The Best Interesting Random Facts
We all know it’s healthy to go to the gym regularly, but did you ever wonder what’s in the sweat of the guy who used the exercise machine just before you? Sure, he wipes off the machine with that towel, but that’s not exactly sterilizing, is it? Are you supposed to touch that stuff, and […]
Hand washing is unquestionably a good idea, and we’ll have more to say about that below, but at the same time, personal hygiene may not be all it’s cracked up to be. Bathing and showering, for example, are generally pleasant activities, but as far as infection control is concerned, they probably don’t do much good. […]
Well loved for its nutrition, taste, texture, and culinary versatility, quinoa is a gem in the repertoire of gluten-free grains. A time-honored food staple of South America and an essential food of the ancient Incas, quinoa is packed with cultural significance and history. Scientifically speaking, quinoa is a seed, but it’s commonly referred to in […]
The Internet can be a significant source of misinformation about vaccines. There are numerous sites that gather scare stories about vaccination based on little more than anecdotal reports from parents, and many chat rooms discussing vaccination in hysterical voices and without benefit of scientific information. This doesn’t mean that vaccines are without dangers, there are […]
If you are worried about aluminum in your child’s vaccines, you can ask your doctor which brand of certain vaccines he or she carries. For example, the Infanrix brand of the DTaP vaccine contains 625 micrograms of aluminum, while the Daptacel brand only contains 330 and the Tripedia brand only contains 170. As for the […]
Botulism is extremely rare in adults, is somewhat more common in infants (there are about 80 or so cases a year, while 2 or 3 cases of adult botulism per year would be about average). The effects of the disease in infants can range from fairly mild to death, in fact, it is one of […]
Periodic blood work is a fact of life with lithium, as with many other medications. Prior to starting lithium, it’s typical to check the following: Electrolytes (sodium, potassium, chloride, bicarbonate) Thyroid function tests Measures of renal function (blood urea nitrogen/creatinine, aka BUN/CR) A complete blood count Pregnancy test in women of child-bearing age (Lithium can […]
On August 12 and 13, 1994, three kids from Pompano Beach came into the emergency room of the same hospital in Broward County, Florida, with a sudden onset of seizures, coma, and respiratory depression. Each of them needed a breathing tube to stay alive. All three, they were 5, 6, and 11 years old, had […]
Rats, mice, flies, cockroaches, these are just things you can run into at almost any restaurant at one time or another. Every time you go out, you’re exposing yourself to something. In fact, those dollar bills in your wallet, the ones you plan to spend for the taxi ride downtown before you even do anything, […]
In late August 1999, the New York City Department of Health discovered an unusual outbreak of encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) concentrated among a group of elderly people living not far from La Guardia Airport in the northern part of Queens, one of New York City’s five boroughs. The Department of Health, in cooperation with […]
The Italians call it the French disease; the French call it the English disease. Russians blamed the Poles, the Poles blamed the Germans. At least since the sixteenth century, Europeans have been blaming each other, if it isn’t English, French, Polish, Russian, or German, then it’s Venetian or Neapolitan. Some believe Columbus brought it back […]
Everyone likes to touch interesting and attractive objects. Adults in stores are drawn to gadgets they can manipulate and products they can pick up and feel. Children also want to handle what they see in stores, but many store owners and parents are too impatient or fearful to let children touch. Touching is one of […]
In 1918, the flu season came on a bit early, in April, but a few weeks before that 84,000 additional American troops had set out for Europe to fight the Germans, so there were more important things to worry about than the “grippe.” That some people died during the spring was unremarkable, before there were […]
Never eat oysters in a month that does not contain the letter R. Or so they say, and they may be right, at least partly. In the summer of 1997, a lot of people ignored this advice, and a lot of people got sick. It began in July in British Columbia, where the British Columbia […]
The most common cause of serious respiratory tract infections, pneumonia and bronchiolitis (infection of the small vessels in the lungs called bronchioles), in infants and children is a germ called respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. This is another very common virus, so common that by the age of three almost every kid has been infected […]
A lot of people worry about “picking up something” while they’re using public transportation. In New York City, the most feared location for mysophobes is undoubtedly the subway. Everyone squashed together, sneezing, coughing, wiping their noses, and then grabbing those poles to keep from falling over every time the train stops, starts, or lurches. The […]
Since we know how you get colds, we also know how you can prevent them, or at least minimize their number. Stay away from people with colds; wash your hands after touching someone who has a cold or something they’ve touched; keep your hands away from your face. If you have a cold, cover your […]
You may have heard that you can get something called toxoplasmosis from your cat. Toxoplasma gondii, the organism that causes the disease is a protozoan parasite that infects most species of warm blooded animals. It has a fairly complex life cycle consisting of three different stages. The first is the tachyzoite, the form that causes […]
It may be some time before Mr. Lynn’s clean-hands identification mechanism is in widespread use, but in the meantime, you might want to wash your hands more often anyway, whether you can be caught at it or not. There is indisputable evidence that washing hands, we’re talking about the general public here, not surgical personnel, […]
In 1998, 355,642 cases of gonorrhea were reported to the CDC. This was an 8.9 percent increase from the 1997 rate and the first increase since 1985. In 1999, the latest year for which complete figures are available, 360,076 cases of gonorrhea were reported, a 9.2 percent increase over the 1997 rate and a 1.2 […]
Yes, it is possible to be hospitalized for OCD. This can occur for several reasons. First, it may be a way to help stabilize someone whose rituals have become so problematic that all he or she does all day long is perform rituals. Often in these cases family members will bring someone in to a […]
Shocking but true: your toothbrush is dirtier than your toilet seat. It is hard to predict exactly which germs are on your toothbrush right now, but staphylococci, coliforms, pseudomonads, streptococci, and at least one fungus, candida, have all been cultured from used toothbrushes. In one Australian study, staphylococci and streptococci were the most commonly found […]
How do we find out about new strains in time to develop new vaccines against them? The World Health Organization, in cooperation with dozens of other national and international health groups, maintains the Global Outbreak Alert and Response program to provide continuous surveillance of infectious disease outbreaks around the world. This program covers all kinds […]
Some people never learn. In October 1996, a three-week-old boy was brought into a hospital emergency room in Arizona suffering from a fever of 103.6, plus vomiting and bloody diarrhea that had been going on for more than two weeks. Why it took two weeks for the parents to bring him in is almost certainly […]
An antibacterial impregnated in a toy or in some other consumer product must be registered with the Environmental Protection Agency. Companies that manufacture such things have correctly perceived that germs on cutting boards and in children’s toys are among those people worry most about, and they’ve come to the rescue with antibacterial products they claim […]
Dirty laundry, as you might have guessed, certainly contains plenty of germs, including many that are pathogenic. Any cloth that touches your body is likely to become contaminated with whatever organisms are on your skin, and we know what can happen in the special case of underwear. But the Centers for Disease Control agrees with […]
You may think that sexually transmitted infections are someone else’s problem, but in fact 55 million Americans have at least one sexually transmitted disease (STD). More than 45 million Americans have HSV-2, the sexually transmitted form of the herpes simplex virus, and a million more get it every year. There’s no cure for it. Two […]
Children in day care probably get more antibiotics prescribed for them than children who stay at home. A May 2001 Danish study followed children from birth in 1997 to the age of two years and found that enrollment in a day care center doubled a child’s likelihood of being prescribed an antibiotic. Whether this is […]
Well, okay, so I can get plenty of diseases from those pets, but at least I can’t catch anything from my tropical fish, right? Not so fast. It would be absurd to tell you that keeping pet fish is a big risk for human illness, it isn’t, but that doesn’t mean they can’t make you […]
Pyromania is, according to the DSM-IV-TR (2000), “deliberate and purposeful fire setting on more than one occasion.” Prior to the act of fire setting, there is an increase in tension, and there is a long-held fascination with fire. Once the fire is set, there is a sense of relief or joy. Fires set by people […]
We often speak of the possibility and desirability of eradicating diseases, and it does seem that it should be possible to eradicate at least those whose causes we know and for which we have good and effective treatments. This would seem to apply to most of the sexually transmitted diseases. But in all of history, […]
A new infectious agent, a protozoan parasite called Cyclospora cayetanensis, was first identified and named in 1979. It was previously thought to be a kind of cyanobacterium. By 1993, it had been found in the United States. The first U.S. report of a diarrheal outbreak caused by the organism didn’t appear until 1995. Then in […]
“Look! I’m jumping off the diving board.” “Dad, watch me ride my bike.” “Watch me do a cartwheel.” Children constantly ask their parents to pay attention. Even in the car, a child will ask a parent who’s driving to look at a picture in his book or watch him make faces in the mirror. He […]
Although the FTC doesn’t regulate the production or labeling of over the counter drugs, it does have a say in the way they are advertised. And they can be just as fussy as the FDA when it comes to making claims about antibacterial products. A complaint the FTC filed against Unilever in 1999 is illustrative. […]
Everyone’s afraid of rabies, but almost no one in the United States ever gets it. Even a hundred years ago, it was very rare, about 100 people a year got it in the early twentieth century, and today, thanks to widespread vaccination of domestic animals, the average yearly number of human cases is 2 or […]
Cultural beliefs about mental illness can significantly impact how an individual, and his family, views bipolar disorder. In some Asian cultures, the stigma of mental illness is quite severe, and having a mental illness can be viewed as shameful (loss of face). Certain religious groups will have strong beliefs against the taking of medications (Christian […]
