Posts Tagged ‘COVID-19’
April 18th, 2020 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
One of the most wanted ingredients in skin care is in your fridge. You will find lactic acid at a perfect concentration in plain yogurt (you don’t want the sugar). Lactic acid will give you a nice, light acid peel, just leave it on your skin while you relax. If lactic acid is so good, why doesn’t SAS offer it? We do, in a very special product: alpha/beta exfoliant. Go to our great exfoliant any time, it will do its job in just under 10 minutes. But for a relaxing “spa time”, go for yogurt. Anything you can add to yogurt? Almost any active we sell in Skin Actives, like…
April 2nd, 2020 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
“La madre naturaleza es solo química, biología y física. Eso es todo lo que es”. Rob Watson Eso es “todo” lo que es. Pero ver a la Madre Naturaleza como una entidad que podemos estudiar, investigar y comprender, no la hace menos bella que las imágenes que durante milenios la humanidad ha dibujado de una Gaia imaginaria. Prefiero “mi” Madre Naturaleza, poderosa pero conocible. En lugar de decepcionarte porque la Madre Naturaleza, o cualquiera de los demás nombres que las personas de todas las edades le han dado a la Madre Tierra (Gaia, Pachamama), no sea una diosa mágica que podamos complacer con cristales y velas, reconozcamos la belleza que…
March 21st, 2020 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and the disease it causes, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has changed the world. We are baffled, perplexed, disconcerted, confused. We never lived through a situation like we are living now. The closest it gets (for me) are the polio epidemics of 1949, 1950, 1951, 1953. Yes, year after year because epidemics (and pandemics) don’t disappear “miraculously”, although sometimes it sort of looks like it (more about this later). Although this pandemic had been predicted by so many epidemiologists and scientists, it still found us unprepared. This is shocking but not unexpected. Perhaps it’s human nature that if something it’s not happening now,…
March 14th, 2020 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
La vida sucede. Los virus (no-vida) suceden. Los virus varían en cuán contagiosos son, qué órganos humanos prefieren atacar, cuán letales son. Todo está en su ADN o, en el caso de los coronavirus, en su ARN (pero tengamos en cuenta que el ARN muta, mucho). Incluso si el covid 19 “desapareciera” en el verano, es extremadamente probable que reaparezca el próximo invierno. Si se comporta como otros virus (la “gripe española” de 1918), puede volver mutado y más letal. No hay milagros, solo Naturaleza. A la larga, los seres humanos desarrollaremos resistencia al virus, más temprano que tarde si/cuando recibamos la vacuna. Y esperemos que las comunidades científicas y…
March 14th, 2020 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Life happens. Viruses (non-life) happen. Viruses vary in how contagious they are, which human organs they prefer to attack, how lethal they are. It’s all in their DNA or, in the case of coronaviruses, their RNA (but we must remember that RNA mutates, a lot). Even if covid 19 “goes away” in the Summer, it is extremely likely that it will be back next Winter. If it behaves like other viruses (1918 “Spanish flu”), it may come back mutated and more lethal. There are no miracles, only Nature. Eventually, humans will develop resistance to the virus, sooner than later if/when we get the vaccine. And let’s hope that the scientific…
February 11th, 2020 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Burdock, Latin name Arctium, is a herb used in traditional Chinese medicine. We don’t rely on traditional medicine anymore, at least not as an effective tool, unless there is scientific evidence that it actually works for a specific problem. In many countries now facing yet another viral threat, a coronavirus “born” in 2019, doctors are testing some antiviral chemicals that helped with other viruses in the past. What are the mechanisms of action in antiviral chemicals? They vary a lot: inactivate proteases that the virus needs to assemble or nucleoside analogs that inhibit replication of the nucleic acid that forms the core of the virus, or ribozymes that cut the…