It has really helped although obviously it took surgery and then also nine months of slowly tweaking the settings.
Before the VNS they could (for example) not go on a trampoline for more than a few minutes without having a seizure, but now they're fine all day. They did still have seizures at night after the VNS but we tackled those with a different treatment.
The Sentiva 1000 sends regular soft pulses (for one minute every 3.5 minutes) and can also react to heart rate rising suddenly (which might mean a seizure) by automatically increasing its pulses. During a seizure if we want to manually activate the device we swipe over its location with a strong magnet and that activates it to send stronger pulses for a minute or so.
Batteries last about eight years. A few times a year we go to check the battery, the nurses have an ipad and a wand-type thing that they hold over the implants location, it uses some sort of low power NFC to read data and diagnostics from the implant. When we do need to change the battery that will be an operation. But less complicated than the initial operation (and even that was in-and-out in one day)
Wow, I had no idea that the science around the vagus nerve had progressed so far that we actually have implants that can be used in humans. Amazing. I'm so happy it helps your child.
This is so awesome - thanks for sharing this - my daughter also has epilepsy, but it is fortunately controlled by medication.
It seems that stimulating the vagus nerve resets something to default in the brainstem when a cascade event is about to occur - probably shuts down the errant signals from propagating to the entire brain ???.
Do you know which lobe in her brain it happens ??? (my daughter has left temporal lobe)
For me, the amazing thing about the Vagus nerve is that you can stimulate it with your breathing. And since the Vagus nerve affects the autonomic nervous system (involuntary, not consciously controlled) while breathing choices are conscious, this is one of the few ways that humans can directly impact important aspects of their psychology and physiology, like how calm they feel. Mindfulness + breath choices + vagus nerve => altered state. And that's why traditions including yoga and buddhism empathize breathing. Couple great books that touch on this are:
This might go beyond how you feel and into direct biological impacts. I don’t listen to the Huberman Lab podcast much these days but I did listen to the episode with David Linden, which I found quite interesting. [1] At one point, they are discussing the mind/body axis and the latest scientific developments in exploring how mental states can affect the body. There is a fascinating although very untested - but, testable - hypothesis that meditation may be able to slow the growth of cancerous tumours. The mechanism here is via nerve endings that reach the tumour and their effect on immune responses at the site.
Linden was emphatic about how science requires a mechanism of action, and that when people refer to this potential effect against cancer as due to “alignment of chakras” or whatever, it is “bullshit” to use his word.
I get where he’s coming from, but on the flip side, the benefits of meditative practice were arrived at long before science took any note of them. In fact for many years, the scientific perspective on it was that it was entirely bullshit. Meanwhile the people who were (admittedly incorrectly) talking about chakras were delivering real benefits to their followers. As such it seems to me that more respect is warranted, and perhaps even more caution. What do you think?
A modern classic would be Holotropic Breathwork, developed by Stanislav Grof after the LSD based therapies he had been developing in the 1970s were made illegal. Yes, it sounds like hippie silliness. But it does have notable effects.
Nerve stimulation implants are really exciting. I have sleep apnea, and while I take to CPAP therapy pretty well, I hate having to travel with the device and I hate its limitations. When we travel, I have to ensure there's an outlet somewhere near my bed; I can't camp without a massive battery pack for my CPAP; I can't go backpacking; and even cuddling my wife at night is a challenge because of the hose hanging off my head.
There's now a sleep apnea implant available, which also functions based on nerve stimulation, and is apparently quite effective. It's still a bit large, so not ideal for those of us who can deal with a CPAP, but in another 10 years maybe I can stop using my CPAP and just get a relatively straightforward surgical procedure every 5-10 years. I'd absolutely do it.
Also using CPAP and cuddling is a big problem for me as well.
I have to sleep facing the opposite direction because the venthole in the nasal mask I can tolerate (F&P Eson 2) blows on her face.
Depending on how severe your sleep apnea is, there are oral appliances that can help with mild to moderate cases of sleep apnea. Could be an alternative to a CPAP machine. It’s like wearing a bulky retainer at night.
That said, you’ll want to go to a dentist who specializes in sleep apnea and is able to test / fit the oral appliance properly. (Source: father is dentist who specializes in TMJ pain and sleep apnea).
Check eBay for medistrom batteries. I can get 1 night for AirSense 10 (w/o humidity); 2 nights using resmed portable cpap & no issues backpacking with the portable cpap so long as I can get a periodic recharge.
I have acid reflux and possibly a mild hiatal hernia. When it triggers in Just The Right Way, I also get severe panic attack symptoms.
When I started investigating it (my coping mechanism during panic attacks) I discovered that the vagus nerve travels next to the esophagus through the diaphragm.
So my complete layman explanation was that the stomach pushes through the diaphragm during a hiatal hernia -> it rubs against the vagus nerve -> panic attack symptoms.
I might need to add the study of vagus nerve to "why haven't we studied this about the human body more" -list along with gut bacteria composition.
Famotidine an old school H2 antihistamine used for acid reflux (pre PPIs), was found to have an additional mechanism of action via activation of the vagus nerve to inhibit pro-inflammatory cytokines in covid (via alpha 7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (α7nAChR) signal transduction - https://molmed.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s10020-022...).
It has also been used quite extensively to combat post-covid neuropsychiatric symptoms.
I think the link here is that increased LPS/endotoxin production by your microbiota can induce acid reflux, cause neuroinflammation and psychiatric symptoms. Low acid production itself can result in a more inflammatory microbiome further exacerbating the problem. Long term fix would be working on the migrating motor complex, improve motility/gastric emptying and rebalance the microbiome by reducing gram-negative bacteria/pathobionts and increasing butyrate production via selective feeding. [I'm not a doctor, this is just the direction I've been working on things myself]
I spent 6 years trying everything to solve reflux. I am a relatively fit 35 year old. I tried antacids, PPIs, H2 blockers and these just exacerbated the issue over time.
Eventually after much reading I read that without enough stomach acid, food backs up and causes reflux. It also causes the LES to not close properly. So I started taking Betain HCL and Digestive Enzymes (Solgar ones) before I eat and I can't tell you what a difference it's made. It's so amazing. I get 0 symptoms and I also feel so much better generally.
I honestly encourage you to try this. The medication for this stuff just has it the totally wrong way around. I can't believe this stuff is given out as one of the most commonly prescribed drugs in the UK at least.
Wait until you hear about the research trying to find out if there's a connection between signalling molecules that bacteria release that affect the vagus nerve directly stimulating the brain to eat more junk food [1]
I'm not a doctor or anything but you're describing gallstones and gallbladder attacks here. Regular panic attacks will reveal an emotional pattern. Gallbladder attacks usually happen after you eat a big, high-fat meal and won't have an associated emotional trigger.
It'll feel like a Tai Chi master is doing the Two Finger Death Touch on the right side of your diaphragm, but aside from that feels just like a panic attack.
The automatic feedback loop between heart and lungs is really cool. The more you slow your breathing the more you slow your heart. You are choosing to breathe slower via your vagus nerve. The heart responds accordingly.
By contrast the adrenal cortex, a little brain on top of the kidneys, automatically triggers fight or flight with threat detection. By the time you realize it your heart rate is already increasing. Breathing slowly, preferably through your nose, counteracts that physiological stress.
See also the last 100 years of research on the autonomic nervous system.
> One thing that makes the vagus nerves so attractive is surgical accessibility in the neck. “It is quite easy to implant some device that will try to stimulate them,” says Dr Benjamin Metcalfe at the University of Bath, who is studying how the body responds to electrical vagus nerve stimulation.
Did these (with supervision) during residency. As far as neurosurgeries go, fairly simple. You just have to be careful when you expose the vagus nerve as it lies between the carotid artery and the jugular vein.
This is in contrast to Deep Brain Stimulation which involves making a hole in the skull, exposing the brain, and inserting electrodes deep within the brain.
The MD doing the implantation was a rockin' bitch-ass motherfucking stone cold killer. Sorry for all the curse words, but that's the best way to describe her. I've never been near someone so dead calm no matter what. Just ice in the veins. She was ~6'5" and wore 6" stilettos all the time. That surgeon had presence. I'd never want to meet her in a back alley late at night.
We were developing a new technique to help out with implantation. One of the hard parts of DBS is knowing where to leave the stimulating end of the electrodes. You want to hit a specific region, but as everyone's brain is different, there's no way to stereotype the process. We had a little optical sensor that we were trying to use to guide the electrodes and see differences in the neuronal density. The place you leave the electrodes is in an area of relatively high density (S. Nigra). Bunch of Fourier analysis, machine learning, and machine vision went into it.
I feel down this rabbit hole after reading Breath by James Nestor. Got serious about practising 5.5 second inhales / exhales and started forcing myself to adjust to nose breathing (even during exercise)
It did a total number on my anxiety levels and pulled me out of the constant cortisol fuelled fight or flight mode I found myself as I slowly crashed and burned into the ground
I wish someone had taught me as a child, it would have made a marked difference on my life, I am sure of it.
There is also 10+ years research for tinnitus using Vagus Nerve Stimulation to stop it [1]. Results seem mixed. Many other drugs/neuro-stimuli for T have gotten mixed results and passed clinical trials such as Leniere only to flop in actual usage. It's interesting that the community anecdotal evidence such as r/tinnitus and TinnitusTalk are so useful for these cases because they are more likely to report negative results at the post-approval stage.
I’ve got tinnitus and can’t really foresee any kind of solution. Not sure what the vagus nerve would do given the ears go straight in to the brain. Hopefully one day though, I’ve learned to live with it for the time being.
I have this dream scenario where they discover that the gentle swirling of a cotton swab in the ear canal stimulates the vagus nerve and has these tremendous health benefits, allowing the sanctimonious anti-cotton-swab-in-the-ear brigade to sit down and shut up for a minute.
>Further research revealed that the brain communicates with the spleen – an organ that plays a critical role in the immune system – by sending electrical signals down the vagus nerve. These trigger the release of a chemical called acetylcholine that tells immune cells to switch off inflammation. Electrically stimulating the vagus nerve with an implanted device achieved the same feat.
One might also achieve comparable effects by drinking baking soda.
>"We think the cholinergic (acetylcholine) signals that we know mediate this anti-inflammatory response aren't coming directly from the vagal nerve innervating the spleen, but from the mesothelial cells that form these connections to the spleen," O'Connor says.
>While there is no known direct connection between the vagal nerve and the spleen -- and O'Connor and his team looked again for one -- the treatment also attenuates inflammation and disease severity in rheumatoid arthritis, researchers at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research reported in 2016 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
O'Connor hopes drinking baking soda can one day produce similar results for people with autoimmune disease.
Off and on, I've been seeing woo about the vagus nerve for a while. This article was refreshingly balanced. Now I know: "Tracey’s discovery also caught the attention of mind-body practitioners, including the Dutch motivational speaker and “Iceman” Wim Hof". Aha. Indeed.
Where is the rest of this stuff coming from? Is there a deeper dive?
Any mention of Wim Hof deserves a mention of the fact that the "Wim Hof Method" has a perfect verification mechanism: Wim Hof has a twin brother who does not practice the method and performs similarly well on most of the tests supposed to demonstrate the method's efficacy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24773331
This claims to improve language learning through selective non invasive stimulation.
The great confusion with these things is given how the body has a tendency to recalibrate dynamically to new stable levels of stimulation the trick would be finding what sort of on/off routine is needed to create the desired effect.
The article and comments don't mention it, but vagus stimulation by hot peppers (maybe wasabi too) has been studied and seems significant with respect to immune-nervous system interactions controlled by the vagus nerve, at least there's some interaction (wishful thinking perhaps, but as I like hot peppers this supports my view that they improve one's digestion and circulation):
(2013) "Capsaicin-sensitive vagal afferent neurons contribute to the detection of pathogenic bacterial colonization in the gut"
> "We conclude that activation of the afferent arm of the parasympathetic neuroimmune reflex by pathogenic bacteria in the gut is dependent on capsaicin sensitive vagal afferent neurons and that the release of inflammatory mediators into intestinal tissue can be directly sensed by these neurons."
More general current open-source review of the overall topic (2018):
"Vagus Nerve as Modulator of the Brain–Gut Axis in Psychiatric and Inflammatory Disorders"
My dad has had deep brain stimulation (not the same as vagnus nerve stimulation, but in the same area) for over ten years. It helps a lot with his dystonia but he has developed severe paranoia which gets progressively worse. Of course you can't say that one caused the other, but I think it is reasonable to be cautious about devices that put electricity in your brain. Benefits are often instant side-effects may slowly accumulate over the years.
I'm all for folks expounding on the ways in which "current AI" sucks, but I have little patience for people who think that what it is now is all it will ever be.
Sure, it could be 6 months or 6 years before we see real improvements, but no one knows. No one knew that transformers were coming in the months before they arrived.
One thing that I think is encouraging is how fast computing power is increasing, along with languages, frameworks and models which allow you to make use of that power. I think that alone, even without AI, will result in world-changing advancements across many fields. The power to simulate large systems is growing rapidly and will enable prediction and discovery to achieve great societal benefits.
Years ago I read that breathing on your vagus nerve on your wrist can help calm you down. Each breath pulse would do something cause stimulation to calm you more like a feedback loop. I didn't know if it was bunk or not. I tried it but never felt any effect.
> Further research revealed that the brain communicates with the spleen – an organ that plays a critical role in the immune system – by sending electrical signals down the vagus nerve. These trigger the release of a chemical called acetylcholine that tells immune cells to switch off inflammation.
Isn’t inflammation an important process for healing? Too much is obviously bad, but if we go turning it off, won’t that lead to longer term issues?
Shouldn’t we be looking to solve what’s causing the inflammation in the first place?
I'm not a doctor so I won't pretend I understand how these treatments work but:
> Tracey immediately recognised the therapeutic implications, having spent years trying to develop better treatments for inflammatory conditions such as sepsis, arthritis and Crohn’s disease. Existing drugs dampen inflammation, but carry a risk of serious side effects. Here was a technique with the potential to switch off inflammation without the need for drugs.
I don't think anyone wants to switch off inflammation for everyone, all the time or as treatment for everything, but there's treatments where it's desired.
> Shouldn’t we be looking to solve what’s causing the inflammation in the first place?
I agree with that theory, but so far we haven't been able to figure out what really causes many auto immune diseases or how to heal them. The current treatment methods involve nasty drugs that turn off parts of your immune system entirely, but also have various other side effects.
If we can adjust the inflammation threshold, we can fix the symptoms while we're looking to solve the underlying problem. Fixing chronic inflammation will probably take a few decades at least, until then I see no reason why we wouldn't treat the symptoms better, especially if it can be done with cheap and relatively non-invasive devices.
Not an answer to your question but a comment toward the quote:
In Traditional Chinese Medicine terms, the spleen has always been described as the cause of chronic inflammatory disease. "Spleen deficiency" the core feature of ulcerative colitis and arthritis f.e.
There are a whole bunch of vagus nerve manipulations in current medicine. Many are quite common to self treat for things like converting episodes of SVT. Although the effectiveness is mixed. If they could find a non-drug treatment for Afib, I bet that would be big money based on the potential population and the current drug cocktail side effects.
Vagus nerve shenanigans always remind me of that whole NSA hack of side loading their custom hackey OS into things like embedded USB controllers or other little things on laptops that we never think about. Yea, it's not as flashy as interfacing w/ the CPU/system RAM directly but it could be useful....
I was a diagnosed with gastritis earlier this year. In the days leading up to my endoscopy, I had horrific reflux which was triggering anxiety. Putting an icepack on my chest to cool down the vagus nerve really helped with the angst and heart palpitations.
Does anyone here suffer from vasovagal syncope and has researched the topic more in depth? My last blackout was around one minute during a flight, house doctor says I shouldn’t be concerned.
Does anyone here have experience with any of the consumer stimulation devices like neuvana or sensate? Keen to hear your thoughts and if you actually use it?
Melanin absorbtion spectrum is easy to search for and the data shows that its interaction with EM spectrum below UV and visible light (freq-wise) is basically zero.
Radio frequencies at “home” energies don’t interact with us, so you can take the tinfoil hat off ;). Things change when you stand right in front of an industrial microwave antenna, but only there and that has nothing to do with pigments.
I thought all the Hacker News "smarter than everyone else, self prescribers" were still endorsing Adderall, mild hallucinogens, and poop-swapping. But, by all means, shine on you crazy diamonds.
Is your comment intended to mock people who are interested in the vagus nerve, people who are interested in self-advocacy in the case of health problems, or just everyone on hacker news in general? Gotta specify, I'm not sure who I'm supposed to be looking down on here.
tempaway43355|2 years ago
https://www.livanova.com/epilepsy-vnstherapy/en-gb/hcp/produ...
It has really helped although obviously it took surgery and then also nine months of slowly tweaking the settings.
Before the VNS they could (for example) not go on a trampoline for more than a few minutes without having a seizure, but now they're fine all day. They did still have seizures at night after the VNS but we tackled those with a different treatment.
The Sentiva 1000 sends regular soft pulses (for one minute every 3.5 minutes) and can also react to heart rate rising suddenly (which might mean a seizure) by automatically increasing its pulses. During a seizure if we want to manually activate the device we swipe over its location with a strong magnet and that activates it to send stronger pulses for a minute or so.
Batteries last about eight years. A few times a year we go to check the battery, the nurses have an ipad and a wand-type thing that they hold over the implants location, it uses some sort of low power NFC to read data and diagnostics from the implant. When we do need to change the battery that will be an operation. But less complicated than the initial operation (and even that was in-and-out in one day)
All pretty amazing.
victorbjorklund|2 years ago
tibbydudeza|2 years ago
It seems that stimulating the vagus nerve resets something to default in the brainstem when a cascade event is about to occur - probably shuts down the errant signals from propagating to the entire brain ???.
Do you know which lobe in her brain it happens ??? (my daughter has left temporal lobe)
karaterobot|2 years ago
parentheses|2 years ago
spread_love|2 years ago
adversaryIdiot|2 years ago
blueyes|2 years ago
Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art https://www.amazon.com/Breath-New-Science-Lost-Art/dp/073521...
and
Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Brain https://www.amazon.com/Altered-Traits-Science-Reveals-Medita...
adriand|2 years ago
Linden was emphatic about how science requires a mechanism of action, and that when people refer to this potential effect against cancer as due to “alignment of chakras” or whatever, it is “bullshit” to use his word.
I get where he’s coming from, but on the flip side, the benefits of meditative practice were arrived at long before science took any note of them. In fact for many years, the scientific perspective on it was that it was entirely bullshit. Meanwhile the people who were (admittedly incorrectly) talking about chakras were delivering real benefits to their followers. As such it seems to me that more respect is warranted, and perhaps even more caution. What do you think?
1 https://hubermanlab.com/dr-david-linden-life-death-and-the-n...
buildsjets|2 years ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Grof
https://www.amazon.com/Holotropic-Breathwork-Self-Exploratio...
hospitalJail|2 years ago
I'm a bit surprised that we don't have more criticism of this book. It was less of a pop science book, and more of an anecdotal gonzo journalism.
BizarroLand|2 years ago
rgrieselhuber|2 years ago
jwestbury|2 years ago
There's now a sleep apnea implant available, which also functions based on nerve stimulation, and is apparently quite effective. It's still a bit large, so not ideal for those of us who can deal with a CPAP, but in another 10 years maybe I can stop using my CPAP and just get a relatively straightforward surgical procedure every 5-10 years. I'd absolutely do it.
tibbydudeza|2 years ago
matthewpick|2 years ago
That said, you’ll want to go to a dentist who specializes in sleep apnea and is able to test / fit the oral appliance properly. (Source: father is dentist who specializes in TMJ pain and sleep apnea).
Bloating|2 years ago
theshrike79|2 years ago
When I started investigating it (my coping mechanism during panic attacks) I discovered that the vagus nerve travels next to the esophagus through the diaphragm.
So my complete layman explanation was that the stomach pushes through the diaphragm during a hiatal hernia -> it rubs against the vagus nerve -> panic attack symptoms.
I might need to add the study of vagus nerve to "why haven't we studied this about the human body more" -list along with gut bacteria composition.
jinder|2 years ago
It has also been used quite extensively to combat post-covid neuropsychiatric symptoms.
I think the link here is that increased LPS/endotoxin production by your microbiota can induce acid reflux, cause neuroinflammation and psychiatric symptoms. Low acid production itself can result in a more inflammatory microbiome further exacerbating the problem. Long term fix would be working on the migrating motor complex, improve motility/gastric emptying and rebalance the microbiome by reducing gram-negative bacteria/pathobionts and increasing butyrate production via selective feeding. [I'm not a doctor, this is just the direction I've been working on things myself]
davzie|2 years ago
Eventually after much reading I read that without enough stomach acid, food backs up and causes reflux. It also causes the LES to not close properly. So I started taking Betain HCL and Digestive Enzymes (Solgar ones) before I eat and I can't tell you what a difference it's made. It's so amazing. I get 0 symptoms and I also feel so much better generally.
I honestly encourage you to try this. The medication for this stuff just has it the totally wrong way around. I can't believe this stuff is given out as one of the most commonly prescribed drugs in the UK at least.
jamal-kumar|2 years ago
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9102524/
kyleyeats|2 years ago
It'll feel like a Tai Chi master is doing the Two Finger Death Touch on the right side of your diaphragm, but aside from that feels just like a panic attack.
albntomat0|2 years ago
Have you found any additional solutions, past the standard PPI and diet for acid reflux?
Thanks!
MPSimmons|2 years ago
CobaltFire|2 years ago
Thanks!
robg|2 years ago
By contrast the adrenal cortex, a little brain on top of the kidneys, automatically triggers fight or flight with threat detection. By the time you realize it your heart rate is already increasing. Breathing slowly, preferably through your nose, counteracts that physiological stress.
See also the last 100 years of research on the autonomic nervous system.
jbandela1|2 years ago
Did these (with supervision) during residency. As far as neurosurgeries go, fairly simple. You just have to be careful when you expose the vagus nerve as it lies between the carotid artery and the jugular vein.
This is in contrast to Deep Brain Stimulation which involves making a hole in the skull, exposing the brain, and inserting electrodes deep within the brain.
Balgair|2 years ago
Yeah, that's an intense surgery.
The MD doing the implantation was a rockin' bitch-ass motherfucking stone cold killer. Sorry for all the curse words, but that's the best way to describe her. I've never been near someone so dead calm no matter what. Just ice in the veins. She was ~6'5" and wore 6" stilettos all the time. That surgeon had presence. I'd never want to meet her in a back alley late at night.
We were developing a new technique to help out with implantation. One of the hard parts of DBS is knowing where to leave the stimulating end of the electrodes. You want to hit a specific region, but as everyone's brain is different, there's no way to stereotype the process. We had a little optical sensor that we were trying to use to guide the electrodes and see differences in the neuronal density. The place you leave the electrodes is in an area of relatively high density (S. Nigra). Bunch of Fourier analysis, machine learning, and machine vision went into it.
yamrzou|2 years ago
[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-athletes-way/2...
[2] https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-athletes-way/2....
jossclimb|2 years ago
It did a total number on my anxiety levels and pulled me out of the constant cortisol fuelled fight or flight mode I found myself as I slowly crashed and burned into the ground
I wish someone had taught me as a child, it would have made a marked difference on my life, I am sure of it.
dentalperson|2 years ago
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7951891/
gizajob|2 years ago
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…
thenerdhead|2 years ago
https://www.tenspros.com/intensity-micro-combo-tens-microcur...
And then look at a study like https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7199464/table/T... to determine what settings to use for your condition.
QuantumGood|2 years ago
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ibnJr6MqhHfpkXXzsKOD...
bgribble|2 years ago
oidar|2 years ago
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4222929/
obelos|2 years ago
unknown|2 years ago
[deleted]
crtxcr|2 years ago
One might also achieve comparable effects by drinking baking soda.
>"We think the cholinergic (acetylcholine) signals that we know mediate this anti-inflammatory response aren't coming directly from the vagal nerve innervating the spleen, but from the mesothelial cells that form these connections to the spleen," O'Connor says.
>While there is no known direct connection between the vagal nerve and the spleen -- and O'Connor and his team looked again for one -- the treatment also attenuates inflammation and disease severity in rheumatoid arthritis, researchers at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research reported in 2016 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
O'Connor hopes drinking baking soda can one day produce similar results for people with autoimmune disease.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180425093745.h...
miek|2 years ago
unknown|2 years ago
[deleted]
jasonladuke0311|2 years ago
buescher|2 years ago
Where is the rest of this stuff coming from? Is there a deeper dive?
hnbad|2 years ago
In other words: there's likely a genetic factor at play much like no amount of training will give you the genetic advantage Phelps has in terms of wing span and lung capacity: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/olympic-g...
fidotron|2 years ago
This claims to improve language learning through selective non invasive stimulation.
The great confusion with these things is given how the body has a tendency to recalibrate dynamically to new stable levels of stimulation the trick would be finding what sort of on/off routine is needed to create the desired effect.
photochemsyn|2 years ago
(2013) "Capsaicin-sensitive vagal afferent neurons contribute to the detection of pathogenic bacterial colonization in the gut"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4188534/
> "We conclude that activation of the afferent arm of the parasympathetic neuroimmune reflex by pathogenic bacteria in the gut is dependent on capsaicin sensitive vagal afferent neurons and that the release of inflammatory mediators into intestinal tissue can be directly sensed by these neurons."
More general current open-source review of the overall topic (2018):
"Vagus Nerve as Modulator of the Brain–Gut Axis in Psychiatric and Inflammatory Disorders"
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2018.0004...
bjourne|2 years ago
01100011|2 years ago
Sure, it could be 6 months or 6 years before we see real improvements, but no one knows. No one knew that transformers were coming in the months before they arrived.
One thing that I think is encouraging is how fast computing power is increasing, along with languages, frameworks and models which allow you to make use of that power. I think that alone, even without AI, will result in world-changing advancements across many fields. The power to simulate large systems is growing rapidly and will enable prediction and discovery to achieve great societal benefits.
dghughes|2 years ago
voisin|2 years ago
Isn’t inflammation an important process for healing? Too much is obviously bad, but if we go turning it off, won’t that lead to longer term issues?
Shouldn’t we be looking to solve what’s causing the inflammation in the first place?
mindsuck|2 years ago
> Tracey immediately recognised the therapeutic implications, having spent years trying to develop better treatments for inflammatory conditions such as sepsis, arthritis and Crohn’s disease. Existing drugs dampen inflammation, but carry a risk of serious side effects. Here was a technique with the potential to switch off inflammation without the need for drugs.
I don't think anyone wants to switch off inflammation for everyone, all the time or as treatment for everything, but there's treatments where it's desired.
jeroenhd|2 years ago
I agree with that theory, but so far we haven't been able to figure out what really causes many auto immune diseases or how to heal them. The current treatment methods involve nasty drugs that turn off parts of your immune system entirely, but also have various other side effects.
If we can adjust the inflammation threshold, we can fix the symptoms while we're looking to solve the underlying problem. Fixing chronic inflammation will probably take a few decades at least, until then I see no reason why we wouldn't treat the symptoms better, especially if it can be done with cheap and relatively non-invasive devices.
sterlingcooley|2 years ago
So Vagus Nerve signals going to spleen really allows the body to more properly regulate inflammation.
hombre_fatal|2 years ago
Having more control over it with simpler interventions would be a good thing.
theobromananda|2 years ago
In Traditional Chinese Medicine terms, the spleen has always been described as the cause of chronic inflammatory disease. "Spleen deficiency" the core feature of ulcerative colitis and arthritis f.e.
giantg2|2 years ago
caycep|2 years ago
c_o_n_v_e_x|2 years ago
fruit2020|2 years ago
pedalpete|2 years ago
harvie|2 years ago
mgarfias|2 years ago
unknown|2 years ago
[deleted]
BSEdlMMldESB|2 years ago
[deleted]
wruza|2 years ago
Melanin absorbtion spectrum is easy to search for and the data shows that its interaction with EM spectrum below UV and visible light (freq-wise) is basically zero.
Radio frequencies at “home” energies don’t interact with us, so you can take the tinfoil hat off ;). Things change when you stand right in front of an industrial microwave antenna, but only there and that has nothing to do with pigments.
Jamesdorsey|2 years ago
[deleted]
samjohnation111|2 years ago
[deleted]
progrus|2 years ago
We’re in a revolution, nerds. Wake the fuck up.
doktrin|2 years ago
jmount|2 years ago
InSteady|2 years ago