Antimicrobial Properties of Honey

....Honey has been widely accepted as food and medicine by all generations, traditions, and civilizations, both ancient and modern. .... Clinical studies have demonstrated that application of honey to severely infected cutaneous wounds rapidly clears infection from the wound and improves tissue healing. .... studies have confirmed the broad-spectrum antimicrobial (antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, and antimycobacterial) properties of honey, which may be attributed to the acidity (low pH), osmotic effect, high sugar concentration, presence of bacteriostatic and bactericidal factors (hydrogen peroxide, antioxidants, lysozyme, polyphenols, phenolic acids, flavonoids, methylglyoxal, and bee peptides), and increase in cytokine release, and to immune modulating and anti-inflammatory properties of honey; the antimicrobial action involves several mechanisms. ......

Preschoolers’ Inability at Numerical Estimation Relates to Later Mathematical Difficulties

....Children who lag behind in math during early childhood often experience later mathematical difficulties, according to a recent study published in Frontiers in Developmental Psychology. Researchers noted that children who start school with a poor understanding of numerals are four times more likely than their peers to struggle with employment-relevant math by the time they reach adolescence......

Comments: For more information about math and estimation, see:

Fischer B, Köngeter A, Hartnegg K. Effects of Daily Practice on Subitizing, Visual Counting, and Basic Arithmetic Skills. Optom Vis Dev 2008:39(1):30-34

Fischer B, Gebhardt C, Hartnegg K. Subitizing and Visual Counting in Children with Problems in Acquiring Basic Arithmetic Skills. Optom Vis Dev 2008:39(1):24-29.

Groffman S. Subitizing: Vision therapy for math deficits. Optom Vis Dev 2009;40(4):229-238.

For your patients with problems in mathematics, I suggest trying this program by Dr. Sid Groffman and HTS. DM

Kids Learning about the Eyes from Kids!

Coffee and Cardiac Health

Coffee. Good? Bad? Awesome?

• .... coffee was often viewed as a cardiovascular risk-factor.
• In meta-analyses of recent well-controlled prospective epidemiologic studies, coffee-consumption was not associated with risk of coronary heart disease and weakly associated with a lower risk of stroke and heart failure.
• Also, available evidence largely suggests that coffee-consumption is not associated with a higher risk of fatal cardiovascular events.
• In randomized trials coffee-consumption resulted in small increases in blood pressure.
• Unfiltered coffee increased circulating LDL cholesterol and triglycerides concentrations, but filtered coffee had no substantial effects on blood lipids.

Comments: I drink coffee. I like the taste. I like the smell...and I like the bit of a kick I get in the AM. Overall....it looks like it's pretty good stuff! DM

Seeing Through Touch

'Seeing' Faces Through Touch: Brain May Code Facial Information in Shared Representation Between Vision and Haptics

..... sense of touch can contribute to our ability to perceive faces.....In a series of studies, ... of a phenomenon called the "face aftereffect" ...[it was noted that]..... findings suggest that facial information may be coded in a shared representation between vision and haptics in the brain,... suggesting that these findings may have implications for enhancing vision and telecommunication in the development of aids for the visually impaired....

Competing in Visual “X” Games

Competing in Visual “X” Games

My colleague, Dr. Len Press says: "One of the reasons that visual difficulties are overlooked is the superficial or simplistic notion equating vision with activity in the occipital cortex at the rear of the brain.  Don’t get me wrong — I’m a big fan of V1 and all of the processing that goes on in the rest of the “Vs”.  But that’s only a small portion of what constitutes vision.  The sketch above is from a generally informative blog about Autism Spectrum Disorders that describes individuals with ASD as often having extreme visual strengths. Such extremist statements mask the extent of difficulties experienced by individuals with ASD.  One cannot dissociate the influence of executive control and other avenues of top-down knowledge on visual perception, one reason why the visual brain is so easily subjected to illusions....."

Comments: This is an excellent blog post (with graphics and video) about our concepts of vision and where some of us go wrong.....read this ....read this now! DM

Discovery of essential brain circuit in visual development could lead to new treatments for amblyopia

.....A study in mice reveals an elegant circuit within the developing visual system that helps dictate how the eyes connect to the brain. The research, funded by the National Institutes of Health, has implications for treating amblyopia, a vision disorder that occurs when the brain ignores one eye in favor of the other.....