Hookworm and allergies

My friend had just told me about penicillin. That mankind reverse engineered bread mold’s natural defense against bacteria in the battle for the microscopic universe. Some molds, according to my friend and unconfirmed by my own research, have developed toxins to kill and even eat bacteria with which it competes for space and resources.

I was thinking about what other lifeforms might be able to employ to help us in our fight against disease. After all one form of life seems like an equal but opposite reaction than the one that came before it. Can’t we find a cure for everything by simply studying and copying all the other organisms? Of course every cure has it’s price and there’s no such thing as a free lunch… Unless you’re a hookworm.

This story from the NY Times talks about a doctor’s research and hunch that you can curb your huge allergy attacks by having a small dos of hookworm. He believes that hookworm releases a compound to protect it self from being attacked by a host’s immune system. This in turn lowers the host’s natural over active response to non-threatening dust-mites, pollen and other allergens.

The article is well worth the read if only for the shock value in the first and last paragraphs.

doctor prayer

came across this on medterms.com. First have is pretty good and I think relevant.  Second half has some really valuable stuff in it.  Every career or profession should have a prayer you can say to keep you focused and pure.  I say this from a very non-religious point of view, but lets not get into that.

Oath of Maimonides: A prayer that is said to have been written by the 12th-century physician-philosopher Moses Maimonides. Like the famous oath of Hippocrates, the prayer of Maimonides is often recited by new medical graduates.

This prayer, which is also called the “Prayer of Moses Maimonides”, is now thought to have been written, not by Maimonides, but by Marcus Herz, a German physician, pupil of the German philosopher Immanual Kant, and physician to the great English philanthropist Moses Mendelssohn. The prayer first appeared in print in 1793 which may be when it was written.

Irrespective of who wrote it, it is an extraordinary prayer. It reads as follows:

“Almighty God, Thou has created the human body with infinite wisdom. Ten thousand times ten thousand organs hast Thou combined in it that act unceasingly and harmoniously to preserve the whole in all its beauty the body which is the envelope of the immortal soul. They are ever acting in perfect order, agreement and accord. Yet, when the frailty of matter or the unbridling of passions deranges this order or interrupts this accord, then forces clash and the body crumbles into the primal dust from which it came. Thou sendest to man diseases as beneficent messengers to foretell approaching danger and to urge him to avert it.

“Thou has blest Thine earth, Thy rivers and Thy mountains with healing substances; they enable Thy creatures to alleviate their sufferings and to heal their illnesses. Thou hast endowed man with the wisdom to relieve the suffering of his brother, to recognize his disorders, to extract the healing substances, to discover their powers and to prepare and to apply them to suit every ill. In Thine Eternal Providence Thou hast chosen me to watch over the life and health of Thy creatures. I am now about to apply myself to the duties of my profession. Support me, Almighty God, in these great labors that they may benefit mankind, for without Thy help not even the least thing will succeed.

“Inspire me with love for my art and for Thy creatures. Do not allow thirst for profit, ambition for renown and admiration, to interfere with my profession, for these are the enemies of truth and of love for mankind and they can lead astray in the great task of attending to the welfare of Thy creatures. Preserve the strength of my body and of my soul that they ever be ready to cheerfully help and support rich and poor, good and bad, enemy as well as friend. In the sufferer let me see only the human being. Illumine my mind that it recognize what presents itself and that it may comprehend what is absent or hidden. Let it not fail to see what is visible, but do not permit it to arrogate to itself the power to see what cannot be seen, for delicate and indefinite are the bounds of the great art of caring for the lives and health of Thy creatures. Let me never be absent- minded. May no strange thoughts divert my attention at the bedside of the sick, or disturb my mind in its silent labors, for great and sacred are the thoughtful deliberations required to preserve the lives and health of Thy creatures.

“Grant that my patients have confidence in me and my art and follow my directions and my counsel. Remove from their midst all charlatans and the whole host of officious relatives and know-all nurses, cruel people who arrogantly frustrate the wisest purposes of our art and often lead Thy creatures to their death.

“Should those who are wiser than I wish to improve and instruct me, let my soul gratefully follow their guidance; for vast is the extent of our art. Should conceited fools, however, censure me, then let love for my profession steel me against them, so that I remain steadfast without regard for age, for reputation, or for honor, because surrender would bring to Thy creatures sickness and death.

“Imbue my soul with gentleness and calmness when older colleagues, proud of their age, wish to displace me or to scorn me or disdainfully to teach me. May even this be of advantage to me, for they know many things of which I am ignorant, but let not their arrogance give me pain. For they are old and old age is not master of the passions. I also hope to attain old age upon this earth, before Thee, Almighty God!

“Let me be contented in everything except in the great science of my profession. Never allow the thought to arise in me that I have attained to sufficient knowledge, but vouchsafe to me the strength, the leisure and the ambition ever to extend my knowledge. For art is great, but the mind of man is ever expanding.

“Almighty God! Thou hast chosen me in Thy mercy to watch over the life and death of Thy creatures. I now apply myself to my profession. Support me in this great task so that it may benefit mankind, for without Thy help not even the least thing will succeed.”

http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=7294

community cascading?

had the idea to run a blog as a doctor for my patients and for prospective patients in my area.  Also the running of a newsletter in the rural area. 

trying to think of ways to reach out and develop health issues that might be specific to a rural community…

of course, how to you make a newsletter not be crap that just gets recycled, and how do you make a newsletter not appear to be sales smut?  How do you do those things and pay for it while justifying the cost?

This also ties into one group health model of attracting patients by providing a unique source of medical information. 

This inspiration for this was an article that talked about how social networks effect personal decisions.  how can you get a community to make good health decisions and have those good decisions cascade through out the community?

placebo children ok? article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/27/health/27plac.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

“no, all a child wants is comforting”

more touching, more sex, more healing

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/magazine/13lives-t.html?ref=health

A pretty good ancidotal story on the illness and remody of a young woman.  Interesting how she “knew” a good night of sex would cure her.  How exactly does one write a prescription for that?

good story on the diagnosis of a patient

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/magazine/13wwln-diagnosis-t.html?pagewanted=1&ref=health

Good that the doctor followed her instincts and then followed up on them.

email and doctors

Although Sands has had mostly positive experiences, one patient bombarded him with emails. She became “pushy” and her messages were sometimes threatening.

“We sort of had this fight back and forth through electronic communication, which is absolutely the wrong thing to do. I should have picked up the phone and called her. Any message that takes more than two volleys back and forth should not be done by email,” Sands said.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080423/doctors_emails_080423/20080423?hub=Health

too many doctors in the kitchen

I heard a doctor mutter a phrase the other day in the clinic.  “This sound like a classic case of too many doctors.”

 Clearly two minds are better than one, but doctors need to understand thier role in a patient’s health.

 I just thought it was an iteresting concept to think about.

Total Recall Dentistry

Perhaps drugs that make you forget are a good idea for some people who are terrified of the dentist.

Perhaps it would be better if the drugs gave you a whole new identity, that instead of fogging your mind.

Rather than having this experience like the patient quoted in the NYT about ‘relaxation dentistry’:

“I don’t remember the needles, the gagging, the water,” she said “I certainly don’t remember being in the chair for five hours.”

You could have this experience:

“And that’s when I realized it’s very hard to kill a Martian Wombat with a ballpoint pen.  Its teeth were inches from my face, my arms were straining to keep its jaw closed.  Just when my strength was about to give out, Lazara, the mysterious three breasted dental assistant, who tipped me off to her employer’s motives, drew an electron bow and stuck the beast with 10,000 protons.  I’m the last inter-planetary spy that “Marwom” is going to mess with.  I still can’t figure our Lazara’s motives, however… With all these people searching for me, it is a good idea that I use living in my mother’s basement to hide my identity…” 

People could also use drugs for arguments with there spouses or for talks with their mothers, to forget about work, or when eating disgusting foods…

Man, what ever happened to just getting drunk when you don’t want to deal with something.

Idol T-cells are the devil’s sick making shop?

from an article in the washington post, printed in the seattle times

“The leading theory holds that as modern medicine beats back age-old bacterial, viral and parasitic diseases, immune systems may fail to learn how to differentiate between real threats and benign invaders, such as ragweed pollen or food. Or perhaps because they are not busy fighting real threats, they overreact or even turn on the body’s own tissues.”

our bodies are extremely bored?  Idol T-cells are the devil sick making shop?