Open Thread Friday


Self-care is growing in importance once again as our healthcare system is becoming less accessible to many citizens. From the early 1900's to about 30 years ago access limits were often due to physical location of practitioners and medical facilities. Most of us are now within a few miles of some type of medical care availability and cost has become driving factor limiting medical care.

Continuing to look at the two systems from last week.

Underlying philosophy of Chinese medicine is based on energy. Observation of circular energy patterns, knowledge how to effect a patterns and how a change in one pattern of a body system effects other body systems show up in the earliest medical texts from sometime between 770-220 BC. The six functional organ systems identified are comprised of a 1) a solid yin organ (viscera) that store essential substances, 2) a hollow yang organ (bowel) that eliminate essential substances 3) corresponding Yin and Yang meridians, 3) access points to monitor, adjust and balance energy flow and 4) An assignment to one of the descriptive elements in the 5 Element System.

Self-care using diet and exercise to adjust and rebalance energy is highly important in preventing health problems and first level of treatment. The individual body is considered a mini universe and energy changes in one organ system effects the others systems can be part of ones spiritual path. The different professional specialties are primarily based on treatment methods including herbal, acupuncture, acupressure, massage and surgery to modify or rebalance energy patterns.

Western based medicine is a mechanical and chemical model. Symptoms and diagnosis are associated with specific physical organs, chemical pathways and genetic material. Many treatments are directed to correct or alter stargets of physical function such as blood pressure, cholesterol or blood sugars. Professional specialties are based on physical function such as cardiac, pulmonary, orthopedics, etc. As it becomes more fractured the patient has growing responsibility of coordination. Insurance company payment practices are further limiting coordination by in some case only paying for treatment of a practitioners specialty. If a cardiologist writes a script for an asthma med some insurance companies will not pay for the prescription or the extra time the physician took to evaluate, diagnose and treat the problem.

Interesting article this week. Unexpected results from a medical treatment was identified by the crime lab at the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office.

Three months after his bone marrow transplant, Chris Long of Reno, Nev., learned that the DNA in his blood had changed. It had all been replaced by the DNA of his donor, a German man he had exchanged just a handful of messages with.

He’d been encouraged to test his blood by a colleague at the Sheriff’s Office, where he worked. She had an inkling this might happen. It’s the goal of the procedure, after all: Weak blood is replaced by healthy blood, and with it, the DNA it contains.

But four years after his lifesaving procedure, it was not only Mr. Long’s blood that was affected. Swabs of his lips and cheeks contained his DNA — but also that of his donor. Even more surprising to Mr. Long and other colleagues at the crime lab, all of the DNA in his semen belonged to his donor. “I thought that it was pretty incredible that I can disappear and someone else can appear,” he said.
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The average doctor does not need to know where a donor’s DNA will present itself within a patient. That’s because this type of chimerism is not likely to be harmful. Nor should it change a person. “Their brain and their personality should remain the same,” said Andrew Rezvani, the medical director of the inpatient Blood & Marrow Transplant Unit at Stanford University Medical Center.

He added that patients also sometimes ask him what it means for a man to have a woman’s chromosomes in their bloodstream or vice versa. “It doesn’t matter,” he said.

Enough questions were generated the New York Times posted a follow-up article to address concerns.

Semen and sperm are different. A man who has a vasectomy still produces semen. That spermless semen, which may also be referred to as seminal fluid, is still of interest to forensic scientists. That’s because it could be used to identify a suspect in a crime or contribute other information to an investigation.

So how did his donor’s DNA end up in his spermless semen?

To say definitively what happened in Mr. Long’s case would require more research. But several experts in bone marrow transplants said that the forensic scientists’ findings made sense from a medical standpoint and that the answer involved white blood cells.

The two most common types of cells in semen are sperm cells and white blood cells, said Dr. Mehrdad Abedi, a bone marrow transplant specialist at the Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of California, Davis, who treated Mr. Long but was not involved in the experiment.
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Could a man pass on the DNA of his bone marrow donor to future children?

No. Several experts said that it’s not possible. In this particular case the man had a vasectomy, so he’s not likely to have any more children. But beyond that, white blood cells do not create sperm cells; they create more white blood cells, said Dr. Jonathon Epstein, chief scientific officer at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

It’s the DNA in sperm cells that a man passes on to his children.

“We don’t know a cell that can make a sperm cell,” Dr. Epstein said. “Even embryonic stem cells can’t be made into sperm cells at this point, though there are people working on it.”

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The 5 Element System you mention is an interesting concept. It's relation to the major planets:
Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, Mars and Venus

Also as it relates to the elements:
Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water

And in healing -- directing an internal energy (smile) thru the Yin organs:
Kidney to Liver to Heart to Spleen to Lung and back again to Spleen

Chinese Medicine Associations

Characteristic Wood Fire Earth Metal Water
Taste Sour Bitter Sweet Spicy Salty
Sensory Organs Eyes Tongue Mouth Nose Ear

Fun stuff!

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Lookout's picture

This seems to be the most common company I've seen recommended. https://www.23andme.com/
Don't know that I could do much about any alarming results, but wonder if forewarned is better than ignorance. Sometimes ignorance is bliss you know.

Interesting story you told today about donor DNA.

Got the garden manured and mulched this week. I've laid out a future food forest and have those tree sites dug, manured and mulched too. We need to drive up to McMinnville, TN and buy trees and bushes. Looking at planting more blueberries, raspberries, and thornless blackberries, hazel nuts, persimmon, and paw paw. Also adding a couple more native chestnuts.

Hope all is well on your farm! All the best.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

enhydra lutris's picture

Chinese medical universe. One cannot help but wonder abut the interplay throughout history of the belief system and the practices that it evolved to encompass, and which drove which when.

Have a good one.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

lotlizard's picture

https://www.gregpalast.com/boris-win-is-victory-for-anti-globalization-m...

I am disgusted by fellow Leftists who denigrate the British working class voters as racist ignoramuses who, “want to round up and deport immigrants and their children at 4am” (that’s a quote from a once-sane BBC journalist). Is the thoughtful pro-Brexit immigrant Tariq Ali a racist?

The UK vote, which no one can say is a roaring endorsement of Johnson, is in fact the new wind in the sails of an anti-globalization action. The resistance to EU corporatocracy is growing in France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and, its still-bleeding victim, Greece. Are progressives worldwide ready to seize this opportunity?

The answer to Greg Palast’s question? In Germany it’s clearly no — the all-party-except-the-AfD, progressive establishment position here has swung around to the idea that only racists and neo-Nazis could be against globalization. That’s their story and they’re sticking to it.

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Anja Geitz's picture

I'm sorry I have to post and run. Will bookmark this for further reading. Busy season for me at the store, and I'm so keyed up at night, have not been sleeping well. Get a late start to my day, and then I'm rushing all day trying to catch up.

Whew! I'll be so glad when the holidays are over!

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier