Music Found to Significantly Reduce Pain, Anxiety in Postop Heart Surgeries
Given that heart disease is the leading cause of death in the world, prevention and treatment have never been more important. While conventional cardiology relies heavily on pharmaceuticals in the management of cardiac conditions, music has been shown to have remarkable benefits without any side effects—music as medicine.
Ancient cultures understood the healing benefits of music and integrated it into their promotion of health and healing of disease. But this practice was mostly lost in the rise of western medicine. Today, that connection is gradually being restored as a new wave of research is being done on the healing benefits of music on the heart.
One such recent study found that listening to music is linked to a significant reduction in anxiety and pain after major heart surgery. The researchers concluded that clinicians should consider music for patients scheduled for surgery as it has none of the risks or side effects, and many of the benefits of the drugs most commonly used to aid in post-surgery recovery.
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Cavemen Didn't Have Cavities. Why Do We?
In a remote passage between Greenland and Ellesmere Island in the Arctic Sea lies Smith Sound, and the Eskimos native to the region are the Northernmost humans in the world.
In 1929, Donald MacMillan, an Arctic explorer, took dental impressions of Smith Sound Eskimos. Of the 616 impressed teeth, only one was deformed, and only seven teeth were missing in the 90 impressions taken. Dr. Adelbert Fernald, then curator of the Harvard Dental School Museum, estimated that if 90 New Englanders gave dental impressions, there would likely be at least 100 missing teeth.
Researchers concluded that because the Eskimo diet of seals, walrus, caribou, and fish included only roughly four ounces of vegetation per year, an exclusively meat diet is ideal for dental health.
Later, archaeologists discovered instances of neanderthal teeth and jawbones that showed little decay or damage — surprising, given their circumstances as paleolithic hunter-gatherers. This discovery triggered a 2009 study on gum disease and the “stone age” diet. An article on the study in Medical News Today noted that a hunter-gatherer diet of meat, fowl, fish, plants, seeds, and occasional animal fat, was fed to 10 subjects for four weeks.
The researchers reported that the “mean (average) gum bleeding on probing (BOP) decreased from 34.8% to 12.6%. Periodontal disease decreased.” The hunter-gatherer diet healed gum disease (gingivitis) in four weeks, dramatically improving gum health.
The authors noted that, “Although plaque levels increased, bleeding on probing and periodontal disease decreased.” This means that while plaque, the biofilm accumulation on teeth and under the gumline, was present, the bacteria that cause gum disease were not — instead, analysis identified “good” bacteria such as Lactobacillus acidophilus.
