It's not Hollywood - it's Holyrood

America has Hollywood - a very new place.
Scotland has Holyrood - a very ancient place.
Holyrood is a small area in Edinburgh, where now stands the beautiful Royal Holyrood Palace and  the ruins of Holyrood Abbey.
It is at one end of the Royal Mile. Edinburgh Castle is at the other end.
Sadly Holyrood now also houses the extremely ugly new Scottish Parliament buildings.
But
What does Holyrood mean?
Well - being Scotland there is an old legend.
About 1166  - just 100 years after '1066 and all that'  when William the Conqueror and his Normans invaded England - King David the first ruled in Scotland.
He liked to hunt in the Royal Forest, part of which was the area now called Holyrood and the rest was the area now called The Queens park (Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags)
In Scotland, hunting on The Sabbath is a no-no. The Sabbath is The Lord's day.
But - one Sunday - King David sneaked out after a stag.
He found one, but it turned out to be no ordinary stag. It was white and it had a cross sticking out of it's forehead!
Now I know what I would think if my husband came back from hunting talking about white stags and crosses but things must have been different then.
In Scotland  - a cross used to be called a rood.
King David took it as a holy sign that he should not have been hunting on The Sabbath.
To assuage his guilt he commanded that an abbey be built at the place where he saw the stag  with it's Holy Cross. Hence the name Holy Rood - Holyrood
And - so the legend goes one -
The Rood - the miraculous cross from the stag- was preserved there on the high altar until about 1346 when someone nicked it.
Perhaps Hollywood should make a film about Holyrood

Why old people die after a fall

It is well known that elderly people fall, break a hip, get pneumonia and die.
BUT WHY?
Younger people fall, break a hip and get better.
There is a branch of science that studies ageing  - called gerentology.
They have discovered that when something traumatic happens to you - such as breaking your hip -
it causes 2 chemicals to be produced in your blood.
These nicely balance each other.
When you are over age 60 and you have that same trauma -
it causes lots of 1 chemical (cortisol) to be produced
but
the ageing person can't make enough of the other one (DHEAS)
Without the balance of that second chemical, the first chemical reduced the persons ability to fight infection
So
You get pneumonia or MRSA
and die
The gerentologists are pushing for all hospitals to have the second chemical (DHEAS) available to be given to all trauma patients over the age of 60

DNA - Should the police keep records of us all

I used to think that it would be an excellent idea for everyone to have their DNA tested and for there to be a central DNA record. My thoughts were, that when a crime was committed the police would be able to find the perpetrator straight away.
If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear
BUT
I went to a talk from one of the world authorities on Forensics and
NO
"It would be a very bad idea"  he said
He explained
All of us have 2 parts to our DNA (one from Mum and one from Dad)
Quite often samples of DNA found at crime scenes are not pure, they are mixed with someone else's.
So, at the crime scene, one DNA could be A+B
and the other one, the one it is mixed with,  C+D
They are mixed together and so when tested,  the results might come up with B+C (or A+D)
So
If there was a central register, with the DNA of everyone in the country, they would look up B+C
and
It might be mine - a complete innocent who had never been anywhere near the scene of the crime.
They would claim they had DNA evidence that I had been there
FRIGHTENING

MRI examinations of the brain in a well person

Yesterday I went to a truly excellent lecture at Edinburgh's Science Festival.
It was about MRI investigations of the brain
and
What should happen when it shows something, that is giving no symptoms and is just an incidental finding?
In the trade this is called - an incidentaloma.
also
Should we all be encouraged or discouraged from having such investigations as part of a routine check up?
Many of us have incidentalomas which will be there all our lives and cause us no harm.
In a few very rare cases they may be troublesome, however preventative intervention may cause problems too.
The lecture was given by one of the top scientist/medics in that field
The message I took home was
Doing an MRI on a well person is a waste of time
Private companies charge £2000-£3000 and they are not done or read by experts.
If something is found the person is told to go and talk to their GP about it and he /she is no expert. So a referral then has to be made to an NHS expert who has better things to be doing than trying to allay anxiety in a well person.
If for some reason an MRI has to be done, the patient should be told beforehand that it may show an incidentaloma. They should be asked beforehand whether they want to be told about it.
Years ago when I was a medical student, a friend working in medical physics borrowed me and my brain for an hour to test his new machine.
Something in my brain looked weird, except the machine was so new he wasn't sure if it was his machine or my brain.
I worried about this for a few years.
But I am a here - still alive and a pensioner.
My friend was killed in a climbing accident shortly after he did that test.

We are all doomed

So - the way  I read the present situation is - crisis.
This little episode in Cyprus is going to precipitate terrible things for us all.
It is telling us that no money is safe in any bank in Europe (except Germany).
I have my life savings tucked away in several different UK Banks some mainly owned by us - the public.
BUT.
Nothing is safe
Banks can go bankrupt
Government can overide promises to guarantee deposits as is happening in Cyprus
Governments can go bankrupt
Countries and their banks can go bankrupt.
Pensions get taken away or disappear
The Euro is about to blow-up
The EU is not going to be able to cope with Cyprus, Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy all going under.
France and Britain may follow
Britain's debt has doubled in size instead of improving. It will soon be larger than our GDP.
We are all Dooooooooomed

This is how religion should be

I have just heard a wonderful story
A church in Aberdeen stands next door to a very small mosque. The congregation of the mosque had increased so much that the overflow where having to pray outside on the pavement in the cold (Aberdeen is very cold).
So the Minister arranged with the Imam to share his church. They mainly pray on Friday he mainly prays on Sunday. And he says they are all praying and that is what religion is about
The arrangement is working really well with the 2 communities now sharing certain celebrations such as mince pies and pakoras on Christmas Eve and the following September joining together to remember the dead of 9/11 with readings from the Bible and the Koran.
Yes - brilliant

Germany now demands payback

In my recent blog I wondered why it was that Germany seemed not to mind being responsible for and paying for  all of Europe's debts.
I spoke just too soon
Germany obviously does mind and is now saying - no more
Poor old Cyprus. Imagine suddenly being told that your government is going to take part of your precious hard earned savings from your bank account
Especially when the EU had promised to protect bank accounts up to a certain level.
Apparently the only option otherwise would be Cyprus and it's  banks going bust and everyone losing all their money.
England very kindly bailed out our two Scottish banks, otherwise an awful lot of people here would have lost all their money.
The message for us all is that our savings are not safe in any bank  in Europe.
The trouble is where on earth to put them

Germany paying Southern Europe's bills

I have just read an article by someone knowledgeable saying something that little me has been thinking for ages.
Why are the German people not getting fed up with Europe?
Don't they see that they are the ones having to pay for everything?
I wrote a blog recently titled
Would you pay your neighbour's mortgage?
I was referring to England not wanting to bail out Scotland if Scotland insists on becoming independent.
Poor old Germany is bailing out all of southern Europe and will be for ever and ever.
The countries they are bailing out seem to hate them for it.
Don't they mind?

Women segregated at University of London

Apparently at some lectures and public debates at some London University Colleges such as UCL, women are being segregated - they have to sit separately from men.
 I went to medical school at London University and if any of us female students had come across situations where we were being segregated, there would have been riots.
 It was the time of the anti apartheid movement and there were riots in London against the segregation of black people from white in South Africa.
To think that any form of segregation could now be occurring in this country,  in Britain, is horrifying.
It is being done to pander to the religious beliefs of Muslim fundamentalists. Their men claim that pure Muslim women do not want to be sullied by sitting next to men.
So they are given separate seating at the back of the hall.
Instead of asking questions as the men do, directly, the women have to write their question down on a piece of paper.
To my mind this is treating women as second class citizens
It would seem that this is also happening in other British Colleges.
I find this so awful that I struggle to find words.
British women have fought hard for female equality, from the suffragette movement onwards. We cannot allow our hard one battles to be undone for the sake of anyone.

Why is knitting wool so expensive

I knit as a fidget. I reckon it is better than smoking or some such thing. For some strange reason I find it very soothing as long as I don't have to think about what I am doing-  then it becomes a stress.
I therefore knit boring things like squares that require no brain input at all.
The trouble is that knitting wool is horribly expensive nowadays. It is cheaper to buy a woolen jumper than to  knit one. I cant think why. The poor old farmers round here get so little for the  fleeces from their sheep that it is not worth their trouble shearing them and shipping the fleeces off .
There  must be some big rip-off going on somewhere.
So I go around the charity shops and buy any odds and ends of wool that they have and I knit it into either socks or squares.
This week I decided that I had enough squares to join together. The picture shows them laid out.
I am showing my masterpiece at this stage because I suspect that from now it may be all downhill.
The thought of sewing all these squares together is daunting and will require concentration and I am sure to get them all muddled up.
But - I dedicate to - the sheep

Worrier or Warrior gene

Brilliant article I have just read based on new research
Are you a warrior or are you a worrier?
It all depends on what type of COMT gene you have.
This gene determines what happens in your  brain when you are in a "challenging " situation. Every time we get nervous or excited dopamine is continuously squirted into our pre-frontal cortex - which is not a good thing.
We need to have just the right amount of dopamine there to feel OK.

The COMT gene produces 2 enzymes
1. Clears the dopamine away rapidly
2. Clears the dopamine away slowly.

Half the population has equal amounts of each enzyme 1 and 2
Quarter of the population only has the rapid clearer 1
Quarter of the population only has the slow clearer 2

Rapid clearers handle stress very well
Slow clearers struggle with stress

I don't think my clearers work at all. Perhaps they get worn out with age

Article The Times Saturday March 9 2013 quoting from Book by Po Bronson
"Top Dog - The Science of Winning and Losing"

We love the English

Hey – we love the English – really we do.

My mother is English.

I went to Medical School in London.

My son lives in England.

The awful thing about The SNP trying to get independence and insisting every few years on making us vote on it, is that those fellow British citizens down there in the deep south, think that we all don’t like them. They think we are all little Alec Salmonds. What a dreadful picture that conjures up !

Well – we are not.

We love you – you are our brothers.

And – like siblings, there are silly jealousies and fights

BUT – like siblings we have a deep and important kinship

The only time you really do annoy us -

Is when on National TV such as The News, you forget that the broadcast is also being seen in Scotland.

I have no interest in Sport, but those that do find it irritating to hear commentary about English teams, as if the broadcast is only for English viewers. I can imagine the outcry there would be in England if the reverse were to happen.

We love you – really we do.

We are no different to you.

We just happen to live a few miles further North.

AND

The majority of us

DO NOT WANT

Independence

And never have done.

Scottish pensions would be reduced

Oh my God -even the SNP themselves are now saying it.
They would have to cut back pensions (the state pension AND public pensions)  - if Scotland becomes independent.
In complete contrast to his public SNP statements, John Swinney (their finance minister), admits in a secret paper that there would be problems. He then spells them out.
For years the Scot Nats have talked about how wealthy Scotland could be because of North Sea Oil. But finally they are admitting that North Sea Oil is running out.
Without money from England there will not be enough to pay Scotland's pensioners.
We need England
Pay attention present and future pensioners

Genetic tests - a scam

Ah well – I was taken in – I always am. At least I had not sent off any money.

An excellent article by the real Genetic Professionals reveals the truth.

Genetic testing - "to see from whence one came" - is little better than fortune telling or horoscopes.

The commercial companies doing it are using science designed for populations, not individuals. The writer of the article suggests that they find out what you want to hear and interpret the findings to fit (in the same way as a fortune teller).

This is the article

http://www.senseaboutscience.org/data/files/resources/119/Sense-About-Genetic-Ancestry-Testing.pdf

It says several interesting things.

We all have 4 grandparents and 8 great grandparents - the number doubles with each generation.

So 10 generations (200-300 years) back we each have 1,000 and so on. You don’t have to go too far back before we have more ancestors than we have DNA. In other words  - we have some ancestors from whom we have inherited no DNA – they are too distant.

And

Via the male Y-DNA everyone today shares an ancestor who lived 240,000 and 580,000 years ago

Via the female Mt-DNA, everyone today shares an ancestor who lived between 160,000 and 200,000 years ago

Via the Autosomal-DNA everyone today shares an ancestor who lived about 1 million years ago.

But

If you look for the most recent person that everyone alive today is descended from - you only have to go back 3,500 years.

Having quickly Googled -“World time line” and taken 2013 away from 3,500 - I reckon that means approximately 1,500 BC

 So I have come up with the below-

40,000 BC -   Homo Sapiens arrived in Europe

24,000 BC -   The start of the ice age over Britain (in which nothing could have lived)

12,000 BC -   The Ice age receded and man began to go back to Britain

2400 BC -     Stonehenge was being built

2000 BC -     Start of Bronze Age in Britain

1500 BC   -   Oldest Common ancestor of everyone alive today

1185 BC -     The Trojan war

1100 BC -     Chinese invented gunpowder

800 BC   -      Start of Iron Age in Britain

725 BC   -      Homer

390 BC -       Socrates

275 BC   -     Celts in Britain

0            -      Jesus was born

29 AD   -       Pompeii obliterated when Vesuvius erupted

43 AD   -       Roman Britain

685 AD -       Pictish Scotland

793 AD -      Viking Britain

Scotlands DNA

I went to an excellent free lecture at NLS (National Library of Scotland) entitled 'Britain's DNA' by Alistair Moffat.
It turned out to be the same lecture I had heard him give last year during The Edinburgh Festival entitled 'Scotland's DNA'.
 However it was so good that I didn't mind hearing it all again. To be quite honest, my memory is so bad that it was almost like hearing it anew.
Alistair along with others is trying to persuade us all to get our DNA tested - not to find out anything medical - but to find out - WHO WE ARE - WHERE WE COME FROM - our history.
What he has found so far is completely fascinating.
For a start, he horrified his Scottish Audience by telling us that once upon a time , we were all English.
Shock Horror!!
In fact, he said - everyone in Britain is an immigrant.
Britain at one stage was covered in ice -  for a long time. Any people who might have been there before would have had to leave.
Scotland kept it's ice for longer than the rest of the UK, so migration to Scotland occurred up through England.
Red hair he conjectures belongs to those whose ancestors mated with Neanderthals
and
Tom Conti agreed to be tested - being a Scot of Italian descent. It turns out that his DNA is very unusual and  makes him a descendant of Napoleon
and not surprisingly
Magnus Linklater's DNA shows he is a viking (his grandfather was from Orkney)
I am very tempted to get tested especially as amazing deals are being offered at the 'Who do you think you are' thing which has just finished  in London.
One firm www.familytreedna.com are offering to do your Y DNA for only £40.
The Y-DNA tells a male who is father's father's father's father is ete etc - No good for female me.
The Mt-DNA tells a male or a female who their mother's mother's mother's mother is ete etc - suitable for me
However if I could persuade one of my brothers to spit into a tube, both tests could be done on the one specimen for much less money.
The difficulty is persuading them

Vitamin D

My grown up son - who lives in Scotland - recently had to have his Vitamin D level checked. It was found to be, not just low - but dangerously low.

This does not surprise me. I have been advocating that we all take Vitamin D supplements for some time - especially us pensioners.

When I was a medical student very little was known about most Vitamins. It was known that you mainly get Vitamin D from sunlight and that people with a lack of Vitamin D got rickets, which made their bones so soft that they developed bendy bandy legs.

It was known that calcium and Vitamin D have a close relationship. You need Calcium for strong bones, but it is no good without Vitamin D.

What was not taken on board until a few years ago is just how important vitamin D is for all sorts of things and that you can be having nasty problems well before you get to the stage of full blown rickets.

A thinking GP in Glasgow wondered why her patients with darker skins seemed to attend more and to have more problems than others. Could it be because the pigment in their skin made it more difficult for them to absorb vitamin D?

So she did a small trial and tested her patient’s vitamin D levels. The results showed that those with darker skins had lower levels, thus proving her theory. However, what it also showed was that nearly all her patients had low levels.

Scotland does not get much sun (especially Glasgow) and in the winter months the sun is so low in the sky that it is impossible for us to get any Vitamin D from it, even if we are brave enough to expose some flesh!

So we need to eat more foods such as oily fish or egg yolks and we need to take vitamin D supplements.

However - which supplement should we take and how much?  All the available ones, that I can find, are made by companies that don’t inspire me with confidence - and that includes the supermarkets. A recent report showed that most vitamin pills do not contain what they say on the label. I would like to see one of the mainstream pharmaceutical companies produce a vitamin D supplement that has gone through the same stringent process as aspirin.

There is one called - Fultium D3 800 IU made by Internis Pharmaceuticals, but sadly it is prescription only.

More and more studies are showing the importance of Vitamin D and linking it to conditions such as MS. Scotland has more MS than anywhere else, could this be why?

It is thought to play an important role in the autoimmune and anti-inflammatory systems with early studies linking also to asthma, high blood pressure and heart problems, diabetes, cancer and depression and to cognitive decline in older people

Older people have particular difficulty in making Vitamin D from the sun or absorbing it from food.

So start supplementing.

Buy a product with Vitamin - D3.  Take 600 IU daily if you are under age 70 and 800 IU if you are over 70 (NHS recommendation).

http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminD-HealthProfessional/

Pregnant women and children also are strongly advised to supplement.

Everyone in Scotland should supplement especially during the winter.

Solgar make a product which contains Vitamin D3 600 IU – or so they claim.

It is dangerous to take crazy mega dose supplements of Vitamin D. It can cause calcium to be deposited in the kidneys.

Here is a helpful calculation when shopping for vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol)

1mcg = 40 IU

So

15mcg = 600IU

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20710028

Patients are not cans of paint

A while ago now I worked as a doctor in a private clinic owned by a businessman. He had previously made a fortune selling some type of special paint

He was convinced that a medical clinic could be run like a factory and that he would make a nice profit.

I was constantly saying -

“You can’t do that. These are people with problems, they are not cans of paint “

“You cannot treat these people like cans of paint”

Sadly I was right.

He went bankrupt a few years after I had left in disgust.

You cannot run a medical clinic like a factory.

The NHS cannot be run like a normal business.

Why?

Because you are dealing with very vulnerable ill people – not cans of paint!