22
“A JOURNEY TO NASHVILLE” – QUALITY OF LIFE IS SOMETIMES MORE IMPORTANT THAN LIFE ITSELF: USE OF CANNABIS AS A POTENTIAL TREATMENT FOR INTESTINAL INFLAMMATORY DISEASE
Music is a fascinating journey that undoubtedly has to be pursued. However, when attempting to describe places that you had traveled while listening to something so sui géneris, history repeats itself and becomes complex.
Dra. Ana Villaseñor-Todd Mexican scientist recognized by her research on minimal hepatic encephalopathy, oxidative stress, quality of life, and social cognition. As a professional physician, she completed her postgraduate studies at Texas A&M University; currently, she is a candidate to receive the Medical Doctor degree by the UANL.
TECHNICAL COMMITTEE Bastán-Fabián, Daniel; GarridoTreviño, Luis Felipe; MartínezVázquez, Manuel. School of Medicine and Health Sciences – Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education. Institute of Digestive Health, Clinic of Inflammatory Disease.
Once upon a summer night in the south of Athens, illuminated by the psychedelic reflex of the city lights, on the southern shore of the Cumberland river, packed rooftops with lovers of Country music enjoy at the Lower Broad; a piano duel, the smell of lavender-colored sunflowers, a couple of beers at Tootsies... Submerged into Taylor Swift’s hometown, an Elvis Presley’s building stands in the background, and just when I thought that it could not be better, the voice of a passionate, sophisticated, and quiet woman with a British accent started to sound. Her lyrics dwell on dreams and small victories, but more importantly, the redeeming power of love. The folk creator of “Something More Beautiful” is back after six years of absence, probably caused by some exacerbation of her intestinal inflammatory disease. She is Elizabeth Caroline Orton. Several years have gone by since the beginning of her career and that intricate landscape of sounds she created. Today, I start my day with the song in a playlist capable of starting my engine’s car while playing a little prelude of synth, pianos, guitars, and distortion pedals from “I wish I never saw sunshine”. Every time I listen to Orton, I perceive her unique, intact, and consistent style. She emphasizes her potential as a composer; however, she recurrently expresses true moments of pain, that she uses to forget and heal. In the eve of #WorldIBDday, #breakthesilence and #ibdsmile, under the empathy and influence of the wonderful realm of Cortázar, I meditate on: “You could not, he said: You think too much before doing nothing. I assume that the reflection must precede the action”. Intestinal Inflammatory Disease (IID) comprises two main conditions: Crohn’s disease (CD) and Chronic Idiopathic Ulcerative Colitis (CIUC). Both diseases commonly manifest themselves as abdominal pain and diarrhea. An important difference between these conditions is the affection topography: CD trends affecting any section of the gastrointestinal tract, while CIUC involves only the colon and rectum. The current epidemiology reports an increased incidence of IID up to 5-fold more in the last 15 years; on the other hand, in Mexico, CIUC is 4-fold more frequent than CE. In the first Latin American study of the epidemiology of IID, the current prevalence of IID, CIUC, and CD were of 1.83, 1.45, and 0.34 for every 100,000 years/person, respectively. (1)
| NEWS IN MEDICAL RESEARCH
