Grave matters

COMING soon to a therapy centre near you: mock funerals, where you can read your own will, get nailed into a coffin and feel mourned over.

The idea of “well-dying” is being pioneered by the Korea Life Consulting Co, which charges up to £165 per person to taste a very-near-death experience. Customers in South Korea are brought to a room decorated with pictures of dead celebrities, including Diana, Princess of Wales, and dressed in traditional funeral robes.

They are then told told by a black-garbed therapist: “I want to give you one more day to live, but it’s time to be placed into coffins. I hope your tired flesh and bodies will be peacefully put to rest.” Workers nail the coffins shut and sprinkle earth on top as a funeral dirge is played. About 15 minutes later, the caskets are opened and the nearly-departed are declared reborn.

The mock funerals are intended as a cathartic experience, enabling people to map out a better future by reflecting on their pasts, futures, lives and deaths, say the organisers.

Lee Hye-jung, a 23-year-old woman studying engineering, emerged from her coffin saying: “I felt really, really scared. I’ll live differently from now on, so as not to have any regrets about my life.”

Some corporations believe the service may improve their staff’s performance. Samsung Electronics, South Korea’s largest company, has reportedly sent 900 workers from one of its factories to sample life beyond the grave. For many British employees, however, perhaps work in itself is as deathly an experience as they would ever wish to have.

Fishy health claims

FISH oil may not be the all-round good guy that current wisdom holds it to be, Toronto University scientists caution. They believe that high doses may have harmful effects on your circulation.

Omega3 oil found in cod livers, as well as mackerel, tuna and herring, has been hailed as beneficial for everything from heart health to children’s IQs. A Toronto University study in November even claimed it could help people to beat shyness.

But another Toronto team this week says a systematic review of previous research trials shows that fish oil may be a two-edged sword, helping some cardiac patients while harming others. “Fish oils can have complex and varied effects on the heart. These include blocking cardiac ion channels, decreasing blood coagulation and possibly altering immune function,” says the report author, Dr David Jenkins.

The review of multiple large-scale studies and randomised controlled trials, in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, says evidence shows, in particular, that high doses could have harmful effects, such as an increased risk of bleeding.

Dopamine hit

HOPES for world peace will take a beating from new evidence showing that our brains get a hormonal kick out of violence. Researchers at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, say their lab tests show that male mammals get a shot of a reward chemical, dopamine, when they engage in violence or anticipate it, reports the journal, Psychopharmacology.

Plant power

PROMISING plant cure of the week is the Indian mangrove species Acanthus ilicifolius. It promises to prevent the growth of liver cancer, the fifth most common cancer in the world, claim Indian scientists.

They write in the World Journal of Gastroenterology that an extract of the plant prevents tumour growth in lab tests. The acanthus is already used as a painkiller by folk therapists in Kerala.

Tress treatment

HAIR clippings from a local barber shop have helped scientists to pioneer a new way to repair nerves severed or crushed in accidents.

The team, at Wake Forest University, North Carolina, chemically processed the hair to extract keratin, a protein believed to contain molecules that regulate cell behaviour, and frequently cited on beauty-shampoo bottles.

The scientists report in Biomaterials that their early-stage tests show that keratin is better able to speed nerve regeneration and boost nerve function, compared with current forms of treatment, such as nerve grafts and microsurgery. The keratin prompts a chemical cascade that tells nerve cells to begin regrowing, and to cut across any blood clots in their way. “The fact that we were able to accomplish this with gels made from keratin is pretty remarkable,” says Mark Van Dyke, the report author.

Bum rap

SWEDEN’S liberal welfare system is the envy of nations the world over, but perhaps it’s a little too liberal. A court in Stockholm has just revoked an official warning given to a doctor for performing anal massage to treat his patients’ back pain and headaches.

The court ruled that the Swedish Medical Responsibility Board had not been able to prove its claims that the treatment contradicted “scientific tried and tested experience”. Hmm, did the court really expect scientists to have conducted clinical tests to see if anal massage actually helps anyone?

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