Thanks.

I’ve recently changed my diet, started exercising a little more, and watch that I don’t sit too long, especially with bad posture. Seems to have done the trick.

I’m not one to go all out and decry the “medical” establishment or big Pharma! My mom (80) was greatly helped with a disectomy and the new technologies haven’t even hit yet. But there’s something as well to the mind/body connection. Ironic thing is that usually the one you try first isn’t the one that works.

It is programmed, and one’s capacity to regenerate cells, in whatever organ, each with its X cell generations, attenuates with age. Until you run out.

sharpie, try reading this:
http://www.cure-back-pain.org/Dr-Sarno-back-pain-cure.html
Good luck!

I’ve been studying lower back pain, having been beset with some episodes.

It is absolutely amazing how many myths are out there about the spine. I’ve been reading Bogduk and Stuart McGill and the medical journal “Spine.”

And the term “degenerative disc disease” which is, in some ways is an “alike” mechanism of apoptosis. Degenerative disc disease is a catch all term to describe age related changes, some worse than others. But the “some worse” reasons is the most intersting part of the study. You’d think years of hard work would pre-dispose one to more degeneration. But it appears that depression and smoking and “social economic” status is a better predictor. MRIs show that people with identical degenerative conditions (herniated discs, facet hypertrophy, spondylosis, otheoartritis . . . ) will have differing experiences of pain. Some will have no pain, some have some, and a few will be disabled.

People with PTSD have a high incidence of lower back pain. It’s interesting stuff and the growth of lower back pain in the last 20 years is astounding. Is it mostly mental. Is the increased suicide rate, increased lower back pain, increased this and that, all in our heads, or maybe more appropriately, in our hearts.

Aptotosis:

: a genetically determined process of cell self-destruction that is marked by the fragmentation of nuclear DNA, is activated either by the presence of a stimulus or by the removal of a stimulus or suppressing agent, is a normal physiological process eliminating DNA-damaged, superfluous, or unwanted cells (as immune cells targeted against the self in the development of self-tolerance or larval cells in amphibians undergoing metamorphosis), and when halted (as by genetic mutation) may result in uncontrolled cell growth and tumor formation–called also programmed cell death

“We found no significant effect of Medicaid coverage on the prevalence or diagnosis of hypertension or high cholesterol levels or on the use of medication for these conditions. Medicaid coverage significantly increased the probability of a diagnosis of diabetes and the use of diabetes medication, but we observed no significant effect on average glycated hemoglobin levels or on the percentage of participants with levels of 6.5% or higher. Medicaid coverage decreased the probability of a positive screening for depression (−9.15 percentage points; 95% confidence interval, −16.70 to −1.60; P=0.02), increased the use of many preventive services, and nearly eliminated catastrophic out-of-pocket medical expenditures.”

Appearing in NEJM is important. Long regarded as the best general medical journal, I subscribed from medical school through retirement. But it is owned by the Mass. Medical Society, and its editorial controls have gradually been seized by the elitist best and brightest, all academics, from Harvard et al, who will dictate-yes, dictate- what all docs should do based on “evidence-based medicine” policies which they formulate after government grants, which they receive. As if the rest of us are ignorant clucks incognizant of scientific reason.

And the Leftist slant on its “opinions” articles, such as health care finance, universal coverage, etc., became so unreasoned and propagandistic that I quit taking it several yrs ago.