Health News: Running High With President George W. Bush (Or Any President) – A New Posting On The Compassion Chronicles By Political Scientist Bryan W. Brickner
Chicago, IL (PRWEB) July 31, 2013 -- Exercise, the cannabinoid system and human evolution are the focus of a new posting on The Compassion Chronicles by author and political scientist Bryan W. Brickner. "Running High With President George W. Bush (Or Any President),” is the title for new posting, an excerpt from Brickner’s forthcoming The Book of the Is: A book on bridges (Summer 2013).
“Cannabis consumption is as natural to the body as running,” observed Brickner, “and cannabinoid receptors have been around longer than running; a lot longer – about 498 million years longer. In 2004, Scientific American noted in the article ‘The Brain’s Own Marijuana’, that the CB1 receptor was present in all vertebrate species and suggested the brain has been using it’s own marijuana, endocannabinoids, for about 500 million years.”
“Running,” Brickner continued, who is publisher of The Cannabis Papers: A citizen’s guide to cannabinoids (2011), “is about two million years old, and it is dependent on the cannabinoid system.”
In 2003, NeuroReport – Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuropsychology published the article “Exercise activates the endocannabinoid system,” where it was first reported that running produces the endocannabinoid anandamide and apparently accounts for the runner’s high.
“Then one reads President Bush’s 2002 Runner’s World interview,” followed Brickner, “where he says ‘Running is something that just makes you feel fantastic’ – and then you realize he’s talking about the cannabinoid system, the CS, and how similar these feelings are – well, the disconnect between our laws and science becomes clear – and so does the way forward.”
According to the NeuroReport science, the repetitive action of exercise stimulates the production of anandamide and other endocannabinoids; this higher production appears to account for the healing effect runner's report.
Later in the Runner’s World interview President Bush is asked about running and how it helped him quit alcohol: “Definitely. As a runner, I quickly realized what it felt like to be healthy and I already knew what it felt like to be unhealthy. If you’re drinking too much and you’re running to cure a hangover, pretty soon you have to make a choice. Do you want to keep getting a hangover or do you want to feel the way you do after a run? So running is a way to heal people.”
Brickner has a 1997 political science doctorate from Purdue University and is the author of several books, to include Article the first of the Bill of Rights: the forgotten story of constitutional representation (2006) and co-author of The Cannabis Papers: A citizen’s guide to cannabinoids (2011). The Compassion Chronicles is an online destination for news, opinion, resources and networking.
Bryan W. Brickner, EwPublishing, +1 (773) 308-3777, [email protected]
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