Happy Monday! Trying to “earn my keep” on my first “non-school” day. The recycling has been taken to the center and the extra fridge has been cleaned.
The ‘extra’ fridge is actually our old one. After we bought the new one, we found out it was only a $50 repair. Voila! Two refrigerators.
I also took delivery of my loaner CCTV. Transporting this thing should be interesting but there is something about not looking a gift horse in the mouth. People do not have to be as kind to me as they are. Gratitude is in order. Thank you!
Found an interesting thing when I was looking at the Brightfocus spring newsletter. They have this eyechat thing. They have eyechats the last Wednesday of the month. It is 1:00 pm. Eastern standard time, I think. I forgot to ask. [Lin/Linda: their eyechat feature is a free telephone conference that is done live where you can listen and ask questions of the guest. And yes, it is 1:00 pm Eastern Time.]
Anyway, the number to sign up for the live chat is 800-437-2423. If that does not work for you, you can call 800-250-7274 and listen to past chats. Want that on your iPad? Try brightfocus.org/pastchats.
Umm, maybe not that easy. That address took me to their chat page. I had to scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on “listen to previous chats”. THAT gave me the chat menu. You might want to try that. [It’s a little easier on my laptop. Also, you can sign up for their newsletter on many, if not all, of their webpages.]
They have audio and PDF file with the transcript. Audio is taking forever to download. Might be my system. Might not. [Again, faster and easier with my laptop.]
Also in that edition was a follow-up on gut microbes. It has been said our guts are our second brains. It has also been said the state of your gut determines the state of your health. According to Exploring gut microbes in human health and disease: pushing the envelope, there is a good chance such disorders as irritable bowel disease, cancer, diabetes, autism, asthma, and obesity (I am not fat. My gut microbes just don’t like me!??) may be due to imbalances in the gut.
Apparently, we might have to add AMD to that list. Remember we talked about this last fall? Rowan at Tufts is looking at how gut microbes interact with our high sugar and starch diets. He has now added an extra wrinkle. He is killing off gut microbes in mice and switching samples between mice fed high and low sugar diets. Trying to figure out if the culprit is the sugary diet or the microbes.
And speaking of pushing the envelope, how they get new gut microbes into people is definitely pushing things to the limit! Before I said I wanted them to change my microbes so I would not have to change my diet. Rethinking that.
I changed my mind after watching a Nova program, Wonders: what is living in you? This woman had a serious digestive problem after a course of antibiotics. The only way they could solve it was giving her poop pills! There are these people with great gut microbes who come in almost daily. They get paid for making a ‘deposit’ which is turned into poop pills! Yuck.
Could be worse. Supposedly in fourth-century China they made “yellow soup” out of poop. I don’t want to think about it but, you know, those leafy, green vegetables are looking better and better.
Later! ?
Written June 11th, 2019