by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here)
The point of progress is to improve our quality of life. It’s a push-me, pull-you process, balancing the frustration of the inevitable glitches of new technology as compared with the comfort of the familiar.
Sometimes the time is ripe for a new way of looking at things, and other times find there are excellent old-fashioned solutions to be revisited.
This yin and yang of new and old progress applies to two intriguing ideas I came across recently in the laboratories of the university and the household.
In the past few years, scientists have been experimenting with miniature wireless devices implanted as a way to relieve chronic pain.
“The two most common treatments have significant drawbacks: narcotics are addictive and surgery is costly and carries considerable risks,” said David Clark, a Stanford professor of anesthesiology and pain management. “Most people don’t even achieve 50 percent pain control.”
To improve upon that percentage, Clark is collaborating with Scott Delp, Stanford professor of bioengineering and mechanical engineering, to develop a microchip that would be embedded under the skin in a sufferer’s body.
The solution involves a way of using light to control the activity of neurons that transmit pain. It takes advantage of a technique called optogenetics.
The current research involves genetically engineered mouse nerve cells, and the lab’s goal at this stage is to design therapies that could be taken to clinical trials. It’s not something we can order yet, but this progress points to a future that most chronic pain sufferers would find miraculous.
At the mundane end of the complexity spectrum is apple cider vinegar (ACV). Every decade or so I chuck all the household cleaning I’ve accumulated and return to solutions such as baking soda and vinegar.
I was ripe for such a cleanout when I came across an article on the uses of ACV everywhere from the kitchen to the bathroom to the garden.
I was familiar with some applications. As a non-toxic cleaner, ACV with equal parts water helps kill some types of bacteria, including E. coli. Other cleaning and freshening uses include foot odor, bad breath and dandruff.
Vinegar knows its way around the kitchen. But I was surprised to see it touted, in the form of raw unfiltered apple cider vinegar, as a means to lower blood sugar and cholesterol.
In a dosage of two teaspoons to two tablespoons daily, it’s a natural cure-all that can substitute for drugs and pharmaceuticals for headaches and minor aches and pains.
It can help with weight control because it helps you feel full. I won’t mention its possible cancer applications since they haven’t been proven on anything except isolated cells.
The great outdoors is greater with vinegar. Jellyfish stings and poison oak are soothed with ACV. In higher doses it is apparently an effective and safe weed-killer. I’ll try it in the fall when (and if) the rains come.
In Girl Scouts we used to sing about “making new friends and keeping the old. One is silver and the other’s gold.”
New remedies and old solutions each have a place. If the microchip thing doesn’t work out for chronic pain, maybe we can turn to the wisdom of our grandmothers, improving our quality of life with a little apple cider vinegar.
Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist
Karen Telleen-Lawton is an eco-writer, sharing information and insights about economics and ecology, finances and the environment. Having recently retired from financial planning and advising, she spends more time exploring the outdoors — and reading and writing about it. The opinions expressed are her own.