Curated Paper 1

Before this assignment I had never heard of the word ayurveda. As I have researched it I have come to find that it is something I have seen practiced many times in life, and is presented often on social media, and on television. The practice is of Indian descent and is used to try and create a strong bond between the mind, body, and spirit. Though I have never personally taken part in ayurveda in any professional practice, I do believe that there are benefits to having a clear mind that is well connected with the body. In my own life this is why I lift and run each day. I find that as I do these things my mind is cleared, stress and anxiety quickly vanish and I am left to feel life in a pure and simple way. In that sense I do believe that Ayurveda could be used to help someone find a better connection with one's self. However, I am not sure that the practices I personally read of (some of which seemed rather extreme) could really prevent and cure the many diseases of life. If anything, I side most with the opinion that the attitude and mental state of a person can greatly change the outcome of a disease or likelyhood to get a disease. If these practices are the way to help a person receive this clarity and piece of mind then I do believe it is helping. I do not believe any of the dry needling, ingesting of random herbs and crystals is what is actively fighting against any disease. I believe it is similar to a placebo effect, though nothing has changed deep within their culture. It is believed that this kind of stuff works miracles and because of that they get in a mental space to push their bodies to higher limits. This is why I feel ayurveda has not been so widespread and booming in the United States, without that deeply rooted history and with all the information we have access to it “destroys the magic” in a way.  My uncle used to go to a man down in St. George and would do similar things to this. Every year he would have allergies that would drive him crazy. When he visited this man who he called “the Witch Doctor” he would mix together a concoction of random herbs and liquids, place them in a small vile and tape it on my uncle's arm for an hour. This practice worked for a few years until he told some guys at work and they made fun of him for it. After he had a change of mindset toward ayurveda nothing could cure his allergies and he ended up getting an allergy shot from the doctors instead. Overall I don't think there is any real harm in the practice of ayurveda, it is intriguing to me to learn more about how the mind, body, and spirit can all align and change the outcomes of the rest of our lives. 

I was quite amazed how this topic or ayurveda would bleed itself into nearly everything that we have taken a deeper dive into so far. From the body, mind, and spirit side, I felt it had a little bit of a point but overall couldn't play too much of a role in everyday life. However I now am beginning to be more open to the idea that the mind, body, and spirit could all be a little more connected than I had previously thought. 

Here are some of the key points and a summary of each of the provided documents given to us to read on metabolism and diabetes. I will begin with the article on Glucose Related Aggression in Married Couples. I found this to be a very interesting article and made me think of the snickers commercials that I see stating “you are not you when you're hungry”.  This study was conducted on 21 couples of at least 12 years of marriage. During the test the glucose levels were measured in the morning and evening of each of the participants. The participants were given dolls that they were instructed to place pins on to represent the amount of aggression or anger they felt towards their spouse ranging from 0 to 51 pins. They then also played a game that they were under the impression was against their partner. Winning of this game allowed them to play a loud irritable sound into the losers headphones for a chosen duration of time. The participants were each given a sound 13 times as they played against the computers. The two tests allowed for aggression and anger to be tested with minimal to no physical harm being done between the participants keeping it legal and safe. The study found that there was a significant link between glucose levels and aggression. Enough so that they could predict the days that a given participant would be more aggressive in the sound test based on the level of their glucose. I found this to be quite interesting and liked how the study talked about how many people call this being “hangry”. My initial thoughts on the Snickers commercial that I talked about earlier have now changed and I feel they need to show the results of this study. It could boost sales along their pitch of “you are not you when you’re hungry”. 

The article Self Control and Aggression spoke to a similar point, showing how consumption of glucose is oftentimes just as effective in restoring self control as meditation or other exercises may be. They also used a sound test to show this and noted that there is a wide range of how aggressive people generally are regardless of how much they have consumed. However in these individuals with high aggression traits it was found that glucose consumption can reduce the aggressive behavior through increasing self control enough to overcome that impulse to be aggressive. I found it interesting that they start the article by quoting a cereal killer and then go on to use him as an example as if having a candy bar would all of the sudden make this man not a world renowned killer. They also suggest that consumption of glucose may not be sufficient for someone who is a psychopath and that training self control through writing with the non-dominant hand, and other exercises may fare better. Then right when I thought they were getting at self control being the key to overcoming aggression they go off and say that highly aggressive people have to have great self control as well in order to follow through despite their human nature. They sourced the 911 attack as a demonstration of self control and I found this to be quite odd. In conclusion it is more up to genetics than anything but there are things like glucose and mindfulness exercises that may help. 

The third article on the same topic I could only find the abstract but its comments followed along with the other two stating that the aggressive behaviors could be greatly resolved by eating a spoonful of sugar. 

In the article Understanding the Link Between Chronic Disease and Depression I was able to learn what a chronic disease is and how it can cause depression. From what I was able to gather from the article there can be a positive feedback loop where the chronic disease can cause depression and that depression leads you not to take care of yourself and therefore the chronic disease can become worse. This cycle if not taken care of can cause death because of the ever deteriorating condition of the person. The article also gets into some of the ways to treat depression as well as talks about how some people in extreme cases can seek out clinical trials to help increase the understanding of the disease.

The article Diabetes, Alcohol, and Social Drinking talked about the dangers that alcohol can be if you are taking any medication for diabetes. The two in conjunction can lead to hypoglycemia and a range of other deathly illnesses. The use of alcohol should be strictly monitored and talked with your doctor before any consumption is made. Before, during and after the consumption of alcohol your glucose levels should be strictly monitored. 

There was an article on the Economic Cost of Diabetes from 2012. They found that the percentage of Americans with diabetes is around seven percent. This was quite high compared to what I feel like I have noticed in my life. I know maybe 3 diabetic people and I know a lot more than 30 people. However some people may just be really good at hiding or managing their diabetes to the point that others wouldn't know. They then dived into the net costs of diabetes for the United states and initially I was mind blown. Given the numbers they gave I took the time to estimate that there is an average of about 660 dollars a month spent by each person with diabetes in the United states. One of the craziest stats was that more than 1 in every 10 healthcare dollars is spent on something related to diabetes.

Overall I have never had anyone in my family suffer from diabetes, though I feel that it is rather a matter of when not if. I know that a lot of my family makes poor health decisions that puts them at higher risk of getting type two diabetes. As I was looking over the slides it is amazing to me just how complicated the body is and its metabolic pathways. The image showing all the different metabolic pathways of the cell was quite amazing as in my normal biology classes at the university so far I have mainly talked about glycolysis, and the citric acid cycle. But I never realized just how much more that the body can do. Each cell in our body performs a hue of responsibilities based on the proteins that are made from the codes found in our DNA.  This to me is quite amazing because it just shows how truely amazing our bodies really are. 

Understanding diabetes will be something I never really feel like I will get the hang of entirely. I am sure there is more to it than we are even aware of and I hope that one day they are able to find a way to repair the person's body and cells in order to allow them to live a normal life. After reading about how much someone's life can be affected by it I really started to feel bad and almost guilty that I havent had to deal with it. I don't think I ever realized the true link that glucose had to people's mood either. I feel that this all kind of ties into our ayurveda that we talked about a few weeks ago. When our body is all in alignment it functions much better. In this case the insulin or glucose in someone's system can allow for their body to be more capable of being in ayurveda. Speaking from personal experience I know that I struggle to be fun to be around when I have missed a meal or have worked myself into what my privileged self often calls starvation but is probably nothing more than slight hunger or the feeling of a slightly empty stomach rather than one stuffed to the brim. 

As research continues and technology expands I would hope that one day diabetes can be cured, as we further understand the metabolic pathways, triggers, and requirements needed for the proper cell function. Until then I hope that the technology side can make it much easier for those living with diabetes. In my head I picture a unit that can be set to a person's custom levels and would monitor them 24/7, as the insulin is needed it could add in some of that and could also add calories or other nutrients to help keep that person up and going as close to someone without diabetes as possible. 

I am interested to see how all of the ozempic affect the metabolic pathways of the body as well. I am in no means an expert but I know that when someone goes on testosterone for example the testicles stop making testosterone and therefore it becomes something that that person will have to take for the remainder of their lives. I feel like ozempic is new enough that there aren't a lot of known long term effects. I don't know for sure but I heard the way it works has something to do with diabetes, like it was a medication of some kind. Regardless, it scares me to death to try new things like that. I was having a conversation with my Father-in-law and he talked about another chemical everyone was taking when he was my age. It was called slim fast or something, he said that people would lose weight like crazy, it was later found that the long term effects would cause heart disease. Many of his friends and people he knew that were taking this ended up living a much shorter life because of it. I hope that they are able to find a way to help those with diabetes while keeping the long term effects to a minimum. I know this journaling thing is kind of all over the place but I feel that a journal as we have described it is a place to put your thoughts and that's what I have been doing here. If you have any suggestions on this please let me know. I look forward to next week's entries to read and give my thoughts as well as a brief summary.

The connection between the microbiome and metabolism was something I thought that I knew pretty well. After some research and a lot of reading I now know that it goes far deeper than I had thought. This tends to be a theme with the things I feel I know. Ultimately if you think you know everything about anything it's likely you know nothing. The ones who know admit how little they know about the subject. Now I will go over some of my findings and new found knowledge on the subject. 

To begin I would like to touch on some of the things that I know about the microbiome. I know that your microbiome is key to the proper function of our organs and with an unbalanced microbiome we may need to supplement from others. One example that I know of is a program where you can get paid to send them your stools if it is determined that you have a healthy microbiome. The stool is then packaged in pills that are taken orally to help boost the microbiome of the person taking the pills. I am unaware however of how much processing is done with each of these things and I can't imagine ever having to do this as I feel like I can taste what is in the pills when I burp. Nevertheless this is something that saves lives as disgusting as it sounds and without it each of us could be in danger.  I believe this is also the microbiome but when a child is born they are not born with the bacteria that causes cavities. Therefore if someone was to go their entire life without kissing, or consuming someone else's saliva in any way they could be immune from cavities regardless of their diet. This is an example that shows how some organisms in our microbiome can work against us and actually  cause harm. 

Now for the reading and other materials. The first article I read spoke to the possible connections between the brain and the microbiome. They talked about how much the brain changes as well as the microbiome in early development. This tie between the two seems to happen through what they call the ENS (enteric nervous system). Where the brain is in control of how and when digestion happens it is believed the microbiome may affect how the brain develops dependent on signals sent to begin digestion and the stomach or intestines ability to digest. This type of three way communication is what is believed helps to begin pathways in barrier function as well as regulation of hormones. 

Next I got to read about irritable bowel syndrome, which is the most prominent GI issue we face today. The IBS is more prominent in western countries than anywhere else in the world and is more prominent in Asian cities than in poor countries. I found it interesting that the microbiome plays a role in creating our immune system. I knew that it helped in the fermentation of carbohydrates and played a critical role in gut health. I found it interesting that stress can cause more severe or prolonged symptoms of IBS. This plays into the discussions we had a few weeks back about ayurveda and how the body, mind and spirit must all be in complete harmony in order to be of best health. It makes me wonder if the stressors on the mind make the hormone levels imbalance and therefore change the conditions and environment of your gut. If this was the case it would make sense that general stress levels could affect the microbiome that you have. They also found that the diet can have large effects on the microbiome. I feel this makes the most sense as someone who has a more acidic diet would tend to have strains of bacteria that could handle such harsh conditions, while others with a more balanced diet may have a greater diversity in their microbiome. One thing I feel helps my mental state is having a good diet and schedule in place to regularly work out. These two things help me to stay healthy and in a good mindset. I feel this could have some effect on the microbiome due to the ayurveda but more tests would need to be run in order to determine that. They believe in the article that one of the best ways to try and correct someone's microbiome is to get them on a diet. One that is made specifically for them based on the cultures and quantities of those cultures in a patient's gut. 

While glancing through the slides I found it extremely interesting how the microbiome in obese individuals can actually be quite different from those in lean individuals. This initially made me think it may all be genetics that determines your microbiome and therefore how likely you are to be obese. However I know that the percentage of people that are obese continues to rise and from what I understand it would be the diet that transforms the microbiome of the individual. Meaning, if you took the “better” culture from a healthy individual who grew that microbiome through a strict diet, it may do well in the new host and therefore help that person to lose weight. We often think of looking weight as having to be in a calorie deficit. What if eating healthier foods helps to lose weight by allowing for a better microbiome environment to exist within you. It also was mind-blowing to find out that the number of cells in our body that are ours is outnumbered by cells that are not ours. This definitely took me for a loop. I am currently in histology and I believe that all this really means is that our cells are far larger than those that inhabit our body. Because even though there are more of their cells, they only make up 1-3% of our total mass. It is also interesting how much the diversity of cultures changes as you move through the body, with each specialized area seeming to have a single bacteria or microorganism that makes that its niche, therefore being the keystone of that area. When I first was looking into this I thought that it would be nearly the exact same as we move through the whole body because it all connects and would be rather simple for the organisms to move to a new location. The final thing that I was most surprised by is how our body uses resources to feed and grow this microbiome. It's something that we are unaware is happening but our body just does it. The slides state about 10-15 percent of energy is spent making and storing energy and food for the microbiome. From an evolutionary standpoint it is quite amazing. This mutualistic relationship has to be one of the most extreme examples if not the most extreme that I have ever seen. Here I was thinking that mitochondria was the coolest thing but microbiome has to take the cake on this one. I look forward to seeing how all of this connects even more without future topics.