Laughter is the best medicine

"Laughter is the best medicine." This quote certainly holds the truth, laughter is indeed the best medicine. A recent study took a small group of high-risk diabetes patients and gave them a prescription of laughter for a year. The Loma Linda University which had held this experiment had two groups, Group L ( laughter group) and Group C( Control ). Group L watched a half hour of humor of their choice, while Group C did not. However, both of the groups were given standard diabetes treatment. After one year, in Group L, the patients' HDL cholesterol (the good kind) increased by 26 %. In comparison, Group C's patients had only increased by 3%. Additionally, in another test, C-reactive proteins, a sign of inflammation and cardiovascular disease, was down 66% for Group L. On the contrary, for Group C, the C-reactive proteins only decreased by 26%.





Other studies from University of Maryland School of Medicine, shows laughter can increase blood flow in a positive manner. This is due to your blood vessels expanding when you laugh .However, still more research needs to be processed in order to find the deeper meaning of these results.





In my opinion, laughter is indeed the best medicine, even though further research needs to be made. For instance, when I hear a humorous joke from a friend, I laugh out loud and my whole day becomes better. To emphasize, we should all laugh at least once every day, due to the uplifting feeling coming from laughter!



For more information visit www.ivescience.org .
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Science Extra Credit

"In Science the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurred. "
Sir William Osler (1849-1919) Canadian physician.

When I first heard this quote, it made me wonder quite a bit. However, as I started to decompose the quote, I could sense its deeper meaning. This quotation means that in the scientific field, the honor does not got to the man who thought of it first but to the person who convinced the world that their idea is true. This is true because when you have a hypothesis, you must have evidence to back up. So, people will actually believe in your idea. For example, there was a scientist named Alfred Wegener who came up with the Continental drift theory. He believed that the Earth used to be one gargantuan continent called Pangaea. However, the society had different beliefs about the Earth at that time, so he convinced them with supporting evidence and clues. Many years later, today's society accepts his theory because of his persuasion and efforts .