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sveltacious turtleneck

turtleneck uses warmth with sonic pulses to stimulate the thyroid
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while rummaging to find a heart disease cure I thought; gee if only I could make plump people plump optional

Hyperthyroidism is associated with weight reduction

the thyroid is located right where a turtleneck goes; enzymes work faster with gentle warming; an electro-turtleneck could cause greater production of thyroid hormones

to further promote enzyme production nonaudible frequency sound pulses could be used to promote capillary bloodflow at the thyroid

alternatively a non turtleneck version could be worn while asleep

Imagine the compliments:

that Throat Wobbler Mangrove looks fab and you're so svelte

this, oh, you mean my Raymond Luxury Yacht; thats kind of you It's physician prescribed

beanangel, Jan 26 2008

Carl Sagan with turtleneck talks about flatland as well as 4d http://youtube.com/watch?v=Y9KT4M7kiSw
[beanangel, Jan 27 2008]

ultrasound modulates fluid flow through (non physiological) capillary tubes http://www.ncbi.nlm...nel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
[beanangel, Jan 27 2008]

I'm sure it does, but that's hardly relevant. http://www.slidedid.../slidedidgecom.html
[MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 27 2008]

Turtleneck proves fatal for Sagan http://www.geocitie...eral/8165/sagan.htm
A tragic and needless waste of yuman life. [MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 27 2008]

Kosher for Passover Coca Cola w/o corn syrup https://web.archive...he-real-thing-baby/
[jutta, Feb 01 2008, last modified Sep 05 2022]

[link]






       Treon, I'm not sure whether to advise you to stop taking the medication, or to start.   

       Disregarding the verbal flotsam and pruning things back to intelligibility, this is still a lousy idea in several quite distinct ways.   

       One. Raising the temperature of the thyroid significantly is not going to be achieved by an electrified collar. You're just going to annoy the outer couple of millimetres of skin, and give yourself a rash.   

       Two. Enzymes generally work best at about the temperature they evolved to work at. If you could warm up your thyroid, the net effect would be detrimental.   

       Three. Using non-audible frequency sound pulses (so, not sound, then?) is unlikely to significantly alter blood flow.   

       Four. Altering blood flow in the thyroid is unlikely to increase the production of thyroid hormone, unless a pre-existing deficiency had been caused by some hitherto unknown thyroid blood flow problem.   

       Five. I can see no significant value in the gratuitous use of the word "Mangrove".   

       Six. Just because everyone thinks you're nuts, it doesn't mean you aren't.
MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 26 2008
  

       Having actually had hyperthyroidism, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for anything, certainly not weight loss (though it did make me pretty skinny, as well as foul tempered and partially bald; now I'm completely bald, of course, and still pretty bad tempered, but it's quite a different thing when you're 16).   

       I also don't think that massaging your thyroid will make it overactive, or they'd do that for the thyroidically underactive.
DrCurry, Jan 27 2008
  

       P.S. A quick Google search does turn up this bewildering piece of "alternative medicine" as a treatment for hypothyroidism:   

       "Massage the entire neck area (in all toes) to warm up the area. Then massage each toe in the front neck area more deeply, using your thumb."   

       Even if you do find the toes in your neck area, the site goes on to insist that you see a doctor.
DrCurry, Jan 27 2008
  

       The problem is usually autoimmune. If anything is done to stimulate local circulation, it will increase the quantity of autoantibodies attacking the thyroid. If it isn't autoimmune, the cause is likely to be iodine deficiency, resistance to thyroxine in peripheral tissues or a pituitary problem. Local circulatory stimulation won't make a difference to any of these either, except maybe temporarily and briefly to the pituitary problem (more TSH for a short period) or absorption of iodine.   

       You might be able to do something for a minority of cases by influencing the hypothalamus in some way.
nineteenthly, Jan 27 2008
  

       Iodine deficiency is not necessarily the cause. That comes down to whether the area has been under the sea in the relatively recent geological past, in which case there will still be significant quantities of iodine in the soil. Also, if the diet is high in seafood there will be sufficient iodine. There was also a land plant which was high in iodine but it became extinct thirty-odd years ago so it can't be used now.   

       For people whose diet is high in iodine there can still be a problem, sometimes due to prior treatment of hyperthyroidism and sometimes due to autoimmune processes. In that case, iodine supplementation wouldn't make much difference. Mustard oil depresses the thyroid, so avoiding Cruciferae, such as Muli, Brassica, shepherd's purse, horse radish and mustard, can help.   

       This may be a sexist thought, but i wonder if it's to do with an immune reaction to foetal cells entering the mother's internal environment.
nineteenthly, Jan 27 2008
  

       //a land plant which was high in iodine but it became extinct thirty-odd years ago// I'm intrigued - what was it?
MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 27 2008
  

       // Even if you do find the toes in your neck area //   

       This either refers to Reflexology or Contortionism. If the former, advise psychological counselling. If the latter, and the patient is female, do you have her phone number ?
8th of 7, Jan 27 2008
  

       [MaxwellBuchanan], i seriously wish i knew. I'm personally not convinced it doesn't still exist somewhere else in Europe. There are quite a few things like that, unfortunately, folk knowledge handed down through generations and not recorded, but presumably this is more than that because it was known to contain iodine. I wouldn't be surprised if it was some kind of halophyte, although some plants are dynamic accumulators, which are able to concentrate particular elements in themselves well above the concentration in the soil. Comfrey and dandelion both do this with potassium, for example.   

       It'd be really disappointing if it turned out to be a halophyte, actually.   

       However, God i wish i knew what it was. Then there's laser as well. That's well extinct.   

       Concerning walnuts, they stain the skin, but they would do anyway because they're high in tannins. I don't know if they're high in iodine, but i do know they grow here, where there's hardly any iodine in the soil, so if they are it means either that they're dynamic accumulators of iodine or that they don't always contain it (or that they can transmute!)
nineteenthly, Jan 27 2008
  

       //Then there's laser as well. That's well extinct.// This gets stranger and curiouser. I'm assuming this isn't an optical device you're referring to.
MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 27 2008
  

       Laser is another word for silphium, a plant in the celery family which grew in the Mediterranean until Roman times and then died out. There is a plant now called laser which is related, but it isn't the original one. It's related to asafoetida and was used as a female contraceptive. There are some male ones too, incidentally, but a male contraceptive is a bit pointless really, i think. I've got a patient who wants some though.
nineteenthly, Jan 28 2008
  

       Intriguing. Incidentally, I've noticed that some packaged foods include, in their "allergy warning list", the phrase "contains celery". I'd always wondered how the hell someone could have a problem with celery - is it related to this silphium/laser/ asafoetida business?
MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 28 2008
  

       Very weird. Presumably, amongst a 6- billion population, it's possible to find someone with a dangerous allergy to almost anything. Once these people have been found, we can remove all the allergy warnings from packets, and simply add the words "WARNING: contains.." to the beginning of the ingredients list.
MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 28 2008
  

       Nut allergy always seems completely bizarre to me because it includes almost completely unrelated plants such as peanuts and pine nuts. I think it's to do with fungal infestation and i think there's a hapten connection. It occurred to me this morning that cola might be a problem because of Cola nuts, but it seems not to be. Maybe they're like nutmeg in that way.   

       Incidentally, i'm aware not everyone is allergic to peanuts as well as tree nuts but it still doesn't explain pine nuts and, say, hazelnuts.
nineteenthly, Jan 28 2008
  

       The one that intrigues me is allergy to teflon - that's essentially an inert compound! (Reads a little - ah, the allergy is to the stuff it's made from, which presumably contaminates the finished product.)
DrCurry, Jan 28 2008
  

       This idea sounds like a lot of bullshit.
nomocrow, Jan 28 2008
  

       //a reaction to specific protein// I think (though I'm not sure how I know this) that the main suspects are lectins (a class of proteins). There are many different types, so I'm not sure why peanut lectins (or those in true nuts, or in legumes - which can also cause allergies) are so problematic.   

       It's odd that the topic has returned to nuts, after my initial annotation of // Just because everyone thinks you're nuts, it doesn't mean you aren't//.
MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 28 2008
  

       So, what's happening genetically? The thing that gets me is that it happens with pine nuts, which aren't even flowering plants, and various dicots. It can't be a substance found in other seeds because it sets people off in tiny quantities and they'd then be allergic to a whole load of other stuff. They do tend to be allergic to sesame seeds, but not, for example, coconut. Therefore, if it is a particular set of proteins, i can't see how they wouldn't have evolved twice separately. Are they maybe a throwback to something? Also, what about apple pips? Almonds are nuts and apple pips are like tiny almonds, but i haven't heard anything about people being allergic to apple pips.   

       [DrCurry], have you come across the phenomenon of allergy to tap water? It's something to do with the way it's treated.
nineteenthly, Jan 28 2008
  

       There do tend to be a lot of compounds found throughout plants which are more concentrated in the seeds. Also, seeds tend to be more poisonous, presumably for reasons of natural selection. This is also useful because of the principle of smaller doses of poisons having pharmacological actions.
nineteenthly, Jan 29 2008
  

       //This is also useful because of the principle of smaller doses of poisons having pharmacological actions.// < Looks intently at [nineteenthly] for signs of latent homeopathic tendencies>
MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 29 2008
  

       [UB] I see you're using the approved incantation to ward off superstitious belief systems.
MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 29 2008
  

       You know, lost in all of this interesting tangent is the rolling-on-floor hilarity of the opening clause of the idea:   

       //while rummaging to find a heart disease cure //   

       In your attic, perhaps?
globaltourniquet, Jan 29 2008
  

       No, nothing to do with homoeopathy. Generally, drugs with a physiological action are toxic in larger doses, for instance digoxin, warfarin, paracetamol/acetaminophen. All i'm saying is that it's possible to overdose on drugs, and poison is poison because it changes physiology in fatal ways. A smaller dose of the same substance changes physiology non-fatally. This may or may not be a useful change. I'm not suggesting the complete absence of a compound has an action, as claimed in homoeopathy. Small dose of vitamin A - see in the dark; large dose of vitamin A - death from liver damage. Small dose of warfarin - lower risk of DVTs; high dose - rat poison.
nineteenthly, Jan 29 2008
  

       //nothing to do with homoeopathy.// In that case, [nineteenthly], let me offer you this martini with an olive branch in it, and welcome you back to the fold of rational beings with my apologies.
MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 29 2008
  

       Thanks. There is a reason i'm not a homoeopath, but i can understand the confusion.   

       To be honest, i want out of this line of work because it's impossible to make a living. Roll on philosophical counselling practice.
nineteenthly, Jan 29 2008
  

       You know what you need, [nineteenthly]? You need a good ome. It's worked wonders for others. People who did genetics used to struggle until they called it genomics - now the money is rolling in. Likewise, protein chemists were struggling until they called it proteomics. Biochemists have rebranded their discipline 'metabolomics', and are swimming in cash. Omeless biologists are really struggling, and are campaigning for the introduction of "ecologomics" and, as a safety net for the remainder, "biologomics".   

       So, how about becoming the world's first phytopharmaconomics expert?
MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 29 2008
  

       Or just home(c)onomics?
DrCurry, Jan 29 2008
  

       You could study garden ornaments - gnomics.
MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 29 2008
  

       There's pharmacognosy, which has got the -gno-, so that's part way to being a gnome at least.   

       A bit of economics wouldn't go amiss either. I was quite impressed by the Pareto Principle the other week, so maybe there's more.
nineteenthly, Jan 29 2008
  

       // I was quite impressed by the Pareto Principle// Is that like Pilates?
MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 29 2008
  

       It's the rule that a minority of the inputs provide a majority of the outputs, so for example in a business, 20% of the customers provide 80% of the profits.   

       Pilates also begins with a P. Maybe i should get a pgnomic.
nineteenthly, Jan 30 2008
  

       Indeed, and i can see how to apply it in lots of areas, for example it means i only need to keep twenty percent of my remedies in stock to treat eighty percent of the problems i can treat and that if i give, say, five pieces of advice to a client and they follow all of them, one measure will make most of the difference.   

       I want to know about other principles which are like that. I'd also like to see a mathematical proof of the Pareto Principle.
nineteenthly, Jan 30 2008
  

       My wife is allergic to tree nuts but not peanuts. Conversely, my nephew was - puberty fixed this - allergic to peanuts but not to tree nuts.   

       Hormonal changes affected both of them. Up until a few years ago, my wife could have tree nuts if she wanted them. Not in any great quantity, but she could have ~3-4oz per week with no ill effects. Now she becomes quite ill with just one cashew.   

       Which means there are more cashews for me. BWAhahaha.   

       *vreeeee*   

       Dangit.
elhigh, Jan 30 2008
  

       Thanks, [UnaBubba], it's really been bugging me.   

       I have heard that nut allergies change with age, but it'd be difficult to trust that, even if it'd been corroborated in vitro, and you knew you'd probably die if it was wrong.
nineteenthly, Jan 30 2008
  

       I'm hypo. As a result I avoid products containing soy, as its a known suppressent. I've discovered that it is a reasonably hard thing to do, however.
RayfordSteele, Jan 31 2008
  

       //I'm hypo// I'm Pareto! 20% of my ideas account for 80% of my buns. 80% of my ideas account for 100% of my bones. Go Figure?
4whom, Jan 31 2008
  

       [If you want a tagline, "Unhampered by intelligence", more like.]
DrCurry, Jan 31 2008
  

       20% of my food accounts for 80% of my fat?
RayfordSteele, Jan 31 2008
  

       Yes, it really does, chances are. A good example, and useful to me.
nineteenthly, Jan 31 2008
  

       //cola might be a problem because of Cola nuts//   

       I'm fairly sure modern cola formulations don't have cola nuts in them.
Spacecoyote, Jan 31 2008
  

       Sp.: palaeobotany
MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 31 2008
  

       Thanks, [UnaBubba], interesting. I had a plan to use home made cola to deliver herbs to children as a way of disguising the taste, but the problem is the pH. I might still do this. There are other colas in this country which do contain Cola nuts. If Coca Cola does, and if they are a problem in nut allergy, that would presumably mean Coca Cola would be marked.   

       Why is corn syrup not kosher?
nineteenthly, Feb 01 2008
  

       This isn't about kosher in general, it's about kosher for Passover - corn is in a food group called "kitniot" with various domestic grains and legumes, which large Jewish populations (specifically, Ashkenazim; majority in US/Europe, minority in Israel) don't allow during Passover. Hence the seasonal appearance of non-corn-syrup coke, beloved by New York's Jewish and Goyim coke snobs alike. More on passover coke -> link.
jutta, Feb 01 2008
  

       Corn syrup is evil incarnate. Almost as evil as soy.
RayfordSteele, Feb 01 2008
  

       // Coca-Cola may or may not contain Kola extract //   

       Coca-Cola ?   

       Coca Kola ?   

       Coca-Koala ?   

       Contains Koala nuts ? EEEEEEeeeeeeeeewwwwww
8th of 7, Feb 13 2008
  
      
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