Ok, ok, now we aren’t making inflammatory, controversial statements here. Really, we’re not. But this is actually a scientific study that was commissioned, to what end I don’t know to be honest, about the correlation between a person’s IQ (their Intelligence Quotient) and whether they smoke or not.

Apparently there is a link between lower IQ’s and smoking that they wanted to quantify, as well as qualify, with research into which one causes which. In other words, does smoking actually lower your IQ, or is it the other way around, if your IQ is lower to begin with, are you more likely to engage in the practice of smoking cigarettes?  They should have done a second study on whether IQ changes with those that quit smoking cigarettes, I’d be interested to learn that to, and to conclude finally whether smoking is actually connected to a loss of intelligence.

Scientists are saying that there is a correlation between lower intelligence and not only smoking, but how much you smoke, with lower IQ’d persons smoking more.  The study was done on about 20,000 israeli military recruits, and there was evidence that the two were linked. They then wanted to go in a little further and figure out what the correlation meant, if people actually seemed to lose or gain IQ points according to whether they smoked or not, and how much they smoked.

It’s not too much of a surprise, since people with lower IQ’s also often have a higher likelihood to abuse alcohol and other substances as well. Definitely, this is not always the case, there are always highly intelligent individuals who participate in these types of activities, it’s just that statistically it happens to be those with lower IQ’s.

So see, hey, join in the smoking cessation revolution, and kick that dirty habit to the curb, your intelligence, or the perception of your intelligence by others may depend on it

Ok, so I have an unfortunate update to my magnet therapy for neck pain article posted a day ago, not only do I think it gave me a headache, perhaps because of the proximity to my head, maybe that was wrong of me. But also I woke up this morning to two small welts where the magnets were on the back of my neck. I wonder if these metal magnets I used were some cheap metal alloy with nickel or something that is a big time irritant in them.

Anyways, I won’t be using them again, I’m pretty sure. If anyone has some good experiences – or bad – with magnet therapy, would you mind posting your story here as a comment to share with other readers who are thinking of trying it out?

Over the years, and this goes WAY back to my younger years, before alternative therapies were really popular, I remembered seeing a lot of people with these weird, kind of unsightly and utilitarian looking bracelets on. They were all metal and rigid, and had an opening at the bottom, so you could just slip them on over your wrist. Like I said, they weren’t the biggest fashion statement, which is why I noticed them, and they all pretty much looked the same as well.

I never knew what they were for at the time until about ten years ago, I had heard my first bit of information about “magnet therapy”, and thought it sounded like the biggest bunch of hogwash I’d ever heard.

However, now that I’m older and I’ve become interested in all sorts of therapies that are “alternative” in nature, not just herbs and natural supplements and medicines, I decided I would actually finally give magnet therapy for pain a try on my neck and back, two areas that have always given me trouble since I had two nasty car accidents in my teens and early twenties.  I had already had some good results from herbal painkillers for my muscle pain, to help relax the muscles, but I thought this would also be an excellent addition to my repertoire of pain relief.

So, I decided to give it a try with the least expensive product I could find just in case it was a total bust.  I got these little “magnet dots” that are stuck on a circular piece of sticky bandaid like flexible paper that you affix to whatever areas are giving you problems. The magnets themselves are no bigger than the size of a skittle – actually smaller, and the circular sticker they are on is about the size of a nickel.

I affixed one on one side of my neck, at the base, and another on the other side of my neck, also at the base.  I often wear turtle necks in the winter so it was easily camouflaged.  I noticed that throughout the day ( I wore it about eight hours), my pain was definitely decreased. Could it have been a placebo effect?  I suppose so, but I also got an unwanted side effect, perhaps from wearing it too long – I got a massive, banging headache.

I wondered if the magnets caused the headache, so I did remove them when I remembered I still had them on, but I can’t be sure the two were related. I did notice that they seems to make my pain duller. It’s usually a constant discomfort, and it definitely wasn’t as noticeable throughout my day, so I looked at that as a benefit.  Who knows, it seemed to work for me though….but the headache put a damper on it. I’m gonna try it again on a different body part, maybe my back and see what happens.  More to come!

Apparently there has been a somewhat silent debate raging behind the scenes at the FDA over the diabetes drug Avandia, where some felt that it was a definite cause behind several occurrences of heart attacks in patients who were taking

it every month (which is clearly unacceptable), and others felt that the studies that were conducted to determine this were not in fact, conclusive.  Avandia is actually still a best selling drug, and at one point it was actually the most successful, top selling drug of all.  You can see why the debate was raging, there was a lot of money at stake if this drug were suddenly pulled from the market,

and of course there was a lot of financial interest in it staying on. A panel decision did find that patients should have been warned more about the increased risk of heart attack while on the drug.

In 2007 though, a cardiologist did a study that suggested that Avandia was hurting patient’s heart health, and the drug’s sales of course went way down in response to such a shocking finding.  Doctors who agree that Avandia has substantially

increased patient’s risk of heart attack are really pulling for patients to go with a different diabetes drug called Actos, which does not exhibit the same risks as Avandia does.

So, what does this mean from here? Well, obviously I’m sure sales of the drug will go down even further from here, although they still have millions of patients on their roster and are still making a nice profit on it. The FDA has not outright ordered that it be pulled from shelves yet, but we’ll see where it goes from here.

There are quite a few people who feel it should be totally removed from the market, but there are also people who believe that the finding s are not conclusive enough to take that drastic of an action, and that diabetes patients and their doctors should still be given a choice of drugs, including Avandia.

I’ve seen L-Tyrosine in the stores before, along with a dozen other supplements that I’m really not sure their purpose is in the human body, and it can get really confusing as to what supplements you should take, what you already have enough of in your diet, and what is just plain overkill it seems.  You could take every supplement under the sun and still be missing some “important nutrient”, so I wanted to dig a little deeper and see what L-Tyrosine is typically used for, both as a supplement to the diet, and as a part of the body’s natural chemical makeup.

First of all, most people get enough, or synthesize enough, L-Tyrosine, just by eating their regular diet, so supplementation is usually not recommended unless by a doctor for a particular syndrome or health issue. However, that does not mean that this amino acid is not important to your body.

Some of the therapeutic uses that people have used tyrosine for are depression, chronic fatigue syndrome, ADD and anxiety disorders, parkinsons disease, and even weight control.  It is a precursor to several neurotransmitters that are important to mood and energy levels though, so the depression and fatigue syndrome theory may be partially on base.   These neurotransmitters include dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine.

It’s difficult to say whether it helps with any of these for real, because most of the evidence that it has helped people is anecdotal and no real studies have been carried out that I could find, but it certainly may be worth more research if you’ve been investigating this supplement for some particular health symptom you are experiencing.

Some people swear by it, that it has helped them with all the above mentioned disorders, so that makes me think there is something to it. I did not find any reported negative side effects, so if you have any of the health problems mentioned, you may want to do some further research on your own and see if maybe L-tyrosine may be a good supplementation for your diet.  It also may assist with proper thyroid function, as some claim.