Healthy by Nature radio show this week: Claudia Harsh, MD is a Dallas area integrative gynecologist and physician acupuncturist. She wrote Finding Grace and Balance in the Cycle of Life: Exploring Integrative Gynecology. We’ll take calls on issues of women’s health. Pharmacist Tara Meynard of SuperValue Pharmacy will contribute on the topic of compounding bio-identical hormones. Tom Brewster of Heritage Keepers will join us to discuss senior-proofing your home or your parent’s. Call in during the show on 1-800-281-8255. Click here to find podcasts, show archives and ways to listen nationwide .

WEIRD STUFF
Prepare for Zombie Invasion: If I just told you about this, you might not believe me. So check it out for yourself on the Centers for Disease Control’s typically humorless website. Link . (The information is also useful in case of storms and other emergencies that are more likely than an attack of the undead.)

Can a dentist give you a foreign accent? Wouldn’t you be surprised to go in for dental surgery sounding like a mainstream American and awake with a British accent that you couldn’t shake? The problem of suddenly developing a foreign-sounding speech pattern is more often associated with strokes, but is still thankfully rare. 1(On second thought, I might not mind if husband Bill sounded like Hugh Grant.)

Most people are not WEIRD. Well, at least not in the sense that they are: W estern, E ducated, I ndustrialized, R ich, and D emocratic. A scientific article pointed out that most of the world’s population does not fit that description. However, too often clinical assumptions, pronouncements and guidelines are established based on observations of mainly WEIRD folk. The author said that is especially true in the area of psychology and behavior, but I’m pretty sure the principle also applies to matters of physical health.2 It is only relatively recently that research has begun to study the varying health effects of medicine on women and different races.

Asian watermelons . On a trip to Japan a few years ago I was captivated by the picture-perfect produce in stores and farm markets. The Japanese take such care in growing peaches, melons, grapes, etc. that I wondered if each one was going to be entered in a contest at the state fair. The first picture below shows how some watermelons are grown in glass boxes to make them a shape that more efficiently uses refrigerator space. (I’d buy one!) The second shows some of the acres watermelons from over 115 acres in China that must be destroyed because they blew up like landmines. The culprit was a chemical growth accelerator. (Surely one of those “unintended consequences” we talked about last week.)

My 2 Cents: Sorry about this if you are a Miami Heat fan… GO MAVS!

My first book : Natural Alternatives to Nexium, Maalox, Tagamet, Prilosec & Other Acid Blockers. Subtitle: What to Use to Relieve Acid Reflux, Heartburn, and Gastric Ailments.

My latest book : Aloe Vera-Modern Science Sheds Light on an Ancient Herbal Remedy

Copyright 2011 Martie Whittekin, CCN

¹ Dankovicová, J. Perception of foreign accent syndrome speech and its relation to segmental characteristics. Clin Linguist Phon. 2011 Feb;25(2):85-120.

²Henrich J The weirdest people in the world? Behav Brain Sci. 2010 Jun;33(2-3):61-83; discussion 83-135. Epub 2010 Jun 15.