Articles from the Week of March 1, 2024
Interesting Quotes
Don’t be afraid of failing. It’s the way you learn to do things right.
Marian Wright Edelman
A hero is someone who voluntarily walks into the unknown.
Tom Hanks
"The greatest thing that we can do is to help somebody know that they're loved and capable of loving."
Fred "Mister" Rogers
Fascinating Facts
A dog's sense of smell is 100,000 stronger than humans
“The main reason why dogs have such better smelling ability than humans are that they have a higher number of scent receptors than us. For every scent receptor a human being has, a dog has 50. It is important to note that different breeds of dogs have varying senses of smell. For instance, dogs breed that has short noses, such as bulldogs, have lesser space for scent detection than dogs with longer snouts, such as German Shepherds. The bloodhound has the best smelling ability among dog breeds and has almost 300 million scent receptors.” (Source: NeedtoKnowFacts.com)
The shortest term a U.S. President ever served was only one month.
“William Henry Harrison died after just one month in office. The ninth President of the United States caught a cold after getting stuck in a rainstorm on March 24, 1841, just 20 days after his inauguration, and made the fateful decision not to change his wet clothes upon returning to the White House. He developed a “severe chill” the next day, complained of “fatigue and mental anxiety,” and underwent bloodletting before being diagnosed with pneumonia on March 29. His illness was kept from the public, which began to worry — and speculate — about the newly elected commander in chief.
“He succumbed to the illness at 12:30 in the morning on April 4, the first President to die in office, setting off a brief constitutional crisis, as presidential succession had yet to be clearly defined. Tyler was sworn into office two days later once the confusion was resolved, earning the unfortunate nickname of ‘His Accidency.’” (Source: HistoryFacts.com)
Counseling Articles
Pro-Life Researchers Will Sue Medical Journal That Yanked Their Studies
Although this is not a counseling article it is likely to be of interest to many who read these counseling news articles. You probably have heard that three studies that showed that chemical abortions pose health risks had been retracted from a medical journal. These were the studies that caused Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk to suspend FDA approval of mifepristone, one of the drugs used in chemical abortions. The researchers say that they have demonstrably refuted each of the criticisms that caused their articles to be retracted by Sage Publications. Sage indicated the studies were withdrawn because the researchers did not declare they were affiliated with a pro-life group. But the journal has never required abortion advocates to declare they are affiliated with pro-abortion groups. Therefore it seems that there is a good likelihood that the lawsuit will succeed and that the research findings will be vindicated.
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Brave Man Clings to Life After Horrific Wreck – Then His Wife Gives Him 1 Totally Unexpected Gift
We know that when we marry we promise to love, honor and cherish our partner as long as we both shall live. Here is the story of a woman whose husband sustained severe brain injuries that will be lifelong, and how she is living out that promise in a very unique way.
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Why Patients Need to Come Clean About Cannabis to Their Anesthesiologist
If you have clients who are using cannabis recreationally or for medical reasons who need to have surgery it’s very important that they tell their anesthesiologist about it before the surgery itself. The short transcript demonstrates the several reasons why failure to do so can be fatal.
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‘Where Have My Orgasms Gone?’ Sex Medicine and Older Women
Many married couples continue to have interest in sexual interaction in old age. This article gives suggestions for advice you can give them. Although the title seems to indicate it was written only for women, the suggestions include thoughts for men as well.
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Health Gains of Exercise Greater in Women?
In the last few days there have been several articles saying that women need only ½ the exercise in order to result in the same benefits as men. This summary of several articles gives additional benefits of women’s exercise as compared to men’s.
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Exercise Treats Depression as Well as Therapy, Study Says
There have been several studies recently that concluded that exercise was as helpful as medication for mild depression. This research, which compiled 218 studies on exercise and depression, found that exercise was as powerful as therapy for treating depression. So for clients who cannot afford therapy and for those for whom medication is either too expensive or has not helped, you could encourage such clients to start exercising. It would seem reasonable that when depression is moderate or severe that the best option would be to use all three in combination to help alleviate the depression.
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10 Things That Can Look Like Depression but Aren’t
A good refresher article reminding us of other medical issues that may look like depression but aren’t. Even though you probably were aware of some of these issues, there are probably several that are new to most of us.
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A landmark Finnish study is changing how we approach trans-kids
A question many gender counselors ask parents is whether they would rather have their child transition or have a dead child. This Finnish study shows that this is not a question that counselors should be asking in order to persuade them to support “gender-affirming” treatment. The study showed that there was no difference in the suicide rate of those who received cross-sex hormones and then gender change therapy versus those who only received counseling. Interestingly, this study was led by Dr. Riittakerttu Kaltiala, who was previously one of the leaders in the Gender-affirming treatment protocol. It is a shame that the leaders in some of our professional groups here in the U.S. are still enamored with the gender-affirming approach and will not even allow there to be a discussion among their members about the research coming out of the European countries saying that counseling should be the first choice for those clients struggling with gender identity issues. Every day I read of another government or hospital official who is fired because they will not go along with the new gender ideology. See two following articles.
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Woke Court Takes Child Away from Parents – Now They’re Racing to the Supreme Court
Two parents of a teen have had their child removed from their home because they refused to call him by his preferred pronouns. This did not occur in one of the states we tend to think of as a progressive state, but in Indiana.
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Psychologist Punished for Questioning VA’s Gender Push
One psychologist was placed on leave and several others may face the same punishment to signing a letter questioning the VA’s position promoting transgender ideology.
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Nearly Half of US College Graduates Working High-School Level Jobs, Survey Finds
There have been several articles recently about college degrees that have little value. Here is another. For those of you who counsel teens, one topic you could approach would be helping them choose a career or college major. Some of these students might be more fulfilled in a trade, so doing a trade internship might be a better choice than going to college.
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6 Ideas for Tackling Your Bipolar Mood Triggers
For people with bipolar disorder having some way to identify the things that can trigger another mood episode could save them and their loved ones a lot of pain and often financial costs. Here is a brief article with 6 good ideas for identifying triggers early.
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New brain stimulation technique shows promise for treating brain disorders
There have been several studies that show brain functioning can sometimes be improved by use of certain brain scans. However, present brain stimulation techniques can only treat parts of the brain that are close to the surface. To go deeper, surgery is needed. However, this new brain stimulation technique can treat brain disorders that are deeper in the brain without resorting to surgery.
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If You Need a Moment of Humor
See this cute picture from Ginny Sale’s Facebook page
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Rarely, Alzheimer’s may be transmitted
You may have seen a headline in the last couple weeks about an extremely early-onset form of Alzheimer’s disease striking people between the ages of 38 and 55, and of it being contagious. Obviously this could be very frightening, especially for those who have been caretakers of people with dementia. Those fears can be laid to rest for the most part. It appears that children who were given human growth hormone before 1985 that had been extracted from cadavers were occasionally contaminated because some of the cadavers were infected by Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease and others by amyloid-beta clusters (sometimes thought to be a precursor to dementia). These extractions were mixed together, so the contamination may have affected more than a few recipients of the human growth hormone. Since 1985 human growth hormone was not derived from cadavers but was produced synthetically. About 8 people in the U.S. and about 200 people world-wide are thought to be affected. However, for those who have cared for dementia patients you can reassure them that Alzheimer’s is not contagious, so they may continue to care for such patients without endangering themselves.
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Silent brain changes precede Alzheimer’s. Researchers have new clues about which come first
A large study in China is confirming some things we have heard in other research. As many as 18 years before Alzheimer’s appears, there seem to be a buildup of a tau protein in spinal taps. However, as found in previous research, not everyone who has the presence of these tau tangles shows signs of Alzheimer’s. Other research has found that those who stay physically active may stay cognitively well even though they have tangles.
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For Conservative Women, a College Conundrum
For those of you who counsel with young women who are considering colleges this review might help you know whether they might be helped by reading this book. Conservative women say that 90% of their female classmates have liberal leanings, so college can be a very lonely place for those with conservative leanings, and it probably would be helpful for them to be prepared for this. This book might be helpful to them.
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Do Organ Transplants Cause Personality Changes?
When people receive an organ transplant from someone else, sometimes they find that they have responses (physical or psychological) that resemble the responses of the person from whom they received the organ. This is a fascinating topic, and this article presents some interesting examples where this seems to be the case. While nothing has been conclusively proven, if you have a client or a relative who has received an organ transplant, this article might be of interest to them.
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Becoming a Screen-Savvy Family
Here are some resources from Focus on the Family that may be helpful and of interest to some families.
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When is forgetting normal — and when is it worrisome? A neuroscientist weighs in
Memory has become a major topic in political circles recently, so here is a 35-minute interview and a brief summary of the major points by a neuroscientist who has written a book titled “Why We Remember.” The written summary will only take about 2 minutes to read and is interesting.
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Why large language models aren’t headed toward humanlike understanding
There is a lot of interest in generative artificial intelligence, and both what it can and cannot do. Google’s latest adventure in AI was quoted as responding positively about the future of communism, changing the ethnicity of our founding fathers, not being willing to condemn pedophilia as wrong, and causing a 1-billion-dollar loss in Google’s stock before being taken off-line. While generative artificial intelligence can do some amazing things, the question remains about whether it truly understands the data it has incorporated. If you’re interested in this topic, this author argues that generative artificial intelligence does not really understand (in the way humans do) the information it has been exposed to.
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Unhinged ChatGPT Rants Nonstop
Artificial Intelligence issues aren’t limited to Google’s version of AI—Open AI’s version, ChatGBT this week also did some similar things. If interested, read more about what happened here.
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Artificial Intelligence Ghosts Stir Ethical Debate: Comfort or Hindrance to Grieving?
A possible form of AI chatbots could use the voice recordings and writings of recently-deceased relatives to make it possible for grieving relatives to have “conversations” with loved ones who had recently died. As you can tell from this article, there are a lot of concerns about whether this would be a help or hindrance to healthy grieving.
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Have a pleasant week or weekend!
Henry Virkler
