Lots of people take dietary supplements. Unfortunately, they are not all that their producers claim. A previous post notified readers of FDA warnings to dietary supplement producers. Today another dietary supplement warning has come out and it is especially pertinent as so many of us are experiencing sadness and depression due to social distancing and the...
Read MoreThe effect of COVID-19 on the brain
Brain fog, hemorrhaging in the brain or in the space between the brain and skull (subarachnoid space), changes in cognition, personality and behavior: these are some of the alterations that patients who have had COVID-19 experience. One of the changes has been onset of psychosis in people who had never had any history of mental illness. A New York Times...
Read MoreCOVID-19 Vaccine Clinical Trials: “Part of something bigger than myself”
Barry Nelson, Patient Advisor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital Center for Patients and Families participated in a webinar on January 11 organized by The Center for Health Education Research Service in Boston, Massachusetts. [1] During the webinar, Nelson described his experience as a cancer survivor. “I was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer...
Read MoreResilience and Hot Chocolate
“…WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 7 PM THIS EVENING TO 6 AM EST TUESDAY… * WHAT…Heavy snow expected. Total snow accumulations of 14 to 18 inches. Winds gusting as high as 45 mph. * ADDITIONAL DETAILS…Blizzard like conditions possible Monday and Monday evening.” ~Weather Underground Looking at the weather forecast...
Read MoreBiofilms? Sorry, not another name for nature movies
When bacteria are stressed, they stop living their lives singly, the way plankton do. Their adaptation is to find co-locate with other bacteria and build a type of fortress. That fortress is called biofilm. Biofilm is an organized structure made of sugars (polysaccharides), proteins and DNA and of course, bacteria. In some cases other microbes like fungi,...
Read MoreKeep Wearing Masks Even if Vaccinated: COVID-19 Vaccine
On January 19, in the online news website MedPage Today, two prominent scientists debated if people should be able to go without masks 14 days after they have received their second dose of COVID-19 vaccine. The January 24, Sunday New York Times just published, Why Vaccines Alone Won’t Stop the Pandemic . The January 19 debate was between Vinay Prasad,...
Read MoreSaying Goodbye to 2020
Columnists are writing to warn us about vaccine euphoria. Perhaps it is something to keep in mind as we wearily say farewell to 2020 and put our hopes in COVID-19 treatment and prevention for 2021. At the end of each year, Medivizor has published some music that our readers have shared with us. This year, we will publish some music that helps us....
Read MoreEver Heard of William Coley, MD?
Immunotherapy – the “new” treatment for cancers – actually began in 1891 with William B. Coley, a bone sarcoma surgeon. As a young doctor, Coley watched as a 17-year old girl (who had had her forearm amputated because of bone cancer) died of metastatic sarcoma ten weeks after her surgery. This tragedy started Coley on a quest to...
Read More“I am the sea and the sea is me:” Human Health and Ocean Pollution
On March 28, 1970, speaking over video of his team diving in a vast Sargasso seaweed field Jacques Cousteau stated, “There is a fresh sense of urgency in our work, observing and reporting on the ocean alchemy of the sea; for we could well be the first witnesses to the death of life.” Fifty years later, a new comprehensive report, funded by the Prince...
Read MoreWhat is Bioactive Glass?
You may not realize it but some people have glass in their bodies. Created to replace damaged body parts, bioactive glass does that and more. Being biologically and biochemically inert when adjacent to body fluids was a prerequisite of biomaterials. But bioactive glass is different – it is biocompatible allowing for a bond to form between the...
Read MoreGrief and COVID-19
As of November 29, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused almost 1.5 million deaths worldwide just from the disease itself. That number doesn’t take into account the deaths that have occurred because people have delayed care or avoided hospitals and physicians due to the pandemic. Because of social distancing, normal interactions – like being with...
Read MoreCOVID-19 and Endothelial Inflammation
In May, the Journal of Clinical Medicine published an article titled “Hypertension, Thrombosis, Kidney Failure, and Diabetes: Is COVID-19 an Endothelial Disease? A Comprehensive Evaluation of Clinical and Basic Evidence.” The authors put forward a hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 infects the lining of the body’s blood vessels. The lining...
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