NewDao Health Answers » 2008

Monthly Archives: January 2008

January 27, 2008: Is green tea really good for your health?; This was a question that I really wanted to answer. I love a good sushi meal followed by a nice cup of green tea. What could be better than to find out that I aid my health with my own gluttony? So I searched for green tea in the medical database and hospital library and [...]

January 25, 2008: Why do some people sweat excessively?; In doctor-speak, sweating is referred to as diaphoresis. Excessive sweating is called hyperhidrosis. When excessive sweating occurs in isolation with no apparent cause it is called primary or essential hyperhidrosis. It is important to distinguish this condition from secondary hyperhidrosis, which can be associated with a variety of different conditions. These include: tuberculosis, thyroid disease, [...]

January 25, 2008: Why can’t you eat soft cheese during pregnancy?; So pickles and ice cream are okay, but soft cheese is a problem? That doesn’t seem to make a great deal of sense, does it? It’s really all about Listeria monocytogenes. This bacterium is found in raw, unpasteurized milk and any cheeses or other dairy products made from it. It can cause a potentially deadly [...]

January 25, 2008: Why shouldn’t pregnant women dye their hair?; There are several studies that look at the relationship between maternal hair dyes and childhood diseases, including childhood brain tumors. Don’t expect to find any information that praises the health benefits of hair dyeing, but you won’t find any evidence that it is particularly dangerous either.
Even though there are no studies linking hair dyes to [...]

January 25, 2008: Are summer pregnancies more likely to result in twins?; There are several studies that have sought to determine a relationship between twin birth rate and the season of birth. Other studies have examined the effects of temperature on human fertility. When you look carefully at all of these studies, there is a slight but statistically significant tendency for conceptions that occur in summer to [...]

January 24, 2008: Does eating fish make the baby smarter?; Recently there have been many warnings for pregnant women to avoid certain kinds of fish in order to prevent mercury poisoning. Shark, swordfish, king mackerel, and golden or white snapper (tilefish) are to be avoided because they contain high levels of potentially brain-damaging mercury. It is generally recommended that pregnant women have only two servings [...]

January 21, 2008: Do iPods cause hearing loss?; Hearing experts worry that the increasing popularity of MP3 players may lead to widespread hearing loss. The concern is that with increased sound quality, people are listening to music louder and longer.
Music and loud noise have been known to cause hearing loss for centuries. Noise exposure causes hearing loss by damaging the hair cells in [...]

January 17, 2008: When do baby teeth fall out?; At what age do children start losing their baby teeth?
The lower center teeth are the first baby teeth to fall out usually at about age 6 years.
Baby teeth fall out to make room for permanent teeth. Once the child loses his or her first baby teeth, the remaining baby teeth will gradually loosen and fall [...]

January 17, 2008: Can you breast-feed with nipple piercing?; We have actually been asked if nipple piercing will result in a lawn-sprinkler effect when you lactate. There is no evidence to suggest that a woman’s pierced nipples will have any effect on her ability to breast-feed. That is, if there haven’t been any complications resulting from the procedure. Infection and scarring are frequent complications [...]

January 17, 2008: How many bones in a hand?; There are 26 bones, including 7 in the wrist and 19 in the fingers and thumb (four for each finger and three for the thumb) in a normal adult hand. In children, it takes until about age 6 or 7 for all the wrist bones to fully form and become hardened.
Related: How many bones are [...]

January 16, 2008: Why do nipples turn darker in pregnancy?; If you have dark skin, you may have brown nipples before pregnancy, but many pregnant women of all complexions notice that their nipples have become somewhat darker.
As we keep mentioning, pregnancy causes changes in hormone levels. In this case, an increase in estrogen levels and melanocyte-stimulating hormone (MSH) levels causes the changes. MSH acts on [...]

January 16, 2008: Do eyebrows grow back if shaved?; As any Goth could tell you, if you shave your eyebrows, they grow back. (Actually, only a small percentage of self-described Goths shave their eyebrows. We have no precise statistics on this, but base it on empirical evidence gleaned from friends and family who are themselves Gothic Americans – the term we prefer.)
Remember, all the [...]

January 15, 2008: Do people who sleep less live longer?; My ears are still ringing from the loud media buzz regarding a study at the University of California, San Diego, claiming that people who sleep more than seven hours a night have shorter lives than their wakeful counterparts. What was often lost in the new cycle was that there are many other well-conducted studies proving [...]

January 14, 2008: Are all babies born with blue eyes?; Eye color is determined by the amount of a single pigment called melanin that is present in the iris of the eye. Melanin is a dark brown pigment. If a lot of melanin is present, the eye will appear brown or even black. If very little melanin is present, the iris will appear blue. Less [...]

January 13, 2008: Why are you hungry an hour after eating Chinese food?; We fear that getting into any diet debate will cause us to be besieged by a gaggle of Atkins followers in a bacon-induced frenzy. But we may be safe this time, because the culprit may be carbohydrates – specifically, rice and pasta.
Chinese meals, for the most part, contain rice, little meat, and plenty of low-calorie [...]

January 9, 2008: Types of Amnesia; Anterograde Amnesia
Inability to remember ongoing events after the incidence of trauma or the onset of the disease that caused the amnesia. Anterograde amnesia often occurs following an acute event such as trauma, a heart attack, oxygen deprivation, or an epileptic attack.
Retrograde Amnesia
Inability to remember events that occurred before the incidence of trauma or the onset [...]

January 8, 2008: Why do you see stars when you are hit in the head?; It always happened to Wile E. Coyote. The Road Runner drops an anvil on his head and then the poor coyote sees stars circling his head. Not only does this happen in cartoons but it is actually a sign of a concussion. A concussion is simply when an injury to the head causes your brain [...]