Search

The phenomenology of mystical experiences has been described throughout all the ages and in all religions. All mystical traditions identify some sense of union with the absolute as the ultimate spiritual goal. I assume that the pathway to both theistic and secular spirituality and our readiness to seek a solution in a psychological merger with something beyond the self evolves out of our human experience. Spirituality is one of man's strategies for dealing with the limitations of the life cycle, separation and loss, biological fragility, transience, and non-existence. Spirituality may serve as the affective component to a belief system or myth that is not rooted in scientific evidence but is lived as if it is true. Spirituality may take many forms, but I will suggest that in some instances it may serve as a reparative process in which one creates in the external world, through symbolic form, a nuance or facet of an internalized mental representation which has become lost or is no longer available to the self; or it may represent the continuity of the self-representation after death through a self-object merger. Lastly I will illustrate from the writings of two of our greatest poets, Dante Alighieri and William Wordsworth, how their poetry became interwoven with a profound spirituality. In Dante we will see the elaboration of a religious spirituality, while in the writings of Wordsworth a secular spirituality emerges interwoven with nature and belatedly his identification with 'tragic man' as his mythos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The goal of this study was to determine factors contributing to the biomechanical properties of coronary arteries in people with and without angiographic coronary artery disease (CAD).Background: The stiffness of the aorta is known to increase with increasing age and in the presence of CAD. However, little is known about the mechanics of coronary arteries, which may have important clinical consequences.Methods: Intravascular ultrasound was used to determine the mechanical properties of coronary arteries and plaque behavior in subjects with CAD (n = 38), those with chest pain but angiographically normal coronary arteries (N) (n = 9) and those early (<2 weeks) after cardiac transplant (T) (n = 14).Results: Coronary arteries dilated during systole in all groups, but cross-sectional compliance and distensibility were lowest in the proximal left anterior descending artery (LAD) in the subjects with CAD compared with the N and T groups (compliance: 1.2 +/- 0.2 vs. 1.7 +/- 0.5 and 2.7 +/- 0.6 x 10(-2) mm(2) mm Hg(-1) [mean +/- SEM] respectively, p < 0.02 CAD vs. T; distensibility: 0.8 +/- 0.2 vs. 1.7 +/- 0.5 and 1.7 +/- 0.3 x 10(-3) mm Hg(-1), p < 0.05 CAD vs. T). There was extensive plaque in the CAD group, and plaque was also present in the N group, but minimal atheroma was present in the T group. Plaque cross-sectional area diminished significantly during systole in both the LAD and circumflex arteries. Absolute changes were: 0.50 +/- 0.30, 0.33 +/- 0.11 and 0.68 +/- 0.13 mm(2) in the proximal LAD, distal LAD and proximal circumflex arteries, respectively. In subjects with atheroma, there was a significant correlation between cross-sectional compliance and plaque compression at all sites, and plaque compression was a significant determinant of cross-sectional compliance at both proximal sites in multiple regression analyses with age, mean arterial pressure and extent of plaque as the other independent variables.Conclusions: A major determinant of the systolic increase in coronary luminal area in patients with atheroma is a reduction in plaque cross-sectional area during systole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stent implantation in the rabbit aorta has been shown to increase vessel wall compliance at the inflow to the stent, but it is uncertain whether similar effects might be seen in the coronary arteries of humans and whether this would have any significant clinical consequences. First, we measured vessel compliance (systolic lumen area--diastolic lumen area/pulse pressure) before, immediately after, and at the 6-month follow-up visit at a site 5 mm upstream of the proximal edge of an implanted coronary stent in patients undergoing coronary intervention using motorized pull-back intravascular ultrasound recordings. Compliance in the upstream segment increased significantly immediately after stenting (before 7.13 +/- 1.49 vs after 10.73 +/- 1.36 mm2/mm Hg, p = 0.03), an effect that was unchanged at 6 months of follow-up (11.84 +/- 2.11 mm2/mm Hg, p = 0.08 vs before stenting). Second, we examined the site of plaque rupture in all patients presenting with an acute coronary syndrome in whom the culprit lesion was in a vessel that had had a stent implanted >12 months previously (n = 31). Plaque rupture was statistically more likely at the inflow to the stent (n = 22) than at other sites within the culprit vessel (n = 9, p <0.01). We conclude that stenting causes an increase in vessel compliance immediately proximal to the stent, and that when a vessel has been previously stented, plaque rupture is most likely to occur at the stent inflow site. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seventeen aggressive adolescents were randomly assigned to a massage therapy group or a relaxation therapy group to receive 20-minute therapy sessions, twice a week for five weeks. The massaged adolescents had lower anxiety after the first and last sessions. By the end of the study, they also reported feeling less hostile and they were perceived by their parents as being less aggressive. Significant differences were not found for the adolescents who were assigned to the relaxation group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To evaluate a sensor-augmented insulin pump with a low glucose suspend (LGS) feature that automatically suspends basal insulin delivery for up to 2 h in response to sensor-detected hypoglycemia.Research Design and Methods: The LGS feature of the Paradigm Veo insulin pump (Medtronic, Inc., Northridge, CA) was tested for 3 weeks in 31 adults with type 1 diabetes.Results: There were 166 episodes of LGS: 66% of daytime LGS episodes were terminated within 10 min, and 20 episodes lasted the maximum 2 h. LGS use was associated with reduced nocturnal duration ≤2.2 mmol/L in those in the highest quartile of nocturnal hypoglycemia at baseline (median 46.2 vs. 1.8 min/day, P = 0.02 [LGS-OFF vs. LGS-ON]). Median sensor glucose was 3.9 mmol/L after 2-h LGS and 8.2 mmol/L at 2 h after basal restart.Conclusions: Use of an insulin pump with LGS was associated with reduced nocturnal hypoglycemia in those at greatest risk and was well accepted by patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]