Alpha-lipoic acid is an antioxidant known for its potential to support weight loss and lower blood sugar levels, particularly in people with diabetes. Research is ongoing, and the benefits and side effects are important to understand.

Health Conditions

Many integrative medicine providers believe ALA may help prevent or manage health conditions like high blood pressure. Research primarily focuses on its role in managing diabetes and aiding weight loss.

However, alpha-lipoic acid has been studied for benefits with health conditions such as:

• Liver disease
• Polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS)/polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS) and infertility problems
• Cancers, including breast and colon cancers
• Brain injury due to stroke
• Neurodegenerative diseases, like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease
• Chronic kidney disease
• Infections, including yeast infections, COVID-19, and Rocky Mountain spotted fever
• Anti-aging and inflammation effects
• Rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and other autoimmune diseases
• Erectile dysfunction
• Nerve function

To date, there is little evidence to support any of these claims for ALA use. Keep in mind that no supplement is intended to treat, cure, or prevent disease.

May Help With Weight Loss

Research on ALA for weight loss is still preliminary and lacks firm conclusions. Studies have shown:

• A 2017 review of studies found that ALA supplements, ranging in doses from 300 milligrams to 1,800 milligrams daily, helped prompt an average weight loss of 2.8 pounds compared to a placebo.
• A 2018 review similarly found that ALA resulted in more weight loss compared to placebo. However, the average weight loss was only 1.5 pounds.
• In 2020, a meta-analysis found that treatment with ALA significantly reduced body mass index (BMI) and reduced weight by about 5 pounds as compared to a placebo. BMI is an estimate of body fat based on height and weight.

While these three systematic reviews offer some promising evidence, the study methods varied greatly among the individual studies, and the amount of weight loss was small. As a result, it’s difficult to draw firm conclusions from them.

May Help Control Blood Sugar

ALA might help control glucose by enhancing blood sugar metabolism, potentially aiding diabetes management. The research results, however, are mixed and include:

• A 2018 review of 20 randomized controlled trials looked at ALA use in people with metabolic disorders, including type 2 diabetes. Results showed ALA supplements lowered fasting blood glucose, insulin concentration, insulin resistance, and hemoglobin A1C levels. Your hemoglobin A1C level shows your average blood sugar over the past three months.
• A 2019 review suggested that ALA reduced fasting blood glucose and A1C levels.
• A 2021 review found that ALA supplementation reduced insulin and insulin resistance but did not reduce A1C levels.

If you have diabetes and are considering ALA supplementation, ask a healthcare provider if it would be appropriate for your needs.

May Help With Neuropathy

ALA is an antioxidant that acts to limit cell damage from harmful compounds called free radicals. The antioxidant properties may help with neuropathy, which causes symptoms like nerve pain, numbness, and tingling.

An analysis of five studies found ALA helped improve function and reduce pain after surgery for people with carpal tunnel syndrome—a condition in which compression of a nerve in the wrist produces tingling, numbness, weakness, and pain in the hand and fingers.

Neuropathic pain is the medical term used to describe the pain, numbness, and abnormal sensations caused by nerve damage. The damage is often caused by oxidative stress placed on the nerves by a chronic disease, such as:

• Diabetes (diabetic neuropathy is a common complication)
• HIV
• Kidney failure
• Lyme disease
• Shingles
• Thyroid disease

A 2021 study found that people with pain from unknown causes reported less severe pain scores when they took between 400 milligrams and 800 milligrams of an oral ALA supplement compared to those who took a placebo.

A review of studies concluded that the antioxidant properties of alpha lipoic acid could help manage neuropathic pain, though it also noted that clinical studies have been inconsistent with dosing and treatment protocols. And because ALA is often combined with other compounds, it’s not yet known how much benefit is due to ALA.

May Reduce Heart Disease Risk Factors

A 2018 study suggested ALA may improve lipids, including “bad” low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol and triglycerides, but found no improvement in “good” high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol.

However, results are mixed, with a 2019 study showing no improvements in blood lipid levels with ALA.

There is some evidence that ALA can reduce markers of inflammation, such as:

• C-reactive protein
• Interleukin-6
• Tumor necrosis factor-alpha, which promotes insulin resistance and is associated with type 2 diabetes

High levels of C-reactive protein are considered a risk factor for heart disease.

A 2019 review found a significant reduction in all three markers with supplementation of ALA.

Another study published in 2020 found that 600 milligrams of ALA given orally for four months significantly reduced these same inflammatory markers.

May Support Skin Health

ALA is an ingredient in many skin care products. In several small studies, ALA has been shown to reduce water loss from the skin and improve skin hydration, skin scaling, and roughness.

As an antioxidant, ALA may help protect against skin damage by protecting against the sun’s harmful UV radiation and reducing fine lines, wrinkles, and age spots.

However, some of these studies are older, and larger studies are needed to confirm whether ALA has these skin benefits.

Primary Mitochondrial Disorders

ALA supplementation has been recommended in people with primary mitochondrial disorders, or PMDs. PMDs are rare genetic disorders that occur due to errors in the function of the mitochondria, limiting the body’s ability to make energy within cells and leading to seizures and other symptoms.

Most of the evidence for ALA use is based on case reports, though, simply because the disorders are so rare. Research data are lacking, and people with PMDs should be monitored by a team of specialists who focus on these complex metabolic disorders.

Are There Side Effects Associated With ALA?

ALA is generally considered safe when taken as an oral supplement or used as a topical (cream) ointment. It also can be used intravenously. There do not appear to be significant adverse effects with ALA.

However, some people may experience side effects that include:

• Low blood sugar
• Nausea
• Rash (when using an ALA cream or ointment)
• Vomiting
• Headache
• Heartburn

Since ALA is an acid, it may contribute to reflux. Eating a small snack (like graham or saltine crackers) when taking a supplement can help ease heartburn or reflux.

Precautions

ALA is possibly safe in children aged 10-17 years when taken by mouth in doses up to 600 mg daily for 3 months. However, when taken in larger amounts, seizures, vomiting, and unconsciousness have been reported.

Like many other supplements, ALA is not recommended for people who are pregnant or breastfeeding. Not enough research has been done to understand ALA’s effects in these groups, although some studies suggest there may be benefits for people with complicated pregnancies.

Drug Interactions

ALA supplements may interact with:

• Thyroid medication
• Statin cholesterol drugs
• Chemotherapy treatment
• Diabetes medication
• Blood thinners

Sources and Dosage

The food you eat will always be your best source of nutrients. If you eat plenty of leafy green vegetables, seeds, and nuts, you may be able to get plenty of ALA from your diet. ALA can be found in:

• Kale, spinach, and other leafy greens
• Nuts and seeds (such as flaxseed, chia seeds, and walnuts)
• Plant oils (such as flaxseed oil, soybean oil, and canola oil)
• Oil-based salad dressings

ALA deficiency is extremely rare. Generally, healthy people can produce all the ALA the body needs. The recommended amount of ALA daily is 1.6 grams for men and 1.1 grams for women. There is also no set upper intake limit.

If you take too much ALA, you may experience side effects that typically resolve when the supplement is stopped. There are cases of severe symptoms from taking large amounts of ALA, including seizures and organ failure.

In one case, a 22-year-old woman experienced tachycardia (rapid heartbeat), altered mental state, and metabolic acidosis.

Always speak with a healthcare provider before taking a supplement to ensure that the supplement and dosage are appropriate for your individual needs.

Like most nutritional supplements, ALA should be stored in a cool, dry place.

As I pointed out in an earlier post, I’m not particularly interested in my YouTube channel at the moment. I think that, for now, I will leave YouTube to the horde of reactionaries and conspiracy theorists that has dominated YouTube and other popular websites for many years already, so that they can continue to yell into the void, accomplish nothing, and repeat establishment propaganda. I’m not greedy. I guess that I’m a bit glad that my YouTube channel hasn’t been taken down. All of my channels on other video-sharing websites got taken down some years ago because of censorship or copyright claims. I didn’t get to use them for anything or to have any fun with them for long. Even my PayPal account got deleted about a decade or more ago because of censorship, since I linked it to my YouTube channel, though it didn’t bring me any income and I almost never used it. In order to confirm my suspicions, I later called PayPal and spoke to a representative. But, when I asked him why my account got deleted, he said that something strange happened. So, he couldn’t activate my account again even though he tried. At least I still have my blog, though I haven’t taken it all that seriously either since I’ve tried to check if I can lose followers for some years. Well, it seems that no matter how many bad jokes I make, crazed propagandists like Alex Jones will never stop looking at my blog. What’s also worth mentioning is that although Jones has been gone from YouTube for almost a decade, others have taken his place. The young, angry, badly-educated reactionary crowd that listened to Jones and voted for Donald Trump in 2016 is still there. Some people have figured out that they can gain many subscribers and make money by pandering to this huge right-wing crowd and telling them what they want to hear. So, nowadays, I usually see videos of reactionaries insulting, attacking, and trying to silence people that they don’t agree with in the feed of my app even though I don’t watch these videos. And Jones himself hasn’t gone anywhere. Since he knows what to say and do in order to continue to get support from certain wealthy people, he has used other websites to continue to spew his lies and madness, and I never thought that he’d be ruined after getting purged from YouTube because I’ve always known who he is. So, YouTube hasn’t been occupying my mind for a long time. It never has occupied my mind much. Moreover, I’ve been experiencing such debilitating fatigue in the last year that I’ve been finding it difficult to speak and not really wanting to speak. Well, this is what can happen if you have a disease that always attacks your liver, your brain, your heart, and possibly (probably) your other internal organs. Therefore, my focus and energy have been so poor for the last several months that I haven’t even been able to spend much time on reading and researching, which is what I wanted to do. Well, this is really the story of my life because I’ve always had this disease. The worst thing about my disease is that there is no cure for it. Still, because of my reading, I’ve been able to find effective supplements that make me feel somewhat better, since I now know what this almost unknown disease is called, thanks to my reading of old medical books. I think that I will talk about these supplements in some future post. I finished reading Vasily Zubov’s ‘Leonardo da Vinci’ (1961) a few months ago, and I will quote from it now because I did highlight some, though not many, pages from it. “Often we find the word “ask” in Leonardo’s notebooks: “Ask Benedetto Portinari how the people go on the ice in Flanders”. “Ask the wife of Biagino Crivelli how the capon rears and hatches the eggs of the hen when he is in the mating season”. Leonardo turned to books with such questions, in order to get primary evidence on a question that occupied him, and he turned to them when he had just developed or thought through a viewpoint of his own. Leonardo’s notes are not only the fruit of his independent observations as a scientist and artist, but reveal the diversity of his reading. Solmi’s remarks are quite correct in this respect, although his studies of Leonardo’s sources are dated in places, especially where he skips over the intermediaries and has Da Vinci reading a number of Arab and ancient authors whose books would scarcely have been read by the great Italian scientist. Now let us take a close look at Leonardo da Vinci’s attitude toward the books he read, using as our example two works he definitely knew: Leon Battista Alberti’s three books on painting and ten books on architecture. We might say that as Leonardo read the books on painting, he entered into a conversation with the author. His notes and remarks are comments addressed to a collocutor. On comparing Leonardo’s texts with those of Alberti, we seem to be witnessing a dialogue, a metamorphosis and continual development of ideas, leading at times to a direct clash of opinions. That gives individual shadings to assertions which at first glance seem to be identical. Here is a notable example. Alberti spoke rather cursorily of the reflections of the faces of persons walking through a meadow: “We see in the faces of people that are walking over grass that they always have a greenish hue.” Leonardo spoke of the same thing in a much more specific and accurate manner: “If the surface of the ground near to her be meadows, and the woman be placed between a meadow lit by the sun and the sun itself, you will find that all the parts of the folds [of her dress] which are turned toward the meadow will be dyed by the reflected rays to the color of the meadow”. And, he states further: “that part [of the woman] which is exposed to the luminous air, through the weaving and penetrating of the sun’s rays, will tend toward blue, since the air is blue”. Vasari’s biography of Leonardo contains the following lines: “Philosophizing of natural things, he set himself to seek out the properties of herbs, going on even to observe the motions of the heavens, the path of the moon, and the courses of the sun.” In the first edition (1550) this is followed by the phrase: “That is why he formed in his mind a heretical view of things, not in agreement with any religion; evidently he preferred being a philosopher to being a Christian.” In the next edition (1568) he omitted this phrase, remarking that he had been poorly informed, but he could not reconcile things and left in his biography the story that Leonardo, on his deathbed, “asked to have himself diligently informed of the teaching of the Catholic faith, and of the good way and the holy Christian religion,” and that re repented of “how much he had offended God and mankind in not having worked at his art as he should have done.” It did not occur to Vasari that his picture of Leonardo’s deathbed repentance indirectly confirmed his earlier statement that throughout life Leonardo preferred to be a “philosopher.” The clarity of mind with which Leonardo approached faith in spirits is remarkable not only for this time, but for a much later period. It should not be forgotten that belief in magic continued to hold on stubbornly through the sixteenth century. One need but recall the names of Girolamo Cardano and Paracelsus.” Even before I finished reading Zubov’s book, I finished reading ‘Michelangelo: His Life, His Times, His Era’ (1921) by Georg Brandes. I will quote from it too because I haven’t yet posted everything that I highlighted. “Both Leonardo and Michelangelo were poets. Michelangelo’s verses have come down to us, and they startle us with their blending of deep human passion and sophisticated reflection. He was at bottom a poet of solid competence, but there is too much that is labored in his considerable output. Surprisingly enough in a creative artist of swift decision, Michelangelo kept on revising, improving and polishing his verses; and equally surprising, Leonardo, working with infinite deliberation as an artist, making sketch after sketch before tackling a task, was an improviser par excellence as a poet. Accompanying himself on a lyra di braccio he had constructed himself, he was able to sing songs he made up on the spot. Il migliore dicitore di rime all improviso del tempo, he was called – the greatest lyric improviser of his time. We are in no position to judge Leonardo’s verses, for they have all been lost. We do know his prose. As for Michelangelo, his prose we know only from his letters, which deal for the most part with financial straits and family troubles. They have nothing to do with art, even though they may include an occasional emotional passage. Leonardo, however, was clearly a stylist. His description of a storm – the thrice-revised word picture of the Deluge – lives and breathes, reveals the talent of a painter and musician transmuted into words. Michelangelo’s poetry is introspective, marked now by the bitter irony, now by flaming pathos. Leonardo is preeminently thoughtful and lucid, as revealed in his fables and parables. Take the one about the butterfly that burns its wings: “Thou false light, how many hast thou not wretchedly deceived in days gone by, as thou hast deceived me! Were I meant to see the light, should it not then also be within my power to tell the sun from a miserable penny taper?” Leonardo’s minor poetic endeavors reflect the clarity of his mind, the serenity of his wisdom. Michelangelo at his best impresses with the power and fierceness of his style. In Milan, where he was drawn to the court of Ludovico il Moro, and where he later executed the collossal equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza – a glorification of the individual which democratic envy would have made impossible in Florence – a practical orientation prevailed, a striving for knowing and transforming reality, which may be properly designated as Aristotelian rather than Platonic. It is instructive that the name of Plato occurs but once in Leonardo’s five thousand manuscript pages, and on that occasion in a geometrical context, whereas he constantly cites Aristotle. Leonardo’s life was not solely devoted to the cultivation of art, but was spent in practical activities, scientific experiments and the observation of nature. In Milan he began the construction of canals equipped with ingenious locks of his own design. Toward the end of his life he proposed to Francis I the construction of a canal to join the rivers Sauldre and Morantin and to serve irrigation as well as navigation. He invented one machine after another, not merely numerous war devices, which can scarcely have been very practical, since otherwise they would have rendered Il Moro invincible, but countless appliances for peaceful purposes, from modest ones to serve everyday needs to highly ambitious ones. They included an ingenious pedometer, a rolling mill for iron, machines for making cylinders, files, saws, and drills, for cutting cloth, for planing and carding, a mechanical wine press, a goldbeater’s hammer, a ditch-digger, a wind-driven plow, a machine for drilling into the earth, a wheel for powering ships. He was not only the first to invent the screw propeller and to use a screw on a moving axle as a motor, but thought of using it in flight, built small paper models with thin steel propellers that could steer themselves. He invented a device for measuring the density of air. He was forever occupied with building different types of aircraft. He wrote a study on the flight of birds, constructed wings, flying chairs, gondolas for airships. He invented the parachute. “If a man have a tent of stiffened canvas,” he writes, “twelve ells wide and twelve ells long, he can plunge down from any height without fear.” Heat radiation is the object of his inquiries. He notes that rays passing through a glass globe filled with cold water are warmer than the fire whence they come, behaving much like rays reflected by a concave mirror. Leonardo understood steam power before anyone else did. He gives a careful description of a device he constructed to hurl a ball weighing one talent a distance of six stadia. All matters of mechanical construction came easily to him. He took the use of iron for cogwheels, beams, levers and rolls for granted, though it was quite rare at his time. He constantly pondered on how to replace hand work with machines. Leonardo understood before Copernicus that the earth revolves around the sun. He discovered the law of complementary colors before Chevreul. Before Pascal he perceived that water in two joined pipes always maintains the same level, whatever the form of the vessels. He studied cloud formation. Before the invention of telescopes, he recommended that eye glasses be made for seeing the moon larger (fa occhiali da vedere la luna grande). He was a passionate student of optics. He delved into the peculiarities of mirrors. He invented the camera obscura and explained its property of inverting images. He studied the nature of magnets. He invented the diving bell, but was reluctant to publish this invention, for fear, he said, that it might be used to commit murder under water. He studied acoustics as he did optics. He had a vague notion of radio communications, asserting that if holes were bored into the earth at two distant points, the human voice could be heard over great distances. He grasped the function of the heart and the circulation of the blood before anyone else did. He immersed himself into botany, found the rules by which leaves are arranged about a stalk and tested the effects of poisons on plants. Numerous drawings of plants from his hand, testify to his love of plant life. He had insight into geology before anyone else did. He protested that 5,288 years, given by the theologians of his time as the age of the earth, were not long enough. The banks of the Po, he insisted, showed alluvial deposits that would have required at least 200,000 years to accumulate. His geological studies led him to voice cautious doubt that there could have been anything like a general deluge. Seventy years before Bernard Palissy, founder of ceramics, who is regarded in France as the creator of geology, Leonardo laid the foundations of that science. Pondering the marine shells found high up in the mountains, he says: “These shells cannot have been carried there by the Deluge. They are all found at the same level, even though the mountain peaks are often still higher. If one believes that these molluscs, ordinarily found near the sea coast, began to move when the oceans swelled, then forty days of rain would not have been enough for these slow-moving creatures to traverse the distance of two hundred and fifty miles from the Adriatic coast to Montferrat.” He grasped that these shells had been deposited on the mountains by waters that had run off – something Voltaire failed to understand two-and-a-half centuries later. Leonardo declared, further, that the reflex movements of the limbs originated in the spinal cord rather than the brain. Like Michelangelo after him, he was a devoted anatomist. He had no patience with artists who, in revulsion before flayed and decomposing cadavers, shrank from obtaining insight into the structure and true character of the human body. Unlike Michelangelo, he concentrated on the influence of the emotions on the organs rather than on the interplay of muscles. Universal as he was, he strove to grasp the very essence of life. He found the source of life in movement (il moto e causa d’ogni vita) and here as in so many other areas anticipated the future. Among the many astonishing aspects of his genius is the fact that he left his manuscripts unpublished, indeed, made them difficult of access by employing mirror-writing, from right to left. He seems to have been entirely free of scientific ambition, for he allowed no one even to see his manuscripts.”

Gilmore Station is an elevated rapid transit station on the Millennium Line of Metro Vancouver’s SkyTrain network. Opened on August 31, 2002, it is located at Gilmore Avenue and Dawson Street (near Lougheed Highway) in Burnaby. It sits at the western edge of the Brentwood neighbourhood, offering quick trips of under 20 minutes to downtown Vancouver. It was designed by Busby + Associates, featuring a transparent entry plaza, side platforms, and an exposed wood-and-glass canopy with a warm timber ceiling. It’s fully integrated with escalators, stairs, and elevators for accessibility.

The area is shifting rapidly from a low-density light industrial zone into a high-density urban hub. The station is directly connected to the massive, master-planned Gilmore Place development by the Onni Group, which features high-rise residential towers (including some of the tallest in the province), office spaces, and ground-level retail anchored by major conveniences like T&T Supermarket. It is also within walking distance of The Amazing Brentwood shopping and entertainment district.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, also known as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS), is far more than simply feeling tired.

In this video, Dr. Gary Kaplan explains the science behind ME/CFS, including why patients experience debilitating fatigue, post-exertional malaise (PEM), brain fog, non-restorative sleep, and flu-like symptoms that can persist for years.

He explores how dysfunction in the immune system, nervous system, and cellular energy production may contribute to this complex condition—and why so many patients are often misunderstood or misdiagnosed.

You’ll learn:

✔ What ME/CFS is and how it differs from ordinary fatigue
✔ Why post-exertional malaise (PEM) is a defining symptom
✔ The role of neuroinflammation and the “brain on fire” phenomenon
✔ How mitochondrial dysfunction may contribute to profound exhaustion
✔ Why brain fog occurs and what it may reveal about the condition
✔ The connection between ME/CFS and viral triggers such as Epstein-Barr virus, Lyme disease, and Long COVID
✔ Why traditional approaches sometimes fall short
✔ Integrative and emerging approaches being explored for ME/CFS treatment

Dr. Kaplan also discusses the overlap between ME/CFS and fibromyalgia, a condition that shares some biological mechanisms but has its own unique features. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss our upcoming video dedicated entirely to fibromyalgia.

At the Kaplan Center for Integrative Medicine, we have spent more than 40 years caring for patients with complex chronic illnesses, helping identify the underlying factors that contribute to persistent symptoms and reduced quality of life.

About Dr. Gary Kaplan

Dr. Gary Kaplan is the founder and medical director of the Kaplan Center for Integrative Medicine in McLean, Virginia. He is also an associate professor at Georgetown University, and author of two books. He is board-certified in both Family Medicine and Pain Medicine and has devoted his career to treating complex chronic conditions through a systems-based, integrative approach.

Weis and Hickman have me hooked now, and I knew re-reading book 4 would strengthen this series’ hold on me. I remembered the impact it had on me, but what I didn’t know was if its power was due to my inexperience with the fantasy landscape when I first read it or if it truly was a masterwork amongst its contemporaries.

What is Sepent Mage About?

On the water world of Chelestra, old enemies are forced into uneasy alliances as ancient secrets rise from the depths. Haplo returns under orders to sow chaos, only to find his loyalties tested by unexpected truths, and Alfred begins to see the cracks in the ideals he once held sacred. As humans, elves, and dwarves struggle to coexist, a far greater threat begins to stir beneath the waves, born not of hatred, but of the unintended consequences of power.

Review

I remembered liking Serpent Mage, but I didn’t remember how hard it hits. Alfred’s disillusionment arc is one of the book’s strongest threads. His gradual unraveling—watching the ideals he once clung to erode in the face of corruption and control—is handled with a deft use of dramatic irony. As readers, we see the truth before he does, which adds a painful tension to every revelation. Haplo’s journey is equally impressive. At first, it seems like he’s regressing, but the story skillfully uses that moment to deepen his arc. His return to growth isn’t a rehash. It’s a confrontation with old loyalties and a genuine test of the progress he’s made.

The worldbuilding continues to shine, though Chelestra was harder for me to visualize than the realms in the previous installments. Early descriptions gave me one image, then shifted in ways that made me question my understanding. By the end, I had circled back to my original impression. That said, it wasn’t the island-water system that stuck with me, but the serpents and the eerie qualities of the water itself, triggering real tension and unease. Few fantasy books make me feel anxious. This one did, and I loved it for that. And I might be sleeping with a light on for a while.

Where Serpent Mage really excels is in expanding the series’ central conflicts. The balance of power between the Sartan, Patryns, and Mensch has shifted in fascinating, unexpected ways. The introduction of a greater evil—an unintended consequence of their centuries-long struggle—turns the entire dynamic on its head. What once seemed like a black-and-white war is now mired in shades of gray, revealing that both sides may have been pawns of something far more sinister.

Is Serpent Mage with Reading?

As the fourth installment, Serpent Mage functions as a turning point in The Death Gate Cycle. It doesn’t just prepare the ground for the final three books—it transforms what we thought the story was about. And for a series already rich with worldbuilding, conflict, and character, that’s no small feat.

I recommend this novel if you’ve read the first three installments. It’s worth continuing on.

Akin to a massage, but much, much gentler, Manual Lymphatic Drainage aims to assist the body’s lymphatic system (which I liken to a street cleaner) in moving the lymph to the node sites. There are some specific techniques involved that I’ll describe as we go along, while a fireplace crackles in the background and the very soft sounds of fabric can be heard just above it.

While I was chatting about classical music at the end, I mention Marco Beltrami, who did do the music for Hellboy but I said I thought he did Underworld—Paul Haslinger did the first Underworld movie, and Beltrami worked on Underworld: Evolution. Also, I cannot even believe, but the composer whose name I forgot was James Newton Howard. I remembered Jean-Yves Thibaudet (who is a pianist), but not James Newton Howard. BLEH.

Manual Lymphatic Drainage is relaxing, but it is a 📢 PSEUDOSCIENCE 📢 From Wikipedia: “Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method.” This video is only intended for relaxation purposes, and I’m just an actor on the Internet.

Starting with the Face: 00:00 – 12:46
Working on the Left Arm & Chest: 12:46 – 22:05
Switching to the Right Arm & Chest: 22:05 – 30:09
Left Leg Work: 30:09 – 40:37
Finishing with the Right Leg: 40:37 – 50:26
Wrapping Up: 50:26 – 51:02
Outro with Face Touching/Massage: 51:02 – 52:20

Triggers include: soft speaking, whispering, narrating actions, massage, explaining, crinkling, woo, fabric sounds, rambling, fireplace sounds in the background, and personal attention.

Lonsdale Avenue has been a cornerstone of North Vancouver since the city’s early days. When North Vancouver was first established, Lonsdale was planned as a prominent thoroughfare, running right down the middle of the city’s layout. Its strategic importance was tied to its role in transportation—originally, the ferry at the foot of Lonsdale (in Lower Lonsdale) was a key connection point. These ferries, initially privately owned, were later managed by the government as the city grew, ensuring steady access to resources and workforce mobility. This made Lonsdale a vital lifeline for the burgeoning community, connecting it to downtown Vancouver and beyond.

As of 2019, Lonsdale has become a desirable area for young professional families, business owners, and investors. With the cost of living in downtown Vancouver skyrocketing, many are drawn to North Vancouver for a high quality of life while still being close to the city. The avenue features art installations, new parklet outdoor spaces, and some of the North Shore’s best restaurants, shops, cafes, and parks.

Lower Lonsdale, closer to the waterfront, is known for its real estate market, with a mix of houses, apartments, condos, and vacant lots for sale. It’s also home to the Lonsdale Quay Market and the Shipyards, a popular spot for dining, events, and waterfront views.

Further up the avenue, Central Lonsdale is more residential but still vibrant with charming coffee shops, restaurants, and boutique stores. It’s a walkable area with a community feel, often highlighted for its rows of shops and eateries.

Lonsdale Avenue encapsulates the evolution of North Vancouver—from a ferry-dependent settlement to a modern, thriving community. It’s a place where history meets contemporary living, offering a balance of cultural richness, accessibility, and community spirit.

Music video by Owl City performing When Can I See You Again? (from “Wreck-It Ralph”).© 2012 Walt Disney Records