Vibratory urticarial is a ultra rare genetic condition that cause people to break out in hives if their skin is vigorously vibrated or rubbed. In fact, even drying yourself with a towel can cause hives, make your face flush, give you headaches, or produce the sensation of a metallic taste. According to a new study published this week, researchers found a mutation in a gene called ADGRE2 that codes for a receptor protein found on the surface of mast cells - immune cells in the skin that dump out inflammatory molecules such as histamines that increase blood flow to an area and can cause hives. The researchers observed that shaking mast cells in a dish breaks apart two subunits of this receptor protein, which prompts histamine release. In p ...

There's no question that many parents today still, to some extent, hesitate to vaccinate their babies due to fears that it's linked to autism. Of course, this idea all started after a 1998 study published in The Lancet showed a link between sudden behavioral changes in 12 children shortly after a vaccine was administered (article linked below). Although the study has been retracted due to technical flaws, such as the small sample size used by the researchers to make their conclusions, parents to this day still reference the article to justify why they shouldn't vaccinate their children.

Most misinformation on vaccines comes from the lack of education on how they're developed, what they contain, and how they work. Personally I don't blame par ...

As a secondary school educator, I often see students sharing their drinks with one another. This bugs me more than anything because it causes germs to be easily spread from one person to another. The problem is, students have this misconception that if they are not sick, then the person they are sharing their drink with won't get sick either. Sounds rational, but is it true? Definitely not. Each person's immune system is unique, and so is our microbiome (as described in the video below). What may be harmless to one person may not be so much to another. I believe this video does an excellent job demonstrating that not only are humans unique in a sense that we each have our own personalities, have different occupations, and come from differe ...

If emotions can make you sick, if a belief that you will die can kill you (as in voodoo deaths), and if a sugar pill that you believe is a powerful drug can take away your pain, can a belief that you can bring about your own recovery help you to recover?

Even with acceptance of the role of emotional factors in both illness and recovery, the assumption has persisted that emotional factors work on an unconscious level, and because of this they are not subject to voluntary control. Most of us still see illness as something that happens to us.

Dr. Carl Simonton, chief of radiation at Travis Air Force Base, questioned this assumption. He was impressed by demonstrations that people could learn to control autonomic processes through biofeedback and ...