"First World diseases" - a likely explanation

I've been following this for a while ever since I read that the Crohn's disease I suffered from in the 70s (long since cured I hasten to add) might be caused by a predisposition to the ill effects of vitamin deficiency. My recent reading around the subject has unearthed some very interesting findings that are about to burst onto an unsuspecting public. It turns out that a long-term epidemiological study (led by the Department of Nutritional Sciences, and Department of Laboratory Medicine, University of Toronto) reveals that Vitamin D deficiency is likely to be as chronic a deficiency in "First World" societies today as Vitamin C deficiency was to scurvy-prone sailors of old.

It appears that in first world countries (especially those in the mid to northern latitudes in the northern hemisphere and mid to southern latitudes in the southern hemisphere) we humans, despite our primary adaptation to fairer skin following our exodus from our equatorial sun-drenched African "nursery", have not yet fully adapted/evolved to the lower levels of sunlight (more specifically the UV-B component) of temperate latitudes. Evolution, for good or bad, has dictated that daily exposure of the skin to UV-B radiation is necessary to maintain a healthy level of Vitamin D in our bodies. This vitamin is naturally available in natural fish oils but to consume sufficient to overcome the effect of UV-B deficiency risks poisoning by it's fish oil accompaniment, Vitamin A. [This does beg the question however - How do Inuits cope?] When, during pre-civilised society, our normal lifespans were relatively short, the fair skin adaptation was all that was needed to enable sufficient Vitamin D build up to attain sexual maturity and thus to procreate. However, as modern civilised society allows us to live considerably longer lives, the hidden vagaries of chronic Vitamin D deficiency appear to be coming more to the fore as indeed the epidemiological studies of the University of Toronto et al are now revealing - evidence that the slow mysterious upsurge of numerous so-called first world diseases is likely to be a manifestation of this deficiency. 

A very large proportion of the human race is considered to be officially deficient in Vitamin D. Indeed it appears that mid to northern/southern latitude populations are running on empty during the winter months. This is because, despite even taking care to maximise outdoor exposure, the low maximum sun elevation, the short daylight hours and propensity to longer periods of cloud cover, combined with the near full skin cover of winter clothing means that UV-B skin absorption is minimal. 

Epidemiology shows that especially bad deficiencies occur in black races who in evolutionary terms have moved to less sunny climes overnight and whose higher skin pigmentation means that they are prone to even greater degrees of UV-B / Vitamin D deficiency. 

Epidemiological evidence also shows that head-to-toe cover of Muslim women in the Middle East where sunshine is more prevalent (and so Vitamin D deficiency should be less chronic) is associated as one might expect with the extreme Vitamin D deficiency disorder - rickets, but also, the first world ailments are taking hold there too.

In sun-drenched Australia where the universal use of sunblock has been so successful in reducing incidence of skin cancer, it now appears that this same sunblock is playing a negative health role contributing to a recent burgeoning of typical Vitamin D deficiency disorders.

So what are these disorders? The epidemiological study has revealed clear wide-ranging correlations, in the same way (though in a broader sense) that smoking-related cancer statistics did a generation ago. These principal burgeoning afflictions (but not exhaustive) are: diabetes, forms of cancer especially colon cancer, eczema, asthma, muscular sclerosis, types of renal failure. And the statistics cry out that these disorders are especially prevalent in darker skinned races. The body of evidence also shows that the old belief that it is easy to overdose on Vitamin D is not born out by any recent scientific studies, especially when the oral Vitamin D is not accompanied by Vitamin A as it used to be (upon which it is very easy to overdose) and rather, is administered in the synthetic form of Vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol). [The older D2 (ergocalciferol) synthetic form has lower bioactivity, poorer stability and shorter duration of action, and so is no longer recommended.] The evidence also shows that premature deaths in old age simply as a result of the secondary complication of broken thigh bones/hips is far rarer in individuals less deficient in Vitamin D, as the vitamin promotes more efficient calcium uptake so warding off osteoporosis. The vitamin's deficiency also appears to be implicated in neuro-muscular degeneration of old age. 

Apparently, a majority of us would largely lead just as healthy lives without the unnecessary daily vitamin and mineral tablets we are prone to taking - however, the epidemiological evidence does now point to Vitamin D3 as being the one vitamin above all others that we should all self-administer from childhood onwards, because practically there is no other way of absorbing it.

Vitamin D3 can often be found available as single 25 micrograms tablets. The Toronto University study shows that one or preferably two of these should be taken daily throughout the year - however, if taken only during the winter months would still largely overcome the deficiency and its symptoms.

So........I'm sold on all this that's for sure. Suggest you read around the subject yourself. Probably too late for me in many respects, but will continue to take 50 micrograms per day if only to maintain bone density!

http://wildhorse.insinc.com/directms13oct2005/

This is a very informative lecture. Bear with the annoying flashing up of blank pages as the slides change - just click off each time to continue viewing.

Consciousness, the ultimate counter-intuitive phenomenon

The workings of the brain and consciousness fascinate me. I believe that neuroscientists are still largely nothing more than geographers: "Which bit lights up when we think this? - ah ok, that bit! Ok - let's move on to the next pin on the brain map." But hey guys - ok, we've discovered the "Indian Ocean", but what is the agency by which the coherent patterns of waves are created on it's surface? We still have not the smallest clue! 

Yes - we can pour oil on the water (i.e. drugs) to calm the storms - very useful - but how are we aware of the thoughts, and the pains and the emotions that light up the brain scans? - and how do we marshal the thoughts that trigger them? Simply: how the heck is matter aware of itself? Many present-day brain researchers including Susan Blackmore (psychologist and memeticist, who I actually greatly admire) would have us believe that consciousness is an illusion - but if that is the case, who or what is being deluded? Indeed who or what has just encapsulated this conundrum, then formulated it as a question and typed it on this page? Merely by my questioning of this point of view about self-will and consciousness - the possibility that we might simply be glorified zombies - surely suggests that we are not!

I am strongly inclined to the view that self-awareness is all about looping - positive feedback - like recursive equations: the mathematical loops that in the biochemistry are responsible for spatial fractal patterns in nature e.g. dendritic structures e.g. blood vessels, neural networks in the brain, tree branches, ferns etc! I suspect - although the jury isn't even out sitting on this yet - that consciousness is rooted in the temporal equivalent of spatial fractals: a temporal recursive process, which by definition must involve looping backwards in time (or forwards depending on your temporal frame of reference) - even if this is only by a few microseconds. Quantum mechanical phenomena being the counter-intuitive processes that they are, are prime candidates for providing such temporal looping. 

If quantum mechanical phenomena are so very counter-intuitive, then so too is consciousness, but 10 times over!

The fact that quantum mechanics and consciousness (self-awareness of matter) both lie squarely in the ultra counter-intuitive domain, it seems highly likely that the physical explanation for the latter must be rooted fundamentally in the former!

Extraordinarily, a quantum mechanical explanation for consciousness is decried by the majority of neuroscientists. And the reason for this is? I think it is this: It is dangerous, almost a scientific taboo right now, to cross from one’s own specialism into anothers’ scientific territory because it so often invites ridicule from one's peers. But the understanding of consciousness is surely going to require a multidisciplinary approach merging chemistry, biology, physics, mathematics, complexity (emergent phenomena), neurology, psychology. This is going to take some time as researchers in these disciplines become less defensive and inward looking - and more mavericks, like Roger Penrose, are prepared to stick their heads above the parapet.

Sometimes a simple question says it all.

One might well wonder with dismay, how many female genii over the centuries have been lost to humanity due to the patriarchy of religious practice!

Knee-Jerk Gratitude to Your Loving God

This is so mind-bogglingly obvious - alarm bells aringing - I'm almost embarrassed to have to point it out:

Scenario 1: Something bad happens to you but you survive, and you thank God because he has chosen to help you.

Scenario 2: Something happens to you together with the people around you - like the devastation of a tornado - and you are saved but your neighours are not, and you still thank God that he has chosen to help you, but not the others, implying that you are special to God, more valuable and worthy of being saved than the others.

Scenario 3: You simply lead a very comfortable life, while the news, day in day out, shows a miserable majority of the world's population mired in poverty - in a living hell, and you thank God that he has chosen to help you lead this favoured lifestyle.

Before you recount to others about how God has been so good to you, just ask yourself, how does this stand up in the light of all the people that God clearly hasn't chosen to help. They can't all be bad and unworthy of God's good grace surely!

Think of all the innocent babies and children who know no better!
What exactly are you thanking God for?


To quote a certain Jesse Hazelton on the evening of Thanksgiving:
"While you proudly pray to your god this evening and thank him for answering your prayers for the food that you are about to eat, ask yourself why you think your prayers were answered while at the same time your god neglected to answer the prayers of the 26,000 to 30,000 children who will die of starvation today who are praying to that same god for food."

Is Nick Clegg a "Lying Bastard"? I don't think so.

Nick Clegg - Liberal Democrat, is the Deputy Prime Minister of the current UK governing coalition sharing governance with the Conservative party. He has been called a "Lying bastard" or something to that effect, by many who voted for him in the last election on account of his party's reversal on the pre-election promise not to increase university tuition fees. While I understand this sentiment, I think it is a little harsh, and the reason is this.......


The only way the Liberal Democrat party was ever going to be true to its word was by securing a working majority in the House of Commons. But having to play the coalition game was the best outcome the party could hope for in reality - and by heck it worked out for them! 

So the way I see it from this juncture is that Nick Clegg must now play his party's medium term card - to play second fiddle to the Conservative party. While unfortunately finding himself in the short term having to accede to their wishes over university fees, he simply has ONE mission in mind in order to secure a better future for UK democracy, and that is to see to it that the Conservatives keep to their promise in 2011 of holding a referendum on "Alternative Vote" proportional representation (this system would align us with the majority of EU signatory members), and, "Fixed Term Parliament ruling".*
*[the latter preventing a ruling party from holding a general election early to take advantage of short term high poll ratings.]


I will of course be greatly disappointed if this nation of ours votes down this significant change to the parliamentary system - but I am an optimist - I have to be for the sake of my sanity! Once the "1st past the post" (plurality majority) electoral system has been banished for good, the Conservatives in their present guise with their reactionary line-up of MPs, can kiss their proverbial body parts goodbye because the Liberal Democrats and Labour party are natural bed-fellows and would between them secure a majority over the Conservatives. Although some pundits suggest that proportional representation would be a recipe for weaker governance by creating more coalition governments, I dispute this. But even if this were to be the case - so be it, because the alternative has so often allowed parties (Conservative and Labour) in power on the basis of a minority of the popular vote. Labour/Liberal Democrat party coalitions will mean that the Conservatives will be out in the cold for years until they smarten up their act, while in the meantime Labour/LibDem can rescind some of the more controversial belt-tightening ravages of the current government. 


I may be naive - but this voter is going bide his time before being too accusatory towards "Cleggy".

Today's Remembrance Day ceremony - hijacked.

For the first time in years, I attended a Remembrance Day service at the commemorative cross on the local green here in Stony Stratford. I wonder how many of us usually pay our respects in this formal way? - not many I am sure. But for some reason this year I was drawn to do so. Not being Christian or indeed following any faith, my reason for attending was simply, for once, to be counted - appreciating the immense sacrifice of lives made during the last century, and this, all to maintain the freedoms so many of us take for granted.


And while the throng settled into the usual Christian ecumenical ceremony lead by the local parish clergy, Church of England and Catholic, I stood there at the back, appreciating the brass band's impressive performance during the hymns, marvelling at the lone female trumpeter's perfectly blown "Last Post" and generally detaching myself from the liturgy, lost in thought contemplating the unimaginable masses of the dead, and the numerous great uncles I had lost in the first world war, which for me had only ever been names and sepias of young men in uniform.


And then came the short homily delivered by one of the clergy. His words were well-chosen, apposite and sensitive to the situation and delivered so effortlessly without notes that my ears pricked up and for a moment I felt wholly attuned with everyone as we stood as one around the commemorative cross.


But then his words hit me ".....but for the secularism which pervaded the powers of the day, our great losses might never have materialised...........and in god we trust and from him we acquire great strength and moral rectitude......."


Standing as I was at the back, nobody would have noticed my head beginning to shake from side to side in disbelief at this statement. I looked around expecting to see some raised eyebrows or nervous sideways glances, but I witnessed none. It was all I could do to suppress a Tourette-like urge to utter the unutterable at that point, amazed as I was that nobody had been fazed by the remark! Don't people truly listen? This man of the cloth had decided to direct a jibe specifically at "secularists", which is perverse given that there are no theocracies in the western world - we are all secular nations. So - what exactly did he mean?


The implication might seem trivial and some might entreat me at this point to just let it pass - but I cannot. He was clearly equating a lack of a belief in god, a-theism, with a unique preponderance towards the atrocity of war. But, this is so off beam given that such preponderance has been the hallmark of allegiance to King and Country down the centuries - an allegiance made all the more unquestioning by the then god-given authority of monarchy!


It would seem, from my perspective at least, that the Vatican's recent plea for people to guard against the vagaries of so-called militant secularism/atheism has turned into such a war-cry that the RC priesthood now see it as their duty to put down secularism at every opportunity. Today's remembrance ceremony was accordingly hijacked! It was just one simple sentence, but it did not pass beneath this person's radar!


Why should remembrance ceremonies across the nation traditionally be the preserve of the Christian faith? This is preposterous when one considers how few people attend church these days. What this demonstrated to me today is that we secularists, those of us who count ourselves not only as a-theists but as humanists (and I suspect a great many a-theists would see themselves as such) ought to organise our own annual remembrance ceremonies, infused with humanistic sentiment, self-reliance and call for positive action rather than passive prayer. Such gatherings would not be conducted in the "sight of god", but rather in the collective sight of each other - the humanist way. We would feel more comfortable and attuned in the way we pay our respects, and what is more, as the word gets around, we'd be reminding people that there is a large secular demographic out there that cares and is just as moral and responsible and able to distinguish right from wrong as godly folk.