Brain enhancing drugs.

Posted on by Opher

We are on the start of a new epoch. Brain enhancing drugs are on the horizon. Some people are already buying them on the internet.

A new range of drugs are becoming available. They enhance performance. They stimulate the brain and make it work better. They enhance IQ.

They were developed to boost those suffering from dementia. They can alleviate the symptoms.

They are being used by students to help them perform better in studies or exams.

They could help out geniuses become bigger geniuses. They could help our bosses make better decisions. They could even help our stupid politicians!!

Shouldn’t we all we taking them? We might even vote better!

Medical Health – My views.

Posted on by Opher

Medical Health

Yes I believe that everybody should have good healthcare.

No I do not believe that the rich should have access to better care. I think everyone deserves the best. I’d do away with all private services.

I think a national service such as the NHS is the most efficient and cost-effective way of providing healthcare.

Currently the NHS runs on 9.9% GDP compared to 16.6% in the USA, Canada, Japan and Germany.

We get an excellent service. Everybody gets it free. It is brilliant. I have had friends recently receiving excellent treatments and operations for cancer and heart disease. There is no worry and no cost.

Our NHS is underfunded at the moment. The Tory government has applied great austerity to all public services. It requires more funding. I would suggest that it needs to go to 12% GDP to provide a truly outstanding service for everyone – rich and poor, young and old.

Yes we do have to make painful decisions on effective treatments, operations and procedures. If an expensive drug or operation is not going to prove effective then we don’t do it. There is no open purse. Sometimes we have to turn off the machine. All countries do that.

Alzheimer’s – A cure in sight?

Posted on by Opher

Alzheimer’s is one of the most terrible diseases. To witness the personality of friends and relatives dissolve with their memories is terrible to behold. At the back of everyone’s mind as they get older is the worry that it could happen to them. Death is a reality but could it be that the living death of dementia could soon be a thing of the past?

A new treatment has been tried with great success in mice. The drug causes a reversal of the protein deposits that cause dementia. They completely disappear!

If this treatment works on humans (not all animal trials do) it could herald the end of our fear of dementia. What a great thing!

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/alzheimers-research-remarkable-reversed-effects-br/?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=UK_23_Feb_2018_content_digest_alive

A possible cure for Huntindon’s Disease!!

Posted on by Opher

Woody Guthrie died from this terrible disease. It is a genetic defect that creates a toxin that destroys brain tissue. It has been incurable. It is a horrendous disease that sets in during middle age to slowly deteriorate the brain causing loss of coordination, speech and mental function.

Woody’s deterioration started in the early 1950s, led to his hospitalisation in 1956 and culminated in his death in 1967.

Woody was a man mountain – a spark of life, a unique social commentator, a person of the people, a champion of the underdog, the poor, the blacks and Latinos, the vagrants and itinerant musicians. He put his body where his mouth was and spent his life  doing his utmost to make the world a better place. Where-ever there was injustice there was Woody.

Now they have a cure for the disease. By injecting a chemical into the spinal cord they can reduce the levels of the toxin that causes the deterioration.

Just think if they had only developed this drug in the 50s we might have had a decade or two of Woody’s wonderful songwriting, novel writing and insights. He would have had so much to comment on in this age of Trump, Brexit and the rise of fascism.

Training for a hundred mile walk in 6 days – problem – Blisters on feet! Any suggestions?

Posted on by Opher

feet blister feet

At the beginning of June I am off on a hundred mile stroll in six days. It is a great little walk following St Oswald to Holy Island in Northumbria. It will involve daily walks of up to nineteen and a half miles.

I thought I’d get in training with a few little walks. Three days ago I did a nice seven mile walk. Today it was a beautiful eight mile walk.

The result is that the entire ball of my left foot is one big blister, there is another big one under the heel and a medium one on the back of the heel plus one small one on the little toe. One medium one of the ball of the right foot, a small one on the little toe and a small one on the big toe.

By my calculations this makes eight! Is that a record?

Now I am hobbling around. That is not good news. I am acutely aware that in six weeks I will be walking over twice that distance a day for six days.

My trainers were comfortable and not rubbing. My feet are prone to blisters.

Has anybody got any suggestions of what might help?