Sunday, November 16, 2008

Tumor Vaccine

I just attended a 2-day workshop in Cebu. It was so wonderful despite losing my wallet with everything in it!!! I almost slept at the airport :) Good thing we had contacts to borrow money. As for my IDs, tough luck I have to get new ones again.

This tumor vaccine is relatively easy to prepare and sans to life-threatening side effects.

The Newcastle Disease virus (NDV) is an oncolytic virus that causes bird flu in chickens but harmless to humans, except for the tumor cells. Upon infection with the virus, the virus starts replicating in the cancer cells. Infected cancer cells then become recognized by the lymphocytes, NK cells as foreign and therefore tumor lysis occurs.

Sunday, November 09, 2008

Confirmation of an age-old knowledge?

There's this study which came out of MSNBC.com, which claimed that patients with cognitive impairment who had kidney transplantions have improved mental functions.

Interestingly, in traditional chinese medicine, the Kidney governs the mind, marrow, and the bone. So any disorder in the kidneys can manifest problems in the Brain, mental function, the blood and bone itself.

As you may know already, Kidneys plays an important role in the blood formation, as well as calcium absorption. But this is the first time to show that improved kidney function can improve cognitive function.

This is certainly an affirmation of how much accurate TCM is, when it comes to diagnostic and pathophysiologic knowledge.