Wednesday, August 06, 2003

Pain without Suffering Jon Kabat-Zinn writes: Physical pain is the response of the body and the nervous system to a huge range of stimuli that are perceived as noxious, damaging, or dangerous. There are really three dimensions to pain: the physical or sensory component; the emotional, or affective component, how we feel about the sensation; and the cognitive component, the meaning we attribute to our pain. Let's say you've got a pain in your back. You can't lift your children; getting in and out of the car is difficult; you can't sit in meditation. Maybe you can't even work. That's the physical component. But you're having to give up a lot, and you're going to have feelings about that—anger, probably—and you're susceptible to depression. That's the emotional response. And then you have thoughts about the pain—questions about what caused it, negative stories about what's going to happen. Those expectations, projections, and fears compound the stress of the pain, eroding the quality of your life. There is a way to work with all this, based on Buddhist meditative practices, which can liberate you, to a very large extent, from the experience of pain. Whether or not you can reduce the level of sensory pain, the affective and cognitive contributions to the pain— which make it much worse—usually) can be lessened. And then, very often, the sensory component of the pain changes as well. That's the key point: You change your relationship to the pain by opening up to it and paying attention to it. You "put out the welcome mat.' Not because you're masochistic, but because the pain is there. So you need to understand the nature of the experience and the possibilities for, as the doctors might put it, learning to live with it," or, as the Buddhists might put it, "liberation from the suffering." If you distinguish between pain and suffering, change is possible. As the saying goes, "Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional." (08/06/03) Helping the Poor? Mark Engler writes: On July 8, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) released its annual Human Development Report, which revealed what the British Guardian called a "Lost Decade." During the economically prosperous 1990s, U.S. trade representatives and International Monetary Fund (IMF) economists promised that a rising tide of global corporate expansion would lift all boats. In fact, 54 countries ended the decade poorer than when they started. In places where the majority of people live on less than a dollar per day, or where life expectancy is less than half that in the U.S., these declines have grave consequences. People in the United States often believe that while global poverty is tragic, poor countries have only themselves to blame. Certainly, the developing world is not free from the scourges of corruption, mismanagement, and political opportunism. But documents like the UNDP report show that the development policies promoted by wealthy countries have done far more harm than good. ... Poor nations must also spend inordinate portions of their national budgets on debt payments to the global North. As groups like the Jubilee debt relief coalition have argued, many of these obligations are "odious" -- the result of loans made to dictators that used the money for personal gain. In many cases, the funds were spent on weapons sold by wealthy countries, who happen to be the world's leading arms merchants. A disturbing trend reported in the mid-1990s showed that 84% of U.S. weapons transfers to the developing world in the opening years of that decade went to non-democratic regimes. (08/06/03) Understanding Alzheimer's The New Scientist -- A causal link between plaques and tangles, the two pathological hallmarks of brains ravaged by Alzheimer's disease, has been shown for the first time, researchers claim. In the new study, the scientists found that the protein found in plaques can initiate a process that damages other proteins inside cells and makes them vulnerable to tangling. "This is a new, direct linkage" between plaques and tangles, says Vincent Cryns, who conducted the research with Lester Binder and others at Northwestern University in Illinois. Demonstrating such a link would be a major breakthrough, and could have important implications for future therapies. ... Plaques and tangles in brain tissue were first identified by Alois Alzheimer almost a century ago, in a study of people with dementia. These markers are still considered essential for a definitive diagnosis of the disease that bears his name. However, while much has been learned about the basic biology of plaques and tangles, it has been difficult to find any biological relationship between the two, or to demonstrate conclusively whether either directly contributes to the devastating memory loss seen in Alzheimer's. (08/06/03) Loosen your Tie! The New Scientist -- Men who tie their neckties too tightly could be increasing their risk of a sight destroying disease, new research suggests. Scientists found that a tight necktie caused an increase in pressure in the eye, which is one of the leading risk factors for the disease. The finding could also be of immediate importance in screening for glaucoma, in which doctors measure eye pressure. "The main point is, if you see a patient with raised pressure, it's worth checking if their tie is too tight," says Keith Barton, a consultant ophthalmologist with Moorfields Eye Hospital in London. Glaucoma is the leading cause of preventable blindness in both the US and UK. Most cases occur when fluid builds up in the eye, resulting in excessive pressure that damages the optic nerve. Early treatment can prevent loss of sight, making accurate screening essential. According to Robert Ritch, the eye specialist at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary who led the work, a tight tie compresses the jugular vein, causing a backup of blood along the system to the eye, thus raising the pressure. "This external cause of raised intraocular pressure could possibly contribute to further damage from glaucoma," he says. "Men who wear tight neckties and men with thick necks should be aware that they might cause long-term damage to their optic nerves." (08/06/03) It's mother's fault! The New Scientist -- What mothers eat during pregancy could have a fundamental and lifelong effect on the genes of their children, suggests an intriguing new study in mice. Researchers found they could change the coat colour of baby mice by feeding their mothers different levels of four common nutrients during pregnancy. These altered how the pups' cells read their genes. As a result the mice were also less prone to obesity and diabetes than genetically identical mice whose mothers received no supplement. The work establishes the tightest link yet between diet and a strange form of inheritance known as epigenetics. Unlike a mutation which changes the DNA sequence of genes, epigenetic factors can alter how a gene is used, while leaving the DNA sequence unchanged. The mouse study was conducted by Randy Jirtle, at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, and his colleague Robert Waterland. Jirtle says the work belies a "more is better" philosophy about food supplements. "The rationale is that there is no downside - you can't get too much of this stuff," he says. "But there could be a lifelong downside and we have no clue yet about what those effects are." (08/06/03) Some Like It Hot! The New Scientist -- A scorching heat wave in Europe and a spate of forest fires has re-ignited the debate over whether global warming can be blamed for an apparent increase in the world's weird weather. Scientists agree that no one yet knows the answer to this question, but they point out that an increase in the number and severity of extreme events is exactly what their models of a warmer world predict. "The weather we've seen over the last few days is entirely consistent with what we're likely to see over the next few decades," says John Turnpenny, at the Tyndall Centre for climate change research in Norwich, UK. "We're likely to see such a heat spell in London every year." Extreme weather conditions are affecting all parts of Europe. In the UK, meteorologists predict a fair chance that the country will record 100°F (37.8°C) for the first time this week, beating the previous record of 98.8°F (37.1°C) from August 1990. In Portugal nine people have been killed in the worst wave of forest fires in recent history. Western North America is also facing another bad year for burning forests. In Switzerland, melting ice has contributed to a record number of climbing accidents in the Alps. The heat in Germany has already cost agriculture more than 2002's disastrous floods, while in Spain the price of chickens has soared as the heat reportedly killed more than a million birds. Such weather events fit in well with climate models that predict the effects of global warming driven by rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. (08/06/03) 6:13:11 AM

© TrustMark 2003 Timothy Wilken. Last update: 9/1/2003; 1:44:55 AM. This theme is based on the SoundWaves (blue) Manila theme.