Dead Sea Scrolls: At Last Something Worth Reading Online.

Well, the scrolls are out!  http://dss.collections.imj.org.il/ has all the scrolls, but I was severely disappointed that, unlike the Great Isaiah scroll, the war scroll isn't readable as an instant translation.  Come on, we'd be talking endless online comparisons to end-time current day war activity as everyone and their brother tries to fit different players into the narrative. 

But we do have some pretty exciting reading.  Here we have a PG 13 section:  Chapter 3 : Verse 17
"Therefore the L-rd will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and HaShem will lay bare their secret parts."  A bit further on: Chapter 4 : Verse 1  "And seven women shall take hold of one man in that day, saying: 'We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel; only let us be called by thy name; take thou away our reproach.'"

We also have some poetry:  Chapter 5 : Verse 18
Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope,

So I'm looking forward to lots of sermons and interpretations from our biblical preachers worldwide.  Not just the scholar types, but the ones who preach everyday from the current texts.  How will the scrolls factor in?

Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict

I just finished listening to the book and I was pleasantly surprised by the author's ability to pay homage to Austen without losing a reasonable, though implausible, storyline. 

How Do We Undo The Obesity Epidemic? The Australian Solution.

Fat, Sick & Nearly DeadIt's hard to make weight loss into a movie, and it's harder to make it inspiring without a hard sell approach.  I was impressed by Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead.  Unlike almost any weight loss program I've seen, it really is about people getting well without any money in it for the producer. 

The movie is available at Netflix streaming, but you could also get a copy (so you can hand it to your relatives where it will sit on the shelf gathering dust until they have heart attacks like Bear in the movie did). 

If anyone is looking for someone to monitor the fast and do blood work, this is one I can get behind.  It's not permanent, but it is sustainable over time, and it's based on fruits and vegetables.
You can just look at the diet, but I'd watch the movie.  It's not often you see a trucker become an actor and make the transition gracefully. 

17 Day Diet, Really the 68 Day Diet

Well, like anyone I was intrigued by the idea of a 17 day diet.  Really?  That's all it takes to conquer obesity in America?  How could we have been so foolish? 

But then I found out it was really four cycles of 17 days, and I thought:  this guy's been watching too many late night infomercials:  "Just four cycles of 17 days each..."  but the 68 day diet just doesn't sound as sexy.

You can do the 17 minute workout, get the 17 day meal packages, spend a great deal of time thinking about why it isn't the 15.7 day diet or the 18.33 day diet.  When you watch Dr. Moreno defend the 17 there really isn't any reason why the other two numbers wouldn't work.  Wouldn't part of a day be better at confusing the body? 

In the end, it's one more young, healthy male doctor explaining to middle aged women that they just need more discipline when really it's a matter of hormones.

Guillain-Barre: An Unknown Taking Down the Healthy Or A Worsening Chronic Infection?

A recent story on ex-quarterback Danny Wuerffel getting Guillain-Barre Sydrome has been in the news recently.

In looking at his symptoms, he came down with a stomach virus, and now is at 50% muscle strength.  Not only is this terrifying, it leads to the thought that none of us is safe. 

For anyone living in a box, Guillain-Barre has historically been associated with vaccinations.  More recent re-analysis of previous studies poo-poo any possible association, but have a look at the 1978 original study:  "that the risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome among individuals receiving immunization against influenza A/New Jersey is 7.3 times the risk among the nonvaccinated."  (Adv Neurol. 1978;19:249-60.)


It is a miniscule risk, and shouldn't deter anyone from vaccination for that reason alone, but the association makes sense if one thinks about the fact that the virus is often simply weakened, not entirely dead.  In a very few susceptible individuals it may spark an autoimmune cascade. 


The truth is that we've got a pretty good idea of what is causing this cascade.  It may vary from individual to individual, but the majority have antibodies that correspond to both an infectious agent and their own neural tissue.  A recent study (J Neurol. 2011 Apr 24. ) found that a quarter of all patients had been infected by Campylobacter jejuni.  Another recent study in China concludes:  "Our results suggest that the antecedent C. jejuni infection triggered this GBS outbreak in China." (Foodborne Pathog Dis. 2010 Aug;7(8):913-9.)  So at least 25% of patients might benefit from antibiotic treatment.  Minocycline has been used to successfully treat an animal model of Guillain-Barre.  (J Cell Mol Med. 2009 Feb;13(2):341-51. )


Currently the standard of care for Guillain-Barre involves intense rehabilitation, IV antibodies, and exchanging plasma for patients.  All of these may be effective only if the body does not continue to generate antibodies from an ongoing infection.


For individuals without medical resources (and that is more and more people here in the U.S.) there are preliminary studies on the effect of ginger, licorice, calendula, and fenugreek.  (Phytother Res. 2010 May;24(5):649-56.)


It shouldn't take a celebrity case to bring the standard of care of this illness in line with the most recent research. 


 

What I Eat: How to Blow Your Mind and Reframe How You Think About Diet.

I love this book!  It's a coffee table picture book, full of exotic meals and strange locales.  But it's arranged by daily calorie intake from 800 to 12000 calories a day.  If you ever wanted visual proof that caloric intake does not correlate to weight, here's your evidence.  We've got people starving themselves and staying fat, while thin people eat twice the calories (and no, they aren't all bike messengers). 

It was $40 at Barnes and Noble, but I paid full price because I wanted it to look over and because I couldn't remember the title before.  It's a fairly stunning rejection of the west's sacred cow of calorie counting. 

The Looking Glass Wars: Alice's "Real" Life.

I have two Boston friends for whom Alice was not only an inspiration, but I think a big part of their marriage.  So I plodded through the Looking Glass Wars, book 1, and skipped the second one to move onto book 3.  Evidently nothing happens in book 2, because I pretty much feel like I missed a chapter starting book 3. 

The initial book was fascinating because it worked on how to combine Alice's real life with her Wonderland life.  I learned a few things about her life that I didn't know, but I'm sure Aliceophiliacs would understand.  But by the end of the first book Wonderland Alice has created a double of herself in the real world, creating no need to continue her double life.  I would have found it much more interesting to have her forced to go back and forth. 

But I plan to finish the series out of honor to my friends and because I did indeed become interested in Alice as a person.  So for those of you looking for a remix and remaster of Alice in Wonderland, this is a great read.