Hypnosis has been a controversial topic in many circles since the 18th century. What it is and how it works have been misunderstood and sometimes hotly debated for centuries. Hypnotists are often portrayed on movies and TV as mind-control masters who can compel their subjects to do bizarre or horrible things against their own will.

In the 20th century, though, hypnosis gradually came into its own as a technique for psychotherapists to help patients recall traumatic incidents that were continuing to affect their lives. Often, recalling the origin of a mental problem helped the patient deal with the issues involved.

Physicians and dentists learned that hypnosis could be used to ease pain and even allow patients to endure otherwise painful procedures without the use of anesthetics.

Then law enforcement officials jumped into the act, using hypnosis to coax testimony from forgetful witnesses. That led to still more controversy when it was discovered that witnesses could easily, even accidentally, be led to “remember” things that never happened. That meant hypnosis was not a reliable tool for coaching witnesses for court testimony.

With all that going on, there were still those in the medical establishment who did not believe hypnosis was useful, or perhaps even real. Now, after all these years, the verdict of medical research is in: “Hypnosis works. We don’t know why.”

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Childhood bone cancer is a devastating and tragic disease. Despite the state of the art in current cancer treatment, bone cancer in children results in amputation for 80% of young patients.

But now there is hope. Promising new medical research in Britain, conducted on dogs (which suffer from a similar form of bone cancer) shows that it may soon be possible to use stem cells to cure bone cancer in children. For more information, read the following article.

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Spinal cord injuries in lab animals can now be treated with nano (microscopic) technologies that can improve healing and even reverse paralysis, according to researchers. Paralyzed mice have had full movement restored in only six weeks.

The U.S. government has spent over a billion dollars on nanotechnology research. The research is controversial, because not enough is known about side effects and what can happen if the tiny molecules escape into the environment.

However, the research results look promising. If treatment with nanotechnology proves equally successful on humans, many people who are now paralyzed could soon be able to lead normal lives again.

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Medical researchers in the United Kingdom have reportedly developed a way to create artificial nerves from fatty stem cells to replace the damaged nerves in injured limbs and organs.

That is great news for patients suffering from many kinds of nerve damage. Eventually it could lead to reversal of spinal cord damage, allowing paraplegics and quadraplegics full use of their limbs again. Meanwhile, it will be several years before the new procedures are approved for use on humans. It may be several more years before the treatments are available in most of the United States and other parts of the world.

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In recent years medical researchers discovered that small children and preteens can regrow severed fingertips (below the first joint) if the injured fingers are loosely bandaged without reconstructive surgery.

Adults, however, were out of luck. According to the Wall Street Journal there is now some hope for adults because of new medical research being done on Iraq War veterans at a military base in Texas.

The thyroid is a tiny gland with a big effect on your metabolism. Age, pregnancy, or other conditions can cause it to malfunction, and you may not know it unless you have a simple blood test.

If the thyroid doesn’t make enough of the thyroid hormone that governs metabolism, you may feel weak, tired and cold, and it seems that you gain weight no matter what you do. If your thyroid is overactive, you feel hyper, jumpy, and hot, and you tend to lose weight easily. That may sound great to some people, but is unpleasant for those who suffer from it.

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Stroke victims are often paralyzed for life. Until recently they were told that nerves cannot be regrown. Now a neurologist has found a way to turn off an enzyme called nogo that prevents nerve regrowth in adults. The treatment works with rats and is expected to work with humans, too.

This is in addition to the post I wrote a couple of weeks ago, that progesterone administered quickly after a brain injury or stroke dramatically improves recovery.

Though the nogo treatment is also still a few years away from approval for widespread use in humans, this discovery is big news for stroke victims and those who are at risk for stroke.

For more information, watch this video:

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