Well, hard to believe, but 2012 is more than half over.  As we enter hot summer days, beaches, family gatherings or whatever you like to do for summer relaxation, I thought I'd blog about new info you can find on our site.  Researchers are finding that low levels of vitamin D can impact proper brain functioning.  We've been saying that for a while and telling our patients also.  Another article I will summarize this week is about the risk of getting seizures after a traumatic brain injury.  This is important information because many people have subtle seizures that are difficult to diagnose, so you want to be diligent and see a neurologist for evaluation after a head injury. 

On a personal note, I have been running 2 miles daily and watching my caloric intake carefully and have lost 18 lbs!  Mounting evidence tells us that one of the keys to a long and happy life is eating diets with fewer calories, less saturated fat and simple carbohydrates.  Thin is in - but no in the fashion sense but because the thinner you are, the better off you will be from the standpoint of a number of chronic health conditions, many of them neurological. 

So, enjoy your summer bar-b-que, your trips to the beach and keep an eye on what you are eating, increase your vitamin D intake and if you fall off your road bike and hit your head come in to see us or your neurologist and make sure you are not at risk of getting a seizure.

A recent study published in the April 25th on-line issue of the Journal, Headache, demonstrated that women who had adversity during childhood were more likely to have migraines as adults and were more likely to have inflammatory markers in their blood.  Previous studies have documented that childhood trauma of any kind - verbal abuse, divorce, violence, sexual abuse - led to a 30% more likelihood of developing a chronic pain syndrome, including migraine, during adulthood. 

Well, that's no surprise to us here at neurOasis.  We focus our approach to the treatment of patients with chronic migraine and pain syndromes by learning everything we can about the person/patient and then recommending treatments including anti-inflammatories (pharmaceutical and holistic), psychological counseling when indicated and a variety of other treatments individualized for the patient.  One of our approaches includes teaching patients how to meditate.  We have had great success with meditation and scientific evidence is mounting that supports this therapy as very useful in patients with a variety of conditions, including chronic pain or migraine. 

We hope to see you soon and get you started on your path to mind, brain and body wellness.  Dr. Laurie Brodsky and myself are writing a book, Nerve-ana, that will help those of you who can't get into our clinic in New York, so hang in there and keep checking our site and facebook fan page for excerpts from the book that you can start to use on your road to health.

Scientifically speaking, can we have our cake and eat it too?  I am referring here to the seeming conflict between faith in God or a higher power and science.  We use science to explain the world around us, from quantum physics and the laws that govern time, matter and space to the insights into the very workings of our brains and minds.  Does one's faith in God preclude that same person's belief in a scientific explanation of how our brains work and how we think, act, speak, and do everything that makes us human?

Absolutely not!  If you are staunchly atheist, my musings here are moot.  If you are agnostic and question the existence of a God, then you may be swayed one way or the other by this blog.  If you have faith in God or a higher power; if you consider yourself to be a spiritual person, then I would like to propose that God works His plan for us partly by bestowing upon us a mind that can reason and learn everything we can about our own bodies and the world we live in.  This would include our brains.  The knowledge we are rapidly acquiring about how our brains and minds work is growing at an exponential rate - such that within a matter of years we will be on the verge of creating brain-computer interfaces.  Imagine:  we are gaining the knowledge of the very essence of what makes us human.  If you believe in God, don't worry.  In my humble opinion, His plan for mankind is to allow us to make decisions in the future based on the massive and powerful knowledge we are gaining.  But here's the rub:  He will sit back and watch to see if we use our new found information and knowledge for the good of our race or to our detriment. 

Powerful stuff.  Stay tuned, because I believe in the basic goodness of men, and I am excited to see the good we will spread throughout the world in the coming years as we unlock the secrets of the human brain and use that knowledge to heal in ways that only a few years ago was pure science fiction.  Exciting times are ahead, and we are only at the very infancy of news ways of healing.  Meditation and my version of anatomic based meditation (that will be the subject of a book in the works) is only the tip of the iceberg.