As a concept, autoimmunity can provoke unease – there’s something disconcerting about the thought of the body attacking itself; the processes that are meant to protect us running haywire and causing harm. Equally disconcerting is the fact that the underlying cause(s) of most autoimmune conditions are still unknown. Autoimmune diseases, a wide range of disorders whereby the … [Read more...] about All About Autoimmunity Ask the Expert: Dr. Noel Rose
Health
Did President Kennedy Have Celiac Disease?
By Dr. Peter Green, Contributor
Dr. Peter Green, Professor of Clinical Medicine, Director of the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, suspects that JFK was the victim of an undiagnosed disease common to the Irish. John F. Kennedy’s long-standing medical problems started in childhood. In Kennedy’s adolescence, gastrointestinal symptoms, weight and growth problems as … [Read more...] about Did President Kennedy Have Celiac Disease?
The Great Hunger and the Celtic Gene
Thomas P. Duffy MD of the Yale School of Medicine explores why certain people survived the Great Hunger and reasons that the answer may lie in their gene pool. Shortly after the great Irish famine of 1847-49, the initial description appeared, in 1865, of a fatal disorder that compromised the liver and pancreas and resulted in bronzing or hyperpigmentation of the skin. Many … [Read more...] about The Great Hunger and the Celtic Gene
Irish Herbal Medicine
The oldest form of healing, long practiced in Ireland, proved just the thing for writer Jonathan Self. A leafy lane, not much more than a boreen really, dissects the middle of the Kingstons’ farmyard in Church Cross near Skibbereen. On one side lie the whitewashed farmhouse, weathered stone barns and tidy vegetable gardens typical of a traditional West Cork smallholding. On … [Read more...] about Irish Herbal Medicine
When They Want to End It
Suicide in Ireland, particularly among male teens, is on the rise. Sharon Ní Chonchúir reports. Few teenagers make a mark on Irish society in the way 16-year-old Tralee native Donal Walsh did. Having battled cancer on three separate occasions, Donal finally succumbed to the disease in May. But before he died, he spread a serious message. He spoke out urging people, especially … [Read more...] about When They Want to End It