of icelandic Cod as a potent cure for the common cold, influenza, arthritis and eczema.

Random Updates...

A few things to update on the posts I've made over the years...

Hangover Cures

The basic principal still stands, but throw in some Vitamin B6, and/or some Red Bull. Red Bull is actually surprisingly good as a hangover cure - lots of B vitamins in large supply, some amino acids, caffeine and sugar, so it replenishes lost nutrients, helps with the headache, and the sugar helps trick your system into creating more serotonin.

New info: SSRIs and nausea

Why do SSRIs make you nauseous on an empty stomach? Because the Vegus nerve runs right through there, and it gets affected first. The Vegus nerve is what gives you motion sickness, makes you feel nauseous, and handles a lot of digestive system communication tasks. Speaking of which...

New research: Morning Sickness Cures

I verified this with research from Johns Hopkins after coming up with the idea independently, because I started thinking about what nausea really is... Two good morning sickness cures are either Dramamine (quiets the Vegus nerve, which is causing your nausea), and it's tried and tested on a friend on mine who's going through horrible morning sickness (ends up she tried it before I mentioned it, so this might be pretty well known). The other is half a Unisom tablet plus 50mg of Vitamin B6 - which matches an old prescription-only morning sickness cure that has since been taken off the market. Yes, they'll make you groggy (basically, they're antihistamines, and put you somewhat to sleep), but they're a good cure for nausea. Pick your poison, basically.

Want to avoid anxiety? Drink more fluids

Here's something I really should remember, but often don't.

If you want to avoid getting anxious, avoid panic attacks, avoid feeling depressed...

... drink more water. Heck, drink some Gatorade - it'll restore your electrolytes too. But mostly drink more water.

It's a stupidly simple thing. And so easy to forget. But if you're bouncing around on nearly empty, it'll make any bad feelings you're having worse. So drink plenty of fluids - at least 8 glasses of water a day.

And feel better.

The Sudafed Test for ADHD

Warning: the following post is not provided by a medical practitioner. Follow it at your own risk, under guidance of your doctor. If you have high blood pressure, or a history of heart problems, you probably shouldn't do this. Follow all instructions on the packet. I don't assume any liability for any problems that this may cause - again, do so at your own risk.

Now that that's out of the way, here's how I found out that I had ADD. Or some form of anxiety that mimics ADD in nearly all of its symptoms, such that ultimately it's pretty much exactly the same thing. Or so my Doc tells me.

I had a cold for a week, so I was taking an over the counter cold remedy which contained a decongestant. The weird thing was that I noticed that at the end of the cold, I was a lot more alert and awake than I had been before I even had a cold. Which got me thinking...

I tried an experiment. At first, I tried taking it at night, figuring that - since I have cats, and I'm allergic to them - it might be a pretty good idea to rule out allergies as being why I was tired all the time. I added in a new-class antihistamine (the ones which don't make you drowsy) to the mix, and it seemed to help a bit. Not tremendously, but at least a little.

I did this for a few weeks, and then one day - I can't remember why - I tried taking Sudafed in the morning.

The results were startling. I was able to focus at work much more, wasn't as tired, and I was happier and more alert. I carried on with this for a month, just to check that what I was seeing wasn't just a one off (I'd had weird experiences like this before - one time I got really bad food poisoning from Denny's, and when I finally recovered, I felt better than I'd ever felt before, period - so I wanted to rule that out).

It worked. Not perfectly, but enough to make me sit back and wonder. I went for sushi with a friend one lunch, and he mentioned that he and his son both had ADHD - and that it was getting worse as he was getting older. This got me thinking - what if I had the same thing? The symptoms are about the same - lack of concentration punctuated by periods of extreme concentration and productivity - also known as hyperfocus.

A little research later, and all of a sudden I had a working theory. Sudafed, you see, works by flushing your system with norepinephrine - its main claim to fame is that it essentially tells your system to pump out as much of the stuff as it can muster. Now, you've only got a limited supply of this stuff hanging around, but your body can synthesize more from L-Tyrosine, an amino acid that you can get into your system in a variety of ways, but my hunch is that eggs and sardines are great sources. (And sardines are an excellent source of calcium and iron, so they're worth eating anyway). However, it does mean that you'll run out of it - which is partly why the Sudafed wears off (the Sudafed itself gets metabolized as well, of course, which also screws things up).

The latest research shows that ADD and ADHD can be helped by pumping more norepinephrine into the brain. This is why the Sudafed trick works - although, unfortunately, it's also a stimulant, so it has other side effects including a faster heart beat, and the jitters. This is why if you decide to go down the same path, you probably shouldn't do it for more than a week, just to see if it works for you or not.

There are better things than Sudafed to cure ADD though. Something a little more... shall we say, industrial strength! It's called Strattera, and it's a Selective Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitor - or SNRI. Unlike Sudafed, it doesn't flush norepinephrine into your system - instead, it prevents your system from breaking down the norepinephrine, allows your brain to basically stew in what you've got. Which means that you're not going to run out. Also, it only acts on the brain (well, and your mucus membranes - which means that for the first time since I was a teenager, I have permanently unclogged nasal passages - in fact, when they start to clog up, I know that I need to pop another Strattera pill).

Armed with this knowledge, I went to a doctor who specialized in ADD. We talked for a while, I presented my findings, and she agreed to put me on the more powerful stuff. My life has changed for the better - I'm no longer as impulsive, I don't have anxiety, and I can focus at work. I also don't get involved in stupid pointless flamewars online any more. I'm still as creative as ever - but my brain's working the way I always thought it should.

So if you think you've got ADD, you might want to give the Sudafed test a shot. And eat more eggs and sardines. ;-)

Potential Snoring Cure

This one seems to help more if you've got anxiety/ADD than anything else; it can certainly alleviate a lot of snoring issues.

I discovered this a while back, when there was this whole new craze about getting more omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids into your system. I was taking vitamins morning and night, so I just added fish oil capsules bought at Walgreens to the mix.

And unexpectedly stopped snoring.

Or at least, I did for a while. It definitely got a lot better than it was. So I tried a few experiments. One friend of mine with sleep apnea... stopped snoring, pretty much saving his relationship (apparently his girlfriend didn't appreciate the constant sound of sawing wood at night). Another tried it, and got very worried when a few minutes after taking it, he felt like his nose (which was broken) was expanding internally. Very odd sensation - but it seemed to help. I reported this to the local Swedish medical center who have a sleep studies department about 2 years ago... ... and have never heard anything back.

So does this work? Why not try it and find out. You've got nothing to lose - and you probably don't get enough omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids in your diet anyway. When you think about the fact that your brain - if you stuck it in a blender and then analyzed it - has about the same density, consistency and molecular make-up as a pat of butter, then maybe just maybe the fats that you push into it make a difference. (That similarity, by the way, probably explains the end of the movie Hannibal). You're supposed to get at least half of your fats in these omega-3 and omega-6 forms - most western diets only supply a tiny fraction of that amount.

If it helps, post a comment and let me know. If it doesn't...? Post a comment and let me know. Right now, I only have anecdotal evidence.

These days I just take Strattera which is a non-stimulant ADD med - like ritalin, but without the fun or street appeal. Apparently I have something with all the symptoms of ADD, but when you do the computer based tests, all my scores are flipped about the horizontal axis with those that a true ADD person would have - but if the symptoms are the same, and the drug works to alleviate them, I'm not sure there's much real-world difference. It also just so happens to completely open up my sinuses, making it possible for me to get snore-free, refreshing sleep.

Hangover cures...

There's a reason this blog is called Accidental Scientist. I originally started it up to post things I'd discovered about life, the universe and everything else... but especially about the things that I like to call "stupid human tricks". So without further ado, it's time to get stuck in with the first little tidbit that I've found so far...

How to cure a hangover

As I've gotten older (and I hear that most people are like this), I've had more and more hangovers after a night on the town. Admittedly, as I've gotten older, I've started drinking a hell of a lot more (stress will do that to you), but that's beside the point. Some hangovers have been so bad that they've completely taken away my Sundays from me - as I've spent them wandering around in a daze going, well, ouch.

No longer. I think I finally figured out the perfect hangover cure.

You will need:

• Two eggs
• A bottle of gatorade
• Eyedrops (preferably just natural tears - Genteal are pretty good)
• Water
• Caffeine, aspirin and ibuprofen (not acetaminophen or paracetamol)
• Two multivitamin tablets.

NOTE: I am not a doctor, nor am I pretending to be one. This advice could help you, it could kill you, or it could turn you bright blue. I honestly don't know. Follow it at your own risk.

Here's how you use the ingredients.

Water

Drink this before you go to bed - as much as you can manage. Drink it while you're drinking, and it'll help too. But drink as much as you can - alcohol dehydrates you, and your liver and kidneys work much better at getting rid of toxins when they have water to work with. Drinking water is your first line of defence against a hangover.

Gatorade

You drink this the next day. It's basically sugar water, with electrolytes to rebalance your system a bit (because when you get dehydrated with alcohol, you're peeing out most of the salt in your system, and as your body is basically a large bag of salt water, you really need to replace it).

It's the best and easiest way to get fluid into your system, and has its own handy-dandy built in automatic rehydration indicator - if it tastes good, you need to drink more of it. Once it starts tasting unappealing, you've had enough - you're rehydrated. Sneaky, huh?

Eggs

Boiled, fried, poached, whatever. You just need them. You can try eating them the night before if you can stomach them - but that will depend on how drunk you are. (And cooking when drunk, like driving when drunk, is a recipe for disaster).

Eggs help a hangover in two ways. Firstly, and most importantly, they're one of the most nutritious sources of cholesterol you can get.

Yes, that's right, cholesterol. You know that thing that doctors tell you is bad for you? Welllll... you see, there's another side to that argument. Cholesterol is bad - when it's clogging your arteries. When you're drunk, however, it's a whole other story. You see, your liver runs pretty much exclusively on cholesterol, and it burns fat to metabolize alcohol. This is why, among other things, doctors now say that drinking will lower your cholesterol (it does - because your liver kicks it up a gear). It's also why hardened Russian vodka drinkers will eat very fatty foods while they drink - because it helps them metabolize the alcohol.

If you've ever wanted to drink someone under the table, eat a lot of eggs. Or other similarly high-fat foods. And keep eating them while you drink. You'll be able to carry on (relatively sober) while they slowly slip into oblivion...

Eggs don't just contain fat, they contain plenty of incredibly bio-available protein. Your body loves eggs - in fact, some people claim that eggs contain about the easiest protein for your body to digest.

Protein's really good when you have a hangover, because protein is broken down into amino acids in your body, and amino acids are used to build neurotransmitters - which you screwed up by drinking. Alcohol makes your body dump norepinephrine and dopamine into your system, rapidly depleting your supply (the lack of norepinephrine, by the way, is why you snore more when you've been drinking than when you're not... and if you don't naturally build your supplies back up fast it also can cause anxiety days afterwards). So if you really want to feel happy, you're going to need to replenish those guys - and eggs (and sardines - but let's face it, who can eat sardines with a hangover?) are probably one of the best ways of doing it short of spooning down one of those muscle-building amino acid gloopy concotions you can buy at the gym.

Alcohol, in case you're wondering, also screws with about 100 other neurotransmitters. Which is why you shouldn't drink if you're on any kind of psychoactive medication.

Eggs also contain vitamin C and B12, both of which are water soluble vitamins, which means that when you spent all that time the night before peeing your hard earned cash down the drain, you lost a lot of those too. You need to replenish them - and eggs are a great way to do this.

Eyedrops

Why eyedrops? Well, do you remember the film Withnail and I? Where Withnail says that he has "a real bastard behind the eyes"?

Nine times out of ten, the worst part of your hangover is caused simply by the fact that your eyes are dry. No, really. They're about the first thing to dehydrate in your entire body, other than possibly your T-zone.

The thing about eyes is that they're not exactly good at reporting problems to your brain. They have pain sensors, and touch sensors, but they're pretty lousy at what they do (and spread pretty far apart, so they're not that accurate). Not only that, but until you train yourself to recognize the difference between a real (vascular) headache and the pain that comes from dry eyes, you won't even figure out that the pain you're feeling is really in your eyes - because it feels like a band of pain behind your eyes, or across the front of your head.

Sure, sounds like a bad design, but it's like that because your eyes are busy doing other things - like seeing things - so nature skimped a bit on the pain receptor part. Either way, the pain that you get from a hangover is mainly this pain from your eyes. Try to visualize it next time you have a hangover, and the lightbulb will suddenly go on. By the way, when your eyes are in pain, they have an amazing ability to make you feel tired. It's automatic - nature's way of protecting them is to get you to shut them, and the easiest way to do this is to make you feel tired and go to sleep. It's half of why you feel like a slug after a night on the town. (The other half is probably real sleep deprivation).

How do you fix this? Really easy. Apply eyedrops frequently (once every 10 minutes or so) to each eye, until you've drunk enough Gatorade that it stops being a problem. Genteal are recommended by my eye doctor because they're preservative free in the eye. (And he's a great eye doctor - one of the best I've ever been to - if not the best).

Multivitamin tablets

As I said earlier, you pee out a good portion of all of the water soluble vitamins in your body when you're on a bender. Take one before you go to bed (if you can stomach it), and one in the morning when you get up (again, if you can stomach it - you might need to take it after eating the eggs) to replenish your system's supply.

Caffeine, Aspirin and Ibuprofen

In cases where the hangover's not too bad, you can skip the caffeine, aspirin and ibuprofen. (I skip the caffeine most times myself). However, if the other tips just won't shift it, aspirin, ibuprofen and caffeine will help. This cocktail is basically a version of Excedrin which swaps liver damage for stomach bleeding - frankly, I prefer to have a internal bleeding than risk shutting down my liver - and as Excedrin uses Acetaminophen/Paracetamol instead of Ibuprofen, it's a bit too risky to take after drinking.

Caffeine

Caffeine is a vasodilator - it opens up the blood vessels in your head. These blood vessels can constrict while drinking, causing a vascular headache (this is a true headache, unlike the eye-pain I mentioned above) - and the caffeine cures that. It'll also give you a bit of a buzz and perk you up - but I avoid it if I have a hangover - it just makes me feel weird and almost hollow, like I'm not really there. It's also a diuretic, which isn't exactly productive when you're already dehydrated.

Aspirin

Aspirin's an old folk remedy made good - people realized that taking willow bark made people feel better when they had a headache. Enter chemistry, and pharmaceuticals, and whaddya know, we have the refined version. It's mainly an analgesic and anti-inflammatory agent, shutting down production of pain transmitting chemicals in the body. Helps me anyway.

If you're taking aspirin, make sure you take the enteric coated ones, to avoid stomach problems.

Ibuprofen

Another anti-inflammatory/analgesic, but it appears to work on different pathways, and at least for me, will shift headaches that aspirin (or acetaminophen) cannot. It can cause stomach problems, so try to go for coated tablets.

What if all this doesn't work?

Well... either pray, or try more eggs and Gatorade. There's a reason people go to Beth's (home of the 12 egg omelette) in Seattle after a night on the town, you know...

[edit: Added the real Other reason for eggs than fat, which is protein. I missed it last time by accident - and believe me, while vitamins C and B12 are good for ya, the lack of them doesn't really make you feel that bad. Not on that time scale anyway]

[edit: fixed a badly structured sentence which made it look like I was saying that caffeine caused vascular headaches, not cured them]