Unfortunately, I am unable to access Blogger/Blogspot from China, so it will be very difficult for me to post regularly while I am here. I was able to set up posting via email, so we'll see if/how that works out. My Internet connection here is terribly slow, which is a real shame because I was hoping I'd be able to post some pictures, but that would take forever on this connection and I'm not even sure how it would work posting those via email. Nevertheless, I will try to post about my experiences, especially those related to my travels to the medical school here. The orientation for that starts tomorrow, so hopefully I'll be able to offer some insight on that by the end of the week.
In the meantime, I don't think I've eaten a single item that I've actually recognized while I've been here. The next 4 weeks will definitely be an interesting experience!
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Thursday, May 13, 2010
The "hCG Diet"
This is something I've been meaning to post about for some time now, but just haven't gotten around to it. A while back, my mom told me about this diet someone in my family had started on. She referred me to this website and asked what I thought about it.
I'm now 25% doctor after completing my 1st year of medical school, so hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin) is something I've actually learned a bit about in class. hCG is what some people think of as the "pregnancy hormone." It's a hormone that doesn't show up in a woman's body until she becomes pregnant (it's what at-home pregnancy tests detect) at which point it acts to maintain other hormone levels at high enough levels for the developing fetus. hCG is also responsible for morning sickness, which disappears by the end of the first trimester because at that point the placenta can maintain hormone levels for the fetus all on its own. Such a wonderfully useful structure, that placenta!
So, when I first read about this, I thought, "So he's basically just giving himself morning sickness. I should tell him to take a pregnancy test too just to freak him out!" The website itself is downright awful too, even going so far as to say that their "product is a professional grade homeopathic hCG weight loss product that is made in the USA." A professional grade homeopathic product... so does that mean they use filtered water or spring water instead of just plain old water? And it's made in the USA, so it has to be good, right?
I'm now 25% doctor after completing my 1st year of medical school, so hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin) is something I've actually learned a bit about in class. hCG is what some people think of as the "pregnancy hormone." It's a hormone that doesn't show up in a woman's body until she becomes pregnant (it's what at-home pregnancy tests detect) at which point it acts to maintain other hormone levels at high enough levels for the developing fetus. hCG is also responsible for morning sickness, which disappears by the end of the first trimester because at that point the placenta can maintain hormone levels for the fetus all on its own. Such a wonderfully useful structure, that placenta!
So, when I first read about this, I thought, "So he's basically just giving himself morning sickness. I should tell him to take a pregnancy test too just to freak him out!" The website itself is downright awful too, even going so far as to say that their "product is a professional grade homeopathic hCG weight loss product that is made in the USA." A professional grade homeopathic product... so does that mean they use filtered water or spring water instead of just plain old water? And it's made in the USA, so it has to be good, right?
Thursday, May 06, 2010
Going to China
Some interesting news. In just over a week, I will be leaving for China for 4 weeks. It's a trip organized by a group affiliated with the medical school. While I'm there, I'll be studying the language and the culture, as well as interacting with some of their medical students and checking out some of their medical facilities.
I'm incredibly excited about the trip, not just because I get to go to the other side of the world for relatively cheap, but because I'll be able to observe firsthand the "Eastern" or "alternative" medicine that people here in the states try to tout when they're promoting their supposedly "natural" cures. My expectation is that what we consider to be Eastern medicine will be very similar to Western medicine (albeit with some alternative medicine flavor thrown in at times), at least as far as the medical education establishment goes. I'd expect to find higher usage of alternative medicine in perhaps more rural settings, but who knows. That's part of the reason why I'm going. As a person enormously interested in technology and a supporter of the free exchange of software and ideas, I'm also anxious to see what the general feeling is over there with regard to the Great Firewall of China. People love to talk about China's people, culture, medicine, etc. but how much of that is actually accurate? That's what I hope to find out.
I plan on blogging about the experience as much as I can. A few students who went on the trip last year told me we'll probably be asked if we'd like to experience "cupping" (I swear it's not as dirty as it sounds). If I'm able to try it out, I'll be sure to let you know if it's the best treatment ever and takes away all of my back pain and fixes my eye sight, or if it just relaxes me for a couple hours (a byproduct of the heat and the placebo effect, from what I've read).
This is the first time I've really gone out of the country, and it's about as far out of the country as I can get. I went to a resort in the Dominican Republic for vacation for a week a couple years back, but nothing quite like this. It will definitely be one hell of an experience.
I'm incredibly excited about the trip, not just because I get to go to the other side of the world for relatively cheap, but because I'll be able to observe firsthand the "Eastern" or "alternative" medicine that people here in the states try to tout when they're promoting their supposedly "natural" cures. My expectation is that what we consider to be Eastern medicine will be very similar to Western medicine (albeit with some alternative medicine flavor thrown in at times), at least as far as the medical education establishment goes. I'd expect to find higher usage of alternative medicine in perhaps more rural settings, but who knows. That's part of the reason why I'm going. As a person enormously interested in technology and a supporter of the free exchange of software and ideas, I'm also anxious to see what the general feeling is over there with regard to the Great Firewall of China. People love to talk about China's people, culture, medicine, etc. but how much of that is actually accurate? That's what I hope to find out.
I plan on blogging about the experience as much as I can. A few students who went on the trip last year told me we'll probably be asked if we'd like to experience "cupping" (I swear it's not as dirty as it sounds). If I'm able to try it out, I'll be sure to let you know if it's the best treatment ever and takes away all of my back pain and fixes my eye sight, or if it just relaxes me for a couple hours (a byproduct of the heat and the placebo effect, from what I've read).
This is the first time I've really gone out of the country, and it's about as far out of the country as I can get. I went to a resort in the Dominican Republic for vacation for a week a couple years back, but nothing quite like this. It will definitely be one hell of an experience.
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