Posts tagged ‘food’
THOSE AMAZING WATER BEARS AND THE KIDNEY
THOSE AMAZING WATER BEARS AND THE KIDNEY
It has been a while since I first ran across a reference to water bears (Tardigrades). They are the most bizarre creatures I have ever seen. When I saw them I immediately knew a story would follow. That story is now in progress.
The reason for this post is an interesting relationship I reasoned between water bears and the kidney.
Water bears are virtually indestructible. They have survived a trip into space. So what you may say, so have many other organisms. The reason their survival was so unique was that they were on the OUTSIDE of the spacecraft. They are thought to possibly be a good model to study cancer. The reason being that to increase in size they increase their cell size as opposed to cell division, a process leading to some forms of cancer.
Here is where the tie to kidneys comes in.
I began my career in research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the first project I was involved in was the study of kidney hypertrophy. When you remove the kidney of an animal, including us, the remaining kidney grows in size. The increase is not due to cell division but due to an increase in cell size. This work began in 1974. It appears that some progress has been made in understanding the mechanism and is far more complicated than our approach was in 1974. We weren’t even close. To give you an idea of what our knowledge of cell function was around the time I was in graduate school, and a new structure had been identified on the surface of cells. They were calling it a ‘receptor’. I was to begin my research career about four years later.
I thought the growth of water bears and kidney hypertrophy are an interesting duplication in cell biology.
For those curious about this most unusual creature, the water bear, I have included a link to a documentary about them.
RFK JR. AND VITAMIN A
RFK JR. AND VITAMIN A
We live during a time where you can choose where to obtain your news depending on your viewpoint and what you are willing to accept as the truth. If you don’t like what you hear or read you can claim it to be ‘false news’ without supplying any proof of your claim.
This brings me to the purpose of this post. And that is information supplied by RFK Jr.
No, this isn’t about vaccines. There you can believe what you want to believe as true. Time will tell if your choice was right. This post concerns damage which is occurring now and is not subject to opinion.
Involving measles, RFK Jr. suggests antibiotics for treatment and vitamin A for prevention and treatment.
First, antibiotics do not do anything against viruses. If you want to waste your money be my guest. However, there is potential harm in using antibiotics when it is not necessary and that is development of resistant bacteria when the antibiotic is necessary and will not have an effect.
But the danger in something RFK Jr. is suggesting being used in conjunction with measles which is resulting in harm no matter what your opinion is and cannot be denied.
I do not know if RFK Jr. is aware of the fact that there are two classes of vitamins, water soluble and fat soluble. With water soluble vitamins if you take more than your body needs you pee out the excess. With fat soluble vitamins whatever your body can’t use is stored. RFK Jr.is advocating the use of vitamins A, a fat-soluble vitamin for use in conjunction with measles. As a result, some parents are overdosing their children with vitamin A and causing liver damage in their children. This is not false news. It is reality.
What I find disturbing is that RFK Jr. is not aware of the danger associated with his suggestion. What I find greatly disturbing is that no one corrected him before he began voicing his opinion about vitamin A. Now it could be that RFK Jr. did not seek any scientific counsel before making his announcement. But no matter what happened parents are overdosing their children, and in some cases, causing them liver damage.
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