For The San Diego Union-Tribune
Calling all healthy people
In the last half of 2023, it was estimated that 76 percent of adults and 87 percent of children lived in homes that did not have a landline telephone, but did have at least one cell phone.
That may bode well for mobility and such, but in terms of health, recent data suggests that people who live in wireless-only homes are less likely to have health insurance or a regular place to go for medical care, and are more likely to face financial barriers to care.
It’s a sign, say analysts, that health is inexplicably linked to access to technology.
Stories for the waiting room
Seasickness notoriously occurs when a person’s body struggles to adapt to a boat’s motion patterns on water, resulting in nausea, unsteadiness and worse. There is a reverse condition called “land sickness” that can occur when a person returns to solid ground. They may continue to feel rocking and swaying, consequently feeling ill.
An estimated 43 percent to 73 percent of persons have experienced land sickness, but the adverse effects tend to be shorter and less severe. Land sickness isn’t limited to post-water excursions. It can happen after riding on planes and trains.
Doc talk
GI rounds — medical slang for staff taking a break to eat
Get me that. Stat!
In a recent survey by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the de Beaumont Foundation, 1,000 U.S. adults were queried about policies put in place during the height of the COVID pandemic.
When considering four key policies — masking requirements in stores and businesses, mandatory vaccinations for health care workers, indoor dining closures and school shutdowns — 42 percent of respondents said all were good ideas, while 20 percent said all were “generally a bad idea.”
Support or opposition usually fell along political partisan lines.
Phobia of the week
Mageirocophobia — fear of cooking
Food for thought
Cleanliness is next to godliness and maybe healthy cooking, but not so much when dealing with raw chicken. Many chefs rinse raw chicken in the belief that it helps wash away pathogens like Salmonella. Possibly, but also problematically.
A U.S. Department of Agriculture study found that rinsing raw chicken may simply spread harmful bacteria to other surfaces, such as sinks or preparation areas where the pathogens can cross-contaminate other foods.
Experts note that if poultry is cooked at the recommended temperature of at least 165 degrees Fahrenheit, heat will kill any dangerous bacteria present on the chicken.
Best medicine
Two guys at the gym.
First guy: I do two hours of cardio every day.
Second guy: Wow! Congratulations.
First guy: I really need to find a closer parking spot.
Observation
“Death is nature’s way of saying, “Your table is ready.”
— American comedian Robin Williams (1951-2014)
Medical history
This week in 1898, Corn Flakes were invented. At Battle Creek Sanitarium, superintendent John Harvey Kellogg and Will Keith Kellogg, his younger brother and business manager, invented many grain-based foods, including a coffee substitute, a type of granola and peanut butter to provide patients with a strict nutritious diet.
In 1894, they unintentionally invented a flaked cereal process based on wheat. By 1898, W.K. Kellogg had developed the first flaked corn cereal. Patients enjoyed the cereals and wanted more to take home, leading to Kellogg creating the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company in 1906.
Sum body
A research team, writing in the journal Nature, described four distinct patterns of aging, during which specific biological systems age faster or slower, remain strong or weaken.
There are, in fact, countless variations of the four and many ways to individually age, but the scientists said rates of aging basically come down to how well these systems hold up over time:
1. Immune
2. Kidney
3. Liver
4. Metabolic
Med school
Q: Why do medical professionals take patients’ pulse using their middle and index fingers?
A: They can’t employ the thumb because it has its own pulse due to the presence of the large princeps pollisis artery, which interferes with feeling a pulse in the neck or wrist.
Curtain calls
According to Diogenes Laertius, Chryippus of Soli, a third-century Greek philosopher who lived around 206 BC, died of laughter after he observed a donkey eating his figs. He told a slave to get the donkey some wine, began laughing uproariously at his own wit, and then died. No word on whether the donkey got the wine or the joke.
LaFee is vice president of communications for the Sanford Burnham Prebys research institute.
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