Feeling down? According to several new claims made by medical researchers, it seems you may be able to supplement with another hormone in the hopes of getting relief. Yes, yes, the phrase “supplement with a hormone” should, correctly, send chills down the spine of those familiar with the current “vitamin” D debacle. Nevertheless, let’s take a look at mainstream medicine’s latest take on what they’ve already labeled the “love drug.”

In general, oxytocin makes people more sociable and less phobic.

Produced naturally in the brain during social interactions, the hormone oxytocin promotes romantic feelings. It’s also the hormone that helps mothers bond with babies and, in general, makes people more sociable and less phobic. Oxytocin is released during orgasm and is also the key birthing hormone that enables the cervix to open and the contractions to work. In situations where labor has to be induced, it is often given to the mother intravenously to kick-start contractions.

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A few months ago I submitted an abstract to the committee planning the upcoming Days of Molecular Medicine Conference, which will be held this April in Karolinska Sweden. A week ago, I was quite happy to learn that my abstract was accepted and that I will be giving a poster presentation at the conference. The subject: “Cognitive dysfunction in women with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: examining the role of the endometrium, the nuclear receptors, and the antimicrobial peptides.” So if all goes as planned, I’m headed to Sweden in about a month. I’m excited for many reasons, one of them being that before starting the Marshall Protocol I never thought I’d be able to board a plane again - the pressure changes and noise were too much for my head to tolerate. Yet, two 3/4 years later, here I am traveling half-way across the world, talking about many cognitive issues that were once a problem for me and have now largely subsided.

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Several years ago this finance lawyer and mother of two was so debilitated both physically and mentally that she thought it unlikely that she’d live to see her children go to high school. Today, after five years on Autoimmunity Research Foundation’s Marshall Protocol, almost all of her symptoms have resolved and she has rejoined the world - picking up many of her old activities including tennis lessons. Meet Jane Taylor-Aoki.

Jane and her cat Muffy

When did you start to get sick?

During my teenage years but it took another twenty years or so before I was to become chronically ill and debilitated.

Describe the progression of your disease

While I was at high school I had odd bouts of ill health including chronic tonsillitis and sinusitis. In 1979, while at university, I suffered an episode of sudden fatigue and paralysis in both legs which disabled me for about three weeks. I was not seen by a specialist and it was concluded that I was suffering from “hysteria.”

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What’s the latest news among people taking statins, or drugs that are marketed as cholesterol lowering agents? Pfizer Inc.’s Lipitor, the world’s best-selling statin, with revenues of $12.6 billion in 2007, causes some women to experience what researchers are referring to as serious cognitive side effects, reports reports The Wall Street Journal.

“This drug makes women stupid,” Orli Etingin, vice chairman of medicine at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, declared at a recent luncheon discussion sponsored by Project A.L.S. to raise awareness of gender issues and the brain. Dr. Etingin, who is also founder and director of the Iris Cantor Women’s Health Center in New York, told those present about a typical patient in her 40s, who after taking Lipitor was unable to concentrate or recall words. Tests found nothing amiss, but when the woman stopped taking Lipitor, the symptoms vanished. When she resumed taking Lipitor, they returned.

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Lost your keys again? Recent research confirms that whether or not you have been diagnosed with dementia you can probably blame L-form bacteria for your substandard memory. Researchers at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago who conduced a recent study on aging and memory were surprised to find that most older adults have significant brain pathology (disease), regardless of the presence or absence of outward signs of dementia.

The results of this study jive with the work of researchers such as Dr. Trevor Marshall who, while investigating the manner in which L-form bacteria affect people as age, have found that few, if any, people are spared from the actions of these pathogens as they reach their later years.

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Is biomedical researcher Trevor Marshall PhD the only person implicating vitamin D in disease? No. A recent study by researchers at Duke University found that elderly men and women who consumed higher levels of calcium and, in particular, vitamin D are significantly more likely to have greater volumes of brain lesions, indicating regions of damage that can increase risk of cognitive impairment, dementia, depression and death. The team found that vitamin D intake, (mean 341 IU and maximum intake 1014 IU), was the only variable that retained a significant correlation with the brain lesions when analyzed by a multivariate analysis.

Payne found that subjects who consumed vitamin D were markedly more likely to have a higher total volume of brain lesions.

The research team was led by Dr. Martha E. Payne, an assistant professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences with the Neuropsychiatric Imaging Research Laboratory at Duke. Payne reported her findings at the 2007 Experimental Biology Conference in Washington D.C. Her presentation, which took place on May 1, is part of the scientific program of the American Society for Nutrition.

“This is one of the first studies to examine the relationship between diet and brain lesions,” said Payne. “Our finding of a relationship between brain lesions and consumption of both calcium and vitamin D raises the question about a possible downside to high intakes of these nutrients.”

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