Health

If You Can’t Trust the Doctor or the Preacher…

This evening I came across and rapidly scanned two pieces of commentary and/or news.

Scandal of Evangelical Dishonesty

No matter how we rationalize it, all deception within the evangelical community dishonors Christ, and serves the devil’s agenda. We need to identify deception, repent of it, and embrace the truth of Christ which will set us free to represent Him accurately to a world sick of being lied to John 8:32.

[…]

I take no pleasure in addressing these issues. I hope it will serve Christ’s body by initiating some much-needed self-examination and dialogue.

Which Christian colleges, missions organizations, speakers, musicians, publishers, and authors will come forward and confess past misleading practices and commit themselves to the highest ethical standards before the Audience of One, even if it means forgoing financial gain? Who will, in the name of Christ, raise the bar of honesty, integrity, and truth?

Only when Christian leaders establish new and higher standards will others feel the positive peer pressure and accountability to do the same. Only then will reform be widespread, with direct unspun truth-telling becoming the established norm.

Only then will we gain the trust of both the Christian public and a skeptical secular culture accustomed to deception, but desperately needing the truth.

That one is a very lengthy exposé. See what you think of it.

Well, that was the preacher part of the title. Next, the doctor part:

Retracted autism study an ‘elaborate fraud,’ British journal finds

A now-retracted British study that linked autism to childhood vaccines was an “elaborate fraud” that has done long-lasting damage to public health, a leading medical publication reported Wednesday.

[…]

The now-discredited paper panicked many parents and led to a sharp drop in the number of children getting the vaccine that prevents measles, mumps and rubella. Vaccination rates dropped sharply in Britain after its publication, falling as low as 80% by 2004. Measles cases have gone up sharply in the ensuing years.

In the United States, more cases of measles were reported in 2008 than in any other year since 1997, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 90% of those infected had not been vaccinated or their vaccination status was unknown, the CDC reported.

And there you are.

😳 Oooops! I didn’t mean it that way! I’m not suggesting the deception highlighted above is a shoe that fits your foot.

While we can point fingers and wag tongues against others’ deception, who can discern and discard the guile lurking in his own heart?

Alzheimer’s: Your Teeth, Your Brain

I know the quote below starts by referencing a here-unidentified attitude….

Dr. Henry Chiang, a Newport Beach, Calif., dentist who has launched a 2010 Oral Health Campaign for Seniors, wants to reverse that attitude.

His efforts to make seniors more aware of gum disease and denture care comes at the same time that New York University dental researchers have found the first long-term evidence that periodontal (gum) disease could increase the risk of cognitive dysfunction associated with Alzheimer’s disease in healthy individuals as well as those already impaired.

The NYU study offers fresh evidence that gum inflammation might contribute to brain inflammation, neurodegeneration and Alzheimer’s.

Dr. Chiang adds dry mouth conditions can exacerbate the problem. “For patients who suffer from dry mouth, contaminated dentures pose potential health risks. Dentures are porous and can harbor a huge number of harmful bacteria.

“In addition, the likelihood of dry mouth increases with the number of medications a person takes. Since people over 65 use an average of three prescriptions and two over-the-counter medications per day, they stand a good chance of suffering dry mouth. Denture wearers with reduced salivary flow should be particularly concerned about the cleanliness of their dentures and serious health risks associated with contaminated dentures.”

For the rest: Neglecting your teeth may lead to Alzheimer’s

Mozambique Bleak

If you think life has given you a health care lemon, remember Mozambique:

Some 6.4 million people in northern Mozambique, Africa, have little or no access to medical care. They live in a largely-Muslim area of the country and suffer needlessly from malnutrition, HIV/AIDS, and numerous medical conditions made worse by poverty and poor sanitation.

Many haven’t even heard the Gospel.

But now, Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) is helping make the critical difference. Like the spreading dawn, hope and healing are coming to these afflicted people. The story of transformation has just begun.

The Program Manager for MAF Mozambique is Warren Veal. He said MAF is teaming up with Dr. Pim de Lijster, a Dutch physician who is known as “Doctor Pim,” and a Brazilian dentist, Dr. Ida de Carvalho, “Doctor Ida,” to form MozMed, a ministry that is bringing life, hope, and relief from suffering.

Veal says, “The three of us work together to provide health care in one of the rural districts in Mozambique.”

He said the health care needs are great. “There [are] about 33,000 people for every doctor in the country. Actually, here in the north, that statistic is a little bit worse because there are even fewer doctors.”

MAF flies these doctors into an area on a Monday, they set up a clinic, and treat those in need. Veal says it’s not just about seeing patients; they’re also training untrained health care workers to care for those in need when the doctors aren’t in town.

MAF overcomes barriers of terrain by flying this dedicated team to eight isolated villages for a recurring schedule of half-day clinics. Each clinic is staffed by a government-sponsored health worker.

I only quote a few of the opening paragraphs of the story: Mozambique desperate for doctors

I am thankful to have all manner of health care options around me.

The Eye Exit

Stuff like this is fascinating, but it gives me a bit of a tight feeling in my innards:

When Liane Lefever complained to her doctor about a persistent ear ache, an examination found a much more serious problem: a brain tumor.

For many Americans, that diagnosis could have led to invasive surgery — including slicing open her skull — and a long recovery. But with an innovative procedure being pioneered by two doctors from Johns Hopkins Hospital, her tumor was removed through a small incision in her eyelid.

[…]

When the doctors told her they would enter the brain through her eyelid, she was most worried about her vision. But the procedure poses little threat of that, though she did lose some of her sense of smell because of the tumor’s location. She was wearing contacts again in three months and back at work at the family french fry business in several weeks.

[…]

Under the minicraniotomy, the eyelid is cut at a crease, and a quarter-sized piece of bone is removed just above the eyebrow. A computer-guided endoscope fitted with a camera leads surgical instruments to a tumor or a brain fluid leak needing repair. Once the work is done a few hours later, the bone is replaced and a small metal plate is used to hold it in place. A few dissolvable sutures close the eye lid and leave no visible scar.

Source: Doctors perform brain surgery via eyelid

Amazing!

And there’s even a life lesson or two here.

Here’s one: You can get to my brain through my eye. What am I allowing in?

Let’s Boggle!

That’s an l in the title; not an i.

Time for another from-real-life round Boggle. As usual, this is one played in real life by three Roths an evening back in April:

Our seventh game of Boggle
Playing this game will may keep your mind young(er)!

Here’s my usual reminder of how we play the game here at Ain’t Complicated:

  1. Minimum word length: four letters
  2. No plurals created by adding s
  3. Maximum words per player per day: five
  4. No time limit
  5. Only what you can see

Item 5 means do not use online sources to generate words. This rule applies only for the first two days of the game.

Remember, please: Five words per player per day.

(And tell me: Why is this post in the Health category?)

Green Tea Creativity

Do you know how to write creatively?

Here are some examples of non-dull writing.

Drink a few cups of green tea and you could avoid dentists drills and bills.

Fortunately, a few cups of green tea may bring him back so he can help you avoid diabetes — or at least fend off its complications.

Drinking green tea isn’t like putting a bodyguard between you and skin cancer — it’s like having a whole team of them.

Those who drank at least two cups of green tea every day had the lowest risk of losing their memory and thinking ability.

Green tea turned 20 percent of drug-resistant superbugs into helpless wimps…. The same bacteria that had virtually ignored antibiotics before were easily wiped out by a combination of antibiotics and green tea.

A compound found in soothing green tea could be the key to reducing inflammation, joint damage, and more.

Don’t believe everything you read. A 2006 study found that drinking green tea makes no difference in your risk of prostate cancer — yet, a newer study disagrees. This study suggested that green tea may not prevent all prostate cancers, but it may cut your odds of advanced or life-threatening cancer by half.

Make lemon your main squeeze when you drink tea and you may get four times as many health-building compounds from your tea.

The Kitchen Table Book

The Kitchen Table Book tells me so.

I’ve been drinking green tea for quite a while (it seems like). But not enough. Time to ramp it up, folks! And add lemon juice as well. This is exciting stuff!

Please note: No cynics or mockers were hurt in the production of this post. I reject responsibility for what happens to them if they read it.

Above all, love God!