Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 13 Issue 46

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Delaying Gratification and Dopamine
When we think of our current societal view on raising children, we have a conundrum. We want our children to experience the world as it is progressing through a technological viewpoint, a growth mentality. What does that mean? . When technology enters the learning process, we progress at log rates. We can process more information and incorporate it into our memory. For a simple example, let’s look back in time. When I was in school, I had to go to the library and search through the library’s archaic dewey decimal system to find a book to reference for information for a project or assignment. Time wasting to say the least compared to the internet age. It took forever to accumulate old data that was in a book. No real time action…Also a mini literature review and a recipe of the week.
Enjoy,
Dr. M

Dr. M’s Women and Children First Podcast #59 – Randy Jirtle, Ph. D. – The Imprintome and Hope

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Randy Jirtle, Ph.D.
This week’s guest is Professor Randy Jirtle.
Dr. Randy Jirtle joins the show for the second time today to discuss his new research on the imprintome, the regulatory regions that at the earliest stages of fetal development control our epigentic and thus our genetic outcome. This is the Hope locus.
Time Magazine nominated him for person of the year in 2007 and had this to say about him: “Dr. Jirtle’s pioneering work in epigenetics and genomic imprinting has uncovered a vast territory in which a gene represents less of an inexorable sentence and more of an access point for the environment to modify the genome. His trailblazing discoveries have produced a far more complete and useful understanding of human development and diseases” — Time Magazine. This interview is ground zero for the Women and Children First Podcast as we discuss the underpinnings or mechanisms of disease risk for all humans as it relates to the environmental inputs of our lives that are driving health or disease at both the pregnancy and post natal periods. We look specifically at how maternal nutrition and later chemical exposure directly affected the health of the agouti mouse offspring. This experiment was the first of its kind and paved the way for a complete shift in human disease understanding. For parents, this podcast is really the beginning of everything that I am trying to convey regarding a healthy pregnancy and childhood. Without this interview, the following interviews will be more difficult to understand. The picture becomes very clear once his research is cemented in our minds.
His biography is as follows: Professor of Epigenetics at the Department of Biological Sciences, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, and a Senior Scientist at McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI. He was previously professor of radiation oncology and associate professor of pathology at Duke University, Durham, NC, where he had been a faculty member since 1977. He graduated with a B.S. degree in nuclear engineering in 1970 and a Ph.D. degree in radiation biology in 1976, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His awards list is long but the key to Dr. Jirtle is that he is a curious thinker and we are grateful for this.
Please enjoy my conversation with Dr. Randy Jirtle,
Enjoy,
Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 13 Issue 45

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Nature Deprivation Disorder: As we are getting closer to the end of the year and the cold strikes us hard in the face, we have a tendency to hunker down indoors and avoid the outside. Video games and screens are omnipresent in many of our children’s lives. They pervade their thoughts. They significantly limit their self-driven need and desire to explore, imagine and be present with nature, silence and life as it exists around them. Nature and natural actions are some of the best teachers of rational action and normalcy in any ecosystem….Autism etiology and a recipe round out the week.

Enjoy,

Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 13 Issue 44

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In a Nature study by Dr. Chassaing and colleagues we see a data set raising a legitimate concern regarding synthetic emulsifiers. Let us look at the title, dietary emulsifiers impact the mouse gut microbiota promoting colitis and metabolic syndrome…..Emulsifiers are the topic today. Also, some information with a mini literature review and a discussion on power struggles.

 

Enjoy,

Dr. M

Dr. M’s Women and Children First Podcast #58 – Mahmoud Ghannoum, Ph. D. – Microbiomes – Bacterial and Fungal

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This week’s guest is Professor Mahmoud Ghannoum. For over four decades, Dr. Ghannoum has been exploring a critical but neglected inhabitant of the human body, the fungus. Born and raised in Lebanon, Dr Mahmoud Ghannoum is the current Director of the Center for Medical Mycology at Case Western Reserve University. He began his scientific journey at Loughborough University in England where he studied the fungus candida and its health associated diseases. Coupling this work to his curiosity about the whole area of intestinal microorganisms in the human body, he has become one of the leading researchers in the world in this space.
His discoveries include the knowledge that fungal organisms constitute an essential part of the microbiome. In fact, in 2010, Dr Ghannoum was the first scientist to identify over 100 native species of fungi in the oral cavity and that they are mostly friendly to us. Like with bacteria, there are good fungi as well as bad fungi. And just as it was startling to discover that we need positive bacteria in our guts, most people today are shocked to learn that their health depends on flourishing colonies of helpful fungi. Symbiosis in all things seems to be the flavor of the day and history has proven this to be what we should have always assumed.
He is widely published in top journals as well as being the founder and director of Biohm, a company dedicated to microbiome analysis and management from the perspective of fungal and bacterial communities. He is the author of Total Gut Health. This week, Dr. Ghannoum and I look critically at the microbiome of humans from the well trafficked bacterial road to the less travelled fungal road.
Enjoy,
Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 13 Issue 43

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The Power of Suggestion
Can our thoughts affect us at a biological level not just a subjective level?
In a new study published in pre print in BioRxIV entitled: A thalamic circuit represents dose-like responses induced by nicotine-related beliefs in human smokers, we see some new research looking at the power of suggestion well beyond the placebo effect……
Plus a mini literature review as well as a discussion on autism etiology.
Enjoy,
Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 13 Issue 42

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Musk and Rand
Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson is a book worthy of your time. He is an amazing writer and the context and content are so timely for the happenings of today. The story of Elon Musk remains one to be completely written, but it is being partially displayed in this new book that I am in the early stages of reading. The truth of the matter remains that Elon suffered some significant traumas as a child that have vexed him throughout his life. However, the triumph of his story that is an amazing lesson for all is that the traumas do not define your trajectory nor final outcome. Elon has proven what many others have before him. That in this country, you are the architect of your destiny. Your are NOT defined by your past in anyway. You are NEVER a victim unless you choose that path. You can always choose to rise above trauma and pain to be your best self. This is not to say that the trauma does not weigh on you and your psyche. To the contrary, as Elon clearly demonstrates, the past is in all of us. It will rise up at times to haunt us. Therein lies your work, to witness, work through and rise above it…..Plus a mini lit review as well as the recipe of the week.
Enjoy,
Dr. M

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