What is muscle memory and can I improve mine?
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Whether it’s riding a bike or knitting a sweater, there are some tasks you do without thinking.
These are commonly associated with “muscle memory”, the idea your body can remember how to perform complex tasks and, over time, learn to do them automatically.
But do your muscles actually have a memory? And what role does your brain play?
Let’s unpack the science.
What is ‘muscle memory’?
In popular culture, we usually associate “muscle memory” with tasks we do, or skills we learn, without much conscious thought. This could include riding a bike, playing a musical instrument or even tying your shoelaces.
However, cognitive scientists call this type of memory “procedural memory” rather than “muscle memory”. And while it doesn’t always feel like it, procedural memory involves our brain as well as our muscles.
The term “muscle memory” may also be used in a more literal sense to describe how muscles seem to get stronger or bigger if they have been trained before. Research supports this idea, suggesting prior training can speed up muscle growth. It may do this by changing how muscle cells function or are structured. However, scientists still don’t know exactly how this all works. In any case, it seems these changes do not allow muscles to “store” memories or information in the same way as the brain.
How does procedural memory work?
Scientists describe procedural memory as a kind of “non-declarative memory”, meaning it’s memory based on actions, rather than words. This means it can be difficult to share skills you might’ve learnt through procedural memory.
For example, imagine you’re teaching a child to ride a bike. If you hop on the bike yourself, it’s easy to perform all the correct steps (holding the handlebars, mounting the bike, pushing the pedals) at the right times. But it’s much harder to describe that process to another person, especially if you only use words.
Research suggests repetition is the best and fastest way to improve your procedural memory. When we learn a new skill, it initially takes a lot of effort. This is because you need to actively control every action to make sure you’re doing things in the right way and order.
Over time, these skills can become so automatic you barely think while doing them. For example, you might drive home without remembering which route you took. That’s because you’re performing a series of actions you’ve done hundreds of times before.
Maintaining your procedural memory requires multiple parts of your brain to work together. This is because we use different neural processes as we shift from actively learning a skill to acting more automatically.
When you learn something new, you’re largely using the pre-frontal and fronto-parietal regions of the brain. These are associated with attention, memory and deliberate, effortful thinking.
When you start repeating and practising a skill, you instead rely on sensorimotor circuits. These process the sensory information you receive from the outside world, and help your brain determine the best physical response. In this way, these circuits allow you to do complex tasks with less conscious effort.
What’s the impact of conditions such as dementia?
What’s fascinating about procedural memory is it’s largely unaffected by cognitive decline.
For people with dementia or other kinds of cognitive impairment, the hardest tasks are generally those that require conscious effort. However, they often retain more automatic skills that they’ve developed over a lifetime. This is why you may meet people with dementia who can still knit or dance a tango, despite having trouble remembering their loved ones’ names.
Research suggests music taps into procedural memory in an especially powerful way. One Canadian study found people with Alzheimer’s dementia, an irreversible brain condition which affects memory, cognition and behaviour, recognised words better when they were sung as opposed to spoken.
Procedural memory may also help people with cognitive conditions learn new skills, as well as retain old ones. In one Australian study, researchers wanted to know if a person with severe Alzheimer’s dementia could learn a new song. They found that a 91-year-old woman with severe Alzheimer’s, who’d never been a musician, was able to learn a brand-new song. While she couldn’t remember the words during a memory test, she could sing the song again two weeks later.
Can I improve my procedural memory?
Unfortunately, there’s no quick and easy way to strengthen your procedural memory.
To begin, you have to push through the initial phase of learning a new skill, which often requires significant effort and attention. This is where practice comes in. Practising a new skill will help your brain depend less on its attention-focused frontal regions, and rely more on those responsible for motor functions.
To make your practice as effective as possible, it may be worth spacing it out over multiple sessions. This forces you to deliberately bring a memory back to mind and actively reconstruct it, even after you’ve stopped thinking about it. As a result, you’ll become better at forming and retaining long-term memories. Sleeping after each practice session may also help. Research suggests this is because sleep helps you remember and retain new skills.
While improving procedural memory takes time and effort, it’s well worth it. Any new skills you learn will enrich your life. And even if your cognitive health declines, the skills you practice over a lifetime can keep you connected to the people and memories you value.
Celia Harris, Associate Professor in Cognitive Science, Western Sydney University and Justin Christensen, Researcher, Western Sydney University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Worried about feeding your baby solid foods? Here’s what you should know
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When you have a baby, mealtimes can be messy and stressful.
If you’re a new parent you may be unsure what, when, and how to feed your little one. And you may also worry about choking, particularly when it’s time to start feeding your baby solid foods.
For babies starting solids at the recommended age of six months, it’s important to offer foods in a variety of different ways. Purees can be a helpful starting point, but they shouldn’t be the only texture a baby experiences.
Research suggests not waiting too long to introduce lumpy or textured foods. Infants who start eating lumps at 10 months or later were more likely to develop feeding difficulties and become selective eaters.
So if you’re a parent, where do you start? And what other foods are good to try?
Jamie Grill/Getty Why texture matters
Mealtimes are crucial for a child’s development because they’re an opportunity to explore different textures and develop oral motor skills.
Imagine you’re eating a piece of toast. This involves performing a range of movements including holding, biting, chewing and swallowing. All of these actions require different muscles to work together, and only improve through practice. But that practice is only effective if it involves real food, as opposed to non-edible teething toys and isolated oral exercises like jaw opening and closing or cheek puffing.
When starting solid foods, many parents rely on purees and pouches as convenient ways to feed their babies. There’s nothing wrong with puree in itself. Many of our favourite foods resemble purees. Think of buttery mashed potato, yogurt, ricotta and applesauce.
The problem arises when purees and pouches become the only texture parents offer their babies, particularly early on. Babies who only eat pureed foods have less opportunity to develop the skills needed for eating and drinking. And research suggests children who frequently eat pouched foods are more likely to become fussy eaters.
So there’s nothing inherently bad about pureed foods. But feeding your baby varied foods gives them more opportunity to develop crucial oral motor skills.
Does it matter how I feed my baby?
There are various ways to start giving your baby solid foods.
One common approach is “baby-led weaning”. That’s where parents encourage their baby to feed themselves, rather than fully spoon-feeding them. This can encourage your baby to be more independent and explore food on their own. But it may also make mealtimes messier and more time-consuming for parents. And it can also feel daunting for parents who are concerned about choking.
However, one 2016 study found babies who feed themselves are no more likely to choke than babies who are spoon-fed. Foods which are suitable for baby-led weaning include strips of omelette, ripe avocado wedges or well-cooked corn on the cob. However, the researchers emphasised the importance of preparing foods appropriately and using risk minimisation strategies. These include avoiding high-risk foods such as popcorn, cutting round foods such as grapes and cherry tomatoes, and supervising babies whenever they eat.
An ‘in-between’ option for feeding is to offer your baby purees, while giving them a degree of independence. For example, you may pre-load a spoon for your baby to bring to their own mouth. You can also pair purees with larger foods, say a broccoli floret dipped in hummus. These combinations will help your baby develop eating skills while you become more confident with feeding your baby.
No matter what feeding approach you take, infant first aid training is a must for parents and carers. And if your child was born premature, has a developmental delay or has specific nutrition requirements, it’s best to speak to a paediatrician before giving them solid foods.
When you have a picky eater
Even if your baby transitions well to solid foods, toddlerhood can bring a new set of challenges.
Toddlers tend to be selective about what foods they do or don’t eat. They may also become more cautious around unfamiliar foods. These are both normal parts of a child’s development.
But problems can arise when parents pressure toddlers to eat food they don’t want to eat or when they aren’t hungry. Even small gestures, such as using a “spoon as aeroplane” or asking them to take “one more bite” in front of the TV or tablet, can put pressure on children. As a result your child may eat that next mouthful but, over time, they may develop a negative relationship with food and mealtimes.
As parents and carers, our role is to offer food at predictable times and in positive mealtime environments. Some ways to do that include:
- trusting they’ll eat as much as they need
- eating shared meals when possible
- modelling enjoyment of different foods during shared meals
- offering new foods alongside familiar favourites
- giving children multiple opportunities to see and try new foods, even if they don’t eat them the first time.
Unfortunately, babies and toddlers won’t love every meal you make them. But in time they’ll come to learn about, and even enjoy, a world of different textures and tastes.
Lillian Krikheli, Lecturer in Speech Pathology, La Trobe University and Samantha Turner, Lecturer in Speech Pathology, La Trobe University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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What to Know About Stillbirths
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Series: Stillbirths:When Babies Die Before Taking Their First Breath
The U.S. has not prioritized stillbirth prevention, and American parents are losing babies even as other countries make larger strides to reduce deaths late in pregnancy.
Every year, more than 20,000 pregnancies in the U.S. end in a stillbirth, the death of an expected child at 20 weeks or more of pregnancy. Research shows as many as 1 in 4 stillbirths may be preventable. We interviewed dozens of parents of stillborn children who said their health care providers did not tell them about risk factors or explain what to watch for while pregnant. They said they felt blindsided by what followed. They did not have the information needed to make critical decisions about what happened with their baby’s body, about what additional testing could have been done to help determine what caused the stillbirth, or about how to navigate the process of requesting important stillbirth documents.
This guide is meant to help fill the void of information on stillbirths. It’s based on more than 150 conversations with parents, health care providers, researchers and other medical experts.
Whether you’re trying to better prepare for a pregnancy or grieving a loss, we hope this will help you and your family. This guide does not provide medical advice. We encourage you to seek out other reliable resources and consult with providers you trust.
We welcome your thoughts and questions at mailto:[email protected]. You can share your experience with stillbirth with us. If you are a health care provider interested in distributing this guide, let us know if we can help.
Table of contents:
- What Is Stillbirth?
- Are Stillbirths Preventable?
- What to Expect After a Stillbirth.
- Grieving After a Stillbirth.
- What You Might Say and Do After a Loved One Experiences a Stillbirth.
What Is Stillbirth?
Many people told us that the first time they heard the term stillbirth was after they delivered their stillborn baby. In many cases, the lack of information and awareness beforehand contributed to their heartache and guilt afterward.
Stillbirth is defined in the U.S. as the death of a baby in the womb at 20 weeks or more of pregnancy. Depending on when it happens, stillbirth is considered:
- Early: 20-27 weeks of pregnancy.
- Late: 28-36 weeks of pregnancy.
- Term: 37 or more weeks of pregnancy.
About half of all stillbirths in the U.S. occur at 28 weeks or later.
What is the difference between a stillbirth and a miscarriage?
Both terms describe pregnancy loss. The distinction is when the loss occurs. A miscarriage is typically defined as a loss before the 20th week of pregnancy, while stillbirth is after that point.
How common is stillbirth?
Each year, about 1 in 175 deliveries in the U.S. are stillbirths — that’s about 60 stillborn babies every day — making it one of the most common adverse pregnancy outcomes, but it is rarely discussed.
If you are surprised by that fact, you are not alone. Many people we spoke to did not know how common stillbirths are. Leandria Lee of Texas said she spent her 2021 pregnancy unaware that her daughter, Zuri Armoni, could die in the last phase of her pregnancy.
“If I was prepared to know that something could happen, I don’t think it would have been as bad. But to not know and then it happens, it affects you,” she said of her stillbirth at 35 weeks.
Some doctors have told us they don’t introduce the possibility of a stillbirth because they don’t want to create additional anxiety for patients.
Other doctors say withholding information leaves patients unprepared.
“We have this idea that we can’t scare the patient, which to me is very paternalistic,” said Dr. Heather Florescue, an OB-GYN near Rochester, New York, who works to inform doctors and patients about stillbirth prevention.
What causes stillbirths?
There is a lot we don’t know about stillbirths because there hasn’t been enough research. The cause of the stillbirth is unknown in about 1 in 3 cases.
What we do know is that a number of factors may cause or increase the risk of a stillbirth, including:
- The baby not growing as expected.
- Placental abnormalities or problems with the umbilical cord.
- Genetic or structural disorders that cause developmental issues.
- High blood pressure before pregnancy or preeclampsia, a potentially fatal complication that usually appears late in pregnancy and causes high blood pressure.
- Diabetes before or during pregnancy.
- An infection in the fetus, the placenta or the pregnant person.
- Smoking.
- Being 35 or older.
- Obesity.
- Being pregnant with more than one baby.
But not all doctors, hospitals or health departments perform tests to identify the potential cause of a stillbirth or determine if it could have been prevented. Even when a cause is identified, fetal death records are rarely updated. This means data is sometimes inaccurate. Researchers strongly encourage doctors to perform a stillbirth evaluation, which includes an examination of the placenta and umbilical cord, a fetal autopsy and genetic testing.
If your hospital or doctor does not proactively offer one or more of these exams, you can ask them to conduct the tests. Research shows that placental exams may help establish a cause of death or exclude a suspected one in about 65% of stillbirths, while autopsies were similarly useful in more than 40% of cases.
Are Stillbirths Preventable?
Not all stillbirths are preventable, but some are. For pregnancies that last 37 weeks or more, one study found that nearly half of stillbirths are potentially preventable.
Dr. Joanne Stone, who last year was president of the Society of Maternal-Fetal Medicine, leads the country’s first Rainbow Clinic at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. The clinic is modeled on similar facilities in the United Kingdom that care for people who want to conceive again after a stillbirth. She said many doctors used to think there was nothing they could do to prevent stillbirth.
“People just looked at it like, ‘Oh, it was an accident, couldn’t have been prevented,’” said Stone, who also is the system chair of the obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive science department at the Icahn School of Medicine. “But we know now there are things that we can do to try to prevent that from happening.”
She said doctors can:
- More closely monitor patients with certain risk factors, like high blood pressure, diabetes or obesity.
- Ask about prior infant loss or other obstetrical trauma.
- Carefully assess whether a baby’s growth is normal.
- Work to diagnose genetic anomalies.
- Teach patients how to track their baby’s movements and encourage them to speak up if they notice activity has slowed or stopped.
- Deliver at or before 39 weeks if there are concerns.
What are the risks of stillbirth over the course of a pregnancy?
The risk of a stillbirth increases significantly toward the end of pregnancy, especially after 39 weeks. The risk is higher for people who get pregnant at 35 or older. The risk begins to climb even earlier, around 36 weeks, for people pregnant with twins.
What you and your doctor can do to reduce the risk of stillbirth.
While federal agencies in the U.S. have yet to come up with a checklist that may help reduce the risk of stillbirth, the Stillbirth Centre of Research Excellence in Australia has adopted a Safer Baby Bundle that lists five recommendations:
- Stop smoking.
- Regularly monitor growth to reduce the risk of fetal growth restriction, when the fetus is not growing as expected.
- Understand the importance of acting quickly if fetal movement decreases.
- Sleep on your side after 28 weeks.
- Talk to your doctor about when to deliver. Depending on your situation, it may be before your due date.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has compiled a list of tests and techniques doctors can use to try to reduce the risk of a stillbirth. They include:
- A risk assessment to identify prenatal needs.
- A nonstresstest, which checks the fetus’s heart rate and how it changes as the fetus moves.
- A biophysical profile, which is done with an ultrasound to measure body movement, muscle tone and breathing, along with amniotic fluid volume.
The group stressed that there is no test that can guarantee a stillbirth won’t happen and that individual circumstances should determine what tests are run.
Are some people at higher risk for stillbirth?
Black women are more than twice as likely to have a stillbirth as white women. There are a number of possible explanations for that disparity, including institutional bias and structural racism, and a patient’s pre-pregnancy health, socioeconomic status and access to health care. In addition, research shows that Black women are more likely than white women to experience multiple stressful life events while pregnant and have their concerns ignored by their health care provider. Similar racial disparities drive the country’s high rate of maternal mortality.
How to find a provider you trust.
Finding a doctor to care for you during your pregnancy can be a daunting process. Medical experts and parents suggest interviewing prospective providers before you decide on the right one.
Here is a short list of questions you might want to ask a potential OB-GYN:
- What is the best way to contact you if I have questions or concerns?
- How do you manage inquiries after hours and on weekends? Do you see walk-ins?
- How do you manage prenatal risk assessments?
- What should I know about the risks of a miscarriage or stillbirth?
- How do you decide when a patient should be induced?
If a provider doesn’t answer your questions to your satisfaction, don’t be reluctant to move on. Dr. Ashanda Saint Jean, chair of the obstetrics and gynecology department at HealthAlliance Hospitals of the Hudson Valley in New York, said she encourages her patients to find the provider that meets their needs.
“Seek out someone that is like-minded,” said Saint Jean “It doesn’t have to be that they’re the same ethnicity or the same race, but like-minded in terms of the goals of what that patient desires for their own health and prosperity.”
What to know in the last trimester.
The last trimester can be an uncomfortable and challenging time as the fetus grows and you get increasingly tired. During this critical time, your provider should talk to you about the following topics:
- Whether you need a nonstress test to determine if the fetus is getting enough oxygen.
- The best way to track fetal movements.
- What to do if your baby stops moving.
- Whether you are at risk for preeclampsia or gestational diabetes.
Rachel Foran’s child, Eoin Francis, was stillborn at 41 weeks and two days. Foran, who lives in New York, said she believes that if her doctor had tracked her placenta, and if she had understood the importance of fetal movement, she and her husband might have decided to deliver sooner.
She remembers that her son was “very active” until the day before he was stillborn.
“I would have gone in earlier if someone had told me, ‘You’re doing this because the baby could die,’” she said of tracking fetal movement. “That would have been really helpful to know.”
Researchers are looking at the best way to measure the health, blood flow and size of the placenta, but studies are still in their early stages.
“If someone had been doing that with my son’s,” Foran said, “my son would be alive.”
A placental exam and an autopsy showed that a small placenta contributed to Foran’s stillbirth.
How often should you feel movement?
Every baby and each pregnancy are different, so it is important to get to know what levels of activity are normal for you. You might feel movement around 20 weeks. You’re more likely to feel movement when you’re sitting or lying down. Paying attention to movement during the third trimester is particularly important because research shows that changes, including decreased movement or bursts of excessive activity, are associated with an increased risk of stillbirth. Most of the time, it’s nothing. But sometimes it can be a sign that your baby is in distress. If you’re worried, don’t rely on a home fetal doppler to reassure you. Reach out to your doctor.
Saint Jean offers a tip to track movement: “I still tell patients each day to lay on their left side after dinner and record how many times their baby moves, because then that will give you an idea of what’s normal for your baby,” she said.
Other groups recommend using the Count the Kicks app as a way of tracking fetal movements and establishing what is normal for that pregnancy. Although there is no scientific consensus that counting kicks can prevent stillbirths, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and other groups recommend that patients be aware of fetal movement patterns.
Dr. Karen Gibbins is a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at Oregon Health & Science University who in 2018 had stillborn son named Sebastian. She said the idea that babies don’t move as much at the end of pregnancy is a dangerous myth.
“You might hear that babies slow down at the end,” she said. “They don’t slow down. They just have a little less space. So their movements are a little different, but they should be as strong and as frequent.”
What to Expect After a Stillbirth
What might happen at the hospital?
Parents are often asked to make several important decisions while they are still reeling from the shock and devastation of their loss. It’s completely understandable if you need to take some time to consider them.
Some other things you can ask for (if medical personnel don’t offer them) are:
- Blood work, a placental exam, an autopsy and genetic testing.
- A social worker or counselor, bereavement resources and religious or chaplain support.
- The option to be isolated from the labor rooms.
- Someone to take photos of you and your baby, typically either a nurse or an outside group.
- A small cooling cot that allows parents to spend more time with their babies after a stillbirth. If one is not available, you can ask for ice packs to put in the swaddle or the bassinet.
- A mold of your baby’s hands and feet.
- Information about burial or cremation services.
- Guidance on what to do if your milk comes in.
Getting an autopsy after a stillbirth.
Whether to have an autopsy is a personal decision. It may not reveal a cause of death, but it might provide important information about your stillbirth and contribute to broader stillbirth research. Autopsies can be useful if you are considering another pregnancy in the future. Families also told us that an autopsy can help parents feel they did everything they could to try to understand why their baby died.
But several families told us their health care providers didn’t provide them with the right information to help with that decision. Some aren’t trained in the advantages of conducting an autopsy after a stillbirth, or in when and how to sensitively communicate with parents about it. Some, for example, don’t explain that patients can still have an open-casket funeral or other service after an autopsy because the incisions can easily be covered by clothing. Others may not encourage an autopsy because they think they already know what caused the stillbirth or don’t believe anything could have been done to prevent it. In addition, not all hospitals have the capacity to do an autopsy, but there may be private autopsy providers that can perform one at an additional cost.
You can read more about autopsies in our reporting.
Paying for an autopsy after a stillbirth.
If you decide you want an autopsy, you may wonder whether you need to pay out-of-pocket for it. Several families told us their providers gave them incomplete or incorrect information. Many larger or academic hospitals offer autopsies at no cost to patients. Some insurance companies also cover the cost of an autopsy after a stillbirth.
When hospitals don’t provide an autopsy, they may give you names of private providers. That was the case for Rachel Foran. The hospital gave her and her husband a list of numbers to call if they wanted to pay for an autopsy themselves. The process, she said, shocked her.
“I had just delivered and we had to figure out what to do with his body,” Foran said. “It felt totally insane that that was what we had to do and that we had to figure it out on our own.”
An independent autopsy, records show, cost them $5,000.
What is a certificate of stillbirth and how do I get one?
A fetal death certificate is the official legal document that records the death. This is the document used to gather data on and track the number of stillbirths in the country. Many states also issue a certificate of stillbirth or a certificate of birth resulting in stillbirth, which acknowledge the baby’s birth. Families told us they appreciated having that document, since typical birth certificates are not issued for stillbirths. You can usually request a certificate from the vital records office.
Grieving After a Stillbirth
What are the effects of stillbirths on parents and families?
Over and over, families told us the effects of losing a baby can reverberate for a lifetime.
Bereavement support groups may help provide a space to share experiences and resources. Hospitals and birth centers may suggest a local grief group.
We talked with Anna Calix, a maternal health expert who became active in perinatal loss prevention after her son Liam was stillborn on his due date in 2016. Calix leads grief support groups for people of color in English and Spanish.
She suggested rededicating the time you would have spent taking care of a new baby to the grief process.
“You can do that by addressing your own thoughts and feelings and really experiencing those feelings,” Calix said. “We like to push those feelings away or try to do something to distract and avoid, but no matter what we do, the feelings are there.”
It’s important, she said, to give yourself permission to grow your connection with your child and work through thoughts of guilt or blame.
What You Might Say and Do After a Loved One Experiences a Stillbirth
Finding the right words can be difficult. The following are a few suggestions from parents who went through a stillbirth.
Helpful:
- Acknowledge the loss and offer condolences.
- Ask if the baby was named and use the name.
- Allow space for the family to talk about their baby.
Unhelpful:
- Avoid talking about the baby.
- Minimize the loss or compare experiences.
- Start statements with “at least.”
Suggested phrases to avoid:
- “You’re young. You can have more kids.”
- “At least you have other children.”
- “These things just happen.”
- “Your baby is in a better place now.”
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The MMR vaccine doesn’t contain ‘aborted fetus debris’, as RFK Jr has claimed. Here’s the science
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the United States’ top public health official, recently claimed some religious groups avoid the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine because it contains “aborted fetus debris” and “DNA particles”.
The US is facing its worst measles outbreaks in years with nearly 900 cases across the country and active outbreaks in several states.
At the same time, Kennedy, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, continues to erode trust in vaccines.
So what can we make of his latest claims?
There’s no fetal debris in the MMR vaccine
Kennedy said “aborted fetus debris” in MMR vaccines is the reason many religious people refuse vaccination. He referred specifically to the Mennonites in Texas, a deeply religious community, who have been among the hardest hit by the current measles outbreaks.
Many vaccines work by using a small amount of an attenuated (weakened) form of a virus, or in the case of the MMR vaccine, attenuated forms of the viruses that cause measles, mumps and rubella. This gives the immune system a safe opportunity to learn how to recognise and respond to these viruses.
As a result, if a person is later exposed to the actual infection, their immune system can react swiftly and effectively, preventing serious illness.
Kennedy’s claim about fetal debris specifically refers to the rubella component of the MMR vaccine. The rubella virus is generally grown in a human cell line known as WI-38, which was originally derived from lung tissue of a single elective abortion in the 1960s. This cell line has been used for decades, and no new fetal tissue has been used since.
Certain vaccines for other diseases, such as chickenpox, hepatitis A and rabies, have also been made by growing the viruses in fetal cells.
These cells are used not because of their origin, but because they provide a stable, safe and reliable environment for growing the attenuated virus. They serve only as a growth medium for the virus and they are not part of the final product.
You might think of the cells as virus-producing factories. Once the virus is grown, it’s extracted and purified as part of a rigorous process to meet strict safety and quality standards. What remains in the final vaccine is the virus itself and stabilising agents, but not human cells, nor fetal tissue.
So claims about “fetal debris” in the vaccine are false.
It’s also worth noting the world’s major religions permit the use of vaccines developed from cells originally derived from fetal tissue when there are no alternative products available.
Are there fragments of DNA in the MMR vaccine?
Kennedy claimed the Mennonites’ reluctance to vaccinate stems from “religious objections” to what he described as “a lot of aborted fetus debris and DNA particles” in the MMR vaccine.
The latter claim, about the vaccine containing DNA particles, is technically true. Trace amounts of DNA fragments from the human cell lines used to produce the rubella component of the MMR vaccine may remain even after purification.
However, with this claim, there’s an implication these fragments pose a health risk. This is false.
Any DNA that may be present in this vaccine exists in extremely small amounts, is highly fragmented and degraded, and is biologically inert – that is, it cannot cause harm.
Even if, hypothetically, intact DNA were present in the vaccine (which it’s not), it would not have the capacity to cause harm. One common (but unfounded) concern is that foreign DNA could integrate with a person’s own DNA, and alter their genome.
Introducing DNA into human cells in a way that leads to integration is very difficult. Even when scientists are deliberately trying to do this, for example, in gene therapy, it requires precise tools, special viral delivery systems and controlled conditions.
It’s also important to remember our bodies are exposed to foreign DNA constantly, through food, bacteria and even our own microbiome. Our immune system routinely digests and disposes of this material without incorporating it into our genome.
This question has been extensively studied over decades. Multiple health authorities, including Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration, have addressed the misinformation regarding perceived harm from residual DNA in vaccines.
Ultimately, the idea that fragmented DNA in a vaccine could cause genetic harm is false.
The bottom line
Despite what Kennedy would have you believe, there’s no fetal debris in the MMR vaccine, and the trace amounts of DNA fragments that may remain pose no health risk.
What the evidence does show, however, is that vaccines like the MMR vaccine offer excellent protection against deadly and preventable diseases, and have saved millions of lives around the world.
Hassan Vally, Associate Professor, Epidemiology, Deakin University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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7 Signs of Undiagnosed Autism in Adults
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When it comes to adults and autism, there are two kinds of person in the popular view: those who resemble the Rain Man, and those who are making it up. But, it’s not so, as Paul Micallef explains:
The signs
We’ll not keep them a mystery; they are:
- Social interaction difficulties: such a person may struggle with understanding social cues, leading to awkwardness, isolation, or appearing eccentric.
- Need for structure and routine: either highly structured or disorganized, both of which stem from executive function challenges. The former, of course, is a coping mechanism, while the latter is the absence of same.
- Sensory sensitivities: can include sensitivities or insensitivities to light, sound, temperature, smells, tastes, and so forth.
- Spiky skillset: extreme strengths in certain areas, coupled with significant difficulties in others, leading to uneven abilities. May be able to dismantle and rebuild a PC, while not knowing how to arrange an Über.
- Emotional regulation issues: experiences of meltdowns, shutdowns, or withdrawal as coping mechanisms when overwhelmed. Not that this is “or”, not necessarily “and”. The latter goes especially unnoticed as an emotional regulation issue, because for everyone else, it’s something that’s not there to see.
- Unusual associations: making mental connections or associations that seem random or uncommon compared to others. The mind went to 17 places quickly and while everyone else got from idea A to idea B, this person is already at idea Q.
- Being “just different”: a general sense of being the odd one out, standing out in subtle or distinct ways. This is rather a catch-all, but if there’s someone who fits this, there’s a good chance, the other things apply too.
For more on all of these, whether pertaining to yourself or a loved one (or both!), enjoy:
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Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
- 16 Overlooked Autistic Traits In Women
- What is AuDHD? 5 important things to know when someone has both autism and ADHD
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Butter vs Ghee – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing butter to ghee, we picked the butter.
Why?
Assuming a comparable source for each—e.g. butter from grass-fed cows, or ghee made from butter from grass-fed cows—both have a mostly comparable nutritional profile.
Note: the above is not a safe assumption to make in the US, unless you’re paying attention. Grass-fed cows are not the norm in the US, so it’s something that has to be checked for. On the other hand, ghee is usually imported, and grass-fed cows are the norm in most of the rest of the world, including the countries that export ghee the most. So if “buying blind”, ghee will be the safer bet. However, checking labels can overcome this.
Many of the Internet-popular health claims for ghee are exaggerated. For example, yes it contains butyrate… But at 1% or less. You’d be better off getting your butyrate from fibrous fruit and vegetables. Yes it contains medium-chain triglycerides (that’s also good), but in trace amounts. It even has conjugated linoleic acid, but you guessed it, the dose is insignificant.
Meanwhile, both butter and ghee contain heart-unhealthy animal-based saturated fats (which are usually worse for the health than some, but not all, of their plant-based equivalents). However…
- A tablespoon of butter contains about 7 grams of saturated fat
- A tablespoon of ghee contains about 9 grams of saturated fat
So, in this case, “ghee is basically butter, but purer” becomes a bad thing (and the deciding factor between the two).
There is one reason to choose butter over ghee, but it’s not health-related—it simply has a higher smoke point, as is often the case for fats that have been more processed compared to fats that have been less processed.
In short: either can be used in moderation, but even 2 tbsp of butter are taking an average person (because it depends on your metabolism, so we’ll say average) to the daily limit for saturated fats already, so we recommend to go easy even on that.
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Water Bath + More Cookbook for Beginners – by Sarah Roslin
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Whether you want to be prepared for the next major crisis that shuts down food supply chains, or just learn a new skill, this book provides the tools!
Especially beneficial if you also grow your own vegetables, but even you just buy those… Home-canned food is healthy, contains fewer additives and preservatives, and costs less in the long run.
Roslin teaches an array of methods, including most importantly:
- fermentation and pickling
- water bath canning, and
- pressure canning.
As for what’s inside? She covers not just vegetables, but also fruit, seafood, meat… Basically, anything that can be canned.
The book explains the tools and equipment you will need as well as how to perform it safely—as well as common mistakes to avoid!
Lest we be intimidated by the task of acquiring appropriate equipment, she also walks us through what we’ll need in that regard too!
Last but not least, there’s also a (sizeable) collection of simple, step-by-step recipes, catering to a wide variety of tastes.
Bottom line: a highly valuable resource that we recommend heartily.
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