The following email was sent to Dr. Andreas Wagner, the author of the book “Arrival of the Fittest” on 2017-1-7: Dear Dr. Wagner, I was attempting to explain your theory to a friend recently, and thought that it would it be easier if I re-read your excellent book first. After…
Read moreIntroduction After a great deal of experimentation and trial and error, I’ve come up with a workflow to help in academic writing for the web. Ulysses is a great tool for this, but its footnote capacity does not integrate well with a reference manager like Bookends. The latter is also…
Read moreMy hypothesis is that the scrotum, which in mammals, is often exposed, relatively hairless, and with thin skin and little subcutaneous tissue, may have evolved for perhaps a different reason than simply to provide a lower temperature for spermatogenesis. Consider that humans produce about 25,000 sperm every minute. Why so many?…
Read moreGout is caused by an excess of uric acid (urate) in the system, which can then form crystals in various places, including the joint of the big toe. Crystals in the joint cause inflammation and pain. Excess uric acid can be due to excessive dietary intake of purines, insufficient urinary…
Read moreTo facilitate following a methionine restriction diet, I’ve put together a Filemaker solution which will provide you with the methionine content for the majority of the items in the USDA nutrients database, version SR27. The solution also includes the content of cysteine, leucine, glycine, and choline. The Predicted Renal Acid Load…
Read moreGrandison, R. C., M. D. Piper, and L. Partridge (2009) Nature 462:1061-1064. Amino-acid imbalance explains extension of lifespan by dietary restriction in Drosophila. Dietary restriction extends healthy lifespan in diverse organisms and reduces fecundity. It is widely assumed to induce adaptive reallocation of nutrients from reproduction to somatic maintenance, aiding…
Read moreHenry Olders, MD November 6, 2013 Research Proposal: Treating Cancer-Related Anorexia-Cachexia with a Methionine Restricted Diet Anorexia and cachexia are frequent concomitants of the later stages of cancer, and contribute significantly to poor quality of life (QOL). Moreover, family members and friends of cancer patients with anorexia and cachexia are…
Read moreWhat does it mean to be conscious? Does it even have a meaning? As a psychiatrist, I am influenced by the way in which the terms “conscious”, “unconscious” and “subconscious” are used. The latter two terms generally refer to perceptions or emotions or thoughts that we are not aware of…
Read more2012-12-19 This table presents results of using the HammingNN classifier with a variety of publicly available datasets that are frequently used for development and testing of classifier paradigms. For comparison purposes, I’ve included results from 3 other classifier paradigms. Note: you may need to widen your browser window to view…
Read moreAs a medical student in the early 1980’s, I was very excited when we were introduced to the physiology behind neurology. Having previously graduated in Electrical Engineering (Waterloo, 1970) and with several years of work experience in computer systems engineering, I immediately saw the potential for modeling neural networks using…
Read moreI made a presentation about my classifier to Emily Coffey, at the time a PhD candidate in the Cognitive Neuroscience Lab at the Montreal Neurological Institute, and her colleagues, on 2011-1-21. Download a pdf of the presentation slides and notes.
Read more1. introduction 1.1. Joseph Hibbeln, a prominent researcher on the application of omega-3 fatty acids in psychiatry at the National Institutes of Health, recently wrote, “It is likely that the success and failure of different clinical trials using similar doses of n-3 LCFAs were influenced by differing background intakes of…
Read moreIt was recently reported on the CBS program “60 Minutes” that diabetes might be caused by sleep deprivation [link to web article]. As frequently happens, the reporting is more striking for its sensationalism than for its depth. Here is a deeper look: First, what do we know about sleep duration…
Read moreAsymptomatic bacteriuria in nursing home patients This learning project was stimulated by an article (1) which looked at why urine cultures are ordered and why antibiotics are prescribed for institutionalized elderly. The article concluded that because there was no evidence for an association between nonspecific signs and symptoms and the…
Read moreSince my medical school days, I’ve been mulling over some ideas for artificial neural networks that adhere more closely to the physiology that I studied. Over the past couple of years, I finally implemented those ideas, using the Forth programming language on a Macintosh. The process went considerably faster than…
Read moreSalmon Oil • fatty fish (eg salmon, trout, tuna, herring, mackerel) or oils from these fish, are the only good sources for long-chain omega-3 fatty acids (DHA & EPA).• short-chain omega-3 fatty acids (ALA), eg from flaxseed, walnuts, omega-3 eggs, may be beneficial, but most will not be converted into…
Read moreRitalin • -more effective than sertraline in improving cognitive function and maintaining alertness in patients with traumatic brain injury (Lee H 20 p97) • better tolerated than sertraline (ibid.) • -found effective in hypoactive delirium, apathy, depressive syndrome (Meyers BJ 148 1738) • -accelerates antidepressant response in elderly (Lavretsky H…
Read moreAffective Disorders, Sleep Patterns, and Treatment Implications Problem issues in treatment of affective disorders Only 60-70% of depressed patients respond to antidepressants (in carefully done studies). The clinical reality is worse. In some patients, antidepressants worsen agitation, may increase suicidality We still don’t understand what causes depression, or how antidepressant…
Read moreWhat disease affects 33% of Canada’s population, and costs the health care system $6 billion per year? Obesity, spreading rapidly around the world, doubles in prevalence every five years. Clearly an epidemic.In the U.S., 1995 marked a milestone, when the prevalence of overweight in adults reached 50%. And this even…
Read moreHenry Olders, MD, FRCPC Douglas Hospital Verdun, Quebec, Canada 2 Oct 1990 Introduction Effect of medication on negative symptoms An NIMH double-blind, placebo-controlled study of the effects of antipsychotic withdrawal (four weeks drug-free) followed by four weeks’ treatment with fluphenazine HCl in 19 young patients with chronic schizophrenia showed that…
Read moreBelow is an article I wrote in 1989, describing my ideas for a neural network derived from my knowledge of physiology from medical student days, my studies in behaviour from psychiatry residency and practice, and computer principles from my time in engineering. A Neural Network Model Based On Brain Physiology…
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