From: Jeff Davis (jdavis@socketscience.com)
Date: Wed May 17 2000 - 12:54:25 MDT
Just a bit more.
In the original article cited by Spudboy, my attention was drawn in
particular to a couple of points:
>From the following section,
>At the Cleveland Clinic, doctors have cooled five victims of especially
severe strokes, >dropping their temperatures a few degrees for a day or
two. Ordinarily,
>80 percent of such people die or are seriously disabled. Against the odds,
two of these five
>recovered completely.
note the phrases "especially severe", and "recovered completely".
Now, that's "completely" from a journalist, not necessarily a neurological
professional, but nevertheless...
And from the section immediately following,
>Doctors at the University of Texas in Houston saw similar results cooling
victims of cardiac
>arrest. Like a stroke, cardiac arrest wrecks the brain by shutting off its
blood supply. Victims
>often suffer permanent brain damage, even
>if paramedics eventually restart their hearts.
>
>The Houston doctors chilled seven patients who arrived at the hospital in
comas
>after being resuscitated. After a day of cooling, two of them soon
returned completely to >normal, while another is nearly so.
note the phrase:
"two ...returned completely to normal, while another nearly so."
My point is that the degree of efficacy implied here is very high, such is
the inference of the juxtaposition of the two phrases "especially severe"
and "recovered completely".
Then, if you add to that, the results of the treatments reported in the
following article:
Improvement in some patients who underwent
neuronal transplantation following stroke
http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/upmc-iis033100.html
(which, by the way, also implies--though established medical researchers
avoid the topic like the plague--the possibilty of reversing age-related
neuron loss, ie brain rejuvenation), you're looking at THE CURE FOR STROKE
(and brain aging?).
Certainly there's more work to be done, such as developing a scanning and
monitoring system which will allow the prediction of likely events and the
immediate signalling of actual events, as well as--while I'm making a
shopping list--a means of remediating the accumulation of circulatory
"sludge" which (excepting burst blood vessels) is the primary cause of
strokes.
What I'm saying here is that the prospect for major strides in disposing of
the monstrous ugliness, the godawful expense, and the general plague of
human suffering associated with the brain-blasted, vegged-out, pitiful,
helpless, desperate horror of aged loved ones and their families, which is
the story of stroke, well, .... I LOVE SCIENTISTS AND I LOVE SCIENCE.
Hoo-flippin-rah.
Best, Jeff Davis
"Everything's hard till you know how to do it."
Ray Charles
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