This is a tale of two chemicals — one excites, while the other relaxes our brain. These chemicals do determine how well we sleep.
Our brain has so many types of neurotransmitters floating about, all signaling our neurons to do something here or there.
Glutamate is no stranger to neurotransmission — it is an amino acid that we can obtain from proteins in our diet or the popular flavoring condiment known as monosodium glutamate (MSG). In fact, glutamate is an excitatory neurotransmitter, and as this article states,
Glutamate has excitatory effects on nerve cells, and that it can excite cells to their death in a process now referred to as “excitotoxicity”. This effect is due to glutamate receptors present on the surface of brain…
The statistics don’t lie.
I saw a tweet today about diabetes affecting 1 in 3 white people who were born in 2000. Unfortunately, the statistic goes down to 1 in 2 for black children.
This suggests that there is some form of racial discrimination if we look at the numbers from a superficial level.
Unfortunately, the information doesn’t cover the socioeconomic perspective, which does play a heavier role in the United States.
What do I mean by that?
The great income inequality
We can see from the data provided by the US Federal Reserve that the net worth of a typical white family is much…
Where’s the fear of the blood clots and death coming from?
We live in an age of too much (dis)information, where half-truths can be perpetuated while real issues are left obscured. It’s highly perplexing, really.
Even with the COVID-19 vaccines that are out vaccinating people.
Because the news does spread that people have died upon taking the vaccine.
Others have experienced life-threatening blood clots and other major side effects.
But rather than hitting the “share” button on various clickbait “health” articles that don’t make any sense, can we actually pause for a moment and think of why such things are happening, before we turn into headless chickens and emotional manipulators trying…
These things can be explained and aren’t really facets of rocket science. How do we make sense of them, though?
Aging is unfortunately an inevitable problem that all of us humans will face.
And when it comes to aging, multiple aspects of our lives can be affected.
Physically, we won’t be able to do things at 60 that we could do at 20.
Mentally, we may face cognitive declines.
We tend to associate white hair with a person as a sign of longevity. It makes them look dignified and respectable.
One question, though. How did their hair colour change from black/brown/red/whatever to white? What was the biochemical mechanism behind all that?
Another question, now. …
They do play around with the “parking spots” on biological receptors, too.
Ever faced a situation where you had a reserved parking spot for you, but some inconsiderate bum decided to park their car there even though it said in big bright letters “RESERVED”?
I’ve had that happen before, and I’ve had some murderous thoughts run through my mind — but in the end I do let it slide. The laws for vandalism are pretty tough in Singapore, as Michael Fay can attest to.
The “theft” of a parking spot can leave us feeling frustrated.
However, we do experience “parking spot” thieves in our body too, and those may be necessary for…
What’s the problem when we can’t visualise how our body runs into accumulations or deficits?
There are certain things in life that we would want to see increases in. Financially, we will always appreciate an increase in our bank accounts. Emotionally, we will always appreciate an increased outpouring of love from our loved ones. Mentally, we will always appreciate learning new content that is relevant to us.
Healthwise, we’re happy when we see increases in muscle mass — but not so happy when we see increases in fat mass, for instance.
Therefore, it leads us back to the idea of balancing.
Our bodies are open systems — there are always streams of mass and energy…
An analogy of insulin resistance, and how this resistance applies to our health.
There has been much commotion about rape culture and sexual violence these days. A lot of the (unfair) blame has been placed on women who dress sexy, and men who end up giving in to their urges — as if it was the man’s right to do what he wanted.
Is it the case that every woman who dresses sexy is begging to be raped by a man?
No, it isn’t!
While there can (and ought to) be a whole discourse about how men ought to keep their equipment in their pants and exert a much higher level of self-control…
Can antibiotics be used as chemotherapy treatments?
Ever since Sir Alexander Fleming was able to isolate penicillin from a mould, antibiotics have been prescribed for situations that are related to bacterial infections — in different variations and strengths, of course.
An antibiotic, as we can tell, is “anti” (or against) “biotic” activity (pertaining to life). Meaning that whatever it does, it sure as heck aims to massacre the living daylights out of its target organisms.
Different antibiotics tend to do the job differently — whether we’re looking at:
the inhibition of bacterial cell wall synthesis, the enhancement of bacterial cell membrane permeability, an interference with bacterial protein…
When the inflammatory signalling mechanism has gone awry
Age-related inflammatory disease syndromes don’t sound as bad as Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), to be honest.
While most AIDS patients have been treated as social pariahs because of the connotations that AIDS brings about with regards to promiscuity or illicit drug use, nobody gives that same stigma to a heart disease patient or a diabetic.
But yet, both kinds of problems do indicate that there is something going wrong with the body somewhere.
What goes wrong in an AIDS patient?
We know that one who has AIDS has acquired an “immunodeficiency”. …
Is there any truth to this line of thinking?
If I were to ask someone to name a 3-sided shape, they’d most invariably respond with a “triangle”.
The triangle is that ubiquitous as a shape in nature — we even have musical instruments that are named as such, and they’re just metal bars that are bent into the shape of a triangle.
Even in the field of chemistry, though, we have chemical compounds that are shaped in the form of a triangle.
I believe that people in most households would have fiddled around with these adhesives before:
Dr Joel Yong, PhD
Deconstructing the interconnectedness between health and business. Join my mailing list at http://thethinkingscientist.substack.com.
