BioChemACCHS2018

Bio Chemistry Week 2: Radiation A study conducted by Michael Pravikoff and Philippe Hubert at the National Center for Scientific Research and University of Bordeaux in France was released this past week revealing that some wines from the Napa Valley produced after 2011 contain up to twice as much radiation as prior vintages. The wines were melted to ash and then measured for cesium 137 levels, a manmade radioactive particle only produced by a  nuclear reaction. The radiation was traced directly back to the Fukishima nuclear disaster in 2011.  Since the disaster ocean waters, soils, milk and fish have all been tested along the west coast of the US and Canada for radiation levels. Results are consistently well below standards for health risks. It is surprising how scientists and news articles characterize and contextualize these levels of radiation. Pravikoff repeated in interviews regarding Napa wines that radiation levels, “certainly aren't enough to affect your health,

1) The article “Side Effects Could All Be In The Mind,” discusses research about placebo and nocebo effects. Studies show that it is not uncommon for people to develop side effects from a placebo or miraculously heal from chronic low back pain after a sham surgery. Many people discount the validity of such symptoms arguing, “it is all in the mind,” as if that were an obvious rational for a dismissive conclusion. People have no trouble believing that stress, which derives from a mental state, eventually presents physical symptoms such as, hypertension, stomach ulcers, tension headaches, or heart attack. If a mental state can produce measurable and often irreversible physical symptoms why shouldn’t we believe that the mind can also produce measurable and long term healing from physical symptoms? Bravo to to the author of this article for suggesting we harness the power of the placebo effect, which is really to say that we should pay more attention to the mind as a force for healing.