Boing Boing » health

Death, be not infrequent

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Tue, 14 May 2013 19:26:38 +0000

The oldest person in the world died this year. But don't worry if you missed the event. The oldest person in the world will likely die next year, as well. In fact, according to mathematician Marc van Leeuwen, an "oldest person in the world" will die roughly every .65 years.

Man with pince-nez & smart suit hurls trusses disdainfully

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 11 May 2013 18:38:53 +0000

They just don't make ads like this anymore. "Guy with pince-nez" is great visual shorthand for "Authority figure."

Contest Entry.. Away with trusses!

How clay water filters for Ghana are made

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 11 May 2013 13:00:11 +0000

Gmoke sez, "Susan Murcott and her team's factory making clay filters for Pure Home Water in Ghana. Over 100,000 served, so far."

They're shooting for 1,000,000.

Pure Home Water, Ghana: AfriClay Filters

Strange ways to contract rare diseases

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Wed, 08 May 2013 22:48:00 +0000

The Body Horrors blog has a new recurring series called Microbial Misadventures — all about times when people met disease-causing microbes under less-than-normal circumstances. It starts with an interesting question: Given the fact that most anthrax infections come from eating tainted meat, how did a vegetarian end up with the disease in 2009? Two-word hint: Drum circle.

More evidence that your mom's illnesses can affect your mental health

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Wed, 08 May 2013 22:32:35 +0000

You've probably heard before that people with schizophrenia are more likely to have been born in winter than other seasons — and that this weird fact could be linked to their mothers coming down with the flu, or suffering from Vitamin D deficiency. A new study has now found that people with bipolar disorder had a greater likelihood of being born to women who had had the flu while pregnant. It's a strange connection, and might just be correlation. So far, doctor's don't really understand why a virus-infected mama would lead to her child developing mental illness later in life.

Working with your microbiome to produce better-scented breath

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Mon, 06 May 2013 16:48:24 +0000

Our great, collective, ongoing realization that wiping out all the bacteria in our bodies may not actually be a great idea marches on. At Scientific American, Deborah Franklin writes about chronic halitosis — the sort of bad breath that doesn't go away with a simple brushing — and scientists' efforts to cure it by encouraging the growth of some mouth bacteria, instead of pouring Listerine on everything and letting God sort it out.

Looking at the link between red meat, eggs, and heart disease

Mark Frauenfelder — Wed, 01 May 2013 17:22:25 +0000

Two recent papers about heart disease from the Cleveland Clinic are making the rounds. The studies report that red meat and eggs cause heart disease because our gut bacteria converts carnitine and choline into Trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO), a heart disease trigger.

At Huffington Post, Chris Kresser has questions about the papers:

[W]hile at first glance the papers from Dr. Hazen's group might appear to be the final nail in the coffin for the omnivorous among us, a closer inspection of their data reveals some troubling questions. First, a study back in 1999 found that seafood generates much higher levels of TMAO than red meat, eggs, or any of the other 46 foods tested. One species of fish, halibut, produced 107 times as much TMAO as beef, and 53 times as much TMAO as eggs. If high TMAO levels cause cardiovascular disease, and eating fish increases TMAO more than any other food, we'd expect to see high rates of heart disease in people who eat the most fish. Yet that is the opposite of what research shows. In fact, some studies have found eating more fish (particularly cold-water, fatty fish like salmon) reduces the risk of heart attack by a greater margin than statin drugs!

In fact, whole grains could play a role in elevating TMAO levels:

In their second paper, Dr. Hazen's team raises the possibility that the foods we eat aren't the primary driving force behind our TMAO levels, because most people are able to excrete excess TMAO that accumulates in the blood via the urine. This suggests that something else may be to blame for high TMAO. What could that be? One possibility, which the researchers themselves demonstrated in the first paper, is that differences in our gut bacteria could account for the higher TMAO levels observed in some people. They showed that those with greater amounts of a type of bacteria called Prevotella in their gut generated more TMAO after eating carnitine. And what might lead to a higher concentration of Prevotella in the gut? Ironically, previous research has shown that the people who eat large amounts of whole grains are the most likely to fit this pattern. This would suggest that a diet high in whole grains -- and not red meat or eggs -- could increase the risk of heart disease by elevating TMAO in the blood.

Red Meat and Eggs on Trial Again, But Jury Is Still Out

Bath salts in Britain

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 15:00:57 +0000

The Guardian's Mike Power investigated the "legal highs" industry and found a pretty disturbing world where you can get kilos of LSD, cannabis and MDMA replacement couriered to you for a pittance. But unlike the drugs they replace, these ones are potentially lethal, and sold interchangeably to unsuspecting neuronauts and punters.

NZ Press Council finds against statement saying "Homeopathic remedies have failed every randomised, evidence-based scientific study seeking to verify their claims of healing powers"

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 01:04:22 +0000

Juha sez, "Amazingly enough, New Zealand's North and South magazine has lost in the NZ Press Council, after a homeopath filed a complaint against an article that stated: 'Homeopathic remedies have failed every randomised, evidence-based scientific study seeking to verify their claims of healing powers.'"

"Mr Stuart [a homeopath] supplied the Press Council with a letter from Dr David St George, Chief Advisor on Integrative Care for the Ministry of Health, who advises the ministry on the development of complementary medicine in New Zealand and its potential integration into the public health system. He was not speaking for the ministry in this case but offering a personal view.
Dr St George believed the statement in North & South's article arose from a misunderstanding of the Lancet study, which had compared 110 published placebo-controlled trials of homeopathy with the same number of published placebo-controlled trials of conventional medical drug treatments. He said most of the 110 homeopathy trials in that study were "randomised, evidence-based scientific studies" which demonstrated an effect beyond a placebo effect. "
Dr St George said there was no debate about whether there were scientific studies demonstrating homeopathy's therapeutic benefit but rather, whether those studies were of an acceptable methodological quality.

Case Number: 2320 CLIVE STUART AGAINST NORTH & SOUTH (Thanks, Juha)

Not your great-great-grandfather's consumption

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 21:40:02 +0000

Tuberculosis — aka, the reason everybody in 19th century literature is always coughing up blood, escaping to the countryside for "better air", or dying tragically young — is back. And this time, it's evolved a resistance to antibiotics. In fact, in a handful of cases, tuberculosis has been resistant to every single antibiotic available to treat it. Tom Levenson explains what's happening and why it matters at The New Yorker.

Brian Eno designed hospital room

David Pescovitz — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 16:12:28 +0000

Brian Eno designed a chill-out room at the private new Montefiore Hospital in Brighton and Hove, UK. It's meant to be a spot for patients to "think, take stock or simply relax." Ortopaedic surgeon Robin Turner orchestrated the collaboration apparently after he saw his mother-in-law finally relax while checking out an Eno installation at a local festival. From The Guardian:

Turner said they intended to examine any physiological changes to people in the Eno room – pulse, blood pressure, anxiety and so on – and there was anecdotal evidence this week when a cancer patient came out and began telling Eno, not recognising him, how wonderful it was. "He wanted a copy of that room at home," said Turner. "The scientist in me says that's not very scientific but the human in me says that makes it all worthwhile."

"Surgeon prescribes Brian Eno to patients"

(above: Brian Eno, 1974, Wikimedia Commons)

Tidbits for hypochondriacs

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 16:20:45 +0000

If you would like to avoid catching somebody's cold, you should attempt to remain at least six feet away from them. That is the distance respiratory droplets can travel through air.

Zipper Club: fundraising a comic for kids with congenital heart defects

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 18:35:53 +0000

Dave sez, "THE ZIPPER CLUB is a comic focusing on survivors of childhood congenital heart defects, written by a survivor of such a condition himself. It's on Indie-GO-Go in hopes to put out a first print run. Part of the proceeds will go to the AHA and part of the run will be distributed to pediatric cardiac care centers for the kids who will truly benefit from it."

At age 8, Cliffy Goldfarb was the recipient of an emergency heart transplant. At age 9, Cliffy is now struggling to cope with the limitations his still recovering body is undergoing, and the fact that because of this, he has trouble relating to his peers. When his mom suggests spending his summer at Camp Bravehearts, a place for kids living with heart defects like his own, he has some trepidations about going this camp for “special” kids, but soon learns his worries were all over nothing when he meets a young girl named Rosie who introduces him to a group of new friends who encourage him by showing off their surgical scars to one another and inducting Cliffy into “The Zipper Club”.

Welcome to THE ZIPPER CLUB! (Thanks, Dave!)

Detect your pulse with your webcam

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 15:17:21 +0000

Thearn released a free/open program for detecting and monitoring your pulse using your webcam. The code is on github for you to download, play with and modify. If this stuff takes your fancy, be sure and read Eulerian Video Magnification for Revealing Subtle Changes in the World, an inspiring paper describing the techniques Thearn uses in his code:

This application uses openCV (http://opencv.org/) to find the location of the user's face, then isolate the forehead region. Data is collected from this location over time to estimate the user's heartbeat frequency. This is done by measuring average optical intensity in the forehead location, in the subimage's green channel alone. Physiological data can be estimated this way thanks to the optical absorbtion characteristics of oxygenated hemoglobin.
With good lighting and minimal noise due to motion, a stable heartbeat should be isolated in about 15 seconds. Other physiological waveforms, such as Mayer waves (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayer_waves), should also be visible in the raw data stream.
Once the user's pulse signal has been isolated, temporal phase variation associated with the detected hearbeat frequency is also computed. This allows for the heartbeat frequency to be exaggerated in the post-process frame rendering; causing the highlighted forhead location to pulse in sync with the user's own heartbeat (in real time).
Support for pulse-detection on multiple simultaneous people in an camera's image stream is definitely possible, but at the moment only the information from one face is extracted for cardiac analysis

thearn / webcam-pulse-detector (via O'Reilly Radar)

Bras useless, says science

Rob Beschizza — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 12:46:59 +0000

"A little-known French sports doctor who spent 16 years studying the busts of about 300 women sent a scare through a country known for its love of lingerie this week when he suggested bras were useless." [Reuters]

Primate kettlebell

Mark Frauenfelder — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 16:55:44 +0000

From Joe Rogan's website, Onnit.

Snake Oil's secret ingredients

David Pescovitz — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 16:25:43 +0000

There was no actual snake oil in old timey snake oil (except when there was, of course). Rather, most of the lotions and potions sold by early 20th century miracle medicine salesmen actually contained mercury and lead. Now, don't you feel better? University of Detroit Mercy chemists recently analyzed the ingredients of several dozen patent medicine samples from the Henry Ford Museum's collection. From Smithsonian:

Their findings, which they presented yesterday at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society in Atlanta, were that many of the pills, powders and ointments tested had beneficial ingredients like calcium and zinc—but that others had toxins such as lead, mercury and arsenic.
Back in the day, this was a very trial-and-error kind of field,” (chemist Mark) Benvenuto said in an interview. “The stuff that we think of as dangerous now, though it was dangerous, was as cutting-edge as they had at the time.”

"What’s in Century-Old ‘Snake Oil’ Medicines? Mercury and Lead"

Collapsible "Origami" condoms coming to a penis near you

Rob Beschizza — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 15:50:46 +0000

The Origami is a "radical new condom" inspired by paper-folding techniques and supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Designed to slip on more comfortably than easily-torn rolled latex prophylactics, Origami comes in male and female forms, and there's even a special model for anuses of either sex. The creators are testing the designs in clinical trials, and hope to have them available by ~~2013~~ 2015.

Previously: the prototype.

HOWTO produce a 3D printed skeleton from a CT scan of a living animal

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 15:47:49 +0000

Evan Doney, a grad student in Matthew Leevy's biological imaging facility at the University of Notre Dame, has published a method for creating a 3D printed, life-size, accurate skeleton of a living animal by converting a CT scan of the animal to a printable file. They produced a detailed HOWTO as well, which, unfortunately, is paywalled.

The idea to print skeletons from CT scans came from Evan Doney, an engineering student working in the lab of Matthew Leevy, who runs the biological imaging facility at the University of Notre Dame. ”At first I didn’t really know what the killer app would be, I just knew it would be really cool,” Leevy said. But he began to see new possibilities after striking up a conversation with an ear, nose, and throat specialist during an office visit for a sinus problem. “I actually got out my computer and showed him some slides, and by the end of it we were collaborating.”
Doney used several freeware programs to convert data from CT scans into a format that could be read by a 3-D printer. As a proof of principle, he and colleagues printed a rat skeleton in white plastic and printed a removable set of lungs in green or purple. They also printed out a rabbit skull.

I have a 3D print of my femur in bronze and stainless steel, courtesy of my wife and her raid on my MRIs. Sounds like you get an even better shapefile from a CT scan, if you don't mind receiving the radiation equivalent of 800 X-rays.

How to 3-D Print the Skeleton of a Living Animal [Wired/Greg Miller]

Gas masks for babies, 1940

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 18:03:35 +0000

From the Imperial War Museum in London, a couple of incredible photos of nurses testing out infant gas-masks: "Three nurses carry babies cocooned in baby gas respirators down the corridor of a London hospital during a gas drill. Note the carrying handle on the respirator used to carry the baby by the nurse in the foreground."

GAS DRILL AT A LONDON HOSPITAL: GAS MASKS FOR BABIES ARE TESTED, ENGLAND, 1940 (via Kadrey)

Sailing is hard work

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 12:50:23 +0000

Rome Kirby is an extreme sailor. When they tried putting him on a heart-rate monitor, they found he was burning 9,000 calories a day. (via Super Punch)

Hyper-macho, super-busy old body-building ad

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 23:27:39 +0000

This undated bodybuilding ad is a spectacular example of the form -- the busy, unbridled, exuberant machismo, the fonts, the repetition. I think the world would be a better place if all printed literature took this form.

Come on, Buddy!

Disease superspreaders and the new coronavirus

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 16:43:59 +0000

Coronavirus — characterized by the halo of protein spikes that surround each individual virus particle — is the family that gave birth to SARS. Today, there's a new coronavirus stalking humans, especially in the Middle East. Scientists have documented 16 infections, and 10 fatalities. The good news is that there are probably lots of non-serious infections that aren't being reported, meaning the fatality rate probably isn't as high as it looks. Also, this coronavirus seems to have trouble spreading from person to person. But, in regards to that last factor, it's important to pay attention to a detail from the SARS outbreak that we still don't totally understand. Turns out, a handful of people were responsible for most of those infections. The Canadian Press' Helen Branswell writes about superspreaders and the scientists trying to understand how individuals can alter the course of an outbreak. (BTW: If you don't follow Helen Branswell on Twitter, you're missing some of the best infectious disease reporting out there.)

Independent midwives to march in London today to protest impending shutdown of indie midwifery

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 05:59:53 +0000

There are apparently no insurers in the UK willing to extend cover to independent midwives, and so independent midwives and their clients operate in an insurance-free zone, which is risky, but it was apparently a risk everyone was willing to take. However, a new EU regulation mandates that midwives operate with insurance, and once that regulation is implemented locally, it will end the practice of independent midwifery in the UK unless there's some drastic action to create an insurance policy to which independent midwives may subscribe.

We had our daughter at home with an NHS midwife, and it was wonderful. Not everyone is lucky enough to live in the cachement of a hospital with midwives who'll help mothers deliver at home (especially now as NHS budgets are being slashed to ribbons across the country). If this rule comes to pass in the UK without any insurance fix, having a baby safely at home will become effectively illegal for families across the country.

A silent protest is scheduled for today at the House of Commons:

This campaign continues with a Silent Protest and march in Westminster on Monday 25 March, from 11am, to lobby Government to protect women's right to choose their maternity care and find a solution to the issues raised by an EU Directive.
Independent Midwives are registered midwives who have chosen to work outside the NHS to be able to offer continuous care and support to women who choose it. This is the kind of autonomous midwifery that you see in the hugely popular programme “Call the Midwife”. Nowadays it is mostly only independent midwives who are able to provide what David Cameron once called “gold standard care”. Due to staff shortages and budgetary pressures very few NHS Trusts are able to provide this kind of care.
Sally Randle is an independent midwife in Bristol, offering local women an alternative to NHS care. Sally says, “I was lucky enough to practise this way in the NHS in London, but local maternity services did not provide this way of working. I decided to become an independent midwife so I could continue this rewarding work. I love my job; I don't even mind getting up in the night to go out to a birth because I know the family well and feel privileged to be involved in this amazing time in their lives”.

I can't figure out why insurers can't sort this out. The actuarial data set is robust and well-established. The potential liability, though high, is calculable. If you can get insurance to juggle machetes in Covent Garden (high potential liability, small data set, massive individual variation), why the hell can't indie midwives get cover?

Silent Protest and March (Thanks, William!)

The other problem with fake vaccine scares

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 20:53:37 +0000

It's not just that bad information on the "dangers" of vaccines is working to reduce the number of children getting vaccines — a fact that affects herd immunity. Now, there's evidence that the fake scares (and efforts to debunk them) are getting in the way of scientists publishing real evidence about actual problems with certain vaccines. These aren't the kind of broad "vaccines are poison" claims you're familiar with. Instead, we're talking about legitimate science documenting side effects that are usually very rare, but still have an impact on certain subsets of the population and need to be addressed.

Why "cancer clusters" are so hard to confirm

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 17:08:26 +0000

This excerpt from the new book, Toms River by Dan Fagin, has me instantly intrigued. The book is about one of the rare places where scientists were able to prove that not only was there a cluster of cancer cases, but that those cases could be linked to a cause. The excerpt explains why this is such a rare thing. Turns out, just because it looks like a town has more cancers than it should, doesn't mean that's always what's going on.

Grapefruit + prescription drug = overdose

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 15:45:46 +0000

There are 44 prescription drugs on the market today that should never be combined with grapefruit. That's because the sour fruit (and some other, closely related, kinds of citrus) contain chemical compounds called furanocoumarins that prevent your body from metabolizing certain prescription drugs. Essentially, the grapefruit creates an artificial overdose where one tablet packs the power (and side effects) of 20. The CBC has a full list of the drugs, which includes cancer drugs, cholesterol-lowering drugs, and drugs to treat problems of the urinary tract. Wikipedia has more about why this interaction happens.

Dr. Google proves himself somewhat useful

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 22:53:44 +0000

Googling what ails you sounds like a good and empowering idea — until you run into barren fields of Yahoo Answers, swamps of misinformation peddled by charlatans, and orchards of seemingly useful sites that yield only the bitter fruit of tiny bits of information you have already read 5000 times already. But, it turns out that Dr. Google can actually be good for something. At The New York Times, John Markoff reports on a study that found Google search data could be used to discover and track previously unreported side-effects of common medications.

Exergen Temporal Artery Thermometer

Cool Tools — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 21:23:39 +0000

I like the Exergen TemporalScanner because with a gentle stroke of the forehead, I can get a person’s temperatureaccurately and almost instantly — without having to stick something in their ear, mouth, or any other orifice. I can even check a child’s temperature while they sleep. It’s very easy to use — but do read the instructions to get the right swipe motion.

The device takes 1,000 readings per second, selects the most accurate among them, and adjusts for room temperature to give you the temperature of the temporal artery (near the temple) — which is an earlier signal of disease than rectal temperature. This temporal artery thermometer is more accurate than ear thermometers and is less affected by the sources of error that can make oral or underarm temperatures misleading. (However, for many purposes, temperature precision isn’t that important. Just knowing whether there is a fever or not is far more important than knowing the temp within a few tenths of a degree. And often fever is helpful, anyway.) But accurate thermometer readings can bring great peace of mind.

I use one of these at our home and carry one with me everywhere in my pediatrician doctor’s bag. -- Alan Greene, MD

Exergen Temporal Artery Thermometer $31

FDA approves 3D-printed replacement skulls

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 17:40:34 +0000

The FDA has approved OsteoFab, "a cranial maxillo-facial (CMF) plate for skull reconstruction which can be used to replace up to 75% of the skull."