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Hypnosis can help with problems from anxiety to pain.

By David Noonan

          Christina Bodie, 48, was driving with her parents seven years ago when her car was rear-ended. All three suffered whiplash and bruises. Long after the physical pain was gone, Christina would find herself clutching the wheel and hyperventilating. "I found driving very difficult, and would suffer panic attacks," she recalls. At one point she stopped driving altogether, doing her work as a pension manager at a London firm from home. When she'd had enough, she called London-based hypnotist Tim Martin. He had her visualize a white cloud that absorbed all her problems, and then taught her to make the cloud turn black and disappear. Martin walked Bodie through her car accident as though it were playing on a movie screen, adding humorous touches - like putting a clown nose on the policeman. Bodie hasn't had a panic attack for a year now, and memories of the accident no longer haunt her. Hypnosis, she says, "is powerful stuff"

.In Newsweek, October 4, 2004

Where dreams are made

Stroke victim's case may help pinpoint crucial area of brain, scientists say

WASHINGTON - A stroke that robbed a woman of her dreams may help pinpoint where and how dreams are born in the brain, scientists said on Friday.They found the stroke had damaged areas deep in the back half of the brain, which is involved in the visual processing of faces and landmarks.Writing in the Annals of Neurology, they said the finding suggests that this area was crucial for dreams. "How dreams are generated, and what purpose they might serve, are completely open questions at this point," said Dr. Claudio Bassetti, a neurologist at the University Hospital of Zurich in Switzerland, in a statement."These results describe for the first time in detail the extent of lesion necessary to produce loss of dreaming in the absence of other neurological deficits. As such, they offer a target for further study of the localization of dreaming," added Bassetti, who led the study.

http://www.reuters.com/

BOTOX FOR THE BACK

Botulinum toxin - yes, the same poison that causes muscle paralysis when ingested in bad restaurants and smooths forehead wrinkles in trendy clinics - may also relieve aching backs. Scientists report in the journal Neurology that patients with longstanding lower-back pain who receive Botox injections are three times as likely as those who get injected with a saline solution to report less pain and less difficulty walking, sitting and exercising. The shots, five in all, not only eased muscle spasms along the spine - which might be expected, given Botox's known muscle-relaxing effects - but somehow also quieted the nerve firings that cause pain. Unfortunately, the effects wear off after three months.

(Time, 2002)

THE DIABETES BLUES

Everybody knows that diabetes is no fun. But researchers writing this month's Diabetes Care report that diabetics are twice as likely to suffer from depression as the rest of us. Depression, it turns out, often precedes the onset of diabetes - and may contribute to it. Depressed patients often overeat and have sedentary lifestyles, both of which may promote insulin resistance. Furthermore, some antidepressants, particularly the older tricyclics, disrupt glucose control. The good news: proper treatment of depression may actually improve diabetes.

(Time, 2002)