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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman">The
body has good reasons for giving us inflammations, or so we’ve been told by
evolutionary biology.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Inflammation
can quarantine micro-attackers and help heal our wounds.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But if the swollen redness of
inflammation is so useful, why does the body have built in mechanisms to keep it
under control?</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT
face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT
face="Times New Roman">Those mechanisms are, according to the article below,
“epoxyeicosatrienoic acids (EETs)”.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>These acids keep a good thing from happening.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>They rein in inflammation.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT
face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT
face="Times New Roman">Could the answer be something that the work of paleopsych
member Neil Greenberg taught me a long time ago?<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In moderate doses things the body’s own
internally-concocted remedies are good.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>In overdoses they can be poisons.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Stress hormones are examples.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>In swift, sharp jolts, they are pick-me-ups, attention, strength, and
energy boosters extremely useful in fast but vicious fights or when it’s time to
turn tail and skedaddle, escape.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>But in chronic doses, doses that go on and on and on and on from day to
day and week to week, those same stress hormones, those quick-hit tonics, are
poisons.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT
face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman">Does
the body need inflammation inhibitors like epoxyeicosatrienoic acids to make
sure that it doesn’t get too much of a good thing?<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Are these inhibitors part of the same
sort of checks and balances that Sherringtonian nerves use when they are finely
tuned by an excitatory signals and a counterbalance of inhibitory signals?<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Are they like the extensor and tensor
muscles, the upper bicep balanced against the muscle that faces it on the
underside, the muscle below your arm from your shoulder to your elbow?<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Snip the bottom muscle and your hand
will fly up to your shoulder and stay there, stuck in place by the unchecked
enthusiasm of the muscle on top.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Cut the top muscle, and your arm will look like an unbending stick.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Your elbow and forearm will be
permanently locked in position.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT
face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman">And
are the acids that inhibit inflammation a bit like the part of the brain that
does the most to civilize us, the most to make us “human’—the pre-frontal
cortex?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>You’d think that the human
part of the brain would be there to throw us into hyper-gear and turbocharge,
giving us the mental warp engines we need to break the consciousness barrier and
rocket into thought.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But, no.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The prefrontal cortex does the
opposite.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It’s a brake, a
drag-chute, an inhibitor.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Without
the “human” part of the brain, that three pound lump of pink stuff in our head
would apparently do too much, not too little.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It takes restraint to make us
human.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT
face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman">When
Aristotle said that life is really a balancing act between extremes, he may have
gotten it far more right than he ever imagined. Howard</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT
face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT
face="Times New Roman">Retrieved <SPAN style="mso-no-proof: yes">July 3,
2005</SPAN>, from the World Wide Web </FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT
face="Times New Roman">http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20050702/fob2.asp<o:p></o:p></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT
face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT
face="Times New Roman">Running Interference: Fresh approach to fighting
inflammation<o:p></o:p></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT
face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT
face="Times New Roman">Nathan Seppa<o:p></o:p></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT
face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman">The
more scientists learn about inflammation, the less they like it. Although this
bodily process speeds wound healing and corrals microbes, it can also do plenty
of harm, as seen in people with arthritis, asthma, and a host of other ailments.
Unfortunately, today's anti-inflammatory drugs pose their own problems. They
cause stomach distress in many people, and some drugs seem to hike the risk of
heart attacks. So, the search for a safe inflammation fighter goes
on.<o:p></o:p></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT
face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT
face="Times New Roman">Bruce D. Hammock, a biochemist at the
<st1:place><st1:PlaceType>University</st1:PlaceType> of
<st1:PlaceName>California</st1:PlaceName></st1:place>,
<st1:City><st1:place>Davis</st1:place></st1:City>, and his colleagues now report
that two experimental drugs shield lab mice from extreme inflammation. The
findings appear in an upcoming Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences.<o:p></o:p></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT
face="Times New Roman"></FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT
face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT
face="Times New Roman">Earlier research had suggested that a troublesome enzyme,
called soluble epoxide hydrolase, degrades natural inflammation inhibitors known
as epoxyeicosatrienoic acids (EETs).</FONT></P></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 face=Arial size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
PTSIZE="10">----------<BR>Howard Bloom<BR>Author of The Lucifer Principle: A
Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History and Global Brain: The Evolution
of Mass Mind From The Big Bang to the 21st Century<BR>Recent Visiting
Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York University; Core Faculty
Member, The Graduate
Institute<BR>www.howardbloom.net<BR>www.bigbangtango.net<BR>Founder:
International Paleopsychology Project; founding board member: Epic of Evolution
Society; founding board member, The Darwin Project; founder: The Big Bang Tango
Media Lab; member: New York Academy of Sciences, American Association for the
Advancement of Science, American Psychological Society, Academy of Political
Science, Human Behavior and Evolution Society, International Society for Human
Ethology; advisory board member: Institute for Accelerating Change ; executive
editor -- New Paradigm book series.<BR>For information on The International
Paleopsychology Project, see: www.paleopsych.org<BR>for two chapters from
<BR>The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History,
see www.howardbloom.net/lucifer<BR>For information on Global Brain: The
Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century, see
www.howardbloom.net<BR></FONT></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>