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The Tofu-Estrogen connection, or - Do Fish go on the Pill?

A Vegetarian Body Builder complains that his libido is down. He says that "naturally," once he started body building, he turned to a wide array of soy and tofu products. Our Medical Terminology teacher, Dr. Borgna, is a toxicity, environmental effects and nutrition expert. As we were studying the Latin origin of the word Androgynous, he went into the effects unfermented Tofu has on your libido! Turns out tofu constitutes of a lot of estrogen. In fact, Japanese women used to serve their husbands unfermented tofu if they were too horny, in order to suppress their libido!


Yesterday it was reported on national news that our drinking water has all kinds of yucky stuff in it, namely chemicals and sex hormones, anti depressants and more. In the 1990's, British fly fishers who kept meticulous notes of the fish they caught, started noticing all fish caught downstream from big cities were female. After taking male fish swimming upstream and placing them in a cage downstream, it didn't take them too long to become hermaphrodites! Upon testing the sewage water, it became clear its estrogenic effect was responsible for this transformation. The estrogen was then traced back to... you guessed it - the birth control pill! Yes, after going through millions of womens' digestive systems, one would think it would be harmless. However, the estrogen was "brought back to life" chemically by the bacteria in the sewage water.
Now go eat your fish and tofu!

Great website to study anatomy

If you stumble upon this website before the quiz tomorrow... you're lucky! Could also work for next week's midterm.
Check out this guy's anatomy videos on youtube as well, found them on the class blog

The Pope's hat

Ever wonder where the strange shape of the Pope's hat came from? Apparently in old times it was shaped more like a cone, or a conch, just like Merlin the wizard's hat with the pointy top. I'm sure the Catholic Church won't approve of this info though; there is no way they'll admit they might have pagan roots or share any history with what has today become the property of Disney, or JK Rowling.

And why the pointy top? To form a receiving end for energy and knowledge from guiding powers. That makes sense if we consider that the seventh chakra, which connects us with our higher powers is located at the top of the head.

Now comes the wilder part: the Pope's hat, or Mitre, then transformed into a rounder shape, with two lapels falling on each side. This is the shape of a uterus: when removed from a body of an animal for example, the two Fallopian tubes drop to each side. And so, the Mitre signifies that the Pope is the son of heaven, birthed from its uterus. Hell, he is wearing the uterus on his head as evidence!
Why, you ask, has this subject come up for discussion? All because of the Mitral valve of the heart, between the left atrium and ventricle, shaped somewhat like the Pope's hat with two ends. The things you learn in Medical Terminology class. Seriously.

JPG mag - vote for me!

JPG is a great photography magazine, all photos are submitted by readers. Here's your chance to vote for my photo from the New York Marathon - my friend Anat's husband Miki and their adorable son, Itamar. Also, feel free to explore my other photos as well...

Tao Character

We learned to write this one for our Foundations of Chinese Medicine class.

To read it, start by looking at the top right:
Two eyes (above the vertical line)
Become one (the vertical line and the small stroke under it)
To look into oneself (the square form with 4 horizontal lines through it)

And reveal (now look at the top left)
The path (bottom line)

There's an excellent site that shows how the character is drawn (link at top), scroll down to the letter D, it is the 4th Dao mentioned (different tone, different word! But more about this later).
Kids, do practice this at home! There's a strange sense of achievement when you're able to draw this one :)

Tuina massage

I'm supposed to give 10 Tuina massages for my class, and hand in "reports" filled in by the volunteers, pretty simple stuff. I'm hesitant to give the Wiki definition because it has pictures of nekid peoples. The version we learned is fully clothed! Tuina is a form of Chinese massage meant to stimulate the flow of qi and blood along the meridians - or energy channels - in order to assist the body to restore a state of health, i.e. - balance between yin and yang. This is done by palm pushing and rolling, and the use of knuckles, forearms and more. There are three options I'll be practicing: the back protocol, the legs protocol, and the shoulder and neck protocol.
Any volunteers?

Man open mouth, wait duck fly in

The universe won't do it all for you... If you want dinner, looks like you're gonna have to go hunt for it. And that's where the universe will come in. Old Chinese saying apparently, from my Clinical Counseling 1 class, one of my favorites. Although I took CC as an elective for my undergrad's, wouldn't miss this for the world.

Buddhism, the right way

Today I arrived in Foundations of Chinese Medicine class, ready (sort of) to take a quiz. I like this class a lot because the teacher actually lived in China for a bunch of years, which made him lose all the "a" "is" "and" "to" when he's speaking in English. (try it - this is a table = this table! you need to go = you need go! and so on). Of course, he's an American of Irish decent. But that is not the reason why I like the class - I suspect it's because on some level, it reminds me of spiritual stuff that I've studied/stumbled upon/crashed into over the years. And there's a whole lot more.
Anyway, hearing someone talk about living in a monastery in Thailand for 3 years can be interesting, especially if the person is passionate. But experiencing is so much better. When I was studying the 4 Noble Truths of Buddhism, and the 8-Fold Path - more so, trying to cram it into my brain - I thought to myself, this is not the way to study this. An image of a blackboard on a street in Kathmandu saying: "Tonight, the 4 Noble Truths" kept coming up in my brain. That was from... more than 10 years ago! So I was really glad when the teacher (or Lau Shi! in Chinese) announced in class that he's giving us a home assignment instead of the quiz, and blowing the syllabus out the window - we're going to study this the right way - through experience.
We went into deep guided meditation, going through the yin organs - liver, spleen (stomach), kidneys, heart & lungs. Traditional Chinese Medicine, or TCM for short, states that there is an emotion connected to each organ. Left unexpressed, this emotion can cause energy - or Qi (pronounced chi) - to stagnate, or impede the flow of Qi, as well other functions of the organs.
Each organ connects to a color as well. This practice was so powerful for me, that when it was over I wasn't sure what to do with myself. I put my head on the table at first. We got a 20 minute break, so I got out of the building, for some fresh air. Of course New York today was at 32 Fahrenheit, or 0 Celsius. But I was so happy! I really felt that some stagnant emotions made their way out. I went running in the park! Me, running! Depending on your level of acquaintance with me, you might know this is not a thing I do, like, ever. But it felt so good!
The last hour of class, we did some I-Ching. But that would have to wait for another post. Fun!

The 4 Noble Truths:
1. Life is Dukkha (originally I learned Dukkha meant Suffering. My teacher insists Dukkha means continuity: we are attached to things in our physical lives, therefore we keep being reborn
2. The origin of Dukkha is attachment
3. Cessation of Dukkha is attainable
4. The path to cessation of Dukkha is the 8 Fold Path

The 8 Fold Path:
1. The right view
2. The right thoughts
3. The right speech
4. The right actions
5. The right livelihood
6. The right effort
7. Mindfulness
8. Connections

The Dangers of Soy Products

Being lactose-intolerant, soy products have been my personal savior for a long time. Or so I thought. Our world is so crazy however, that just when you thought you were choosing the healthy option, turns out a lot of it is marketing-based, genetically modified (GMO) or just plainly, bad for you. In short, you're sold on "pseudo science," to quote one of my teachers.
Most of my teachers are health nuts, and go on tangents about the food industry, environmental farming etc.
My Medical Terminology teacher handed out this article: Soy Alert. If you use soy products regularly, you must read it. Especially alarming is the part about Infant Formula!