Researchers have found that the brain definitely sends nerves directly to organs of the immune system and not just to the heart and the lower gut. In that way, too, the brain is influencing the body.
Interpretation
The brain actively influences the immune system, not just the heart and gut.
This quote emphasizes the significant role the brain plays in regulating bodily functions beyond the commonly known areas such as the heart and gut. It highlights the interconnectedness of the mind and body, suggesting that mental and emotional states can have direct effects on physical health, particularly through the immune system.
In practice
In a health seminar discussing the mind-body connection, this quote can illustrate the importance of mental well-being.
Cancer cells have had so many other things go wrong with them, genetic, non-genetic changes, that those cells, one of the things they then get selected for is that they have lots of telomerase because now the telomeres in those cells get maintained.
We and other groups are seeing clear statistical links between telomere shortness and risk for a variety of diseases that are becoming very common, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and certain cancers.
Checking your telomere length is a bit like weighing yourself: you get this single number which depends on a lot of factors. Telomere length gives a sense of your underlying health.
We think there are lifestyle factors that boost telomerase naturally.
For me, arguably the story of telomeres and telomerase began thousands of years ago, in the cornfields of the Maya highlands of Central America.
If we think of our chromosomes - they carry our genetic material - as being like shoelaces, I work on the plastic tips at the end that protect them.
We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.
The ride to orbit was impressive, as it always is. But once I got on board the space station, it really felt like I was visiting an old home; it felt very comfortable.
It is certainly true in the United States that there is an uneasiness about certain aspects of science, particularly evolution, because it conflicts, in some people's minds, with their sense of how we all came to be. But you know, if you are a believer in God, it's hard to imagine that God would somehow put this incontrovertible evidence in front of us about our relationship to other living organisms and expect us to disbelieve it. I mean, that doesn't make sense at all.
We live in the hope and faith that, by the advance of molecular physics, we shall by-and-by be able to see our way as clearly from the constituents of water to the properties of water, as we are now able to deduce the operations of a watch from the form of its parts and the manner in which they are put together.
Some experts say we are moving back to the pre-antibiotic era. No. This will be a post-antibiotic era. In terms of new replacement antibiotics, the pipeline is virtually dry. A post-antibiotic era means, in effect, an end to modern medicine as we know it. Things as common as strep throat or a child's scratched knee could once again kill.
Yet if anyone believes that the earth rotates, surely he will hold that its motion is natural, not violent.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.