Archive for the ‘Hormone Clinic’ Category

Despite critics' claims of junk science, the Republican-led Ohio Senate held its first hearing Wednesday on a bill that would require doctors who provide medication for an abortion to tell their patients that the procedure could be reversed.

The proposal, under consideration by the Health, Human Services and Medicaid Committee, is controversial because many medical expertssay the claim is false and not supported by science.

The legislative debate cameabout the same time that news broke that Toledo had become one of the largest cities in the nation without a clinic providing surgical abortions; its sole remaining facility surrendered its license for such procedures to the state on Sept. 10. Ohio Department of Health spokesman Russ Kennedy said Capital Care Network of Toledo's new owners decided to perform only chemically induced abortions.

Senate Bill 155, sponsored by Sen. Peggy Lehner, R-Kettering, would mandate that at least 24 hours before prescribing medication to terminate a pregnancy, doctors provide women with information stating that it may be possible to reverse the intended effects of a mifepristone abortion if she changes her mind, but time is of the essence.

Doctors who fail to give patients such information would face a first-degree criminal misdemeanor, which carries a penalty of up to six months in jail and a fine of $1,000. Subsequent violations would be fourth-degree felonies with the possibility of an 18-month sentence.

In testimony Wednesday, Lehner told committee members that she wants toensure that women have true choice.

This legislation is intended to give another choice to women who are in desperate situations. We are not forcing anyone to take the abortion-pill reversal treatment we simply want to give women more information on another option available to them, Lehner said.

Sen. Cecil Thomas, D-Cincinnati, said the bill would require doctors to give patients untested information.

Wouldnt it be wise to wait until the Food and Drug Administration had proved (the medication) for abortion reversal? he asked Lehner.

Lehner said it has been successfully used for years to prevent women from having miscarriages.I dont know what there is to wait for," she said.

If there is something that can help a woman who has changed her mind not live with the regret that she would have if she proceeded with the abortion, (it) is something that ought to be available to her.

Eight other states have passed similar laws. Last week, a federal judge blocked North Dakotas law, finding that assertions that abortions could be reversed were unproven and that the state should not require doctors to give patients misleading and inaccurate information. Arizona lawmakers repealed a state law earlier this year after it was challenged in court.

Both the American Medical Association, which was a plaintiff in the North Dakota lawsuit, and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology have disputed claims that the effects of an abortion pill can be reversed.

Jamie Miracle, deputy director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio, said such laws require physicians to provide patients with medically inaccurate information at best, and potentially harmful information at worse.

Medication abortions are generally an option for women in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. Of the nearly 21,000 abortions performed in Ohio in 2017, the most recent data available from the health department, more than a quarter involved medicine; nearly all used mifepristone.

Typically, a woman is given two drugs: She first takes mifepristone to block the progesterone hormone that helps maintain pregnancy, followed some hours later by misoprostol, which makes the uterus contract and expel the embryo to complete the abortion.

Backers ofabortion reversal contend that the medication-based procedure could be reversed if a woman has not taken the second pill and she is given progesterone to counter the effects of mifepristone.

Lehner cited a 2018 study by Dr. George Delgado finding that high doses of progesterone successfully reversed abortions in 64% to 68% of cases without increased risk of birth defects. Critics have discounted the finding, saying the analysis was not scientific and did not use a control group for comparison.

Meanwhile, abortion-rights opponents celebrated developments in Toledo.

"No more babies will be torn apart within their mother's womb here in Toledo," said Ed Sitter, executive director of Greater Toledo Right to Life.

Stephanie Ranade Krider, vice president of Ohio Right to Life, said, "This clinic has acted in a reckless and above-the-law manner, putting women's health and safety at risk for years. ... While this facility will undoubtedly continue to profit off of women seeking chemical abortions, with over 1,300 abortions in Lucas County in 2017, the loss of their surgical license will save many lives."

Kellie Copeland, NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio's executive director, said, "These changes are happening as a natural part of running a health-care facility and unrelated to any politically motivated actions from the state legislature or administration."

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Abortion pill 'reversals' debated in Ohio as Toledo clinic halts surgeries to end pregnancies - The Columbus Dispatch

The frequent night feedings. The fussing that seemingly cant be soothed. The rearranging of your days to tend to the constant needs of a brand new baby. It can all catch up to any new parent.

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While we typically associate the baby blues and postpartum depression with women, new fathers can experience serious mood changes after bringing baby home, too.

In fact, paternal postnatal depression is wildly common, says psychologist Scott Bea, PsyD. About 10% of fathers become depressed before or just after their baby is born, according to research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Postpartum blues are especially common three to six months after the birth, with as many as one in four dads experiencing symptoms.

The reason is partly biological, Dr. Bea says. Everyone knows that mothers hormones change a lot during and after pregnancy. But theres evidence that fathers also experience real changes in their hormone levels after a baby is born, he explains.

And plenty of non-hormonal factors are at play, too:

Symptoms of depression can look different in men and women. Some of the more common signs in men include:

Men who have a history of depression might be at greaterrisk of postpartum depression. So are new fathers whose partners also havepostpartum symptoms.

Unfortunately, many men laugh off the idea of paternalpostpartum depression. And even if they accept its the real deal, they might notadmit its affecting them.

But theres nothingshameful about postpartum depression, Dr. Bea stresses. Fatherhood is a hugenew job, with long hours and no pay, and society doesnt do a good enough jobsupporting men in this role.

To maintain a positive mood when youre in the thick of newfatherhood, Dr. Bea recommends focusing on the self-care basics:

Adjusting to a new baby takes time. Its normal for yourmood to be a little rocky in the process. But if your symptoms last more than twoto three weeks, consider help from a counselor or psychotherapist.

Asking for helpdoesnt mean youre helpless, Dr. Bea points out. It means youre doing whatyou need to do so you can be the best partner and best dad you can be.

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Yes, Postpartum Depression in Men Is Very Real - Health Essentials from Cleveland Clinic

Struggling to shift the pounds and keep them off? Well, according to one of Harley Streets leading nutritional therapists, it could be down to your own hormones.

Stephanie Webster, who works with at the Urban Health Method Clinic in London, believes optimising our hormones may be the key to getting rid of unwanted weight gain. She thinks understanding our body and whats going on inside them could help women find the most effective solution for their weight loss struggles and hormonal weight gain.

The Urban Health Method Clinic uses the DUTCH Plus test, which is a comprehensive test of all 35 different horomones, to identify and highlight hormone imbalances in our bodies. Particular attention is paid to the stress hormone cortisol, which has been linked to hormonal weight gain. Hormones are about much more than just sex; they play a role in practically every human function, and actually influence everything from mental agility and body composition to how quickly we age, explains Stephanie. Even minor hormone imbalances, which occur naturally as we get older, can have a huge effect on our overall health and well-being. But many people, particularly women, are suffering in silence.

Stephanie explains that if you understand your bodys personal needs, you can then speak to your GP about supplementing your diet with the right bioidentical hormones. Bioidentical hormones are man-made hormones that are very similar to the hormones produced by the human body. Common bioidentical hormones that are matched are oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone. These are used for treatment in both men and women whose own hormones are low or out of balance.

Hormones are chemicals produced by different glands and tissues in the body and are responsible for regulating several processes in the body, such as appetite and metabolism, sleep cycles, heart rate, stress levels and body temperature. Women may experience imbalances (too much or too little of a certain hormone) in insulin, cortisol, thyroxin, androgens, oestrogen and progesterone, and this can impact your body.

Excess insulin,in particular, can cause weight gain and inflammation, by storing too much fat, while too much cortisol can shut down digestion and slow down your metabolism. If left it can cause high blood sugar, increased belly fat, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

If you have a hormonal imbalance then you should speak to your GP about bioidentical hormones. But Stephanie advocates that you think about wider lifestyle changes. She reveals that she has identified that clients who also focus on improving their diet and minimising their stress levels can naturally work to optimise their hormones, resulting in accelerated fat loss. She recommends a diet free of processed and junk foods and high in protein.

Ultimately, Stephanie believes in prevention over cure, which is why they offer a wide range of diagnostic services, including health tests, DNA tests and body composition tests to help you care for your body and minimise disease risk, through simple, yet effective lifestyle choices, such as eating a healthy diet, boosting activity levels and understanding what your body needs to perform optimally.

If you believe that you might have a hormonal imbalance we recommend that you speak to your GP.

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Are your hormones the reason youre not losing weight? - woman&home

Fatal blood clots, suicidal behavior, lowered IQs, brittle bones and sterility are just a few of the potential side effects of puberty blockers that the transgender industry doesnt want talked about.

Thousands of children attending affirmative gender health clinics globally, including in the United States and the United Kingdom, are being given powerful puberty-blocking drugs with a litany of serious side effects including death according to Food and Drug Administration data.

And the National Health Service (NHS) in England is currently investigating issues surrounding use of the drugs since it registered a 4,500% increase last fall in the number of youths seeking treatments to alter their biological sex in the previous nine years.

The drugs, sometimes referred to as chemical castrators because they are used to treat sex offenders, are increasingly used as a first-line treatment for gender-confused children as young as 10 years old when they are referred to counseling.

Frequently on their first consultation, children and teens are implanted with hormone-blocker-releasing rods or taught to self-inject the drugs to pause their adolescence and prevent developmental changes, like growth of breasts and facial hair while they decide on which sex they would like to identify.

The practice recently gained the endorsement of the Endocrine Society and the American Academy of Pediatrics, but the Food and Drug Administration has not licensed the drugs for transgender medicine due to lack of supportive evidence. They are approved for treating prostate cancer and uterine pain in adults. The agency has recorded more than 41,000 adverse events reported with their use between 2013 and June 30, 2019.

More than 26,000 of the events associated with the two hormone blockers, Leuprolide acetate and triptorelin (which includes Lupron and similar drugs used by clinics), were classified by the federal agency as serious, including 6,370 deaths. The drugs, which dramatically lower testosterone and estrogen levels in the body, are linked to life-threatening blood clots and other complaints, include brittle bones and joint pain.

Inducing Disease

The recent increase in the number of gender dysphoric youths seeking drug treatments is particularly alarming to experts who see the drugs effects as too risky to prescribe in their current form if at all.

Michael Laidlaw, an endocrinologist from Rocklin, California, testified before the British House of Lords on the issue of transgender health care in May. Laidlaw told the Register, These drugs actually induce a known disease in previously hormonally healthy children.

Puberty blockers, he explained, interfere with normal signals between the brain and the sex organs, thereby creating a disease state called hypogonadotropic hypogonadism in youths. Its a serious condition that endocrinologists would normally diagnose and treat because it interferes with development, but in [gender dysphoria] cases theyre inducing this disease state, Laidlaw said.

Because the drugs are relatively new, their long-term effects have yet to be fully determined, but one 2018 study of long-term risks of puberty blockers from researchers at Boston Childrens Hospital found that while side effects of the drugs are advertised to resolve three-six months after stopping treatment, in actuality, the majority of subjects reported long-term side effects while almost one-third reported irreversible side effects that persisted for years after discontinuing treatment.

In addition to experts, those who have experienced the drugs effects are also raising the alarm.

On social-media platforms, women describe crippling long-term side effects after taking the drugs as children. One woman on a Facebook page called BAN Lupron said she was given Lupron for years as a young child to stop premature puberty, and now, as a 24-year-old mother of two, I have [a] herniated disc in my lower lumbar, S-I Joint dysfunction, [a] shredded meniscus in my right knee shoulder pain tendonitis in my left foot, extreme tooth decay and minimal teeth left, TMJ [jaw pain].

A 25-year-old said on the page that she suffers from osteoporosis and a cracked spine, while a 26-year-old indicated the need for a total hip replacement.

Youths who take puberty blockers complain of similar side effects and of menopausal symptoms, including hot flashes, insomnia, fatigue, rapid weight gain and depleted bone density.

I stubbed my toe; it broke. I fell over; my wrist broke. Same with my elbow, an anonymous teen, who was prescribed the drugs by the Tavistock NHS gender center, told the Times newspaper of London.

They promise you that your breasts will disappear, that your voice will be deeper, that I would look and sound more like a boy. For me, that was the best thing that could have happened, the teen said about her attitude at the time, but she came to call taking the drugs the worst decision Ive ever made.

Evolving Guidelines

These and similar complaints have come to the attention of some members of the medical community, who urge some kind of government oversight.

Yes, there can be poor or improper treatments by some; thus, governments as well as medical organizations should investigate reports of patient/family complaints in this regard, Michigan State University pediatrician Donald Greydanus told the Register. Greydanus is one of eight authors of a paper, published in the August issue of the journal Disease-a-Month, overviewing care of teens who identify as transgender.

Greydanus is not necessarily opposed to the use of castration drugs, but he acknowledges that prudence must still play a role in how they are administered especially since the drugs have a sketchy safety record.

Adolescents with gender dysphoria should not be started on puberty blockers until at least early adolescence, he said. Sex-affirming hormone therapy using high levels of hormones of the opposite sex may start soon after, and surgery by age 18, generally, but he said, These guidelines continue to evolve and to be debated!

Greydanus added that proper informed consent should let all parties know the drugs risks before they are given.

All drugs have side effects, he told the Register, and some can be worse in some patients versus others.

However, Laidlaw called the hormone-blocking drugs untested and unsafe for adolescent children. He referred to them as development blockers because their results are systemic and block normal brain development and a host of other body functions as well as sexual maturation.

Development is so stunted, he said. If you take these long-term, you wind up with an adult with child-like sex organs. If they are taken at a very early stage, they wont develop sperm. Permanent infertility is a possible outcome for those who use the drugs, he said.

Puberty is a time of tremendous growth and not just in the gonads, he said, noting that bone formation is also taking place at this time. They are lengthening as well as strengthening.

The effects of the drugs on bone density are well-documented, Laidlaw said. By the end of two years the bone density of the girls [taking puberty blockers] is down in the lowest 3%.

Mental-Health Concerns

According to guidelines from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, children must be screened for underlying mental issues. Yet a Freedom of Information request filed by Oxford sociologist Michael Biggs revealed that nearly one-third of the children treated at one clinic in Britain had been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.

Besides putting patients with pre-existing mental conditions at risk, the drugs also seem to be having a deleterious effect on young patients developing mental capacities, studies have shown.

Puberty is also a time of tremendous brain changes, when gray matter becomes denser which may explain why puberty blockers have been found to lower IQ.

One 2016 study found that girls treated with puberty blockers had an eight-point lower IQ score than controls who did not receive the treatment. This was similar to the seven-point IQ drop from 100 to 93 reported among 25 girls who took puberty blockers for two years for early puberty and a nine-point IQ drop in a study of a 12-year-old boy 28 months after taking the blockers.

Proponents of the drugs claim the effects are reversible, but we dont know what will happen in all the cases, Laidlaw said.

But the mental damage may be even more serious than a drop in IQ for patients.

Concerns about the impact of puberty-blocking drugs on the mental health of youths were raised in England when Biggs uncovered the unpublished results of a study by the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trusts Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS).

Although the results for using puberty blockers had been reported to the public as positive, Biggs found that for all but one yardstick (that of parents perspective) the outcomes were negative and that a significant increase was found in the number of drug-treated youths who agreed with the statement: I deliberately try to hurt or kill self.

Transgender Censorship

But even scientific evidence pointing to the risks of castration drugs doesnt seem to matter to the cultural gatekeepers who wish to see transgenderism normalized in society.

Demand for the drugs as puberty blockers has skyrocketed with government-sponsored and cultural transgender programming, including television shows like I Am Jazz, an American reality TV following Florida teen Jazz Jennings, who was born male but took hormones and was surgically castrated to appear female. And the market for the drug has a potential to expand further, as gender science is extending to transgender preschool children.

With such positive reinforcement of transgenderism in culture, criticism of treatment for gender dysphoria is increasingly banned as harmful and transphobic. The same tendency toward censorship also surfaced recently in state legislation. Last month, North Carolina became the 18th state to ban the use of taxpayer dollars for any conversion therapy practices that seek to help transgender children overcome their confusion without drugs and surgery.

Experts in the field are also not immune to such censorship. Laidlaw told the Register that as an endocrinologist, he tweeted on July 21 about the dangers of puberty blockers but his tweet was deleted by Twitter last month, and he has been unable to post on the platform since.

Likewise, when Biggs revealed the unpublished GIDS report to the British press, the Oxford professors Twitter account was reportedly suspended for transphobic statements.

Catholic Teaching

Aside from the medical risks involved with castration drugs, the principle driving their promotion flies in the face of Catholic teaching on human sexuality.

Pope Francis addressed the issue of transgenderism in his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si (Care for Our Common Home), citing the words of his predecessor, Benedict XVI, that man too has a nature that he must respect and that he cannot manipulate at will.

Man, Benedict said inhis September 2011 address to the German Parliament, does not create himself. He is intellect and will, but he is also nature, and his will is rightly ordered if he respects his nature, listens to it and accepts himself for who he is, as one who did not create himself.

[V]aluing ones own body in its femininity or masculinity is necessary if I am going to be able to recognize myself in an encounter with someone who is different, Pope Francis added. In this way we can joyfully accept the specific gifts of another man or woman, the work of God the Creator, and find mutual enrichment.

Celeste McGovern writes from Nova Scotia, Canada.

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FDA: Thousands of Deaths Associated With Drugs Given to 'Trans' Children - National Catholic Register

TheGender Identity Development Service (GIDS), run by the Tavistock and Portman National Health Service (NHS) Trust in the UK is offering appointments, diagnosis, and even medication for children who are "transitioning" because they suffer from gender dysphoria. The children in question can be as young as three years old.

The Daily Mail reported, "last year 2,590 children were referred to the clinic, a rise of more than 400 per cent since 2013, leading to a two-year waiting list." This waiting list is one of the reasons the clinic will now offer online treatment. "Ten of the children were aged three or four and dozens more were of primary-school age. The treatment includes giving the children hormone-blocking drugs."

Puberty-blocking drugs are highly controversial and can lead to infertility and sterilization. A review of the scientific evidence for this procedure was done byPaul W. Hruz,Lawrence S. Mayer, andPaul R. McHugh and found that "the evidence for the safety and efficacy of puberty suppression is thin, based more on the subjective judgments of clinicians than on rigorous empirical evidence. It is, in this sense, still experimental yet it is an experiment being conducted in an uncontrolled and unsystematic manner. In their detailed and meticulously-researched article, they raise troubling questions in regards to side-effects and consequences of using puberty-blocking drugs.

Even as experts are sounding alarm bells about the safety of such drugs, the doctors of NHS are increasing the number of children they prescribe them to exponentially by adding "telemedical" appointments to their process.

A spokesman for the Tavistock and Portman Trust told The Daily Mail they are "using digital technologies to increase efficiency and to enhance patient experience where appropriate is an area of development across the NHS." They went on to say, "The Trust is working to minimise waiting times and make clinical support easier to access, including eliminating travel time for young people and their families, which will also allow us to offer appointments earlier and later in the day."

The clinic is offering this "sex change by Skype" in the middle of rising controversy from psychologists and other professionals who say these methods are rushing children towards irreversible consequences. Some experts are calling this method child abuse. PJ Media's Tyler O'Neil recently spoke to Dr. Michael Laidlaw, an edocrinologist, who says these drugs are giving children a disease.

"I call it a development blocker its actually causing a disease,"Dr. Michael Laidlaw, anindependent private practiceendocrinologist in Rocklin, Calif. who consults with Sutter Roseville Medical Center, told PJ Media. The disease in question is hypogonadotropic hypogonadism. It occurs when the brain fails to send the right signal to the gonads to make the hormones necessary for development.

The rush forward to add more and more children to an untested experiment that can cause lifelong injury is a head-scratching fact of modern medicine. The BBC investigation video below shows that dangerous practices in this area of medicine are continuing without pause.One can only hope that the victims who will be injured by these experiments will file lawsuits to finally put an end to it.

Megan Fox is the author of Believe Evidence; The Death of Due Process from Salome to #MeToo. Follow on Twitter @MeganFoxWriter

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UK Gender Clinic Will Push Kids to Puberty Suppression Online - PJ Media

Doctors have long known that playing high-intensity sports can trigger serious heart rhythm problems in people with certain underlying heart conditions. Now, a new report suggests that playing electronic games particularly war games may be a trigger as well.

The report, from researchers in Australia, describes three unrelated cases of children who fainted while playing electronic war games. All of these children had underlying conditions that affect the heart's electrical system and can be life-threatening. But in two of the cases, the child's heart problem wasn't discovered until after they fainted while gaming.

The intense, emotionally-involved play of the games may result in the release of stress hormones that could be a trigger for heart rhythm problems in susceptible people, experts said.

Related: Top 10 Amazing Facts About Your Heart

In the first case, a 10-year-old boy suddenly lost consciousness at home after winning the war game he was playing, according to the report, published Sept. 19 in the New England Journal of Medicine. He soon regained consciousness and seemed alright. But later, the boy experienced a cardiac arrest at school due to a life-threatening condition known as ventricular fibrillation, in which the heart quivers instead of beating properly. He was diagnosed with a rare condition called catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia (CPVT), a heart rhythm disorder that results from a genetic mutation, according to the National Institutes of Health.

The second case involved a 15-year-old boy who had previously undergone heart surgery to repair a hole in his heart that he was born with. The boy started to faint right as he was about to win the war game he was playing. He was diagnosed with ventricular tachycardia, a heart rhythm disorder in which the heart beats faster than normal, and the lower heart chambers are out of sync with the upper chambers, according to the Mayo Clinic.

The boy received a device known as an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD), which detects and stops abnormal heartbeats. About two months later, the boy experienced another episode of ventricular tachycardia, again while he was about to win his game. But the ICD successfully restored his heart rhythm.

In the third case, an 11-year-old boy collapsed after having heart palpitations while "animatedly playing an electronic war game with a friend," the report said. He regained consciousness and was diagnosed with long-QT syndrome, a heart rhythm condition that can cause irregular heartbeats. The condition can be genetic, and the boy later had two family members diagnosed with long-QT syndrome.

Dr. Ronald Kanter, a cardiologist and director of electrophysiology at Nicklaus Children's Hospital in Miami, who wasn't involved in the report, said he hadn't heard of electronic games triggering heart rhythm problems prior to this study. However, Kanter said he wasn't surprised that it happened.

"Anything that causes a sudden surge of the body's stress hormone adrenaline can put vulnerable patients at risk of going into a dangerous heart rhythm," Kanter told Live Science.

Both long-QT syndrome and CPVT are notorious for causing heart rhythm problems triggered by emotional stress, in addition to physical stress, he added.

"These electronic games are emotionally stressful, that's part of the thrill of them," Kanter said. "It shouldn't surprise anybody really."

Heart conditions that can lead to dangerous rhythm problems are not all that rare, Kanter said.

However, "the likelihood of a youngster who participates in electronic gaming having an event is probably very very uncommon," given that so many young people do this kind of gaming, he said.

It's unclear at this time whether children with heart rhythm problems should avoid playing electronic games. The new report appears to be one of the first to link heart rhythm problems with electronic gaming. "We don't know what kind of risk their really is," Kanter said.

What's more, children diagnosed with heart rhythm problems were once told they couldn't play high-intensity sports. But now, even those recommendations are changing, Kanter said.

For example, in some cases, people with long-QT syndrome may be able to participate in competitive sports, after carefully reviewing the risks and benefits with a doctor, the Mayo Clinic says.

Kanter said there will likely be a lot of discussion and research going forward on whether children with heart rhythm problems should avoid electronic games. With this one report, "we're only at the beginning of that experience," he said.

Originally published on Live Science.

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Gaming May Trigger Heart Rhythm Problems in Susceptible Kids, Report Says - Livescience.com

For two weeks every month Rachel* would be engulfed in a depression so deep she felt like she was walking through treacle. As a gifted athlete and high achiever academically, it was entirely out of character.

Half the month I was extroverted, firing on all cylinders, Rachel says. Then I would hit ovulation. And at that time I became dysfunctional, shy and withdrawn. Its like I woke up one day and became a completely different person. And from then until I started menstruating I became utterly dysfunctional. Then I would get my period and I would be fine. And this happened again and again and again.

She says these symptoms which doctors have now attributed to premenstrual dysphoric disorder, or PMDD have affected intimate relationships and friendships over the years because she would withdraw socially if she felt the fog of depression closing in: I couldnt stand myself so how could anyone else?

PMDD affects between 3% and 8% of women of reproductive age. Its caused by fluctuations in hormone levels which affect brain chemistry and result in severe mood disturbances, says Prof Jayashri Kulkarni, a psychiatrist and director of the Monash Alfred psychiatry research centre at Monash University in Melbourne.

Unlike PMS, which hits two to four days out from menstruation with various physical and emotional symptoms, the onset of PMDD is one to two weeks before a woman gets her period, known as the luteal phase. It results in a sudden and significant depression and lifts just as abruptly when the womans period begins.

This is a condition where there are significant depression symptoms, and that can include suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts, some of which are, tragically, realised, says Kulkarni, who has been working in and researching the area of womens mental health for almost 30 years.

Some of the key features of PMDD are when a woman says, Its like someone flicked a switch. Im OK, then suddenly, bang, there is a major depression. I cant get out of bed, I cant think. I get tearful, I get irritable, I get angry, I cant process cognitively very well.

Kulkarni says PMDD symptoms, including anxiety, rage and hostility all symptoms of depression although often not recognised as such can wreak havoc on relationships. All sorts of things can go astray, including work performances and relationships with colleagues, she says.

Kulkarni has seen adolescents as young as 12 affected, all the way through to women nearing menopause, when the condition typically worsens.

Although women have been battling this condition for generations, PMDD has been recognised as a clinical mental health condition for only six years. In 2013 it was included as a depressive disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mood Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association.

There are some women who are more sensitive to their hormone fluctuations than others

Significantly, a gene related to PMDD was found by researchers from the US National Institutes of Health and published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry in 2017. It points to a biological predisposition for those women who are extra sensitive to the normal hormonal fluctuations in their cycles. At the time the gene discovery was published, an NIH researcher, Dr David Goldman, said: This is a big moment for womens health because it establishes that women with PMDD have an intrinsic difference in their molecular apparatus for response to sex hormones not just emotional behaviours they should be able to voluntarily control.

Its a pivotal time for womens wellbeing in Australia. Its a time when womens health issues, like endometriosis, are finally being talked about and taken seriously evidenced by the $10m federal government funding boost for endometriosis research and awareness announced earlier this year by the health minister, Greg Hunt.

Kulkarni is at pains to emphasise that PMDD is not just below the belt but a condition with its epicentre in the brain.

She says all the hormones involved in a womans cycle progesterone, oestrogen and testosterone are potent brain chemicals.

Progesterone, and in particular allopregnanolone (a hormone produced when progesterone is broken down in the brain), is thought to be a major cause of PMDD, she says. But oestrogen protects the brain in many ways, and imbalances in progesterone and oestrogen in the brain can lead to the depression symptoms seen in women with PMDD.

These are all very potent hormones. And there are some women who are more sensitive to their hormone fluctuations than others.

Rachel is one of those women. Her experience can be traced back to adolescence, but she was officially diagnosed only six years ago, in her early 30s, after years searching for an answer. A red flag for Rachel, as well as her depressive symptoms, was when her inner dialogue would suddenly nosedive into negative self-talk. There would suddenly be a shift an almost bullying way of talking to myself that wasnt characteristic of me, she says.

A PMDD diagnosis requires women to experience at least five symptoms in the final week before her period, which improve when menstruation starts and are minimal or absent in the remaining weeks of her cycle. These include mood swings, irritability, anger, anxiety, tension, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, social withdrawal and as Rachel experienced self-deprecating thoughts. There can be physical symptoms too, such as breast tenderness or swelling, joint or muscle pain, and a sensation of bloating or weight gain. Often women are asked to keep a diary to note the symptoms for several cycles before a diagnosis is reached.

Treatment can vary from practitioner to practitioner and from patient to patient the same approach does not necessarily work for everyone. Kulkarni works closely with an endocrinologist and favours a multipronged approach involving hormone modulation experimenting with doses of progesterone and oestrogen (including the contraceptive pill and oestrogen patches) underpinned by psychological support. Low doses of antidepressant medication are added if needed but are not the first line of treatment. In the worst-case scenario, when women are not responding to any other treatments, inducing menopause with medication is an option.

The thing is, womens mental health is not a national priority and it should be

We have in the past had to resort to chemical menopause, at the very severe end, where somebody is profoundly depressed and their life is at risk, she says. Thats an extreme approach and very few people need it. Its essentially shutting off those hormonal fluctuations. And weve had some great successes in women who have tried everything else and nothing has worked.

Kulkarni says hysterectomies are not advocated by the clinic unless there is a very clear physical health reason beyond PMDD, such as additional complications with fibroids or severe endometriosis.

For Rachel the combination of psychological support, hormonal and anti-depressant treatment has allowed her to manage her condition, although it has taken time.

The big thing I have noticed in the past six months in particular is that the fog has lifted, she says. There isnt this cognitive fog, this sense of walking through treacle, which was the fatigue I had a lot of the time.

She says she found it hard to confide in anyone about her condition, including female friends. In the past she would reach out if she was struggling but with PMDD, she feels there is still a stigma and a lack of language around how to talk to others about a womens health condition.

Even between other women, just saying, My hormones at the moment mean that I dont feel like myself. How do we talk about that?

The thing that has really hit me with all this, is that mood isnt just depression and anxiety. It sits so much within your hormones and broader health. That our experience of those things, as women, are so interrelated with our hormones and we just dont talk about it. Its because its womens health.

Kulkarni agrees and says awareness needs to be raised nationally around womens mental health: The thing is, womens mental health is not a national priority and it should be.

* Name has been changed

Excerpt from:
'Like someone flicked a switch': the premenstrual disorder that upturns women's lives - The Guardian

For mild cases of hypothyroidism, not all patients need treatment. File photo/TNS

Dear Mayo Clinic: I recently was diagnosed with mild hypothyroidism that isnt causing symptoms. My doctor says I dont need treatment now, but she wants me to come back for regular checkups. Does hypothyroidism usually get worse over time? If it does, how is it treated?

A: For mild cases of hypothyroidism, not all patients need treatment. Occasionally, the condition may resolve without treatment. Follow-up appointments are important to monitor hypothyroidism over time, however. If hypothyroidism doesnt go away on its own within several months, then treatment is necessary. If left untreated, this condition eventually may lead to serious health problems.

The thyroid gland is a small butterfly-shaped gland in the front of the neck that makes the hormones triiodothyronine, or T3, and thyroxine, or T4. Those hormones affect all aspects of your metabolism. They maintain the rate at which your body uses fats and carbohydrates, help control your body temperature, influence your heart rate, and help regulate the production of proteins. The amount of thyroid hormones your body makes is regulated by another hormone called thyroid stimulating hormone, or TSH, thats produced by the pituitary gland.

Hypothyroidism develops when the thyroid doesnt make enough hormones. As a result, your metabolism slows down. As thyroid activity slows, the level of T4 in your body decreases, and the level of TSH increases to encourage the thyroid gland to raise T4 production.

Some mild cases of hypothyroidism, called subclinical hypothyroidism, are associated with an elevated TSH while the T4 level stays within the normal range. At that point, the condition may not produce any noticeable symptoms. But if the decrease inT3 and T4 continues (referred to as overt hypothyroidism), it can affect many bodily functions.

Common early symptoms of hypothyroidism include unexplained weight gain, fatigue and low energy. It also may cause dry skin, constipation, sensitivity to cold, a puffy face, muscle weakness, hoarseness, and joint pain or stiffness.

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Mild hypothyroidism may not need treatment - Gulf Today

This month we explain How Your Body works.

What is Chrono Nutrition?

Please note that Chrono-nutrition is not a diet (with the yo-yo effects that often result from it), but a way of food rebalancing. It is not restrictive and does not involve deprivation.

You can eat all food you can continue to eat french fries, chocolate, cheese, butter only if you respect the times and quantities! This program will also be adapted if you have cholesterol, diabetes.

It will allow you to lose or gain weight and to reach a well-balanced body shape.

All foods are allowed, provided they are eaten in the right quantity at the right time!

Eating well and ensuring to provide the right quantities of all the essential elements necessary for your body will reduce the appearance of a large number of diseases.

Why?

Our French Chrono-nutrition program is based on your biorhythms, so if we give to your organs the right portion of food they really need at the right moment of the day: you will start losing weight! You must know that your body is regulated like a clock so if you listen to this internal clock, your organs will work well and your body will have all the elements to lose weight.

Do you know what biorhythms means?

Howto domore,and better,without feelingwiped outat the end oftheday? Its easy;all you need to dois listen toyourbodya little bit. Hourby hour,heres howto followyour biorhythmsto eatbetter,sleepand havemore energy.

5:00 am 7:00 am

Were stillsleeping,butourbody is already working. After going down toitslowest levelat around4am,whichexplains nightshivers,thebodytemperaturegoes up slowly. Thesuprarenalglands start manufacturing cortisol,thehormonefor stressandvigilance,andmake it possiblefor the bodyto haveastockready to meet all aggressions which it will facein the course of the day.

7:00 am 8:00 pm

Cortisolhas reached its peak;adrenalingoes up, involvinganaccelerationofthe heart rateanda rise in blood pressure. Its the time when weopenoureyes. However, for some of us, waking up can be difficult. Afterafastof more than six hours, a hearty breakfastis essential. The mainmealoftheday,its composedofagoodamount of carbohydrate,whichthe brainwill needinthemorning,ofproteinsand lipidsto holdon untillunch. Start to drink: 1 or 2 big glass of water with fresh lemon.

8:00 am 10:00 am

Lets go,but,carefully,please! Thislongday is barelystarting you drop off thechildren to the nurseryorschool,you runto work,youenjoyacup of coffeeon aterraceandyou enjoy thefirstsunraysoftheday, you chitchat with your colleagues around the coffee machine In fact,thesefirstsocial contactsstart stimulatingyourcortex,thepart ofthebrainwhichmakes it possibleto think. There is no point in attacking big files: your warming upperiod is not completely finished! Itis the timeto updateyourmeeting schedule,to read youre-mails,to doallthesesmalldaily tasks, which whilst necessary,do not ask for a lot of thinkingand concentration and drink water with lemon and mint if you like!

2) At lunch, do a break!

11:00 am 3:00 pm

Here is the favorite moment of relaxation for most of you!It is important to note that during your lunch, you will need to absorb animal or vegetable proteins in order to federate a carbohydrate reserve to self-manage the rest of your day.

Carbohydrates are essential to our body! Carbohydrates are one of the macronutrients essential to the functioning of our body. Their primary role is to provide energy to the cells. When ingested, they turn into glucose, a real fuel for our body. This molecule is the preferred food for neurons and the only food for red blood cells. Note that our brain consumes about 140 grams of glucose every day.Then, you will have the pleasure to eat for example white meat + potatoes a real meal based on Chrono-nutrition !!

3:00 pm6:00 pm

Withanincreaseofglycaemia,the hormonesforvigilance,and of temperature,were going through a new phaseofoptimal effectiveness. The perfectmomentto get througha tonofwork,withoutforgettingto takeabreak every 90 minutes. Notonlyourcapacityforassimilationandmemorizingis at its highest level,butwearealsoatthe maximumofourphysical shape. For example: Many sportsrecordswere beatenbetween3and 6 pm.

Its time to eat your snack: to conserve your energy to the maximum, think about eating almonds or any other oilseeds and fresh fruit or fruit juice; The afternoon is the only time your body will accept sugar while eliminating it.

7:00 pm9:00 pmAround6:30 pm,thetemperaturestartsto dropto preparethebodyforsleep. This is good because its dinner time! The ideal,afteralightmeal or a little bitfatty,is to goout for a quickfifteen-minute walk andthengo on and relax. You will eat for example vegetables and fish without dessert!

10:00 pm 11:30 pm

Youyawnandshiver. Itisbecauseyourtension decreases,becauseyourtemperaturestillgoes down,when your melatonin rate,the hormoneresponsible forsleep,starts going upto reach itspeakin the middle ofthenight. Theearly risers will be thefirstinbed.

Be careful,at night, yourbronchinarrowdown because theproductionofadrenalinandnoradrenalingoes into sleep mode until the following morning. Therefore if you can, try to put on your pillows a few drops of lavender or fig to help you sleep well and breathe well.

Theolder you get,themore necessary it becomes for you to listen toandrespectanysignsyourbody gives you. However, I am convinced that by already putting into practice my advice on your daily biorhythm, you will live much better days, full of energy but with less stress!

If you want to lose weight or simply understand the secrets of a balanced diet, ENJOY MY DIET team will receive you in their office in Bird Road and will take care of you for a complete nutritional assessment.

To schedule your complimentary appointment contact Clinic Libessart (305) 663 4499 Laurence Marmet (954) 477 9623 or email enjoymydiet@gmail.com or visit http://www.enjoymydiet.com.

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With Enjoy My Diet, Lose Weight SAFELY Without Being Deprived - Miami's Community Newspapers

Some psychiatrists on the frontlines of transgender care in Alberta fear their patients may soon face increased difficulty accessing certain health-care services.

With many transgender patients on waiting lists, which are in some cases close to three years long, some psychiatrists say the situation has the potential to get even worse for people seeking services like hormone therapy, gender-affirming surgery or even general mental health care.

The gender program in Edmonton is without its leader after Dr. Michael Marshall resigned. He recently spoke exclusively to Global News about his departure.

It is with regret I had to leave and with a heavy heart I left, Marshall said. In order to work for a population that is underserved and vulnerable, there are certain requirements, and without those requirements it was a struggle to do so.

Those requirements have to do with funding. Marshalls entire team, with the exception of a part-time nurse, was funded by University of Alberta grants that Marshall himself secured.

Those grants are expiring in early 2020.

Securing grants as a means of providing care is not sustainable, Marshall said.

Difficulties were sufficient enough that it made continuing on impossible.

Mark Snaterse, the executive director for addiction and mental health at Alberta Health Services, issued a statement about the matter to Global News.

There are no changes to AHS financial commitment to the gender program, and were committed to ensuring the services are available for clients who need them, he said.

Recruitment has begun for new physicians to support the gender program, Snaterse added. In the meantime, AHS will ensure there is appropriate coverage to continue providing specialized health and mental health care for transgender, gender non-conforming and non-binary people.

According to AHS, there are 650 people on the waitlist at the Edmonton clinic.

Dr. Joe Raiche, a Calgary psychiatrist specializing in transgender care, said he is worried about what will happen to those patients.

With the current gender program in Edmonton, if that will be dissolved or closed, thats 3,000 to 4,000 patients no longer served, so where do they go? he said.

The other psychiatrist is maxed out and doesnt have a lot of capacity to absorb that, so do they come to Calgary? We are looking at trickle down that will impact the entire province and unless theres a different system for transgender Albertans, it will add to that dismal wait time.

Nick North is one of those transgender patients. He waited years for gender-affirming surgery and is waiting even longer for the revision.

Results post top surgery.

I am 68th on the waitlist for my revision right now, North said. It wouldnt be good enough for anyone you love and its not good enough for us.

He said navigating the system was almost impossible.

The North Kids.

It was really scary and confusing and complicated to try to figure out, North said. I had this truth about myself [and] this is what I was looking for my whole life, but I didnt know how to go from being stuck here to the place I saw myself in the future.

I couldnt just Google, Oh, I have diabetes, now what do I do?'

The 34-year-old father has five children. He has tremendous support, but said its been a challenge waiting.

In many ways its torture because I knew I was years away from having this thing that felt it was as necessary as air.

And North hopes provincial politicians and health-care officials do something to close the gaps.

Youre telling people, Come out, we will love you and support you, but we actually wont.'

2019Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

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Head of programs resignation raises questions about accessibility to transgender care in Alberta - Global News

Are you concerned about your blood sugar? If the answer is yes, you're not alone. In fact, after learning that one-third of Americans have prediabetes, it's probably wise for all of us to read up on blood sugar, how it works, and what we need to do to keep our levels healthy.

In recent years, scientists have established a strong connection between brain health and blood sugar. In fact, Alzheimer's disease is often referred to as type 3 diabetes and according to the Mayo Clinic News Network: "It's an accepted fact that people with type 2 diabetes have a higher risk of Alzheimer's disease."

And now, a new study published in Science Advances found that the popular diabetes drug metformin was able to promote brain repair in mice. According to the authors of the study, the drug does this by activating stem cells in the brain, which can help establish new brain cells and repair the specific areas of the brain that have been damaged.

The researchers also wanted to know if metformin could restore cognitive function. At first they didn't notice a positive link, but when they looked deeper, they realized that the drug affected women differently than men. As the lead author on the study, Cindi Morshead, said, "When we first looked at the data, we did not see the benefit of the metformin treatment...Then we noticed that adult females tended to do better than the males."

Apparently, estrogenmore specifically a type of estrogen called estradiolenhances the stem cells' ability to respond to the drug. Meanwhile, testosteronewhich is often called the "male sex hormone"seemed to inhibit the process, explaining why the male mice didn't respond positively to the metformin treatment.

This result comes at an important time, as the scientific community reflects on the sex bias that exists in medical research. Historically, research studies were done only on men because it was thought that female sex hormones would skew results. As Morshead explains, "The thinking was that we're going to study males because everything you need to know is found in the male brain, and then the female brain just complicates things with hormones." But that thinking is not only "misguided and troublesome for advancing neurological health," as Morshead puts it, but it has caused clinical trials to fail and many women to be misdiagnosed or given useless treatments.

So what's next in the world of estrogen and brain health? The same group of scientists is working on a pilot study that will test the effects of metformin on brain repair and cognitive function in humans. They plan to increase the number of participants in the study to fully evaluate the way sex affects treatment outcomes.

See more here:
Can Estrogen Help Promote Brain Repair? - mindbodygreen.com

Over the last decade scientists have made huge advancements in our understanding of the human gut microbiome and how it affects our health. Unfortunately, a lot of what science has revealed is being drowned in what Harvard researcher William Hanage calls a tsunami of its own hype. Food companies and health bloggers push all sorts of exotic superfoods and make wild claims about what they can do. Just punch gut health into Google and youll get dozens of articles listing the things you should eat and drink, from yogurt and sauerkraut to kombucha and kefir. But the reality is, all these so-called experts are just guessing. One of the most important things science has taught us about gut health is that no two guts are exactly alike, so whats best for someone else isnt necessarily best for you. If you want to create the ideal diet for your gut, you have to start by taking a microbiome test such as the Gut Intelligence Test from Viome.

The human microbiome is the complex ecosystem of microorganisms that live in and on the human body, and the gut microbiome is the community of symbiotic bacteria and other microorganisms that live in your digestive tract. A microbiome test is like a DNA test, only instead of mapping out your genes, a microbiome test maps out the specific microorganisms in your gut and provides important insights into what theyre doing with the food you give them.

Over the last 15 years, scientists have discovered that this ecosystem plays a huge role in our overall health. Recent research has revealed that the gut microbiome affects almost every system in the body, including the digestive system, immune system, and cardiovascular system. Scientists have also found links between gut health and things a lot of us struggle with every day, such as weight management, sleep, and mental clarity, just to name a few.

Weight LossAfter years of research, scientists can now analyze the composition of your unique gut microbiome and tell with 90-percent accuracy whether or not you are obese. They have also identified specific gut microbes that play a role in keeping obesity at bay. If you are trying to lose weight, a gut microbiome test can tell you what foods to eat to provide nutrients for these specific microbes.

SleepThere are a lot of factors that keep us from getting a good nights sleep, from daily stress to cell phone addiction. For some people, however, gut imbalance could be the culprit. Scientists have recently discovered that several strains of bacteria in your gut contribute to your bodys supply of melatonin, which is the hormone that regulates your sleep-wake cycle. Helping these strains flourish could actually help you sleep better.

Mental ClarityEver been accused of thinking with your stomach? Well, dont worry. Turns out everybody does. Researchers have learned that the microorganisms in our digestive tract play a major role in producing neurotransmitters, hormones, proteins, and other compounds necessary for sending signals to and from the brain. In other words, your gut can affect how you feel and think in a very tangible way.

But to take advantage of these new scientific insights, you have to know exactly whats going on in your gut. And when it comes to that, nobody does it better than Viome.

Simply put, the Viome Gut Intelligent Test is the most advanced microbiome test in the world. It uses advanced metatranscriptomic sequencing technology developed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory for national security purposes to map the strains and species of bacteria, fungi, phages, yeast, parasites, and viruses that make up your unique gut microbiome. But you dont have to go to some sterile clinic to be poked and prodded. You can take Viomes state-of-the-art test from the comfort of your own home.

Once you place your order, Viome will send you an easy to use at-home kit to collect your sample. After you return your sample by mail, Viome analyzes it with the aforementioned microbe identification technology to determine what microorganisms live in your gut, how active they are, and what specific nutrients and toxins they produce from the food you eat. Viome then runs the results through an advanced artificial intelligence algorithm, and the AI creates customized dietary recommendations based on a massive and continually growing database of information.

These recommendations are designed to:

increase microbial species associated with overall wellness minimize microbial species associated with poor health create the ideal ratio of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats for your diet encourage foods that are most compatible with your metabolism help you achieve and maintain a healthy weight increase your energy, focus and well-being

Viome provides comprehensive status reports on things like digestive efficiency, intestinal barrier health, metabolic fitness, inflammatory activity, and protein fermentation, helping you identify gut activity related to specific areas of concern. They also provide custom dietary recommendations based on parameters you select, each of which come with detailed explanations. And all recommendations are delivered discreetly and securely via the Viome app on your mobile device, making them incredibly easy to put into action.

If youre ready to take the guesswork out of eating healthy and create a custom diet based on science, the Viome Gut Intelligence Test is for you. And now through September 23 the Gut Intelligence test is 67-percent off the regular price. So dont wait. Order your kit today.

Futurism fans: To create this content, a non-editorial team worked with an affiliate partner. We may collect a small commission on items purchased through this page. This post does not necessarily reflect the views or the endorsement of the Futurism.com editorial staff.

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Want Improved Gut Health? This Tech From Los Alamos National Laboratory Can Help. - Futurism

Sen. Kamala Harris attends the Pride Parade in San Francisco, Calif., June 30, 2019. (Stephen Lam/Reuters)A run-down of the Democrats LGBT-rights strategy.

Last weeks Democratic debate was nearly three hours long, and candidates answered questions on a range of topics including health care, gun control, civil rights, and education. They did not discuss LGBT issues which is probably just as well. So far, not a single Democratic presidential candidate has demonstrated an understanding of two basic facts.

First: that each letter of LGBT, etc., and the interest group it claims to represent, is distinct. Second: that todays tirade of alphabet activism is far removed from the historic gay-rights movement which fought for sexual minorities to have access to basic health care, the right to privacy, and equality under the law.

Indeed, only sheer ignorance or reckless disregard can explain why every Democratic presidential candidate has backed the Equality Act. This law, a misnomer, would force womens spaces (such as battered-womens shelters) and sports teams (such as the high school girls in Connecticut) to include men. It would also set a dangerous precedent for the medicalization of gender-confused youth through an Orwellian hijacking of the term conversion therapy.

Its worth noting here that, in some states, girls as young as 13 have lost their healthy breasts to this ideology, while children as young as eight have been injected with (sterilizing) cross-sex hormones. And that this new definition of conversion therapy, when enshrined in law, renders non-intrusive alternatives to such interventions illegal (with or without parental consent.)

It is also worth noting (as the mainstream U.K. press has done repeatedly) that a significant portion of these effeminate little boys and these boyish little girls undergoing grueling transitions would if treated with watchful waiting grow up to be gay. To anyone paying attention, then, the real conversion therapy involves not talk therapy for gender-dysphoric youth, but castrating chemically or surgically young people who havent yet had the opportunity to come to terms with their sexual development and desires.

But theres no room for nuance in campaign slogans and soundbites, is there?

Heres what some of the Democratic presidential candidates have said about the gender issue:

Joe BidenEarlier this year Biden was asked how many genders there are, to which the former vice president replied there are at least three and telling his questioner dont play games with me, kid. He has said that the Equality Act would be a No. 1 priority if he were elected.

Cory BookerBooker was an original co-sponsor of the Equality Act. That says enough.

Kamala HarrisAs attorney general of California, Harris oversaw her departments rejection of requests for state sponsored sex-change surgeries for incarcerated males. However, she is keen to make up for this, now takes full responsibility for this presumed injustice, and when asked in April by an ACLU member whether she supports adding a third gender option on federal forms, answered: sure, absolutely.

Elizabeth WarrenWarren is modeling the woke grandma look, recalling Regina Georges mom from Mean Girls. Im not a regular politician, Im a cool politician!

On Twitter, Warren has updated her account to include she/her pronouns. On Facebook, she has promised We will fight with you for equality on Trans Day of Visibility and every other day. But what does Ms. Warren mean by equality exactly? Does she know?

Perhaps she should speak to this woman, a registered Democrat who emailed me her concerns:

I am a lifelong Democrat, as is my husband. Both of us were raised by Democrat parents. We are pro-LGB; both of us have gay family members who are loved and accepted by our families.

However, I currently will not vote Democrat because very single Democratic candidate I am aware of fails to grasp the dangerous repercussions the Equality Act will bring, because the Act gives gender self-identity the same legal status as sex. Lawmakers are blindly accepting pseudo-science as fact, and in doing so are putting kids and women in danger.

Amy KlobucharAs well as the usual positions, Klobuchar has said shell reverse Trumps military ban on transgender individuals in her first 100 days in office. But perhaps Klobuchar would be interested in the perspective of James Shupe, who served in the U.S. military for over 17 years, and whose medical records show that he received treatment for gender dysphoria at the Veterans Administration mental-health clinic.

Shupe first identified as a transgender woman, then as non-binary, has since detransitioned fully and identifies as a man; he has undergone hormone treatment for his gender dysphoria in the past, which he says only made matters worse. Earlier this year, he wrote I consider gender dysphoria as a mental illness as does the American Psychiatric Associations Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders which is why I dont support people with GD serving in the military. I also think it can be a learned behavior and can afflict anyone of any age.

Regrettably, what is often lost in the coverage of Trumps so-called transgender military ban is that it extends only to those with gender dysphoria. The administration has clarified that a self-identified transgender person, who does not require special accommodations, should be permitted to serve. As for why gender dysphoria constitutes special accommodations (and is therefore disqualifying), Department of Defense data gives an idea. Between October 1, 2015, and October 3, 2017, the 994 active-duty service members diagnosed with gender dysphoria account for 30,000 mental health visits. Service members with gender dysphoria are eight times more likely to attempt suicide than service members as a whole.

Pete ButtigiegAs well as rolling back the so-called transgender military ban, Mayor Pete has said hed enforce LGBTQ nondiscrimination provisions of the Affordable Care Act, which would effectively coerce hospitals and doctors into providing sex-change treatments and therapies. But he should meet yet another lifelong Democrat who told me:

The health and safety of my daughter comes first, and I am now politically homeless. How can I vote against the well-being of our teenage daughter? How can I vote for politicians who would look the other way, and even encourage, the dangerous medicalization of my daughter?

Thanks to trans ideology, conversion therapy bans intended to prohibit protocols attempting to change ones sexual orientation, have been coopted to mandate the ultimate conversion from one sex to the other (which is never truly possible, only the outward presentation thereof).

Julian Castro During an earlier debate, Castro championed reproductive justice for men, though he later realized his mistake.

Yet another lifelong Democrat told me:

I just switched my affiliation to independent and am hoping there will be a moderate Republican or independent I can vote for in 2020. The reason for my switch is that I believe self-ID is harmful for women.

I have heard in places where self-ID has already passed it is creating dangerous situations for women, in places like prisons and shelters for abuse victims. I am all for equal rights for everyone, but not at the expense of hard won rights for women.

To learn more about what the Democratic candidates think about gender ideology, we can all tune into a CNNs broadcast of a special town hall LGBT debate on October 10, organized by the Human Rights Campaign, this Power of Pride event is so far slated to feature Biden, Buttigieg, Castro, Harris, Klobuchar, and Warren and likely to resemble an auction, with candidates attempting to outbid one another for the most overreaching policies. Moderate Democrats, take note: Tickets are invitation only. How inclusive.

If you enjoyed this article, we have a proposition for you: Join NRPLUS. Members getallof our content (including the magazine), no paywalls or content meters, an advertising-minimal experience, and unique access to our writers and editors (conference calls, social-media groups, etc.). And importantly, NRPLUS members help keep NR going. Consider it?

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Democratic Candidates Are Out of Touch on Gender - National Review

Updated September 19, 2019 11:12:50

At 33, Beth Lefevre was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer, a disease rife in her family.

After a full mastectomy and intensive chemotherapy, she needed to make a snap decision about her fertility.

The Canberra woman had three children, including twins, but wanted more. She felt too young to face the prospect she might never conceive again.

"It's overwhelming because you're not only fighting for your life but to also have big life choices stripped away from you as well," Ms Lefevre said.

"And there's time pressure huge time pressures."

She was relieved when told fertility treatment could give her another chance.

Hormone therapy via monthly injections prompted a chemical menopause, causing Ms Lefevre's ovaries to essentially hibernate for a five-year period, after which she will be able to revisit the idea of having more children.

"I'm there thinking 'Wow, I'm lucky that I've got kids. Can you imagine what it would be like to be in this situation and you haven't had the opportunity to even think about it yet?'," she said.

Experts estimate dozens of young Canberra women each year confront the harrowing scenario of a cancer diagnosis that could remove their ability to have children.

Fertility specialist Steve Robson said cancer treatments, including chemotherapy and radiotherapy, could have a devastating impact on fertility. Patients had only a small window of time to decide on fertility preservation options, such as freezing eggs or embryos.

"As things stand at the moment, there are a number of independent services in the ACT but there's no centralised way that patients who have this diagnosis can be fast-tracked and smoothly guided through what is a difficult thing," Professor Robson said.

The ACT Government said it would study the feasibility of a dedicated fertility-preservation facility for female cancer patients of reproductive age.

Labor backbencher Tara Cheyne, who promoted the idea, said too many patients were not consulted about fertility options until it was too late.

"This would be a more streamlined, rapid process so patients and their treating specialists can make early, informed, supported decisions about fertility preservation," Ms Cheyne said, adding the facility would be a "one-stop shop" for patients.

"I'm not wedded to a particular model about exactly what this looks like or how it runs, but we just have to make this process simpler: more supported, more connected, more accessible the streamlining of existing services and resources."

Professor Robson backed the idea, saying it could ease the burden many young women already face when diagnosed with cancer.

"So the great advantage of an idea like this that, if somebody receives the diagnosis, the cancer specialists and team treating them can give them a one stop," he said.

"They can immediately go into a skilled, slick team that can help them work through the decision-making and, if necessary, the procedures without delay."

Ms Levefre said the clinic could provide cancer patients with direct access to medical specialists, instead of needing to acquire one referral after another.

"Every single point of those referrals involve waiting or a phone call or a letter to be written or a signature, and that can put a lot of time delay on something which doesn't have enough time," she said.

Cancer patients currently pay thousands of dollars for this fertility treatment. The study will also consider whether the ACT Government should subsidise these costs.

Topics:health,reproduction-and-contraception,fertility-and-infertility,states-and-territories,cancer,ovarian-cancer,diseases-and-disorders,canberra-2600,act

First posted September 19, 2019 09:17:29

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ACT Government considers fertility clinic to help young cancer patients preserve eggs and embryos - ABC News

Dr. Margot Savoy, chair and associate professor of Temple University's Department of Family and Community Medicine(Photo: Temple University Health System)

When men with concerns about prostate cancercome to see Dr. Margot Savoy, she knowstheir age, race andfamily medical history are important.

She also knowsthat once someone is screened, they can't unlearn the results.

In some cases, this isn't a problem. In others, it is.

Sometimesa patient with normal results chooses to ignore other symptoms. Other times, a patientwith abnormal results becomes overly aggressive in seeking treatment.

Those patients often get treatments to eliminate the cancerous cells before they become too powerful which puts them at risk for complications that could severely decrease theirquality of life.

Thesedecisions of when to screen and when to treat are part of a controversial balancing actchurningthrough the medical community.

"I ask them up front," said Savoy,an associate professor and the chair of Temple University's Family and Community Medicine Department. "If this number is a little bit off, but you have no symptoms and I think you have a low risk, are you going to be OK sitting on the number knowing that (the cancer) isthere or are you going to be worried that a ticking time bombis waiting to kill you?"

Simply put, what do patients do with their results when they come back?

Most screenings for prostate cancer include a PSA and DRE (digital rectal exam). The PSA measures the level of PSAs or prostate-specific antigens in the blood.

RELATED: Understanding prostate cancer screening and what comes next

A score above 20 is usually causefor concern and often leads to a biopsy.

Biopsies are conducted by using a needle to collect tissue samples;they require more preparation and can cause painful side effects, such as bleeding, incontinence and infection.

Based on the biopsy, the patient is usually assigned a Gleason score, which ranges from 2 to 10; the higher the score, the higher the risk of cancer.

Does screening reduce death rates from prostate cancer? No.

In 2012, several researchers measured the effects of prostate cancer screening on mortality by reviewing the results of aPLCO trial (Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial)and published their findings in the National Cancer Institute's journal.

The results were counterintuitive:

After a decade of watching 76,685 men ages 55 to 74, they foundno difference indeath rates between men who had an annual screening and men who were screened as part of their usual care.

Moreover, they found evidence that African American men in the trial who were given biopsies the next step if PSA results are abnormalwere "significantly more likely to have major infections."

The results made several health organizations change their screening recommendations.

Who should get screened and how often? It depends on whom you ask.

The American Association of Family Physiciansand theUnited States Preventive Task Force, a panel of health care experts, recommend against routine screenings for men ages 55 to 69, and instead suggest screenings on acase-by-case basis.For men over 70, both organizations recommend against any screenings.

The American Urological Association follows those recommendations and alsorecommendsagainst routine screening for men they define as low-risk white males ages 45 to 54 with no family history of prostate cancer.

But these recommendations are not definitive.

The three organizations note that African American malesages 45 to 54 and men with a family history of prostate cancer may benefit more from PSA screenings.

RELATED: Why are there racial disparities in cancer? Doctor gives clues in Milwaukee presentation

Moreover, astudy published in a urology journal examined the test results of 456 men the urological association would consider"low-risk" and found that 23% of them tested positive for prostate cancer with Gleason scores of 7 or higher.

Had association guidelines been followed, their cancers could have been missed.

Savoy said that's why it's important to treat every patient individually.

"With the recommendations they have now... itmeans you should have a conversation with your doctor," she said.

Once a cancer diagnosis has been made, patients face a choice: seek treatment and risk complications that could reduce their quality of life, or watch and wait.

RELATED: What treatment is best for you? Shared decision-making could help you choose -- if health systems made it a priority.

Much of the choice is dependent on the severity of the cancer; cancers with a Gleason score of 7 or higher are often recommended for treatment.

Common treatments for prostate cancer include surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, hormone treatments, biological therapiesand others.

There are also rarer treatments being tested in clinical trials, such as cryosurgery, which uses cold temperatures to freeze and kill the prostate's cancer cell; it is usually only used for recurrent cases.

What are the most common complications? There are several.

Part of what makes the decision difficult is that there is no way to tell who will experience harmful side effects and who will not.

The American Cancer Society details many of those side effects, such asfatigue, bowel problems, urinary incontinence, erectile dysfunction, loss of fertility and smaller reproductive organs.

In 1991, a study conducted by David M. Quinlan found that of 503 men who were potent pre-operatively, 32% were not a year and a half after operations for prostate cancer; he also found thatrecovery times were two to four years.

A study in 2014 found that one in five patients who received radiation or had their prostate removed returned to the hospital within two years with complications that werenotincontinence or impotence.

The risks give many pause.

Is there another option? Active surveillance.

Prostate cancer led the number of newly diagnosed types of cancer for men in 2016 at 192,443 (lung and bronchus cancers werethe second most diagnosed cancer for men at 113,044), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But prostate canceris far less deadly than lung and bronchus cancers, which are the leading cause of cancer death in men.Prostate cancer has a five-year survival rate of 97.5%, while the five-year survival rate for men with lung canceris only 16.2%.

Why the difference?

Many prostate cancers are indolent, meaning they grow at such slow rates, whoever has the cancer is likely to die of something else before they die from cancer.

"There have been men who had an autopsy done on them when prostate cancer was found, but they had died of something else; their cancer was never going to be the thing that killed them," Savoy explained.

That's why instead of treatment, some prefer to watch and wait.

Doctors call it active surveillance.

Patients come in for regularblood tests to monitor their PSA levels so any spikes or new symptoms can be detected quickly; "regular," according to Cancer.gov, means PSA tests every three months and biopsies every one to threeyears.

Can anything make the screening or treatment decision easier? Maybe.

Dr. George Vasmatzis, the director of the Center for Individualized Medicine Biomarker Discovery Program, discovered five genes that were more affected by prostate cancers with higher-risk than those with low risk.

The discovery may help men make the difficult decision on whether to get treatment or screened at all.

However, it remains in clinical trials.

Can youreduce your risk of developing prostate cancer? Yes.

The Mayo Clinic suggests men avoid high-fat foods, eat more fruits and vegetables, exercise several days a week and maintain a healthy weight.

Savoy agrees.

"When they think about what are the risk factors that could make a person have prostate cancer, a lot of them are things that you can't fix,like your age or your race,"she said.

"But you can easily change how many fruits and vegetables you can eat,so you are not entirely out of control because thats something everyone can do you have a recommendation even if you never get a test."

The American Cancer Society has a helpful guide on prostate cancer treatments.

Contact Talis Shelbourne at (414) 223-5261 or tshelbourn@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @talisseerand Facebook at @talisseer.

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A new documentary sheds light on how animals even outside of the factory farm are often the victims of our appetite for meat and dairy.

In Northern Californias Point Reyes National Seashore, Tule elk populations are threatened by a government protecting the interests of ranchers. The Shame of Point Reyes, an independent film by shark advocate turned vegan activist, Skyler Thomas, has already created a local stir for its controversial message. But they hope that the message resonates on a national level.

There is a long history of the United States driving species from their homes for the sake of animal agriculture. Out west, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) routinely rounds up wild horses to clear federal land for cattle ranchers. Its often a death sentence. The Tule elk have their own unique struggle, for a similar reason. They exist on land where the government wants beef and dairy farms.

Point Reyes relationship with dairy farming started 50 years ago, when the federal government purchased land from ranchers. They were given a 50-year pass to remain on the land. At the time, Tule elk were populous. Today, around 6,000 cattle live on the land while native elk populations have dropped to 600.

There are no Tule elk in any other part of the world, Miyoko Schinner, founder of vegan dairy company Miyokos Creamery and a resident of the area, tells LIVEKINDLY in an email. People come from around the world to see them there is nowhere else where they can be seen in their natural habitat.

Schinner adds that the regal-looking elks numbers once boasted over 500,000. But, they were hunted to near-extinction just 28 elks in the 1800s.

The government at the time attempted to revive the species, and today, about 5700 remain in various parts of California (still a low number), she says. In our region, there are actually about 600 Tule elk, but a portion of them are considered a threat to ranching activities.

Now nearing the end of the lease, the park services has opened up public commenting (which ends on September 23) to extend the lease, expand agricultural activities, and cull elk populations down to 120. Whats more, congressman Jared Huffman has proposed a bill (HR 6687) that would allow cattle to remain on the land as part of the areas cultural heritage while elk may be relocated.

This is definitely about special interest groups, i.e., ranchers, says Thomas.Turns out these politicians are elects of the ranching community and in turn, they help out the ranching community, Thomas continues. He believes relocating the Tule elk is a negative distraction from the real issue: their numbers may be reduced to a mere fraction of what they once were.

Thats ridiculous no matter how many elk there are, he says. But its even more ridiculous when you discover there are about 650 elk in the entire seashore, 450 of which are trapped in a zoo-like enclosure preventing them from roaming or ever even potentially bothering ranch lands.

Lowering elk numbers has other consequences, according to Thomas. Animals that have been hunted to near extinction have the challenge of their genetic diversity being depleted, therefore their long term survival and ability to adapt with changes the world throws at them are diminished. Small numbers, especially in enclosed areas, means inbreeding, which is generally not good or natural.

Is it possible to help ranchers without culling Tule elk? For Schinner, the solution could be pivoting to a different type of agriculture.

Many of the dairies here are actually struggling, she says, adding that organic beef prices have also dropped. One rancher I spoke to admitted that it is a losing battle. So why not go back to the type of farming that existed on theses seashores before big ranching set in?

Instead of incentivizing more animal agriculture, we could allocate less land than needed for grazing by growing certain crops that feed the growing interest in plant-based food, she continues. Over a century ago, Schinner explains, local farmers grew potatoes, legumes, and other crops.

Thomas disagrees farms dont belong at Point Reyes, period.

Any plant crop grown or the raising of animals by humans for a profitable industry means that those humans will wage war against any native animal that inevitably tries to eat some of that food themselves, nest in the crops, hide in the crops, or otherwise trespass on rancher property, he says, highlighting how elk are being killed just for being on the land.

The birds, the insects, the badgers, the coyotes, the bobcats, EVERYTHING will become a threat to profits, he continues. Instead of being open to growing crops,the park service is letting the ranchers keep beef and dairy, increase beef and dairy, add chickens, pigs, and sheep, grow row crops, and open AirBnBs. There was no reduction to anything except wildlife habitat.

The fight to save the Tule elk is personal for both Schinner and Thomas.

I live here and would like to see the land reclaimed by nature and wildlife, not activities that destroy the land and lead to further climate disruption,says Schinner. And we have to remember that this is all on public lands a national park.

To Thomas, the destruction of the beautiful park is heartbreaking. Even more so considering the cruelty the dairy industry inflicts on the domestic baby calves and their mothers.

When I learned the wildlife were being killed to promote such an ugly industry I couldnt not tell the world, he adds.

Both agree that the issue needs the publics attention outrage, as Thomas puts it. The ranchers have bullied the locals into silence, he explains. They have kept the rest of California from even knowing what is happening. We need to let them know they are no longer welcome.

Right now, we need as many people worldwide not just Californians to send comments to the US Park Services, says Schinner. The public commenting period ends on September 23, so timing is of the essence. The Park is for everyone, for tourists from around the world who come to see the Tule elk, not cattle. We need former and future tourists to comment!

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This Documentary Exposes How Big Dairy Is Threatening Wild Tule Elk Population

Description

"The Shame of Point Reyes," a documentary by Skyler Tomas, dives into why tule elk at California's Point Reyes National Seashore may be culled.

Author

Kat Smith

Publisher Name

LIVEKINDLY

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This Documentary Exposes How Big Dairy Is Threatening Wild Tule Elk Population - LIVEKINDLY

I wanna look like what I am but dont know what someone like me looks like, Lou Sullivan wrote in his diary, in the mid-sixties, when he was living as a teen-age girl in suburban Milwaukee. I mean, when people look at me I want them to thinktheres one of those people that reasons, that is a philosopher, that has their own interpretation of happiness. Thats what I am.

Sullivans diaries, which he began in 1961, at the age of ten, and continued until his death, from AIDS-related complications, in 1991, chronicle his quest to exist in the world as he wasand to partake in the happiness that might result when he did. The entries, which the editors Ellis Martin and Zach Ozma have collected in We Both Laughed in Pleasure: The Selected Diaries of Lou Sullivan, 1961-1991, track his evolution from a rebellious Catholic schoolgirl obsessed with the Beatles to a noted transgender writer and activist in San Francisco. Throughout more than twenty volumesall of them chatty and tender, casually poetic and voraciously sexualSullivan workshopped his identity and his relationships, committing to the page an interior monologue of self-discovery that paralleled the gay-liberation movement, the burgeoning transgender-rights movement, and the AIDS crisis.

Sullivan was a gay trans man at a time when his sexuality and gender were seen as contradictorya dual identity that couldnt really exist. He wasnt the first gay trans man, but, through his writing, activism, public speeches, occasional TV appearances, and dogged networking, he became one of the most visible. He lobbied the hidebound medical profession to recognize the existence of gay trans men and to remove sexual orientation from the criteria of gender-identity disorder. He organized support groups, edited newsletters, and, in 1980, wrote a book that billed itself the handbook to address the needs of the female-to-male. All the while, he made good on his adolescent vow to keep a diary as long as I live, in hopes that one day he would publish ita record of a phenomenon such as myself.

Sullivan grew up in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. His father, John, owned a hauling and moving company; his mother, Nancy, was a homemaker and sales clerk. Part of Sullivan aspired to be a good Catholic like the rest of his family: as a pre-teen, he declared in his diary that he loved Jesus and promised, Im gonna try to be beautiful in soul. But already he had a subversive streak. He devoured pop musicthe Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylanand enjoyed playacting as a boy. But if his music tastes were innocuous (his mother agreed that he could maybe have a Beatles haircut before the last day of school), he sensed that the stakes of his deeper rebellionone that was as much existential as culturalwere far higher.

I have a horrible temptation for sex acts, he writes. Id never do these with anyone, though. I do play with myself, which is supposed to be wrong. But I cant see it as wrong. As a young child, he fantasized about prowling the streets at night dressed as a boy. He recorded the intensity of his adolescent sex drive (I masturbated bout 5 times at work, drew dirty pictures, wrote dirty stuff), along with his B.D.S.M. reveries and fascination with homosexuality. My problem is that I cant accept life for what it is, he writes in a diary from the mid-sixties, I feel there is something deep and wonderful underneath it that no one has found. And what was underneath was his desire to be male.

Early on, this desire was intertwined with wanderlust. I wish I was a boy! God, do I want so bad to roam, Sullivan writes as a teen-ager, when he daydreamed about lighting out for Chicago or New York to live like his bohemian idols. After high school, he moved to Milwaukee, where, although still outwardly identifying as a woman, he found refuge in the local gay sceneits leather bars, S & M clubs, and grassroots activist groups. Sullivan joined the Gay Peoples Union, an early gay-liberation organization, where he contributed articles to the groups magazine and ran uncontested for the office of secretary. According to Brice D. Smiths biography Lou Sullivan: Daring to be a Man Among Men, from 2017, Sullivan started wearing male clothes full time in 1973.

Like most other places in America at the time, Milwaukee provided scant access to transgender health care or information. Wish there was a fucking gender clinic in this asshole city, Sullivan writes. After he got a secretarial job at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, he roamed the university library for books about gender identity, but, as Smith writes, found no mention anywhere of individuals born female who identified as gay men.

Some of what Sullivan initially learned about transgender culture came from an underground network of confidantes who found each other via the back pages of community newsletters and magazines. Loretta, a pen pal from Michigan whom Sullivan describes as that Mich drag, saw herself as cleaved in two by the gender binary: she considered her male half her brother. She answered the phone with a male voice that climbed into a feminine register when Loretta, supposedly a different person, took the line. Gives you the willies, Sullivan writes, of her split identities.

Sullivans own notion of identity aspired to be more fluidat first, anyway. I know how to be one of the boys, I never knew how to be a chick + Im glad! Yet I think I can still be one of the guys + keep my identity as a girl, I hope, to make a pleasant combination, he writes. That dtente didnt last. Sullivan began binding his breasts and made a penis from rolled-up socks, although those were poor substitutes for the body he wanted. Im so ashamed of my breasts + C [cunt], he writes in one entry. When he finally worked up the nerve to buy a strap-on, he slept with it harnessed to his body all night.

Sullivans self-presentation made him a riddle to others, and sometimes to himself. A friend dubbed him sissy butcha term he approved of, although at other times he called himself a transvestite. (At the time, the word transvestite denoted someone who presented as the opposite sex but didnt want surgery; this was in contrast to a transsexual, who did want surgery.) Even as he understood the limitations of these labels, Sullivan seems to have craved their clarity: he felt at odds with other gay men (how do I fit in?), with feminists (they always object to my dress), with lesbians (I like men), with heterosexuals (no way), and with other transvestites (theyre all male [to] female + put the make on me). I cant relate to anyone, he concluded.

In the late nineteen-sixties and early seventies, what today is called gender dysphoria didnt have a diagnostic label. In 1966, Harry Benjamin, an endocrinologist, published The Transsexual Phenomenon, a landmark study of transgender identity. (According to Smith, Sullivan read the book obsessively, but was disheartened that it sidelined female-to-male, or F.T.M., cases.) A year later, Christine Jorgensen, a former G.I. who underwent sex-reassignment surgeries in the early nineteen-fifties, published a best-selling autobiography that enshrined her as the public face of what many Americans knew about transgender life.

An earlier, more esoteric memoir, Autobiography of an Androgyne, by Ralph Werther (who also called himself Earl Lind and Jennie June), appeared in 1918, to little fanfare, but in many ways its a closer ancestor to Sullivans diaries. It details the frankly sexual exploits of a religious boy who opted for castration and lived as a fairie among the working-class immigrants of New York City. Still, neither Jorgensen nor Werthers writing has quite the same real-time immediacy of Sullivans diaries. His journals are also dense cultural artifacts, interlaced with quotations from books, movies, song lyrics, and news reports. Many of these references are touchstones of the gay-liberation movement, and of queer culture more broadly: City of Night, John Rechys seminal novel, from 1963, about a young hustler; Death in Venice, Luchino Viscontis film adaptation, from 1971, of Thomas Manns novella (It irritates me becuz people cannot associate beauty with males unless introducing homosexuality into it, Sullivan writes); the androgynous glamour of Lou Reed; and Jorgensen, whom Sullivan heard lecture in Milwaukee. His diaries are a textured archive of primary documents: Martin and Ozma note that some pages had additional sheets, newspaper clippings, and photographs glued, taped, or stapled-in.

Reading Sullivans diaries now is both dissonant and familiar. Outdated termstransvestite, transsexual, and crossdresserand places from the recent gay pastbathhouses, porn theatrescan lend his world the mustiness of a time capsule. And yet Sullivans struggle to claim and embody his identity, and the way he writes about that struggle, is wholly contemporary. Some of this is surely due to the universality of self-doubt: his loneliness and isolation, his fear of being stigmatized or unloved, still resonates.

But Sullivans self-possession is just as noteworthy. His diary was hardly his only confidant; he was frank about his identity off the page, too, even when he was confused by it. One weekend, at home with his mother, he read aloud an article about a girl who had a sex-change to a man, and Sullivans mother confessed that, had she known of such a procedure when she was younger, she might have transitioned as well. I told her about how I felt, Sullivan writes. + She was very understanding + even said she felt that way, too! (Later, when Sullivan told a therapist about his familys support, he was met with incredulity: Isnt that rather unusual?) When Sullivan left for San Francisco, in 1975, following his boyfriend, J (as hes noted by the diaries editors), his mother gave him a suit as a going-away present.

In San Francisco, Sullivan finally had access to doctors, therapists, and transgender support groups. Yet even among these communities, the coexistence of gayness and transness was seen as bafflingalmost unbelievable. One doctor asked Sullivan to classify his routines according to whether they were stereotypically masculine or stereotypically feminine. Sullivan writes:

How the hell am I supposed to answer that?? Oh, I put cream + sugar in my coffee, thats feminine; I like to watch boxing matches on TV, thats masculine; I put bath oil in the tub, thats feminine; and I use Brut deodorant, thats masculine. [...] I left there rather discouraged. I first went to a bar (masculine!) and then home to cry (feminine!)

Sullivans diaries from his San Francisco years offer a connoisseurs index of male bodies and male beauty; almost nothing is too quotidian to excite his eye. His observations were arguably sharpened by his supposed otherness. Theres something Whitmanesque in his celebrations of male lust, of cruising, of anonymous bodies coming together in an ecstasy thats quasi-spiritual. He writes about the caresses and kisses bestowed on him from men in a dark porn theatre: Somehow those brief displays of tenderness between two men mean more to me than I can say... more than so many of the undying devotions [and] commitments spewed out by those who know no better.

Writing about J, the first of his three serious partners, Sullivan sometimes sounds like his exuberant teen-age self, at once guileless and bawdy. He describes one of the first times Ive really been turned on KISSING, then adds, approvingly, that J has gotten to be an anal-erotic too which I just love. He wears an earring all day long! Js ambiguous sexualityhe had same-sex encounters of his ownthrilled Sullivan. Once, walking together in Milwaukee, he and J passed a group of teen boys:

One of them, seeing J run across the street in all his beauty remarked to the other Look at that fag. I was instantly turned on, ran after him + threw my arms around him.... hell never know why.

Although Sullivan fantasized that he and J could live as a gay couple in San Francisco, that fantasy unravelled as Sullivan began contemplating a mastectomy and living full time as a man. [J] said he didnt feel any operation was the answer for me because he sees my problem as being mainly one of fashion, i.e., I am tired of the look I have now and just cant think what to do next, Sullivan writes.

When the couple broke up, Sullivan pursued hormone therapy and sex-reassignment surgeries, but it took him nearly a decade to convince medical professionals that someone like him even existed. The Stanford University Gender Dysphoria Program, which was then the largest university program performing gender-confirmation surgeries, rejected Sullivans applicationperhaps because there was no clinical history of gay F.T.M. participants.

Nonetheless, he found doctors in private practice willing to help him transition. He began taking testosterone shots in November of 1979, at the age of twenty-eight. He writes in his diary that they made him feel electrified... sensual + strong + vibrant. The following July, as he was preparing for a mastectomy (that word sounds like a species of dinosaur), he reflected on the uncanny sensation of caring for a body that soon wouldnt exist: To wash my body with surgical soap, according to instructions, washing, washing, and watching my body that is there, that isnt there, that wont be there in 3 days. How can I share this emotion; how can I find an outlet for these incredibly strong feelings?

Surgery was, at best, a partial outlet. Even afterward, Sullivan writes, I need to remember that I have made the choice of being a defective male instead of trying to continue as a defective female. Wrestling with despair, his philosopher self takes over. He writes, For our whole lives, our bodies are the only things we have here on earth. Life here is the body. Death is leaving the body behind.

In April of 1986, Sullivan completed genital surgery. He writes, I want to learn to love my body + feel all its sensationsa desire that turned tragically ironic when, in early 1987, he was diagnosed with AIDS. Here, too, Sullivan delivers an almost journalistic account of his physical decline: Well, diary, I didnt think Id be writing the Last Chapter so soon. My penmanship is pretty bad because I have an intravenous needle in my right wrist & Im in the hospital.

Sullivans activism took shape in his final years. He published F.T.M., his trans-community newsletter, and the third edition of Information for the Female to Male Cross Dresser and Transsexual, which he called the most important thing Ive done. In 1990, he published a biography of Jack Bee Garland, a gay trans man who lived in San Francisco (and died there, in 1939), and who was a kindred spirit for Sullivan. Though it is Garlands story, it tells about me, Sullivan writes in his diary. It explains my reality for future generations of female-to-gay males. He wanted to see the book in libraries everywhere, so that if anyone went in search of transgender predecessorsas Sullivan himself had, to no availthere Garland will beproud and beautiful!

Today, the small shelf of F.T.M. literature that Sullivan envisioned is much larger, and includes his own diaries. He didnt want to be footnoted as an anomaly, or have his life dismissed as a clinical one-off. A big fear of mine is that I will die before the gender professionals acknowledge that someone like me exists, and then I really wont exist to prove them wrong, he writes.

These diaries are proof. Its impossible to say what form they might have taken had Sullivan lived long enough to edit the pages himself. We Both Laughed in Pleasure is necessarily provisional and condensed; the editors acknowledge they have prioritize[d] the intangibles of Sullivans San Francisco, tracing his worldly pleasures and ephemeral expressions of identity. And yet given how many contemporary trans narratives are rooted in trauma, their choice to foreground trans pleasure and sensuality is celebratory, even radical.

In the late nineteen-eighties, as he was dying of AIDS, Sullivan jotted this entry in a gay bar in the Castro:

Ive come all this way, gone thru this whole change, crossdressing 14 years, hormone shots for 8 yrs. Finally got all the surgery, or all Im ever going to get. And now what? Now I sit here the same way I sat before hormones, before surgery. Now what? My future compressed into a shortened time slot. Most dead in 2 yrs. Some live for 5. [...] Yet its been worth all these years just to be in this bar, here, now, with AIDS, + to be a man among men.

Was this happinessor, at least, one interpretation of it? Part of the beauty of Sullivans diaries is how they reckon with emotional paradoxes. Just as he wore his diagnosis as a badge of honorhe was the first known gay trans man diagnosed with AIDS, a fate that seemed to authenticate his identity even as it claimed his lifeso, too, did he understand that happiness is more complicated than simply getting what you want. Happiness is a story we tell ourselves, and sometimes the meaning of that story changes depending on who is listening or whats at stake. As Sullivan wrote in Milwaukee in the early seventies, Its so hard to separate happiness + sorrowsometimes theyre almost the same thing.

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Lou Sullivans Diaries Are a Radical Testament to Trans Happiness - The New Yorker

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The Global Endocrine System Drug market 2019 research provides a basic overview of the industry including definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain structure. The Global Endocrine System Drug Industry analysis is provided for the international markets including development trends, competitive landscape analysis, and key regions development status. Development policies and plans are discussed as well as manufacturing processes and cost structures are also analysed. This report also states import/export consumption, supply and demand Figures, cost, price, revenue and gross margins.

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The key players are highly focusing innovation in production technologies to improve efficiency and shelf life. The best long-term growth opportunities for this sector can be captured by ensuring ongoing process improvements and financial flexibility to invest in the optimal strategies. Company profile section of players such as Sanofi, Merck, Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca, AbbVie, includes its basic information like legal name, website, headquarters, its market position, historical background and top 5 closest competitors by Market capitalization / revenue along with contact information. Each player/ manufacturer revenue figures, growth rate and gross profit margin is provided in easy to understand tabular format for past 5 years and a separate section on recent development like mergers, acquisition or any new product/service launch etc.

Methodology used in this report:

Our researchers and domain experts use a unique blend of primary and secondary research, with validation and iterations at every stage, in order to minimize deviation and present the most accurate analysis of the Endocrine System Drug Market. The research process begins with extensive data mining, using authentic sources such as trade magazines, technical publications, independent studies along with paid avenues such as ICIS, Hoovers, etc. Primary objectives of data mining include:

All the above factors are identified and analyzed in detail, with their present and expected market impact, which is quantified and used to derive market growth expectation. Market forecast is built using statistical analysis with models built around time-variance, regression and correlation analytics.

Market segment by Type, the product can be split into

Diabetes Drug, Human Growth Hormones, Thyroid Hormone Disorder Drugs, Others

Market segment by Application, split into

Hospital, Clinic, Medical Center, Others

Market segment by Regions/Countries, this report covers

United States

Europe

China

Japan

Southeast Asia

India

Central & South America

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Significant emphasis is put on primary research, which serves the dual role or not only validating our findings but also obtaining penetrating market insights, which help us gain more clarity regarding business environment and competitive leverage. Notable participants in our primary research process include:

We also offer customization on reports based on specific client requirement:

1-Freecountry level analysis forany 5 countriesof your choice.

2-FreeCompetitive analysis of any market players.

3-Free 40 analyst hoursto cover any other data points

Table of Content

1 Introduction Of Endocrine System Drug Market1.1 Overview of the Market1.2 Scope of Report1.3 Assumptions

2 Executive Summary

3 Research Methodology3.1 Data Mining3.2 Validation3.3 Primary Interviews3.4 List of Data Sources

4 Endocrine System Drug Market Outlook4.1 Overview4.2 Market Dynamics4.2.1 Drivers4.2.2 Restraints4.2.3 Opportunities4.3 Porters Five Force Model4.4 Value Chain Analysis

5 Endocrine System Drug Market, By Deployment Model5.1 Overview

6 Endocrine System Drug Market, By Solution6.1 Overview

7 Endocrine System Drug Market, By Vertical7.1 Overview

8 Endocrine System Drug Market, By Geography8.1 Overview8.2 North America8.2.1 U.S.8.2.2 Canada8.2.3 Mexico8.3 Europe8.3.1 Germany8.3.2 U.K.8.3.3 France8.3.4 Rest of Europe8.4 Asia Pacific8.4.1 China8.4.2 Japan8.4.3 India8.4.4 Rest of Asia Pacific8.5 Rest of the World8.5.1 Latin America8.5.2 Middle East

9 Endocrine System Drug Market Competitive Landscape9.1 Overview9.2 Company Market Ranking9.3 Key Development Strategies

10 Company Profiles10.1.1 Overview10.1.2 Financial Performance10.1.3 Product Outlook10.1.4 Key Developments

11 Appendix11.1 Related Research

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Endocrine System Drug Market Size Analysis, Growth Opportunities, Trends, Forecast and Outlook 2026 - NewsStoner

This edition of Aging Matters is stolen from Rhonda Patricks interview of Dale Bredesen. That hour is so packed with actionable information and theoretical background that I found myself going through it slowly to understand and digest it. The result was an appreciation for the breadth of vision embodied in Bredesens comprehensive program to combat Alzheimers Disease, and also discovery of some gaps in which the story appears incoherent.

For my own health and to learn more, Ive personally signed up for the RECODE program as a patient. After the video analysis I talk about my experience.

The RECODE program in a nutshellfrom Deborah Gordon video

Blood targets:

Also from the Deborah Gordon video: The APO4 allele is the biggest genetic risk factor for AD. It was the ancestral form of the gene, from early hominid history. In European populations, only 15% of genes are 4, but there are tribes in Nigeria where the APO4 gene still predominates and, paradoxically, they have low rates of AD, even lower than Nigerians who dont have the APO4 allele. (Maybe its something they ate.)

A simple blood test or 23andMe can tell you if you have the APO4 risk factor, but many people dont want to know. Bredesens program offers differential treatment for APO4 patients, and can greatly reduce the excess risk if started early.

Notes from Rhonda Patricks interview with Dale Bredesen

AD is the 3rd leading cause of death in America, after cardiovascular disease and cancer, and it is rising as the population ages and as better treatments become available for the other two. 5.2 million Americans have been diagnosed with AD, and a substantial fraction remains undiagnosed.

Diagnostic markers of AD are tau tangles and amyloid- placques in the brain. Amyloid- is a protein byproduct that aggregates into clumps about the size of a nerve cell. Tau is another protein that clogs microtubules, preventing chemical transmissions. Curiously, most AD patients have these markers, but some people have the markers without dementia symptoms, and others have dementia without the markers.

Plaques are pink, Tau tangles black

Spinal fluid taps can be assayed for presence of Amyloid-, and this is the most sensitive test we have for AD, with an accuracy of 90%

A- is both a neurotoxin and a neuro-protector, in different contexts. So the theory is that A- is produced by the brain in response to insults. A- can neutralize toxic metals and can kill invading microbes. Some peoples brains produce A- and it successfully protects them, while others are producing A- though their brains are overwhelmed. One difference seems to be inflammation. Inflammation in combination with A- creates a strong dementia risk.

Sirtuins and NFB are mutually inhibitory. The body flips between a pro-inflammatory state (NFB) and anti-inflammatory (sirtuins), and age almost always tips the balance toward more inflammation (NFB).

Microglia are environmental brain cells, not neurons, but important to brain function. They are activated in two forms, called M1 and M2

Theres an ideal ratio of M1:M2 = inflammation:resolution = 2.5

The amount of A- in the brain comes from a balance between A- production during glial metabolism and A- elimination through phagocytosis. That is to say, A- is constantly being consumed and eliminated by a class of white blood cells. A blood test by George Bernard has shown that almost everyone diagnosed with AD is not eliminating enough A- via phagocytosis.

Maresins and resolvins are members of a group of cell signaling molecules called SPMs or specialized pro-resolving mediators. Many SPMs are metabolites of omega-3 fatty acids and have been proposed to be responsible for the anti-inflammatory benefits of omega-3 in the diet. Patrick says that in her own research she has found that people who are APO4 positive benefit from fish in the diet, but not from omega-3 supplements. Bredesen speculates that this might be true generally, and that there are anti-oxidants in fish flesh that we havent yet catalogued.

How RECODE Works

Bredesen has identified 36 risk factors for AD, and different patients suffer from different combinations of these. The factors break down into just six categories:

Type 1 AD is primarily caused by Inflammation.

The inflammation may come from a variety of causes, for example

Type 2 AD is atrophic

Some of the nutrients or hormones necessary for nerve growth and synaptic connection are missing. Examples include

In a healthy brain, there is a balance between learning and forgetting, of growing new synapses and recycling old ones. We can think of Type 1 as too much destruction of synapses, and Type 2 as failure to grow new synapses.

Type 1.5 AD is glycotoxicity=too much sugar

Diabetes has two components: depressed response to insulin (insulin resistance) and excess sugar in the blood (because the insulin signal is not being heeded). The excess blood sugar causes Type 1 symptoms, while the insulin resistance causes Type 2 symptoms. There is both too little creation of new neural connections and also too much loss of existing neural connections. Type 1.5 really means a combination of Type 1 and Type 2, and it is associated with metabolic syndrome or diabetes.

Edward Goetzl of UCSF has shown that AD is characterized by insulin resistance in brain neurons even when the rest of the body is not insulin resistant.

Sugars can bind to proteins, gumming them up, creating Advanced Glycation Endproducts, or AGEs. When this happens because of sugar levels that are too high, its called glycotoxicity. Hemoglobin A1c is glycated hemoglobin, and it is commonly measured blood tests to assess the extent to which glycation is a problem more generally.

Note: Symptoms for all Types 1, 1.5, and 2 are memory loss, particularly short-term memory.

If your fasting insulin is >4.5 or your A1c >5.5 or your fasting glucose >93, you have insulin resistance, which is the most common, most important, and most treatable condition leading to AD.

Ketoflex 12/3 is a mnemonic for Bredesens basic diet program: (1) mild ketosis, ongoing (2) flexible vegetarian diet, treating meat as a condiment (3) 12 hours of fasting every night, beginning 3 hours before bedtime.

Vegetarian is fine. If adding meat, it should be grass-fed beef or free-range fowl. If fish, the best fish are Salmon, Mackerel, Anchovies, Sardines, Herring (mnemonic: SMASH) to maximize omega-3s and minimize mercury.

Beta hydroxybutyrate (BHB) When the body is fasting or deprived of carbohydrates, it switches over to ketones for fuel. BHB is one of the ketones the body burns, and it also signals the body to alter gene expression in a beneficial way.

Bredesen recommends 70% of calories from fat. This is really on the edge of an extreme keto diet, best achieved with a nut-based diet supplemented by salad oil.

The chart gives you a rough idea of what Keto-flex looks like in practice. Salads with oily dressing are a good staple, since the greens provide fiber and phytonutrients but few calories, and most of the calories are from the oil in the dressing. Nuts are a tasty protein source that keeps the fat intake high. Fruits are bad news. If you eat an apple (0% of calories from fat), you have to expiate the sin with 1 Tablespoons of salad oil.

It takes a few weeks to switch over from a sugar-burning metabolism to a ketone-burning metabolism. If you try to do it too quickly, you end up with the keto flu, headaches, nausea and low energy.

MCT=Medium-chain triglycerides, such as coconut oil, are the best oils for inducing ketosis. They are good for APO4 negative people, but with APO4 positive they pose a long-term risk of bad cholesterol in the blood. APO4 positive people should jump-start a ketogenic diet with MCTs, then switch to olive, sunflower, or walnut oil.

During fasting, the body clears out waste outside cells (glymphatic system) and digests waste within cells (autophagy). For people who are APO4 negative, 12-14 hours fasting each day is sufficient, APO4 positive 15-16 hours is better.

Type 3 AD is cortical/toxicity

Derives from toxic build-up, heavy metals, pesticides, environmental toxins. Type 3 tends to present with high ratio of copper to zinc in the blood (generally a bad thing) and low triglycerides (generally a good thing).

Copper and zinc compete in the body, and many factors contribute to an excess of copper in modern Western environments (copper water pipes, low stomach acidity). This is one more reason not to take PPIs for common gastric distress or GERD*.

* PPIs include Prilosec and Nexium. Never take PPIs. If you must take PPIs, get off them after a few weeks. This advice is from Mitteldorf, not from Bredesen.

Zinc is a component of many enzymes and hormones in the body, and contributes to neurogenesis and to a healthy immune system. Low zinc is also a risk factor for type 2 diabetes. High copper:zinc ratio increases inflammation. There are many good reasons to keep your zinc levels high, from male sexual function to enhanced immune response.

Note: Presenting symptoms for Type 3 are more often problems with disorientation, calculations, visual perception, reasoning and word-finding. Type 3 is more common in younger patients, in females, and in people without the APO4 allele.

Look up more information about Type 3 under Posterior Cortical Atrophy (PCA).

Damp or water-damaged buildings can lead to toxic mold exposure. Aflatoxin is common in our diet. It comes from grains or nuts that have been improperly stored, and especially from peanuts. Different people can have very different sensititivies to aflatoxin.

Mold contributes to both inflammation and toxicity. You can test your home for mold spores, or test your urine for mold toxins in the body.

Type 4 AD is vascular

The causes and risk factors are the same as for cardiovascular disease, but arterial blockage can affect the brain as well as the heart. Multiple small strokes lead to loss of function in specific brain areas, inducing idiopathic forms of dementia.

Type 5 AD Traumatic

The same kinds of cognitive symptoms can derive from trauma to the brain, most often from a car accident or sports injury.

From the Discussion between Patrick and Bredesen

Herpes virus is a risk factor for AD, possibly because of its inflammatory effect.

Saunas are protective against AD. This is because of heat shock protein, but also because sweating helps the body to eliminate heavy metals. Wash immediately after sweating with a non-oily soap to assure that the toxins are not re-absorbed.

Homocysteine is a risk factor for faster brain atrophy and worsening cognitive decline. The old standard was <13, but Bredesen likes to see <7. How to lower your homocysteine? Eat raw vegetables, take folate supplements = vitamin B9. Caffeine, metformin, and niacin=vitamin B3 can all raise homocysteine levels. The MTHFR gene variant increases homocysteine levels. The amino acid methionine tends to raise homocysteine, but (the chemical relationship) there is no evidence that supplementing with SAMe increases homocysteine. Betaine is a supplement that decreases homocysteine directly. (Betaine also increases stomach acid, so its appropriate for some stomachs and not others.)

RECODE in My Experience

For a new drug or a specific diagnostic test, translation from the laboratory to the field is straightforward. What Bredesen has is something else. It is a program of diagnostics, leading (through expert analysis and personal counseling) to an individualized program tailored to the patient. Though in principle it should be scalable, its a system that resists mass production. This year, Bredesen has partnered with Apollo Health to train a diaspora of specialized doctors, and begin to offer his program for Alzheimers nationwide. The program is called RECODE, for REversal of COgnitive DEcline.

Last fall, I enrolled in the RECODE program to learn more about it, and to help formulate an Alzheimers prevention program for myself (age then=69). I was frustrated by the unresponsiveness of the Apollo team. They seemed well-intentioned, but overwhelmed by expansion that was faster than they could keep up with. This summer, I tried again, and I also enrolled Ben (85), a relative who has recently moved with his wife to a Continuing Care facility because of early stage AD.

I found that the dysfunctional system had become functional, and that there is now a network of doctors trained in RECODE, including several near my home in Philadelphia. My personal experience has been good. Dr Reina Marino, who worked with me, was attentive and knowledgable and patient with the technical details that I imagine I was the only patient to ask about. In the months that she has been practicing RECODE, she has already seen some patients significantly improved, though no dramatic recoveries to report yet. She hinted that some patients didnt follow through with the multi-faceted protocols for changes in life syle, diet, and environment. Indeed, I was disappointed to learn that Ben decided that his memory was not that bad, and he couldnt be bothered with the program. On the other end, Dr Marino has been too busy to follow through with me. My sample of one may or may not indicate that individualized medicine is time-consuming and expensive. On the subject of expensive, Medicare wont pay for RECODE treatment, and my Medicare Advantage plan only covers a small part of the cost.

The RECODE web site for patients is not as friendly as it ought to be. Im a computer professional, and I still had to get a RECODE staff person on the phone to tell me what needed to be filled out before I could download my test results and find a practitioner. The interface should be re-designed as soon as is practical to be navigated easily by older people who may be uncomfortable with computer systems.

Two more causes for concern

Ben scored 11 out of 30 on the standard MOCA paper-and-pencil test for cognitive impairment. Thats low even for an Alzheimers patient (though, to speak with him, one might have the impression that he was functioning at a high level). I was surprised to see that Bens blood test scores were better than mine in most areas. Comparing our two test results, it was not at all obvious why Ben should be impaired while I am not. If these tests are designed to pinpoint an individual cause for individual symptoms, then it seemed to me that they did not distinguish well between Bens condition and mine.

Link to my personal RECODE report

The initial report scores patients in five areas:

In four of these areas, Bens score was better than mine (meaning lower risk); only in glycotoxicity did I do a bit better than Ben. The risks are individually ranked for each patient, and both Ben and I were found to be at highest risk for toxicity, associated with Type 3 AD. But Bens toxicity was well below my own.

This is not a one-size-fits-all program. Everyones version of RECODE is personalized, based on their test results.

This has been a hallmark of the Bredesen protocol from the beginning, based on the premise that AD has very different causes in different individuals. It is, of course, the most difficult thing to achieve while the program is moving from the laboratory into the health care system. Differential diagnosis depends on, first, a computer algorithm, and then, the human intelligence of a doctor or other practitioner who has been trained by the RECODE core team.

Despite our very different profiles and different diagnoses (Type 3 for me, Type 1.5 for Ben), the first three steps in our computer-generated recommendations were identical. The section labeled Your Suggested Plan was identical for Ben and myself. The greatest risk factor identified for both of us was toxicity, yet the #1 recommendation for both of us was the keto-flex diet. This is congruent with the paradigm promoted by Mayo Clinic and elsewhere that AD is a kind of type 3 diabetes. Bredesen endorses this as one piece of a more complex story, so I had hoped for a more nuanced prescription from RECODE.

Reducing homocysteine was the #2 recommendation for both Ben and myself. The medical establishment recommends keeping homocysteine levels under 15, but Bredesen wants us to cut that in half. I have read the section on homocysteine from Bredesens book, and it is not clear whether homocysteine is important because of its direct neurotoxicity or because it is a marker of inflammation. After my RECODE interview, I left the Marcus Institute for Integrative Health with a bottle of a supplement formula designed to lower my homocysteine levels by direct and indirect action. Principal ingredients are B vitamins, N-Acetyl Cysteine (NAC) and (this one was new to me) betaine-HCl=trimethyl glycine (TMG). TMG reacts directly with homocysteine, pulling it out of the bloodstream. Are we fooling ourselves if we pull homocysteine out of the blood without reducing inflammation? David Quig says that betaine works great in the liver, but it doesnt affect homocysteine levels on the other side of the blood-brain barrier. A better alternative for the brain is 5-methyl tetrahydrofolate, a fancier folate supplement than the common and cheap synthetic folic acid. (Note also that folic acid is toxic to people with the MTHFR allele.)

The bottom line

Last year, Bredesen published an account of replicated success in 100 patients that was, if anything, more impressive than the original. Under his close supervision, the Bredesen lab is able to reverse AD with a rate of success well beyond any treatments in the past. The Bredesen system depends on individualized diagnosis and individualized treatment plans, so scaling his methodology for wide application presents daunting challenges.

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Scaling the Alzheimers Cure - ScienceBlog.com

On Friday, Californias Assembly passed a radical pro-abortion bill that would provide free abortions to all college and university students by a vote of 55-19.

Introduced by Connie Leyva (D-Chino), Senate Bill 24 mandates that all public colleges and universities provide abortion drugs to students up to 10 weeks pregnant for free by 2023. The bill has been sent to Governor Gavin Newsoms desk for his signature.

The state has an interest in ensuring that every pregnant person in California who wants to have an abortion can obtain access to that care as easily and as early in pregnancy as possible, the bill states.

As such, SB 24 requires all student healthcare services clinics on a California State University or University of California campus to offer abortion by medication. It requires the Commission on the Status of Women and Girls to administer the College Student Health Center Sexual and Reproductive Health Preparation Fund, which is established by the bill and funded under the bill.

The bill would continuously appropriate the moneys in that fund to the commission for allocations to each public university student health care services clinic for specified activities in preparation for providing abortion by medication techniques, thereby making an appropriation, it continues.

If it becomes law, the initiative would be funded by nonstate entities, including, but not necessarily limited to, private sector entities and local and federal government agencies, the bill says.

SB 24 affects 34 college campuses, the New York Times reports.

The bill covers medical abortions, which involve taking two pills over two days within the first 10 weeks of pregnancy to bring about a miscarriage. To perform an abortion with medication, doctors use a combination of mifepristone and mioprostol, Newsweek explains. Chemical abortions differ from the morning-after pill in that the morning-after bill provides a high dose of a hormone found in birth control pills that either delay or prevent the release of an egg to avoid fertilization. By contrast, the medical abortion pill offered under SB 24 terminates a confirmed pregnancy.

The bill was opposed not only by pro-life groups, but by colleges and the state finance department, all of whom expressed concerns about the safety and costs associated with the legislation.

Students for Life of America (SFLA) President Kristan Hawkins said, California legislators are recklessly experimenting with students lives and health by advancing a plan to force school health centers to become abortion vendors, pushing chemical abortion pills to force an intentional miscarriage.

These Toilet Bowl Abortions would create havoc on campuses, as girls are sent to their dorm bathrooms to bleed and pass an aborted infant in a toilet, without medical supervision or assistance, Hawkins added.

CBN News notes the FDA has documented at least 4,000 cases of serious adverse events, including more than 1,000 women who required hospitalization after taking the chemical abortion pill covered under this legislation.

These findings say nothing of the significant biological and behavioral effects on women following abortions. A three-year study conducted by Franciscan University of Steubenville psychologists and a medical school professor and Ph.D. student in Chiles Universidad San Sebastin, Conceptin, and published in Frontiers in Neuroscience found pregnancy termination results in negative biological, behavioral, and biochemical effects.

Not only does this put college students in physical danger, but it also increases the financial burden created by the legislation, notes Fresno Pro-Life Future president Bernadette Tasy in a letter campaigning against the legislation.

These women would effectively be getting two abortions how will these numerous follow-up surgical abortions, transportation, and any other expenses due to complications be funded? she said.

Governor Newsoms Department of Finance announced its opposition to SB 24 last month, citing significant costs generated by the measure.

While this bill and its sponsors indicate that private financing would cover all the costs associated with this bill, Finance notes this bill could create future General Fund cost pressures to the extent sufficient private funding cannot be raised to support readiness grants, the costs to comply with this bills requirements exceed the proposed grant funding, or to the extent the UC and CSU incur ongoing costs after January 1, 2023, the Department of Finance reported.

Tasy voiced similar concerns, stating that the appropriations in the bill will not cover the incurred costs, and would eventually force students to pay for the abortion meds their peers obtain on campus.

Leyva introduced a similar bill in 2018, SB 320, which was vetoed by Californias then-Governor Jerry Brown. At the time, Governor Brown said the bill was not necessary, as the services provided under the bill were already widely available. Brown also cited a study sponsored by the bills supporters that found the average distance to abortion providers in campus communities varies from five to seven miles, which Brown remarked was not an unreasonable distance.

Following Browns veto, Leyva vowed to reintroduce the bill under the next governor. As the Trump Administration continues to unravel many of the critical health care protections and services for women, legislation such as this is urgently needed to make sure that Californians are able to access the full range of reproductive care regardless of where they may live, Leyva said in a statement.

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Calif. Legislature Passes Bill Mandating All Public Colleges Offer Free Medical Abortions - The New American

The Polycystic ovary syndrome, or polycystic ovary syndrome, is one of the most common metabolic disorders of Mature women, worldwide, about five to eight percent affected. Prominent patients Victoria Beckham or Jools, wife of celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, for example.

polycystic ovary syndrome What is it?

Noticeable PCOS, among other factors, due to Obesity, cycle irregularities, infertility, and the growth of a beard. One of the most common symptoms of PCO syndrome is that Sufferers have difficulty to get pregnant, however, both Victoria as well as Jools the proud mommies of four children. This shows that Even if the PCO-syndrome is not curable, treatment is possible.

The polycystic ovary syndrome, women have elevated levels of male sex hormones like testosterone and suffer from a dysfunctional cycle to infertility. Additional symptoms may include acne, weight gain, loss of hair on the head and strong body hair, in addition, suffer from the disease, other diseases such as Diabetes, heart, Depression, or sleep apnea favors. A treatment is therefore absolutely necessary! Dr. Israel Ortega of the Spanish clinic IVI Fertility, said: Unfortunately in the medical world today still some confusion about what PCOS is caused. It is believed widely that it has to do with the genes, however, still needs to be scientifically proven.

How can you treat PCOS?

The patients who suffer from PCOS have a hormonal imbalance. This is also a factor that contributes to the disease. As with all diseases, the symptoms, as well as your vary in polycystic ovary syndrome severity.

Who presents the typical symptoms associated with PCOS in connection, in itself, should arrange first an appointment with his family doctor, to perform the necessary Tests, and other diseases can exclude. Sometimes you can perhaps even an ultrasound and or a blood test. After a diagnosis you will be referred possibly to a PSCOS specialists that can help you to be in the best possible way with the symptoms to be done.

So, for example, the pill can help with irregular cycles, while women should be transferred with the Baby in advance, to an appropriate fertility specialist.

diet for polycystic ovarian syndrome

a special diet can help, because studies have shown that a weight loss of five per cent, helped overweight women to alleviate their PCOS symptoms. It is recommended, above all, a sugar-reduced diet. The Basis of the diet are vegetables, and sugar-poor fruits. Aussrdem must. according to the 3 meals-principle, without Snacks in between feed, which activates the burning of fat and helps in calories to save, because who eats often eats usually more

high-Quality protein suppliers, such as lean meat, fish, eggs, low-fat dairy products are recommended, and white flour products should be avoided rather. The experts especially recommend the dish model-diet to combat polycystic ovary syndrome in a natural way. (CM)

in order To successfully and in the long term, lose weight, the calorie intake is of great importance. Not only eaten, but also the composition of meals plays an important role. In addition, the plate model is perfect information, and all menus, no matter whether you consume these in the Restaurant, at home, or in the case of an invitation to apply.

In Switzerland, about one in ten sex suffers Mature woman complaints for the period. Much has been written about the symptoms of Premenstrual syndrome (PMS), although it is not known, but there are certainly ways on how you can take action against the symptoms.

Here,

Of endometriosis read more, if there are uterine lining attaches outside the uterine cavity such as the peritoneum, ovaries, Uterus, vagina, bladder or bowel. The blood of the endometriosis foci can not flow out. Often inflammation is the result. Symptoms strong menstrual cramps, pain during Sex and bowel movements, cycle disorders. Endometriosis does not always cause pain, sometimes it is only discovered in the wish to have children. Doctors believe that occurs in about 50 percent of infertile women.

hormone therapy, pills, or a laparoscopy, at which the flock can be removed Help. The relapse rate is high. In the past, Doctors suggested a pregnancy as a therapy, it discourages today. A pregnancy does not necessarily improvement. Affected births have an increased risk for complications and failure.The removal of the uterus and ovaries is associated with risks. Only with the Menopause, the disease takes a the end.

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What polycystic ovary syndrome is and what it means for those Affected? View - The KXAN 36 News

In recent years, health officials have pushed aggressively to include more women in clinical trials of new drugs. Gone is the ban that once excluded women of childbearing age from participating in studies. Even scientists who work with animals are now encouraged to include mice and rats of both sexes.

But when it comes to breast cancer, it is men who get short shrift. They are often excluded from clinical trials of new treatments. When breast cancer drugs come to market, there is little data to indicate whether they are safe or effective in men. Some drugs are approved only for women.

The disease is extremely rare in men, who account for fewer than 1% of breast cancer cases. Nonetheless, the Food and Drug Administration is calling on researchers to include male patients in clinical trials of breast cancer treatments, even if the studies are unlikely to enroll more than a handful of men.

The guidance is a draft recommendation now open to public comment. Some breast cancer specialists called it a long overdue step.

Its so frustrating in clinic to see patients and say, Well, we dont really know the drugs have been tested in women. We think it should work in men, but theres no real evidence to back that up, said Dr. Sharon Giordano, a professor of breast medical oncology at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston who treats many male patients.

Even if only a few men participate in each trial, data on them could be pooled. Coupled with real-world experience using the medications, that data could shed light on treatment, she said.

The proposed guideline comes amid growing concerns that men with breast cancer whose disease tends to be diagnosed in more advanced stages are often not getting optimal care and may be missing out on lifesaving therapies.

One of the largest analyses of these patients, published in Annals of Oncology in 2017, reported what the authors called troublesome findings. The study, carried out by the International Male Breast Cancer Program, analyzed 1,500 men with breast cancer in Canada, the United States and seven European countries.

The vast majority of men with breast cancer have tumors that are fueled by estrogen. (Men produce the hormone, too.) In the study, virtually all men whose cancer had not spread had estrogen-receptor-positive tumors, which should be treated with therapy to reduce estrogen levels in the body or to block the hormone from attaching to breast cancer cells.

But only 77% of these patients received anti-estrogen therapy, the study found. That means that nearly 1 in 4 men who should have received a potentially lifesaving therapy did not get it, said Dr. Fatima Cardoso, the lead author of the study and director of the breast unit at Champalimaud Clinical Center in Lisbon. We dont know why, she said.

The most common treatment for men was surgery: a mastectomy to remove the breast, or a lumpectomy to remove the tumor. But the men had low rates of radiation treatment, which is standard care after a lumpectomy and often recommended after a mastectomy if, for example, the tumor is very large, said Dr. Marisa C. Weiss, founder of Breastcancer.org. The study called the low rates a major concern.

Poor care is all too common when patients suffer from rare diseases, and for men, breast cancer is a rare disease, Cardoso noted.

Many, many oncologists have never seen a case of breast cancer in a male patient, she said. For these patients, she added, its particularly important to find experienced doctors.

Men with breast cancer are often older. They may have very large tumors by the time they seek care, because they were not on the lookout for the disease.

Some men are not even aware they have breasts and not aware they can have breast cancer, Cardoso said. Even health professionals often dont think about it. General practitioners who see male patients dont pay attention to the breast.

She added: We need a lot of education to remind men they have breasts, too, and should check them. And if they find something, go to the oncologist fast.

Cardoso and other experts welcomed the proposed new guidelines, but said researchers should collaborate on large international trials focused on men with breast cancer. When the patient population is small, large trials are needed to make significant findings.

Some data is better than no data, but its not the ultimate solution, said Dr. Larry Norton, chairman of clinical oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

But pharmaceutical companies are not very interested in funding such trials. No one wants to invest in a disease that is only 1% of all breast cancers, Cardoso said.

As with women, one of the first warning signs of breast cancer in men can be a lump in the breast. Other possible early symptoms include nipple pain, discharge from the nipple, a sore on the nipple or areola, an inverted nipple, or swollen lymph glands under the arm.

The risk of breast cancer in men increases with age, and is higher in men who have high estrogen levels or genetic mutations or who have been exposed to radiation. Men with Klinefelter syndrome who carry an extra X chromosome are also at increased risk.

Family history is important: Doctors recommend all men with breast cancer be tested for mutations in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes, which are linked to both breast and ovarian cancer in women.

Men who have mutations in these genes are 80 times as likely to develop breast cancer as men without these mutations. A positive result alerts female relatives that they may need to be tested as well.

Read the rest here:
Who's missing from breast cancer trials? Men, says the FDA - NNY360

This article was medically reviewed by Connie Jennings, M.D., a member of the Prevention Medical Review Board, on September 12, 2019.

Before we dive into essential oils, know this: The best way to ward off a cold is to wash your hands. A lot. Often. Then again. Most doctors agree that this is the number-one way to stay healthy while people around you are wheezing and sneezing and dripping mucus. But isnt it nice to know that there are other natural ways to ward off the ickiesand that they (bonus!) smell great? Essential oils to the rescue!

Essential oils have been used by generations of people, in a multitude of cultures, as a natural preventative and treatment for a host of ailments, and that includes the common cold. "As far back as the Paleolithic period60,000 years agohumans were using plants as herbal remedies," says Yufang Lin, MD, a board-certified physician who practices at Cleveland Clinic Wellness. "Unlike pharmaceuticals, one plant often has multiple properties. Lavender, for instance, has anti-inflammatory, anti-septic, anti-anxiety and anti-depressant properties."

Like many natural remedies, there hasnt been a huge amount of research done on essential oils, since studies are (unfortunately) often driven by the marketplacebut there have been a certain number of studies on some essential oils. When it comes to using them to ward off colds and coughs and easing the discomfort they cause, keep reading for more on what's known about specific oils.

There are a few easy methods for using essential oils to help with the sniffles.

Tea Tree Oil: According to one study, this oil has been found to have antiviral properties, meaning it could help squelch the nasties that lead to sinus infections and respiratory issues. "Tea tree essential oil has also been proven to have antimicrobial and antifungal properties," says Dr. Lin. "It's one of my favorites for cold season, along with eucalyptus and lavender."

Eucalyptus Oil: Beyond its forest-y scent, eucalyptus oil has been shown to have both antiviral and antimicrobial properties. "It also reduces inflammation, suppresses cough, reduces fever, loosens up chest congestion, and is an all-around support during cold season," says Dr. Lin. Dilute it in one of the neutral oils above and rub it onto chest and throat to ease a cough, or do a steam sauna (above). If youre feverish, you can also add it to a cool compress and it may just lessen your temp.

Peppermint Oil: That minty goodness is a natural decongestant and fever reducer, due to its menthol. A small study from 2013 found that it can help the bronchial musclesand could thus ease breathing if you have a cough. (Dont use this one while pregnant.)

Chamomile Oil: A 2010 study stated that breathing in chamomile essential oil in steam may help relieve cold symptoms.

Rosemary Oil: This herb isnt just a way to spark up your roast chicken! In its essential oil form, its been found to be good at breaking up mucus and reducing inflammation.

Frankincense Oil: Its anti-inflammatory power has been shown to be useful in treating coughs and bronchitis. The scent is woodsy and rich.

Oregano Oil: This essential oil has a compound that, according to one study, is a good antimicrobial germ-fighter.

Thyme Oil: With high levels of the same helpful compound as oregano, thyme oil may help protect against viruses and bacteria.

Cinnamon Oil: 2017 research showed that cinnamon oil could ward off germs that cause respiratory problems.

A critical component of staying healthy, warding off colds, and recovering? Getting enough sleep! Here are 4 essential oils known to promote relaxation and snoozing! (Chamomile oil, above, is another one that helps on this front.)

Lavender Oil: Lavender is one of the best-studied essential oils. Research has shown that it may help you go to sleep, and may even lower your levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Less stress, easier snoozing! "Lavender is well known for its ability to lift mood and reduce anxiety," says Dr. Lin. "Who wouldnt benefit from a mood lift when sick?"

Bergamot Oil: One study showed that sniffing bergamot aroma for just 15 minutes reduced cortisol levels.

Clary Sage Oil: With a grassy, herbal scent, this oil eases stress and makes you feel sleepy. Put a drop or two on a tissue, cup it in your hands, and breathe in deeply for a couple of minutes.

Sandalwood Oil: Another rich and woodsy scent; one study found that the oil has a sedative effect and can increase REM sleep (but for some people, it increases alertness! So maybe try it before a nap first).

"Because it takes a lot of plant materials to make the essential oilfor example, it takes 250 lbs. of lavender to produce one pound of essential oilthey are considered strong medicine," says Dr. Lin. "A little goes a long way, and toxicity is possible." Start by using a minimum amount and increase as tolerated. Dr. Lin adds, "Extra caution needs to be exercised around pregnant women, children, the elderly, those with multiple medical conditions, and pets."

Like what you just read? Youll love our magazine! Go here to subscribe. Dont miss a thing by downloading Apple News here and following Prevention. Oh, and were on Instagram too.

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These Are the Best Essential Oils for Colds and Coughs, According to a Physician - Prevention.com

The testimony of his eight-year-old victim may put convicted rapist Nicolas Ninow away for life. Ninow was convicted of rape on Monday but not before many questioned the National Prosecuting Authoritys decision to risk re-traumatising his young victim by asking her to provide her testimony via cameras outside the courtroom. Joan van Dyk looks at how, in court, comfort for the tiniest victims of sexual abuse can come from the unlikeliest of places.

All rise, a voice declares as the magistrate enters the room. The Krugersdorp Magistrates Court is packed. A black and red robe drapes gracefully around the magistrates shoulders.In front of her, a shuffling ensues as people attempt to sit comfortably on the hard wooden benches.

Then, the room falls quiet in anticipation of the mornings proceedings.

But magistrate Kleio has become distracted.

She stops to sniff the air. Its suddenly filled with a delicious, meaty smell.

Suddenly, she spins around, gobbling up a treat from an outstretched hand behind her.

Sated and lips smacking, she shifts her focus back to the matter shes presiding over her short, black tail still wagging.

Kleio is one of a rotating pack of about 15 specially-trained therapy hounds that descend upon the Krugersdorp Magistrate Court west of Johannesburg every second Saturday.

Shes no ordinary magistrate.

This week, Kleio is flanked by, among others: Betty the stenographer, court orderly Peanut, and Flake the prosecutor. Each dog is dressed in a costume tailored to the role they take on in mock courtroom proceedings.

Travis, a shiny black labrador, has been cast in the role of the defense advocate. Hes sporting a patched, bedraggled toga to show that he represents the bad guy, Corrie Niemann explains.

Niemann is the vice president at Top Dogs, a volunteer organisation that specialises in training pups to take part in animal-assisted therapy. This kind of counselling pairs trained dogs such as Kleio with healthcare professionals, psychologists or teachers to help people recover frompsychological trauma or even heart disease, the US medical organisation Mayo Clinic explains on its website.

For about four years, Top Dogs has worked with Johannesburgs Teddy Bear Foundation. With several branches in Gauteng, the foundation supports children who have been sexually abused or neglected as well as their families through a range of counselling. The centres also provide the specialist medical care needed to collect physical evidence for those looking to open a case against the perpetrators.

Thats why Kleio and the gang are at the Krugersdorp Magistrates Court to play their part in the Teddy Bear Foundations court preparation programme for sexually abused children.

One in three South African children will have experienced some form of sexual abuse by the age of 17 enough children to fill Johannesburgs Soccer City stadium eight times.

More than 24 000 cases of child sexual abuse were registered by the South African Police Service last year a 4% increase in reported assaults since 2005, according to crime statistics released earlier this month.

These figures, however, only reflect cases that were reported to the police, and national and community-based studies suggest the real numbers are likely far higher, says Lucy Jamieson, a child rights researcher at UCTs Childrens Institute.

Research suggests that one in three South African children will have experienced some form of sexual abuse by the time they reach the age of 17 enough children to fill Johannesburgs Soccer City stadium eight times.

Thats according to the Optimus Study, which asked almost 10 000 South African teenagers between the ages of 15 and 17 if theyd ever experienced sexual violence, including rape and exposure to pornography. Because of the studys design, this figure also includes consensual sexual acts between 17 and 18-year-olds, which are legal in South Africa.

In South Africa, the age of consent is 16. But the countrys 2007 Sexual Offences Act provides for children between the ages of 12 and 16 to have sex with each other legally. Adults people 18 and older who have sex with children between the ages of 12 and 16 are guilty of statutory rape. The law does, however, allow for children aged 16 or 17 to legally have sex with people who are up to two years younger or older than themselves.

The research revealed children who had a supportive family environment, for instance, whose parents regularly knew who they were with and where they went, were far less likely to report having been sexually abused.

Similarly, the Optimus study echoed previous research in finding that children who lived with neither or just one biological parent had an increased risk of sexual abuse, with the risk being higher for young people living with neither parent than for those living with one biological parent.

Almost two-thirds of South Africa children live in single-parent households, a Statistics South Africas 2016 community survey revealed.

In 40% of cases, the Optimus Study found, South African children had been victims of abuse two or more times.

And, while about one in three children who were abused by an adult they know also reported having injuries, only about 30% of these children sought medical help.

Its a dry and icy August day at the Krugersdorp Magistrates Court. Inside courtroom F, about 30 children sit fidgeting on benches a sea of puffy jackets in blue and purple hues.

Theyre all due to testify in court as witnesses in sexual abuse cases. Most likely their own.

Even in cases that never make it to court, children may be required to give eyewitness reports during the course of the investigation or to determine their emotional and intellectual competency to testify. And for victims of abuse, the stress of this process can cause more trauma, explains the clinical director at the Teddy Bear Foundation Shaheda Omar.

Children who experienced sexual abuse were three times as likely to report symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder such as anxiety and nightmares than other young people, the Optimus study found.One in five children who have been sexually abused by adults are also likely to have problems with their schoolwork.

The more times a child testified, research found, the worse they coped with the trauma later on. But children were worse off even a decade later if they had not testified at all and their abusers received light sentences.

But for children who go on to testify against their abusers, this emotional distress can be even more severe even years after the case had ended, found a 2005 study published in the journal Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development.

The researchers followed about 200 sexually abused child witnesses in the United States for 12 years after they testified in court in the 80s. Rape victims who had testified in court reported worse mental health than children who didnt, even after researchers took into account the psychological issues that were present before their cases started.

The more times a child testified, the worse off they were later in life, and the less likely they were to be able to adjust to everyday life when their case ended especially if their testimony was the only evidence to support their case.Although, victims were worse off in adulthood if they did not testify and the perpetrator was given a light sentence. These children reported higher levels of anxiety about whether they were believed.

Children who were older when they testified and had a better understanding of what their involvement in the legal system meant, remained negative about their experience of the legal system as they grew older. Younger childrens attitude however dissipated somewhat.

Thats why these youngsters are getting special training in Krugersdorp.

Who wants to be our magistrate today? sings the Teddy Bear Foundation staff member who runs the programme.

A few tiny hands shoot up they know the drill.

By the time the children gather for a practice-run in court, theyve already been taught about the different court characters in smaller group sessions with the dressed-up dogs, Omar says.

Depending on their age, they may also have filled out worksheets that help them come to grips with each ones role in the court. Theyll get to know the dogs after the court run-through too, in sessions set up specially to walk, brush or feed them.

This way, Omar explains, the children are less anxious and they get to know whos who in the zoo.

A young girl gets up, confidently takes a black robe from the smiling Teddy Bear Foundation staffer, and ambles up to take her seat next to Kleio, whos enjoying a luxurious head scratch from her handler. The dogs are never let off their leash, Niemann says.

When all the actors have been cast and handed their scripts, a mock court case begins but the details wont overlap with any of the real cases in which the kids are involved.

Today, magistrate Kleio is trying to get behind the case of a certain missing television, which the court has heard, was apparently shiny. And purple.

Plopped down in the hallway close to Shaheda Omars Parktown office is a giant plush teddy bear larger probably than most of the children that pass it on the way to therapy.

Sitting in her office, Omar is surrounded by the foundations namesake. Teddy bears dot a bookcase behind her, snuggled between psychology books and awards for the centres work. Opposite her desk, a row of the stuffed animals sit on the floor, propped up against a yellow wall next to tiny chairs set up especially for the centres little patients.

Courtrooms are not built for children, she says, adjusting the giant red bow pinned to the front of her blouse with a sparkly brooch.

Even less so when those children are victims of abuse.

She explains: Children who have experienced trauma often generalise their experience onto everything. Theyll be afraid of everything and everyone.

But a fascinating phenomenon begins to take shape when the kids start to trust the dogs. They become less fearful. And, the little ones gradually begin to trust their court preparation counsellors and social workers.

Omar chalks this up to the calming effect of the four-legged therapists: The dogs help them heal, she says.

And, theres science to back her up.

In 2017, researchers randomly assigned children between the ages of 7 and 12 to rooms where they were asked to do public speaking for five minutes, and then complete a maths problem all in front of an audience of two unencouraging adults they hadnt met before. The children faced this scary event either alone, with a caregiver, or with their pet dog. The kids who had their animal companions reported feeling less stressed than those in both the other two scenarios.

In the same study, children who petted their furry friends for comfort also had lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol. The study, published in the journal Social Development in 2017, concluded that pet dogs could act as a kind of stress buffer for children.

Locally, researchpublished in the South African Journal of Psychology in 2013, found therapy dogs even helped to improve traumatised childrens self-esteem and social skills.

At least one small, experimental study suggests the furry companions may also help adults.

A 2018 study published in the journal Frontiers of Psychology found that women who interacted with therapy dogs directly after being shown a traumatic film clip reported lower levels of anxiety than those who were simply shown a video of a therapy dog or were left alone after seeing the footage.

But, animal-assisted therapy is a relatively new field, and aresearch review published in the Frontiers of Psychology in 2015 found that while this kind of intervention could be useful to treat trauma in conjunction with traditional methods such as counselling, more work is needed to determine whether it can be used as a stand-alone treatment.

In the meantime, the Teddy Bear Foundation has found that the more relaxed the children arewhen testifying in court, the better witnesses they become.

And that trend has been bad news for the bad guys. The organisations data shows their conviction rates have steadily improved since Top Dogs became involved in their court preparation programme.

But its not just the dogs, Omar argues. It takes a whole team of experts including lawyers, police officers, psychologists and parents to prepare a child to testify in court.

Its not about coaching the child what to say, she says, as the morning sun bounces around her brightly coloured office.

Its about teaching him or her to retell the events as they remember it unfolding. And that its okay if you dont remember, to just say so.

Back in the cold stuffy courtroom in Krugersdorp, magistrate Kleios human counterpart is inching ever-closer to her.

What weve seen is that the children slowly start testing the waters, getting closer, closer and even start touching the dogs, Omar says. Even those that initially cried or avoided the dogs and showed resistance, start engaging with the dogs.

By the time the fake session draws to a close, a glance around the courtroom reveals more and more tiny hands resting on furry backs.

Just before the court adjourns, a loud thump echoes around the courtroom.

Then, snorts and giggles. Flake, the shiny black dog dressed as a prosecutor, has tumbled off his chair. A stretch gone too far.

Its a tough life, that of a therapy dog, but before everyone can leave the stuffy courtroom to romp around outside, the teacher asks the class to recap questions about what theyve learnt.

And what is the role of the witness? the teacher asks.

From the front row, a tiny little girl, around 5 years old, puts up her hand and answers proudly: To tell the truth.

The Teddy Bear Foundation hopes to expand the court preparation programme, which currently only runs in two centres in Johannesburg and Krugersdorp. If everything goes according to plan, the first new satellite clinic will be in Soweto, Omar says.

Luckily, since the court preparation programme depends mostly on the work of volunteers, it doesnt cost much to run. The foundation estimates the programme costs about R1 000 to run per year.

As for the dogs, theyll work for the odd tummy rub. The trouble is finding enough pet owners willing to offer their pets to be trained for the job.

Well need 15 more volunteer handlers and dogs for each new site, Top Dogs Corrie Niemann explains.

Niemann dreams of a day when dogs will make their first appearance in South Africas courts.

In the United States, more than 200 dogs work in 40 states around the country, the non-profit Courthouse Dogs estimates.The dogs are also one of several options given to young people in Canada who need help getting through tough court cases.

But here at home, Omar adds, children are not always in the court session. In some cases, children testify, as Nicholas Ninows victim did, in camera or in a private room accompanied by a social worker. Niemann is adamant that even in this setting, a furry companion could make a world of difference.

For now, he and his team provide children with a knitted teddy bear, shaped to look like their favourite therapy dog to hold onto as they take the stand.

More:
The magistrate's tail: How these pets are helping child rape victims get justice - Bhekisisa