Health & Fitness

Scribe:  Samuel Otis

Email:  samuel@thethinkering.com

Extra-virgin olive oil is now believed to protect against memory loss, and maintaining the ability to learn and reduces the conditions associated with Alzheimer’s disease. 

Research at Temple University’s Lewis Katz School of Medicine found mice with EVOO-enriched diets had better memories and learning abilities compared to the rates who didn’t eat the oil.   Researchers say neuron connections in the brain were better preserved in those on an olive oil diet. 

Previous research suggests the Mediterranean oil reduces brain inflammation and activates the autophagy process where intracellular debris and toxins are removed.   Debris and toxins are cited as firm markers of Alzheimer’s disease. 

Olive Oil is a bastion of the Mediterranean diet and is acclaimed for its various health benefits.  

Scribe:  Samuel Otis

Email:  samuel@thethinkering.com

A Pennsylvania man has been awarded $1.15 million after his urologist removed the wrong testicle. 

Steven Haines suffered chronic pain in his right testicle for nearly two decades before he went to a doctor to get relief from the problem.  The urologist Dr. Spencer Long advised him removal would be best and he would still have one to work with.  The surgery was performed at J.C. Blair Memorial Hospital in Huntingdon, PA.

The 54-year-old man was rightfully upset when he recovered from the surgery still having pain in the right testicle after Dr. Long removed the wrong one. 

Haines sued and a jury awarded him $1.15 million along with $815,000 for pain and suffering and $330,000 for punitive damages.  The jury found the doctor to be “reckless” for removing the man’s healthy organ. 

Scribe:  Samuel Otis

Email:  samuel@thethinkering.com

On the Tonight Show recently actress Demi Moore admitted to having lost teeth due to chronic stress.   Jimmy Fallon, mentioned how beautiful she is as a prelude to showing a photo she’d sent earlier with no front teeth.  She jokily said, "I'd love to say it was skateboarding or something really kind of cool, but I think it's something that's important to share because I think it's literally, probably after heart disease, one of the biggest killers in in America, which is stress. Stress sheared off my front tooth. But, in an effort to get ready for you, I wanted to make sure my teeth were in."

Which brings up the question – Does stress effect your teeth?

Scribe:  N. Tru Bass

Email:  ntb@thethinkering.com

Immunotherapy is a therapy used to treat cancer patients that involve uses of the immune system.  Some consist of antibodies that bind to, and inhibit the function of proteins expressed by cancer cells.  Several ways the therapy my work are slowing or stopping growth in cancer cells, stopping cancer from spreading to other parts of the body, and assist the immune system to work better at destroying cancer cells. 

In nature the human body’s immune system detects something harmful, it produces antibodies.  Antibodies are proteins that fight infection.  Immunotherapy has strong growth potential and is expected to grow from $62 billion in 2016 to more than $111.23 billion by 2021.

Scribe:  N. Tru Bass

Email:  ntb@thethinkering.com

During summer months Ice cream, shorts, sunglasses and swimming are part of the social construct.   A four-year-old boy in Texas went swimming on Memorial Day weekend and died a week later due to dry drowning. 

The boy’s lungs were filled with fluid after swimming in the Texas City Dike with his family.  One week after the swimming trip the boy complained about shoulder pain and fell asleep and woke up a few hours later.   His father said during a report, “Out of nowhere, he just woke up. He said, ‘Ahhh,” he continued, “He took his last breath and I didn’t know what to do no more.”

Emergency workers attempted to save the boy but were unsuccessful.  Medical officials told the Houston, Texas family that the boy dry drowned and there was nothing that they could do.

Scribe:  Samuel Otis

Email:  samuel@thethinkering.com

Young Michelle Carter is on trial for encouraging her boyfriend to commit suicide.  He did.  She is now the bullseye for the justice system in a case has for evidence text messages like, "You can't think about it, you just have to do it." And, "You need to do it, Conrad."

In July 2014, Roy was found dead slumped in his black Ford F-150, from carbon monoxide poisoning.  The 18-year-old was supported by his then girlfriend Michelle Carter.   According to prosecutors argue that the texts are overwhelming evidence that Carter pretended to be the loving girlfriend while privately telling Roy to off himself. 

Scribe:  N. Tru Bass

Email:  ntb@thethinkering.com

A Manhattan physician has been arrested in a Doctor Feel Good act providing more than $20 million with opioids over the past five years.   Dr. Martin Tesher is being accuse of writing more than 14,000 oxycodone prescriptions. 

The 81-year-old doctor who describes himself as a “good old-fashioned family doctor” was busted Monday for dumping 2.2 million oxycodone pills on the city of New York.  The city and the country is in the grip of an opioid epidemic.  There have been more than 1,075 opioid-involved deaths in the five boroughs in 2016, up from 753 the year before according to reports.

The rate of fatal opioid overdoses in the city, including from heroin and pain pills – tripled from 2000 to 2015 according to government data.

Scribe:  Lucy Osbourne

Email:  lucy@thethinkering.com

Monday morning, lawmakers are listening to testimony on a bill that would keep intact criminal convictions of people who die while appealing a case.   The change consideration was brought on by the Aaron Hernandez case, as his murder conviction was overturned after his death due to appeals continuing at the time of death.

Hernandez, a former New England Patriot tight end commented suicide after being convicted of murdering his friend Odin Lloyd.  The empathetic gesture by the state is a longstanding tradition in Massachusetts.  

Attorney Marian Ryan of Middlesex filed the bill long before the Hernandez case was heard, although the high profile case gave the adjustment new life.

Scribe:  N. Tru Bass.com

Email:  ntb@thethinkering.com

A pair of praying hands and a crucifix tattoo leads to a man’s death after swimming in the Gulf of Mexico.  The 31-year-old man ignored warnings about swimming after getting a new tattoo and swimming after receiving a new tat on his right calf.

The man contracted a flesh-eating bacteria infection while swimming in the Gulf of Mexico.  The man has not been identified, but was said to have been affected by years of alcohol abuse leaving him susceptible to septic shock and vibriosis infection. 

The wound was exposed to the bacteria after swimming in the gulf just five days after receiving the new body art.  

Scribe:  Samuel Otis

Email:  samuel@thethinkering.com

During American slavery the average workday was approximately 16-18 work hours daily, six days a week with a hard driving cracker being the rule not the exception. 

This sun up to sun down or can to can’t work day served as a prelude to the current 8-hour work day.  As the United States moved into industrialization many Europeans traveled to the west for a better life.   In an attempt to become more human, the 8-hour workday was born. 

Finland has experimented with a six-hour workday to much applause and closer families. 

Although, in American a former slave state, many Americans can’t make ends meet with an 8-hour workday.