Chaga (Inonotus obliquus) is a distinctive mushroom known for its health benefits and unique appearance. The word itself, tschaga, is of Russian origin, borrowed from northeastern dialect called Komi and it simply means “mushroom”. Chaga grows primarily on birch trees in cold climates, such as Siberia, northern Europe, and parts of North America. Chaga has a hard, […]
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All posts by Val Cremanaru
Osteoarthritis
Osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis. The term comes from mid 16th century, via Latin from Greek, from the word arthron, meaning ‘joint’. “-Itis” is a suffix in medicine and it means Inflammation. Osteo means bone. Put them together and you get: inflammation of the bony joints! Osteoarthritis is the most common chronic, […]
Coffea arabica
Coffee is the third most consumed beverage around the world after water and tea. Endemic to the southwestern highlands of Ethiopia, Coffea arabica (the Latin name of coffee) is grown in dozens of countries between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer. Coffee is the fourth most valuable agricultural commodity on earth, according […]
Stethoscope: a symbol and relic of medicine
The stethoscope is a simple tool using basic physics to amplify noise within the body. You’ve probably seen one by now or even better, your chest or your back made contact with one during one of your visits to your medical practitioner. It is a very common occurrence. The word stethoscope is derived from the […]
AI in Medicine
I have been wondering these days what is the status of the applications of AI in medicine…is it how many are predicting that the AI will carve out a hole in medicine and people will be losing their jobs? (this metaphor is because tomorrow is Halloween…) Will the doctors be replaced by machines anytime soon? […]
LONELINESS and your health
There are more and more studies raising alarms about the impact of being lonely on our health. And the conclusions of those studies really shocked me so I decided to summarize and share this research in this blog. But first of all, how did they define loneliness? Loneliness is the cognitive discomfort or uneasiness of […]
Ashwagandha
“Ashwagandha” is a medicinal herb commonly used in traditional Ayurvedic medicine, which originated in India. Its botanical name is Withania somnifera, and it is also known as Indian ginseng or winter cherry. Ashwagandha has also been called the king of Ayurvedic herbs and has been used in India for nearly 5,000 years. The name of […]
Galen: 1,500 years of dominance of Medicine
If you study the history of medicine, it’s impossible not to be fascinated by the influence and authority of Galen and the length of his dominance in Medicine: more then 1,500 years! This is unprecedented, there is no other scholar that could compare with him. At least, not in Medicine. To come close to describing […]
From ancient medicines and witches to modern drugs
I think everyone is familiar with the images of the Medieval time witches flying on a broomstick or the witches making magical potions by stirring some awful looking substances in a boiling cauldron….these images are associated with Halloween nowadays… but, to your surprise (as well as mine), some of the brews these witches made were […]
Heat intolerance
In the wintertime in Canada, people often dream of what they’ll do when it gets hot again. Some even travel for shorter or longer periods of time to warmer climates to wait out the cold weather . But as enjoyable as hot weather is, sometimes it can get a little too warm for our bodies […]