December Blog 2012

NEWS:

By Clive Lindley-Jones | December 13, 2012 12:28 pm

Happy Christmas and a Healthy New Year to you all!

Nativity

Welcome to our 34th blog on all things pertaining to health, in its widest sense.

It is a great privilage to help as many people as we do, and we all thank you for having put your trust in us over the last year. While no one is able o help everyone who seeks their help, we enjoy the challenges that you all present us with and do our utmost to repay the trust put in us, so, once again thank you for a good year.

It is over three years ago I, Clive, started this little venture, sharing what I felt was interesting to me and, I hoped might be to you. Now, over 60,000 words later, it is time to take stock. First let me thank all of you who have taken the time to read some of my thoughts over the last three years, and a special thanks to all of you who have taken the time to write comments, please keep them coming. In this time of ever increasing digital bombarment with ideas, images and thoughts, it is impossible to keep up with everything one has, even a passing interest, in. Therefore I am especially appreciative of the time you have invested in reading and thinking of those slivers of the world I have chosen to draw to your attention. As those who know me well, I like nothing better than a good discussion about things that interest me, and this is another forum for that.

Crossing the arbitary rubicon of 65 this autumn (Thanks Steve for saying you had no idea I was that young, as I looked so much older!) I have decided one way to make more time for all those other things I want to cram into this life, is to turn these monthly blogs into bi-monthly blogs. So starting with this 34th edition they should come out every two months. Next month I am off on a little East Asia tour prompted by my roll on the International College of Applied Kinesiology’s International Board of Examiners. I am off to Seoul on January 1st to help run the Diplomate exam for 8 Korean Doctors who want to take the advanced exams.

Seoul Marked on a Map

Having just run this exam here in Oxford, last weekend, I am both impressed with those who put themselves throught the tough years of work and study to attain this status and somewhat amazed that I did the same some twenty years ago, and, eventually, managed to pass.

While I am back in East Asia I wanted to offer some of my own insigths in using Applied Kinesiology to help diagnose and treat, sometimes difficult to uncover, health problems. Consequently I am off to Vietnam for a short trip before returing to South Korea to lecture at their AGM and then flying over to Japan to lecture there in Tokyo the following week.

Travel picture

I have never been to Vietnam, a country that played such a seminal and tragic role in my generations early life and I have not been back to Japan and Korea for forty years since I lived in Japan and visited Korea as an adventurous young man keen to see the world independently. So it is with some curiosity and enthusiasm I am returning both to give back my little contributions and to see my old haunts. However I am not leaving Helix House unmanned and am confident that the team of practitioners, Susan Farwell, Andy Roscoe, Sarah Wilkinson and Kerstin will be able to handle all urgent problems, and I will be back in February as usual.

Review of the Blogging Year

Looking back over the year it is interesting, at least to me, to see what we covered. In January I explored ideas on ten ways to a happier life, looked at research from Cancer Research UK on why up to half of all cancers are avoidable. That month I reviewed Life Blood an interesting book about the battle to control one of he worlds great scourges, Malaria. Millions of people suffer from this terrible disease and Alex Perry did a great job exploring the different stratagies that are being employed to change this.

After the long dark winter months February was a good month to look at vitamin D3, the vitamin that is also a hormone that most of us are probably short on. Only last month I spent an interesting day at the Royal College of Physicians listening to one of the world experts on Vitamin D, Dr. Michael Horrocks.

Vitamin

I also explored more about the work we do at Helix House via the charity The Sunflower Trust, to help children with learning difficulties, and reviewed Walter Issacson’s excellent biography of Steve Jobs, on whose wonderful computer I am writing this. March saw thoughts about Rupert Sheldrake’s interesting ideas he expoundes in his latest work, The Science Delusion, plus a review of Jeffery Sack’s brilliant view of economics for our troubled times, The Price of Civilisation. By April I was exploring the meat eating debate and looking at why eating a lot of meat may contribute to higher rates of cancer and heart disease, and reviewed the film for Jungian fans, A Dangerous Method, all about the Freud-Jung encounter.

May saw further thoughts about the strengths and weaknesses of Evidence Based Medicine and a review of the book, Dangerous Grains, and the problem that gluten can be for more of us than we used to realise. By June I had handed over to guest blogger, former Helix House shiatsu practitioner, Silvie Hylton-Potts who wrote some interesting ideas about meditation. Silvie has since moved on from Helix House but we wish her all the best in her work.

By July we were onto the key role of a Low starch diet on Ankelosing Spondylitis and took an amusing diversion into the rise of actor James Corden and his autobiography May I have your Attention? By August I was exploring the theme of the autumn, that of why we age and why, at least in part, the speed in which this natural process changes us, is very much in our hands. Dying To Be Me by Anita Moorjani was our book of the month, an interesting exploration of her remarkable Near Death Experience that triggered her recovery from a fatal cancer.

September saw the Ageing theme explored further looking at the people of Okinawa and why they are the longest living peoples in the world. After the Olympic summer and all its glories, in October we looked at the way the Olympics were used by junk food and drink manufacturers to attempt to associate their damaging products with athletic success. But then, sad as it was, we did get some money back from them to run some great games! Finally we ended that month following our theme of Healthy Ageing by reviewing Burne & Holford’s book, The Ten Sectrets of Healthy Ageing.

if you missed any of these, or the 33 other monthly blogs, they are still available to read, or share with others, just click here and select the month you want.

Film of the Month

This month I want to draw your attention to Michael Haneke’s new film, Amour. I agree with Paul Bradshaw in the Guardian that this study of the effects of ageing and dementia on a blissful married couple, ‘is intelligent film-making of the highest order.’ As Bradshaw says, ‘film-making at the highest pitch of intelligence and insight’. Haneke has made a small, jewelled, slow moving, profound and touching, masterpiece. It is no suprise that it won the palm D’Or at Cannes. To read the full review in the Guardian click here.