True confessions: I never liked flossing, so I rarely used the string. Angie used all of the flossing strings I collected from the dentist to cut the dough when making cinnamon rolls—I thought that was a better and tastier use! I always brushed my teeth (manually and with a battery operated toothbrush). My teeth felt clean enough, but still, I had a lot of dental guilt every 6 months when I had to admit I wasn't flossing. A few years ago, I found a device that removed all my guilt and shame! I discovered the waterpik. 

A waterpik (also known as a dental water jet) is a brand of water flosser or oral irrigator that sprays water to remove food from between your teeth. Water flossers are a fabulous option for people who have trouble with traditional flossing—the kind that involves threading string-like material between your teeth. The girl in the picture looks like me trying to floss!

Shingles is a viral infection caused by the activation of the varicella-zoster virus (VZV), also called human herpesvirus 3. That's the same virus that causes chickenpox. If you have ever had chickenpox, you were exposed to the varicella-zoster virus, which stays in your body for the rest of your life. If this occurs, the virus can reactivate as shingles years later. Being exposed to children with chickenpox keeps adult immunity up and reduces the chance of shingles in the future. Unfortunately, because we have largely eliminated chickenpox in kids, there is no repeated exposure to the virus to keep shingles at bay. The medical community has traded a kid's disease with few side effects for an adult disease with a lot of pain and discomfort. The VZV is a member of the herpes family of viruses. When shingles develops, it affects the nerves throughout the body resulting in painful, uncomfortable symptoms.

There are no easy answers for those who struggle with sleeping at night. Without a good night's sleep, our body's repair systems begin to struggle. A hormone we are familiar with has a little-known role in managing sleep. Cortisol is a steroid hormone that helps the body respond to stress and danger. It's also known as the "stress hormone" and is produced in the adrenal glands, which sit on top of each kidney. The hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis regulates cortisol production and secretion. But I didn't realize it played an important role in keeping us from sleep.
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Lupus is a chronic autoimmune disease that causes the body to attack its own tissues and organs, including the joints, skin, kidneys, blood cells, brain, heart, and lungs. According to traditional medicine, there is no cure for lupus. The work of the GRM demonstrates that there is hope through nutritional glycobiology. Current lupus medical treatments often target symptoms or broadly suppress the immune system, leading to side effects. However, Marina Zhang, an outstanding health reporter with The Epoch Times, reported that according to a Nature study published in 2024, science has discovered that patients with lupus have an imbalance in a crucial chemical pathway in their bodies. Researchers found that this imbalance produces more disease-causing cells that promote lupus. If this chemical imbalance can be corrected, they believe lupus can be reversed. 

A recent study on sialic acid (a sugar) shines a bright light on an established risk factor for cancer. Scientists and doctors have known long-term consumption of red meat (beef, pork and lamb) is highly correlated to cancer. For years, researchers have looked for specific mechanisms in the meat that would cause human carcinomas. Grilling red meat was thought to create DNA damage due to mutagens, which are chemicals that mutate DNA. But that theory didn’t pan out. Grilling poultry and fish generates the same mutagens, but fish and poultry are not associated with an increased risk of cancer. ​

A false paradigm is a belief system that is incorrect. For centuries, people believed the sun went around the Earth. People looked up in the sky and it happened every day without fail. However, it was Copernicus in 1543 and Galileo in the 1600s who finally advanced the idea that what everyone saw each day was an illusion: the Earth actually went around the sun. Mark Twain stated, "It's not what we don't know that prevents us from succeeding; it's what we KNOW that just ain't so." I will discuss 5 false paradigms below. 

The diverse roles glycans play in the body are simply astounding. As communication sugars, they represent the language of life. That is impressive enough by itself, but they do much more. Glycoproteins hold cells together. When they perform this function, they are referred to as cell adhesion molecules (CAMs). They govern the stickiness of cells—how they clump or align and stick together. When adhesion fails in cancer cells, scientists call this metastasis. 

Most people don't really know what cancer is. Some people think they are only at risk if it is in the genes. Some think they catch it like a virus. Some feel it is a chemical carcinogen they were exposed to. And some people think it is just an unlucky, random bump or lump. There doesn't seem to be a consensus even after spending billions of dollars on research over the last 5 decades. 

The adult human body has over 60,000 miles of blood-carrying vessels (arteries, veins, capillaries). That is 100,000 kilometers or 2.5 times around the circumference of the earth if our blood vessels were laid end to end! The inside cavity of these vessels looks like a dark tunnel. The inside, inner surface of this 'tunnel' is called the lumen. The surface of the lumen consists of endothelial cells with their glycocalyx extending towards the inner cavity of the blood vessel. Blood flows through this inner chamber on top of the glycocalyx of the endothelial cells as shown in the picture.

There are some 200 sugars in nature, but only eight constitute the glycobiology sugars that build cell receptors on the glycocalyx of cell membranes. Individual sugars form 3-dimensional ring structures. They are linked together with proteins and lipids in branching, tree-like structures. All of the sugars have carbon connected to oxygen and hydrogen. The n-acetyls also have a nitrogen and acetyl group. Xylose is a pentagon of 5 carbons. N-acetyl neuraminic acid (sialic acid) is a nonagon with 9 carbons. All the rest (glucose, mannose, fucose, galactose, n-acetyl glucosamine, and n-acetylgalactosamine) are hexagons with 6 carbons.