While I think that everyone has made good points regarding my hopefulness and trepidation about gene therapy, my feelings are as ambiguous as ever. How about this madness, though, about a gene therapy case wherein a German patient suffering from full-blow AIDS no longer has the virus thanks to bone marrow cells which cleansed him of the disease? That is good, good news.
After reading a few classmates' comments on the short animations and their lack of explanation, I had my own dissatisfying experience with a few examples on the University of Akron site. When I happened to click on a link to an animation about Vitamins, my curiosity was sated for a while! This one was not just an abstract, simple graphic representation, but a slide show of sorts, with plenty of language presented in an organized fashion. There's an explanation about vitamins in general, and brief description of water-soluble vs. fat-soluble vitamins. The slides themselves each include atomic structure, name, function (when known) and foods in which the vitamin can be found. There is so much that officially still seems to be "unknown" about how nutrition works!
The wikipedia link on Biochemistry prominently featured the endocrine system, which took me on a glorious web-surfing tangent. The endocrine system, which involves the heart, stomach, liver, kidney, brain, sexual organs,nervous system, etc. seems to be a great way to bridge the rift between TCM and other forms of medicine. Dealing with "metabolism, growth, development... and body function," seems pretty holistic, and perhaps endocrinologists would be more likely to work in a Chinese medical framework than, say, narrower-focused specialists. I would like to do some reading/writing relating hormones and qi. How are hormones even talked about in current TCM? My understanding is that hormonal issues are well-treated with herbs and acupuncture, but I have not yet come across much discussion on the subject.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
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2 comments:
Very interesting about the idea of connecting the endocrine system with TCM. I think you're on to something there. There's a passage in The Way of Qigong, by Kenneth Cohen, where he writes about a possible relationship between DHEA and qi (p. 51) and jing (p. 321).
Thank you, Robert! I am reading the Cohen book right now, (started it on BART last night!) and am going to check out the pages you suggested right now.
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