Why Keeping Little Girls Squeaky Clean Could Make Them Sick (NPR)
The hygiene hypothesis: children exposed to lots of germs early in life less likely to develop allergies, asthma, autoimmune disorders. Women have higher rates of these disorders. Is that because girls are held to higher standards of cleanliness?
Grief, Unedited (NYT)
Memoirs on the loss of a spouse, such as the latest from Joyce Carol Oates
When cosmetic surgery is a marker of ambition (Guardian)
Why aren’t people more concerned about medical risks of cosmetic surgery? We’re increasingly socialised to believe we must invest in ourselves to improve our life chances and opportunities, whether it’s paying for higher education, looks or both.
The Tale of Tea with Jim the Third (Bioethics Forum)
Alice Dreger on the story of a man with disorder of sex development (formerly known as intersex). The biggest issue is not surgery, hormonal treatments, or lack of psychological support for families. It’s shame and how no one deals with it.
First, studies piled up showing that taking antioxidants—even such common and seemingly innocuous ones as beta carotene and vitamins C and E—as supplements was not beneficial to health and might even be dangerous, though the reason for the danger wasn’t clear. (One always pays attention when a study concludes with a phrase like “seems to increase overall mortality.”) Now the research is challenging an even more fundamental tenet of the antioxidant craze. Many of the free radicals that are neutralized by antioxidants perform valuable functions in the body. The most important: fighting toxins (white blood cells churn out free radicals by the battalion to fight bacterial infection) and fighting cancer.
Here’s why you’re right-handed or left-handed (MSNBC)
It depends on eye dominance. In recent U.S. history, the majority of presidents have been left-handed (Ford, Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, Clinton, Obama), but scientists haven’t yet found a link between hand preference and an individual’s abilities. Study based on eye and foot preferences of parrots (see left-footed parrot, right).
France’s first genetically-engineered baby born (M&C)
Headline misleading. First “savior sibling,” “spare parts baby” (think “My sister’s keeper”) in France. Embryo screened for disease and sibling match. Genetic engineering implies something was changed, not just selected.
“Opponents of health care reform are not really seeking to vindicate the power of states to regulate health care. Rather, they are counting on the fact that if they succeed with this legal gambit, the powerful interests arrayed against health care reform—the insurance industry, doctors, and drug companies—will easily overwhelm any efforts at meaningful reform in most states. Unless the Supreme Court is willing to rewrite hundreds of years of jurisprudence, however, they will not succeed.”
How vegetables can give you that golden glow (Guardian)
Carotenoids, stored in fat under the skin and found in tomatoes, peppers, plums and carrots, can give Caucasian skin a healthy-looking golden glow – a look equated with attractiveness.
Is Health Care Reform Unconstitutional? (NY Review)
One of the best discussions I’ve read on the subject. Constitutionality won’t be an issue. Health care opponents simply looking for a way to prevent government from imposing a collective solution to a social problem.
Pharmaceuticals … are now being consumed at high rates as off-label “cognitive enhancers” to boost mood, memory, and alertness. … What will happen to the fabric of society and the character of our interactions with one another? Are these altered states a genuine reflection of a new and improved “me” or “we”, or some transient drug-induced condition that thoroughly confounds what we inherently value? Will we be coerced into conforming to a wave of drug intervention in the ever expanding, do-it-yourself, self-help world?
Nipped, tucked and wide awake? (MSNBC)
Awake cosmetic surgery can be performed by doctors with two days of training and no hospital privileges. “This is just a gimmick by people who can’t operate their way out of a wet paper bag.”
Awake Cosmetic Surgery–The Pros and Cons (EmpowHer)
Growing trend alarms doctors. Presented to patient as a benefit. No side effects (or cost) of anesthesia, but requires near toxic levels of lidocaine. Selecting a cup size during surgery is like “making a decision while drunk.”
“Since the New Deal, the court has consistently held that Congress has broad constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce. This includes authority over not just goods moving across state lines, but also the economic choices of individuals within states that have significant effects on interstate markets. By that standard, this law’s constitutionality is open and shut. Does anyone doubt that the multitrillion-dollar health insurance industry is an interstate market that Congress has the power to regulate?”
The tyranny of tradition (Lancet)
Review of film written by two doctors: “Riwayat” (traditions). Indian practice of killing baby girls. 10 million girls aborted in last 20 years, even though prenatal sex determination outlawed in 1994.
Physicians Say Good Riddance to ‘Worst Drug in History’ (Medscape Today)
Pain reliever propoxyphene (Darvon, Darvocet): “No single drug has ever caused so many deaths.” Small benefits, big risks, addictive. Banned in UK 5 years ago due to suicide risk.
“Inequality has been getting worse. … One thing that this has done is it has encouraged governments, who are aware of the resentment caused by the rising inequality, to try to take some kind of steps to make it more politically acceptable.” Rajan has a chapter called ‘Let them eat credit’. “The US in particular has stimulated the housing market, it has subsidised lending to people, which drove up home prices in an unsustainable way.”
Hit Send, Take a Bow (WSJ)
Sherry Turkle’s Alone Together
Who’s the Boss, You or Your Gadget? (NYT)
All of this amped-up productivity comes with a growing sense of unease. Too often, people find themselves with little time to concentrate and reflect on their work. Or to be truly present with their friends and family. “Nobody seems to actually pay full attention; everybody is doing a worse job because they are doing more things.”
This delightful person, who signed off with “Yours fatly,” is a woman after my own heart. Her wise words took me back to a holiday in France, where the supermarkets were filled with full, fat, soft, unpasteurized cheeses, divine pastries, calorie and fat-laden crème fraiche and whole aisles of wine. I looked for low fat products and found one tiny, slender end-of-aisle display, where a small coterie of non-Europeans searched for fat-free yogurt and pre-packaged egg whites.
Dog cloning is not as cuddly as it looks (New Scientist)
Review of Dog, Inc.: The Uncanny Inside Story of Cloning Man’s Best Friend
Role of Age, Sex, and Race on Cardiac and Total Mortality Associated With Super Bowl Wins and Losses (Clinical Cardiology)
A Super Bowl loss for individual’s favored team triggered increased deaths in both men and women, especially in older patients. A Super Bowl win reduced deaths more in people age 65+ and women.
J.D. Kleinke is a medical economist, health information industry pioneer, and author of the forthcoming Catching Babies. In a dramatic, powerful, and beautifully written post on The Health Care Blog, he captures the essence of what’s wrong with modern medicine. “Who would not find great drama in a medical culture so doomed and dysfunctional, and so utterly driven by the conflict between patient preference and provider prejudice.”
Picture This: The Average US Child Has Nearly 8 Imaging Tests by Age 18 (JAMA)
That excludes dental x-rays. First large, population-based study examines the use of radiography, computed tomographic (CT) scans, and other imaging procedures in pediatric populations. 42% of children get imaged.
Close Look at a Flu Outbreak Upends Some Common Wisdom (NYT)
A study of the 2009 swine flu epidemic found that children did not catch the flu by sitting near classmates, adults probably were not infected by their children, and closing schools had little effect. Disease spread through child’s network of friends.
