A Coffee a day keeps Mouth Cancer Away

Here is a really interesting article one of our team found on a colleague of mine’s Practice Newsletter. The Practice called ‘AESTHETICS’ is down in Hertfordshire, a beautiful new business with a fantastic team – well done Harry and the  guys there on your acheivement. details at /www.aesthetics-dentistry.com/.

A cup of coffee a day could half the risk of mouth cancers and cancers of the throat and throat, according to new research carried out by University researchers in Japan.

Japanese scientists who tracked patients’ drinking habits for 13 years found those downing at least one cup a day were much less likely to get tumours than those who hardly ever drank coffee.  According to Cancer Research UK, mouth cancer kills around 1,600 people a year in Britain and cancer of the oesophagus another 7,400. The findings, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, suggest a daily dose of caffeine could offset some of the risk from alcohol and tobacco – the main causes of such cancers. Previous studies have produced mixed results on whether coffeehas a protective effect and have felt
that it adds to the risk. Smoking and excessive drinking are the key culprits in both types of tumours becausetheycontaindamaging chemicals called nitrosamines. But in the latest investigation, experts at the Tohoku University School of Medicine in Japan, concluded certain chemicals found in caffeine protect the body’s DNA against damage that can lead to cancer. British consumers apparently drink an estimated 70 million cups of coffee a day. To see if coffee offered any
protection, researchers studied nearly 40,000 people aged 40 to 64 over a 13-year period. During that time, 157 of the volunteers developed mouth or gullet cancer. When researchers analysed their diet and lifestyle, they found those drinking
at least one coffee every day were 49% less likely to be affected than those who rarely or never drank. In a report on
the results, they said: ‘One of the most significant findings was the inverse association between coffee and those at high risk of these cancers, namely current drinkers and smokers. ‘Although quitting alcohol and smoking is the best known way to help reduce the risk, coffee could be a preventive factor.’

So feel free to come and relax in our patient lounge and enjoy one of our coffee ranges.

I wonder if the coffee is as good as at Speinggrove Clinic?!

Thoughts on ‘Blink’ by Malcolm Gladwell

Blink and You’ll Miss It

In yesterdays posting I mentioned ‘Blink’ by Malcolm Gladwell. The message of the book has been sinking in more and more over the past few days. the fact seems to be that we do make snap judgements when we meet someone for the first time, for good or for bad. The other thread of the book is that that moment can be extended, almost stretching time. For example the great basketball legend Larry Byrd said that when he was on the court and on top form, the players would seem to slow down and the gaps on the court would  to open up. I came across a quotation from the late and sadly missed Ayrton Senna:

‘I felt as though I was driving in a tunnel. The whole circuit became a tunnel… I had reached such a high level of concentration that it was as if the car and I had become one. Together we were at the maximum. I was giving the car everything – and vice versa.”

Ayrton Senna 1960-1994

Gives me a lump in my throat………he is sadly missed.

An Interesting History Lesson

This came to me via email from my Dad

AN INTERESTING HISTORY LESSON.

Railroad tracks. This is fascinating.

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That’s an exceedingly odd number.

Why was that gauge used? Because that’s the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US railroads.

Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that’s the gauge they used.

Why did ‘they’ use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that’s the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England ) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore the United Statesstandard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an
Imperial Roman war chariot. Bureaucracies live forever.

So the next time you are handed a Specification/Procedure/Process and wonder ‘What horse’s ass came up with it?’ you may be exactly right. Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses’ asses.) Now, the twist to the story:

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRB’s. The SRB’s are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRB’s would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRB’s had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRB’s had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses’ behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world’s most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse’s BUTT. And you thought being a horse’s BUTT wasn’t important? Ancient horse’s BUTT’S control almost everything… and

CURRENT Horses BUTT’S are controlling everything else.

Relaxing/Mental Freewheeling

Spent a really relaxing Saturday with my family in Bothwell. I get really keyed up sometimes during my working week and can have difficulty relaxing, with my biggest danger being unable to switch off.

Having recently moved my gym  from the livingwell at Strathclyde Business Park to JJB Fitness at the Fort,just off the M8 motorway, been a couple of times now and am very impressed with the customer service, design and overall ‘experience’.

relaxing scene after body pump class

Must say though the ‘gym rat’ types who must stand in the same place at classes and look everyone up and down when they walk by really amuse me.

People are weird.

After a fantastic lunch at Riva Restaurant in the village, a spot if food shopping at Sainos and then home, Dawn and the boys went for a snooze and Ben, Dougie and I went for a walk down at the Clyde tow path, i Phone headphones in place.

Since I discovered the ‘audio book’, my spare time has evolved onto an intense catching up on an adult lifetime of books and language which I, hitherto, have missed out on. Having just completed Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘Blink’. A fantastic insight into the immediate and instant opinions and assumptions we humans make in the first on or two seconds of interaction. Blink is one of those books that I was sorry to have finished and would thoroughly recommend.

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

Next up on the reading front is ‘The Idea Virus’ by Seth Godin. Report will follow, although I’m half way through it already.

Snowdrops, History and Wet Dogs

Beautiful sign of Spring

early sign of spring

Darkness falls and that historical bloke off BBC2 (you know the one with the long hair)

I walked further than I had planned and by the time the dogs and I were heading back past the ruins of Bothwell Castle the scene was moody and gloomy………I wished that bloke off ‘The History of Scotland’ could have been there to give a running commentary in that dramatic Scottish delivery……….maybe a description or two of a bloody feud or battle associated with the scene.

dark deeds must have happened here

And finally, thanks to my four legged companions for their company today.

Ben and Dougie

Cheers boys (by the way – you stink now)

Springgrove’s New Deputy Manager

Our receptionist Diane took up her new role today as Deputy Manager of Spring Grove Clinic. Well done Diane, your enthusiasm and willingness to tackle anything you are asked to do and your general willingness to get things done is really appreciated. You are an example to us all. Well done again!

Diane multitasking at Springgrove Clinic

Amalgam/Metal Fillings Linked to Muscle Weakness*

As a Practitioner who has always tried to avoid placing amalgam/metal fillings I was interested to find this article on the centre for natural dentistry in America.

take a look at this video posted on utube

Another reason to avoid amalgam fillings. Teeth contain nerve sensors that are sensitive to pressure and are directly connected to areas of the brain that control bite muscles. In this case an amalgam filling irritated sensors and resulted in muscle weakness which is abolished by increasing pressure on the tooth. Weak muscles predispose to injury.

Food for thought when NHS dental treatment uses amalgam fillings extensively. The arguments for its not being used are becoming more compelling in my opinion.

For more information on Natural Dentistry then take a look at http://naturaldentistry.us

*scource http://www.naturaldentistry.us

Ten rules for being human

Found this on http://www.stumbleupon.com, a site well worth a visist

Ten Rules for Being Human

by Cherie Carter-Scott

1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it’s yours to keep for the entire period.
2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called, “life.”
3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial, error, and experimentation. The “failed” experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately “work.”
4. Lessons are repeated until they are learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.
5. Learning lessons does not end. There’s no part of life that doesn’t contain its lessons. If you’re alive, that means there are still lessons to be learned.
6. “There” is no better a place than “here.” When your “there” has become a “here”, you will simply obtain another “there” that will again look better than “here.”
7. Other people are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.
9. Your answers lie within you. The answers to life’s questions lie within you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.
10. You will forget all this.

Why are dogs so successful?

Spent the first half of the morning walking my two faithful black labradors down at the river Clyde. It was cold and the water didn’t look inviting to me at all. Ben and Dougie thought differently and swam happily in the freezing water. I thought about why dogs made such good walking companions, all round good company and generally ‘work’. My Mum’s theory is the correct one , I think, they are successful because they don’t speak.

home bleaching 2 – getting better with technology

Thats better folks, bit of tinkering and I have managed to embed this properly

Love the accent

Don’t Try This At Home

Stumbled across this on U-tube:

I don’t recommend it, but if Springgrove Clinic’s zoom whitening doesn’t appeal then…..