Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Smoking burns itself out

Evidence that the human body has some ironic defence mechanisms:

A man had been a heavy smoker for years. One day he suffered a stroke, almost certainly related to his habit. Upon recovery, he found that he no longer had any inclination to light up – but he insisted that this had nothing to do with wanting to turn over a new leaf (so to speak) after his health scare.

It turned out that the stroke had damaged his insula, a part of the brain known to be involved in addiction.

Poetic medicine?

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