At 66, the moustachioed psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer exudes strapping good health – but that's not because he goes regularly to the doctor for checkups. "I follow the evidence," he says. "People who go to checkups: do fewer of them die from heart disease? From cancer? Or from any cause? The answer, three times: no. They just get more treatment, take more medication, and worry more often."

The Bavarian-born Gigerenzer – though once a professional banjo player – has spent decades studying risk, and he long ago concluded that the ways we attempt to cope with life's uncertainties – including medical checkups – can make matters worse. These days, when he is in an upmarket restaurant, he won't even bother opening the menu: asking the waiter what he or she would order is the only way to get what's best, he insists. For research purposes, he once tested an unlikely strategy for managing financial risk: instead of trusting the experts, as most people might, what if you stopped pedestrians at random, gave them a list of companies, asked which ones they had heard of, then just invested in those?

"I try as hard as I can to live by my principles, so I put in a large sum of my own money," recalls Gigerenzer, who lives in Berlin but today is sipping coffee in the New York offices of his American publisher. "It was one of the most lucrative things I've ever done."

For the rest of us – as Gigerenzer demonstrates in his new book, Risk Savvy – things regularly don't turn out so well. We hear a terrifying news story involving aeroplanes, so we switch to car travel instead, even though it's vastly more dangerous: in the 12 months following 9/11, that choice killed an estimated 1,600 Americans, unacknowledged victims of al-Qaida. Or we're told that taking the contraceptive pill "doubles" the risk of thrombosis – as the Department of Health notoriously announced in 1995 – but nobody explains what that really means: a doubling from one woman in every 7,000 to two in 7,000. That report scared so many women off the pill, it's been calculated, that there were 13,000 additional abortions in England and Wales the following year.

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/may/04/advice-stock-market-crashes-plane-disasters-bad-weather-risk-not-reading

Science has unlocked the human body, enabling us to survive diseases and infections. We’ve gone from finding antidotes to using the poisons themselves as a cure; the most poisonous toxin known to man - Botulinum - is now used as an anti-wrinkle drug called Botox. Scorpion venom is even being tested for the treatment of life threatening diseases.

Yet it’s a myth that most of our drugs come from nature. Modern drugs are man-made, designed in some of the world’s most high tech labs.

Pain

Pain is all in the brain. When we break a leg or pull a muscle, millions of nerve cells in our brains fire torelease chemicals telling us 'it hurts'. To fight the pain, our brains release their own natural painkillers. The problem is, these homemade medicines aren’t enough. 

Herbs, willow bark and poppies were used by our ancestors for their painkilling powers. The scientific revolution really began with the isolation of morphine at the start of the 19th century – and continued into the 20th century when scientists found a way to synthesise a stable form of a safe painkiller called aspirin, a drug that could be manufactured on an industrial scale.

Pus

The Black Death wiped out close to a quarter of the world’s population. Even our familiar foe 'the flu' was one of the deadliest infectious diseases of the twentieth century. Fighting these killers is an ongoing battle, as each infection adapts to outwit our defences. 

Ancient treatments ranged from using leeches to suck out blood to performing strange magical rituals, but nothing stopped the infection - until we discovered antibiotics. The average person now takes two courses of antibiotics every year. Yet even as we’re discovering new uses for antibiotics, the original infections are
developing new drug-resistant strains...

Poison

Poisons in the natural world kill thousands of people every year. They attack our bodies, leading to a 'short-circuit'. Yet some poisons are now being used to improve the way we look! The deadly poison curare was first used on the tips of arrows used by indigenous hunters in the Amazon rainforests, but its active ingredient is now used every day in hospitals across the world. Even the chemical weapon Mustard Gas used in the horrors of trench warfare has now been adapted to be useful in chemotherapy treatments.

Today the hunt is on for other poisons that can actually help to cure us; we extract the deadly venom of the Death Stalker scorpion, which may offer hope to people suffering from brain cancer.

http://www.sbs.com.au/shop/product/category/DVDs/9912/Pain-Pus-Poison

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Knowing a few geezers and sheilas working in the pharmaceutical industry, thus I have a good insight into how medicinal substances are created and tested, tonight's series episode on poison shown on SBS filled a few gaps in my knowledge. See story at top...

Minuscule pieces of gold may help improve treatment for aggressive brain cancers, according to research published in the journal Nanoscale.

Scientists engineered extremely small golden spheres, coating them with a chemotherapy drug.

When the tiny particles were infused into the centre of tumour cells, the cancer stopped replicating and many diseased cells died.

Researchers hope it may provide a way to target difficult-to-treat cancers.

'Golden core'

Glioblastoma multiforme is a common form of brain cancer that affects more than 4,000 adults in the UK each year.

Though treatments exist, they have limited effectiveness. Most people with these tumours die within five years of diagnosis.

Researchers created nanospheres - particles that were four million times smaller than a cross-section of a single human hair.

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-28754152

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Fascinating... If I may indulge here, in the 1060s, as my father was in hospital with cancer, I though that having a "certain" (very small but quite above the average threshold) amount of gold in one's blood would prevent illnesses and cure others, including cancer... Though some people could be "allergic" to gold, I must say this has never been been my problem...

I could have mentioned gold in the blood as a cure on this site before... Gold and other metals in "solution" or in tiny fragments are used as catalyst. A lot of life's processes involve catalytic chemical reactions.  It has long been my view that many cancers are not due to "viruses" or bacteria, but to chemical agents which induce the wrong type of catalytic reactions in the cells, making cells loose their "integrity". Many enzymes (basic proteins) induce normal catalytic reactions in cells, but certain (rogue) enzymes will also be detrimental. Some substances like tar or wavelenght such as ultra-violet light are highly destructive of cells integrity through "catalytic" processes.

Note: some people are more susceptible than others due to genetic make up.

A fish processor's healed hand warts has alerted scientists to the herpes-fighting properties of the blue blood of the Tasmanian black lip abalone.

Researchers have found the abalone from pristine bays along the state's coast contain potent anti-viral properties that chemical engineers and virologists have shown block the herpes virus's entry into cells.

Scientists have discovered the same protein that gives the blood its blue colour also has anti-viral properties.

Adrian Cuthbertson from Marine Biotechnologies Australia, which is working with University of Sydney staff and other researchers, said the potential of the abalone blood in developing a better treatment was a chance discovery.

Mr Cutherbertson said 10 years ago when the company was involved in abalone serum trials relating to cancer treatments, patients reported fewer cases of cold sore breakouts.

"Around the same time we had an employee responsible for loading and unloading abalone shell containers," he said.

"After a month of working with the shellfish, he found the viral warts which had plagued his hands for years disappeared."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-20/chance-abalone-discovery-leads-to-herpes-treatment-hope/5683294

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Gus: I know a European plant sap that can do the same... OF COURSE, it's not marketed... It's not marketable. It's a WEED (uncommon) with a yellow sap and only works when FRESH... See article at top...

Some Australian trees have antiseptic and antibacterial properties, and other native plants can even fight some types of staph infection.

These are just some of the findings that have come out of a collaboration between researchers from Macquarie University and the Yaegl indigenous community in Maclean in northern New South Wales.

These findings have been discussed this week at the International Horticulture Congress in Brisbane. The research could also prove fruitful in helping to kickstart new cottage-based industries within indigenous communities.

read/see/hear more: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/drive/bush-medicine-futures/5687698

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Gus: excellent... One knows that a lot of plants have poisons designed to repel infection and infestation of buggy thingsters. Even finding the chemical involved can demand some long time of analysis to show that it could work to protect humans as well.

But only PUBLIC  funded research can indulge is such a quest, because to a great extend there would be little profit for BIG pharma in this. One would find it difficult to PATENT the chemical which exist "naturally". Thus big pharma would have to concoct some SYNTHETIC similar product or mix the chemical with a patented chemical in order to put it on the market as a medicine, for profit.

See article at top...