Why A Lucky Few May Help The Rest Of Us Beat Disease
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article in The Times.
This is the sub-title.
A British biotech firm believes patients who defy odds could hold the key in their blood.
These three paragraphs introduce the article.
Patient 82 should be dead. At the age of 63 he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. In most cases, he would not have lasted a year. But seven years on, patient 82 is alive. Not merely alive — thriving.
He enjoys gardening. He likes seeing his grandchildren. He enjoys life.
How? The answer, a British biotech company believes, could lie in his blood. Now, with the help of dozens of other anonymous patients, all of whom have defied their cancer prognoses, they hope to find it.
Note, that the company is Alchemab Therapeutics.
The article got me thinking about myself.
I belong to a group of people, who are twenty-five percent less likely to suffer from cancer according to peer-reviewed research at Nottingham University.
I am coeliac and adhere to a strict gluten-free diet.
There may be other benefits too!
I have not had a serious dose of the covids, although I may have had a very mild case at the beginning of 2020 after I shared a train with a large number of exuberant Chinese students, who had recently arrived at Manchester Airport and were going to their new University across the Pennines.
I have also since found at least another seventy coeliacs, who have avoided serious doses of the covids.
Research From The University Of Padua
This paper on the US National Library of Medicine, which is from the University of Padua in Italy.
The University followed a group of 138 patients with coeliac disease, who had been on a gluten-free diet for at least six years, through the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in Padua.
This sentence, sums up the study.
In this analysis we report a real life “snapshot” of a cohort of CeD patients during the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in Italy, all followed in one tertiary centre in a red area of Northern Italy. Our data show, in accordance with Emmi et al., the absolute absence of COVID-19 diagnosis in our population, although 18 subjects experienced flu-like symptoms with only one having undergone naso-pharyngeal swab.
It says that no test subject caught Covid-19, in an admittedly smallish number of patients.
But it reinforces my call for more research into whether if you are a diagnosed coeliac on a long-term gluten-free diet, you have an immune system, that gives you a degree of protection from the Covids.
The Times article mentions the immune system.
I believe my immune system to be strong after the reaction I had to the Astra Zeneca vaccine. I didn’t feel well to say the least after my Astra Zeneca vaccine and my GP and other doctors felt that it could be due to my immune system, thinking that the chimpanzee virus-based vaccine was a danger and attacking it.
Significantly, I had no reaction to the second dose. So had my immune system recognised the vaccine as a friend not a foe?
My son, who my late wife was sure was an undiagnosed coeliac, died of pancreatic cancer at just 37.
How did my late wife know? Don’t question her intuition and also she felt that my son and myself felt the same to her touch.
It should be noted that my son’s daughter was born with a Congenital hernia of the Diaphragm. Congenital defects can happen to people, who have a coeliac father.
At the age of 20, my granddaughter is fine now, after heroic surgery at the Royal London Hospital, at just a few days old.
Would Southeastern’s Proposed Battery-Electric Trains Be More Reliable In The Snow?
This article on CityMonitor, which is entitled No Trains South Of London During Cold Weather? Blame A Pair of Herberts For Choosing The Wrong Electrical System, explains it all.
The article was written in 2018 and these are the first two paragraphs.
As is often the case when the weather is below freezing, commuters around London are having a terrible time this week. The blizzard has hit services on all lines around the capital. Trains running towards the south and southeast have had the worst of it, with services cancelled on Monday before the full impact of the storm really hit.
It’s frustrating to compare the UK’s lack of readiness when extreme weather hits with services in Switzerland or Sweden, which cheerfully run in heavy snow conditions.
The article blames the poor performance on South London’s third rail electrification, which as the title suggests was chosen by a couple of Herberts.
Does anybody know of a child in the last fifty years, who has been called Herbert?
I shouldn’t be too hard on Herberts, as my paternal grandfather was a Herbert. But he was an alcoholic and died before he was forty.
Why Don’t I Feel The Cold?
It’s been cold today in London, but I didn’t really feel it.
Bananas And Me
According to my mother, I didn’t see or taste a banana until I was seven.
That would have been 1954, which is when rationing ended.
The Wikipedia entry entitled Rationing In The UK is a valuable resource.
Bananas had been available since 1945, although they had not been imported during the war.
I had been born in 1947, with my sister born in 1950. As my paternal grandmother lived with us, we were a family of five.
So I suspect, that although they were available my mother didn’t buy them for some reason.
The Wikipedia entry has a section called Political Reaction, which talked about reaction to rationing after the war. This is said.
In the late 1940s, the Conservative Party utilised and encouraged growing public anger at rationing, scarcity, controls, austerity and government bureaucracy to rally middle-class supporters and build a political comeback that won the 1951 general election. Their appeal was especially effective to housewives, who faced more difficult shopping conditions after the war than during it.
My father had been politically active before World War II, but he was much more politically agnostic after the war, judging by some things he said to me. I can’t ever remember my mother saying anything political, although I can remember her saying something, which agreed with the last sentence of the Wikipedia extract.
I suspect she was under pressure from my grandmother, so perhaps she kept the shopping light because of rationing.
Anyway, I can remember her telling my wife that my face had been a picture when I saw and ate my first banana.
I’ve not stopped eating them since.
- I generally eat between one and three every day.
- I have problems with fruit that needs to be cut up because of my gammy left hand, so for pineapple, melon and mango, I usually buy them ready-cut in pots from Marks and Spencer.
- I also eat a lot of berries, when they are in season.
But, I never eat oranges, apples or pears, except in a processed form.
Bananas And My Family
As far, as I can check, I’m the only one of my family, who likes bananas and eats them regularly.
I have checked on two sons and my granddaughter and none seem to like them.
Could it be my mother’s denial of the fruit to me until rationing ended, gave me a love of the fruit?
Bananas And Coeliacs
This page on the Harvard University School of Public Health gives the nutrition facts about bananas.
This is the second paragraph.
The scientific name for banana is Musa, from the Musaceae family of flowering tropical plants, which distinctively showcases the banana fruit clustered at the top of the plant. The mild-tasting and disease-resistant Cavendish type is the main variety sold in the U.S. and Europe. Despite some negative attention, bananas are nutritious and may even carry the title of the first “superfood,” endorsed by the American Medical Association in the early 20th century as a health food for children and a treatment for celiac disease.
Now there’s a thing.
This page on the Gluten-Free Watchdog is entitled Early Dietary Treatment for Celiac Disease: The Banana Diet.
I’d never heard of this diet until yesterday.
Interestingly, a large banana contains 50 mg of vitamin B6 according to Dr. Google.
I take a B6 supplement and I wrote about the advice I received from a doctor at a respected medical university in Amsterdam in Vitamin B Complex for Coeliacs.
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How To Recycle A Hospital
The old Royal London Hospital is starting to emerge from its plastic chrysalis, as the new Whitechapel Civic Centre.
It is now eighteen years, since my granddaughter was born in the hospital with a congenital hernia of the diaphragm.
- There were twenty-three people in the delivery room.
- She was operated on within forty-eight hours by the incomparable Vanessa Wright.
- She left hospital many weeks later.
- Last year, she had her eighteenth birthday and entered the world of work.
A few years ago, I met one of the nurses, who’d looked after her in the hospital. On hearing of her successful life, she was exceedingly surprised. But also exceedingly happy!
But then success in life, is often down to those you meet! And my granddaughter happened to meet one of the best!
Is The Okehampton Effect Starting?
This article on the Tavistock Times Gazette is entitled Hop Aboard The 118 For Town And Village Connection To Rail.
These are the first three paragraphs.
County council chiefs have confirmed they have launched a new bus service to link residents in Tavistock to Okehampton’s restored railway line.
From Saturday, Service 118 will link Tavistock to Okehampton, via Mary Tavy and Lydford, to provide an integrated connection to the rail services between Okehampton and Exeter during the day. The service is part of a bigger project to improve public transport in Devon.
The move comes as Devon County Council pushes ahead with plans to get trains rolling again in Tavistock — but in the opposite direction.
Note.
- Tavistock has almost twice the population of Okehampton.
- Okehampton and Tavistock are about sixteen miles apart.
- Buses will take about forty minutes.
- The railway from Tavistock could eventually go to Plymouth via the existing Bere Alston station and the Tamar Valley Line.
This bus route will complete a circular route between Exeter and Plymouth around Dartmoor.
Devon does seem to be getting itself ready for the next phase of rail development in the county.
But does Devon as the birthplace of those great mariners, Chichester, Drake, Gilbert, Grenville and Raleigh, follow in their footsteps and plan things well and get it done?
My maternal grandmother was born in Dalston of two Devonian parents.
Just before the Second World War my mother asked her if she was prepared for the inevitable war.
My grandmother’s reply was as follows.
I got caught out in the First War, so I’ve got a hundredweight of sugar and a hundredweight of jam in the cellar.
Was that her Devonian genes shining through?
Devon is certainly planning for the future at Okehampton.
- There are plans for an Okehampton Parkway station, where the railway crosses the A30, which I wrote about in Work Begins On Okehampton Parkway Station.
- There is this new bus route.
- Will there be more housing in Okehampton?
- There will be developments linked to tourism.
I believe the Okehampton Effect is starting.
Skills And Post-16 Education Bill
On this page of The Times, there is an outline of the bills that the government will bring forward.
The title of this post is the name of one of the proposed bills.
This is said about the proposed contents of the bill.
A right to government-funded training for all adults lacking A-levels or the equivalent. The bill will also extend the student loan system to those who want to study at local further education colleges. All adults will be entitled to four years’ worth of loans for training or education that can be taken at any point in their life.
I know one person, who will be overjoyed, if he is still alive; John Eardley, who was my Personnel Officer at ICI Runcorn around 1970.
I can remember a story he told.
After a meeting with several union representatives, one of them asked if he could have a personal chat with John. The guy was a foreman in their vehicle maintenance department for ICI’s specialist chemical transport.
He told John how his last daughter had got married at the weekend and he perhaps needed to do something more challenging.
John found him an interesting position. He became a volunteer for Voluntary Services Overseas.
His job was part of a small team, who went to Zambia to sort out the elderly buses in Lusaka.
John was an excellent Personnel Officer and his guidance on personnel matters certainly stuck with this twenty year-old graduate, as I then was.
The Skills And Post-16 Education Bill appears to be what John really needed in the 1970s for the many employees he developed.
I can certainly see members of my own family, who would have been empowered by such a Bill since the Second World War! These include my father, mother and sister for a start.
It should be noted, that I am the first of my family to go to University.
Conclusion
I am totally in favour of this proposed Bill.
Station Reopening At Bow Street Brings First Trains For 56 Years
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
Hopefully, I shall be able to visit this summer.
It must be around sixty years since I was last in that area. I can remember my father driving his MG Magnette (676 RME) on the beach at Borth, whilst we spent a few days at a B & B in Savage’s Garage in Aberystwyth.
The Death Of My Son George
In some ways our youngest son; George, was more my baby, than my wife’s!
When you have three children under three, you have to devise a system so they can all be fed, watered and managed.
In the early 1970s, I was working at home, writing software for the likes of companies like Lloyds Bank, Plessey, Ferranti and others, usually by means of a dial-up line to a company called Time Sharing Ltd. in Great Portland Street.
- So most days George sat on my desk in a plastic baby chair, as I worked.
- C would look after the two elder children, generally taking them to the park or friends.
- George was still in nappies, real not disposable. We did use a nappy service!
- I sometimes wonder, if I can still install a proper nappy on a baby!
- I would feed him as I worked.
- George also used to come with me to visit clients, I had to meet at Great Portland Street. Usually, the secretaries would steal him away.
It was a system, that worked well for all of us.
Of our three children, George was the only one, that C thought could be coeliac, as I am. Mothers know their families! We once tried to test him with a self-test kit from the Internet. but the results were inconclusive.
I now believe he was coeliac for one genetic reason. His daughter was born with a severe congenital hernia of the diaphragm and research shows this can be linked to a coeliac father.
At least I was lucky with my three boys in this respect, but it points to George being coeliac.
George worked in the music business and was the sound engineer on some of the work of Diane Charlemagne. I met Diane once, when I stood on The Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square, which I wrote about in Fun and Games at the Fourth Plinth.
- Diane was working as the security guard and it was an amazing coincidence, that we realised our connection through George.
- She spoke highly of his work.
Sadly Diane died of kidney cancer in 2015.
George didn’t drink, but he smoked heavily and not just tobacco. He also lived on a very gluten-rich diet of Subways and the like.
I suspect that his immune system was as good as much protection as a chocolate colander in a tsunami!
I have discussed this with doctors, who specialise in cancer and they feel that it could have contributed to his death from pancreatic cancer.
- George died at home.
- He was not in much pain due to the morphine he was controlling through a pump and the cannabis he was smoking.
- One day, he was in bed and talking to my then aristocratic girlfriend and myself, when he just expired.
- There was no drama and he just went to sleep.
A few minutes later, my girlfriend and the housekeeper, laid out the body for the undertaker.
I had been at George’s quiet death, just like I had been at the birth of all three sons.
Looking Back
George died ten years ago and his death has left some marks on my mind.
- Because of our early relationship, some of my grief for George was more like that of a mother.
- George died a peaceful death, which with modern medicine should be almost a right for many!
- His death has driven me to fund and take part in medical research, especially for pancreatic cancer.
- I also feel strongly, we should steer clear of cannabis, eat sensibly and check as many as possible for coeliac disease.
But now above all, I have no fear of Covid-19 or death.
The Ipswich Lockdown
Around 1960, my parents bought a second home in Felixstowe, where they eventually retired some years later. This memory could have been earlier, as we were always going to Felixstowe, often staying in the Ordnance Hotel.
In those days, there was no Southern by-pass to the town, so you had to go around the old by-pass, which now passes the current Ipswich Hospital before taking the Felixstowe Road from St. Augustine’s roundabout.
We used to go to the house in Felixstowe most weekends and I can remember one trip, where instead of going around the town, we went through it past the old County Hall and up Spring Road.
I can remember looking out of the MG Magnette (registration number 676 RME) and seeing that the streets of Ipswich were completely deserted.
The reason was that the town had been hit by an outbreak of polio and people weren’t venturing out.
Strangely, I can’t find anything on the Internet about this polio outbreak!
The Anonymous Widower 