Category Archives: Health
- October 5, 2008
- What causes ringing in the ears?
Doctors always prefer an esoteric word to describe a simple condition. So they call ringing in the ears tinnitus.
Tinnitus is very common, with about 38 million sufferers in the United States. There are many different things that cause a ringing in the ears. Some of these are extremely common and most are not very [...]
- October 5, 2008
- What are the differences between Multiple Sclerosis and Muscular Dystrophy?
There are many differences between Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and Muscular Dystrophy (MD).
However, people often confuse MS and MD because their initials are so close, and the diseases and may have similar results.
One of the easiest to tell apart from the multiple sclerosis MD is that Member States are rare among young people. Age of [...]
- October 1, 2008
- Are top and bottom herpes the same thing?
Herpes is everywhere. Yes, we said it, but don’t panic. There is no need to duct-tape your doors and windows, wear surgical gloves, or cover your home toilet seat with one of those paper rings. We just want to break the herpes stigma.
Herpes viruses are extremely common and rank just behind influenza and cold viruses [...]
- September 25, 2008
- Can friends synchronize their menstrual cycles?
Oh my! We had no idea that we needed a PhD in statistics to read about this topic. There have been about thirty years of research about the possibility that women who spend a lot of time together can synchronize their menstrual cycles. We invite you to delve into the annals of research on estrous [...]
- September 20, 2008
- Why can you eat three times more than normal when you have PMS?
When we looked into food cravings during menstrual periods, we weren’t able to find any scientific cause. Premenstrual gluttony (lovely term, we know), on the other hand, has an explanation.
Imagine the cycle divided in half, with the time of ovulation being the midpoint. The first half is called the follicular phase and the second half, [...]
- September 16, 2008
- What causes dry eyes?
What causes dry eyes? Dry eyes occur:
With age. Dry eyes are more common in women, especially after menopause.
Infrequently after irradiation to the eye.
With the use of some drugs, including antihistamines, nasal decongestants and sedatives.
Sometimes after eye surgery.
Sometimes with vitamin A deficiency or after a chemical burn to the eye.
In some persons with malpositioned lower eyelids.
In [...]
- September 15, 2008
- Is your waist two times the size of your neck?
Anthropometry is the study of human body measurement for use in anthropological classification and comparison. What fun! Let’s whip out those tape measures and calipers!
There is a lot of research out there, so prepare yourself if you’re going to explore this area. Unfortunately, I sat down in my kitchen to do the research and before [...]
- September 10, 2008
- Why do your boobs get tender before your period?
Some breast pain before your period is perfectly normal. Hormonal fluctuations cause changes in the breast ducts and the breast lobules. The lobules are the milk-producing tissues of the breast. Each breast has about fifteen to twenty lobes that branch into smaller lobules and each lobule and each lobule ends in a bulb. Milk originates [...]
- September 9, 2008
- Why do some people have two different-color eyes?
I have a special attachment to this question. I have had two dear friends who both had two different-color eyes. Ramsey, I am sorry that I am putting you in the same group with Winnie, the Old English sheep dog that we had growing up, but he was special too.
Heterochromia iridium is the fancy medical [...]
- September 6, 2008
- Do pregnant women really glow?
If a pregnant woman asks her husband, “Am I glowing?” there is only one answer: “Yes, dear.”
Don’t worry about lying; the pregnancy glow actually exists and has a biological basis. In pregnancy, blood volume increases by almost 50 percent. This increased blood volume causes the cheeks of women to take on a reddish blush. Pregnancy [...]
- September 5, 2008
- Why don’t women have hairy chests?
Well, actually some women do.
As a culture, we are obsessed with becoming hairless. There are waxing salons, threading salons, laser hair removal treatments, electrolysis, and who could forget good ol’ Nair. The truth is that as mammals we are designed to be covered in body hair. We have the same number of hair follicles as [...]
- September 2, 2008
- Is douching dangerous?
Leyner and I both clearly remember the airwaves being pounded with douche advertising in the 1980s. How can you forget the image of a daughter asking her mother if she ever gets that “not so fresh feeling” and them proceeds to flush herself with a vinegar and water solution. It always made us think of [...]
- August 31, 2008
- Can deodorant really cause breast cancer?
For several years rumors have circulated, primarily on the Internet, claiming that the use of antiperspirant deodorants can cause breast cancer. But no clear scientific basis has been found to substantiate these rumors.
According to the National Cancer Institute, “researchers at the NCI are not aware of any conclusive evidence linking the use of underarm antiperspirants [...]
- August 30, 2008
- What are those dust particles you sometimes see floating in front of your eyes?
In our last book, we called one of Billy’s smartest friends for the composition of eye boogers. This Proust-reading, NPR-listening, Ivy League-educated retina surgeon came up empty, but we decided to give him another chance. This time, not only did we get an answer, but we also got a quote from ol’ Marcel Proust:
“…we feel [...]
- August 28, 2008
- Why do I sneeze when I pluck my eyebrows?
Duh… that’s so obvious. Just kidding. What could possibly be the connection between a tweezed eyebrow hair and a sneeze?
The sneezing reflex is a complex, almost Rube Goldbergian sequence of physiological events. It typically starts with an irritation to your nasal passages that excites your trigeminal nerve. (No, it doesn’t take much to get a [...]
- August 25, 2008
- Why do women’s toes curl after years of wearing high heels?
The torments women will endure in the name of glamour! Never mind the fact that when you’re wearing high heels, you actually have to realign your spine so you don’t fall over. Or the fact that a research team at Harvard University found a link between high heels and knee osteoarthritis, a degenerative joint disease. [...]
- August 23, 2008
- Is there a treatment for severe PMS?
This is no joke (but it probably won’t stop us from making one later). PMS is real dan it can be severe.
Here is something from the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), where a severe form of PMS is listed as a Depressive Disorder Not Otherwise Specified:
“Premenstrual dysphoric disorder: in most menstrual cycles [...]
- August 20, 2008
- What causes ingrown hairs?
Oh, you must mean pseudofolliculitis barbae. C’mon, wouldn’t you rather have pseudofolliculitis barbae (PFB) than “ingrown hairs” or “razor bumps”? (If this reminds you of a traditional Italian song, you’re thinking of “Funiculi, Funicula,” which refers to a funicular railway, a kind of mountainside cable car, and has nothing to do with ingrown hairs or [...]
- August 18, 2008
- When water is stuck in your ears, where is it? How do you get it out?
People have this strange idea that if water gets in your ear it will somehow find its way to the inside of your skull. The truth is that if your eardrum is intact, the water will remain in your outer ear canal. But, besides being uncomfortable, this water creates an environment where infections can develop.
Swimmer’s [...]
- August 16, 2008
- What purpose do freckles serve?
I don’t know… What “purpose” does your butt serve?
Sorry, that was uncalled for. It’s just tricky sometimes to discuss things in terms of their “purpose.” It becomes a very philosophical question-the teleology of freckles. We can be fairly certain about the evolutionary development of certain traits (like prehensile digits) and discern the advantages and benefits [...]
- August 15, 2008
- Why Do Women Live Longer Than Men?
One important reason is the big delay — and advantage — women have over men in terms of cardiovascular disease, like heart attack and stroke. Women develop these problems usually in their 70s and 80s, about 10 years later than men, who develop them in their 50s and 60s. For a long time, doctors thought [...]
- August 13, 2008
- When you pull out a gray hair, do two come back in its place?
Back in the day, old wives (and old husbands, for that matter) were far too busy eluding predators, fleeing barbarian hordes, and prostrating themselves on the ground in the face of seemingly inexplicable natural phenomena like lightning and eclipses, to come up with patently erroneous tales like this. But today, with your modern conveniences like [...]
- August 10, 2008
- What is that thing hanging down in the back of your throat, and what is it for?
We mentioned that lovely fleshy thing in the back of your throat earlier when we described how milk comes flying from your nose when you laugh. It’s called the uvula, from the Latin word uva, which means grape. If you take a look in the mirror, you will notice that this skin flap is shaped [...]
- August 8, 2008
- Why don’t you get goose bumps on your face?
There seems to be implicit in this question, a kind of longing, a yearning…
Although most of us only get goose bumps on our bodies-primarily our forearms, legs, and backs-some of us actually do get them on our faces.
The language of the goose bump world is rich and poetic. Goose bumps themselves are also known as [...]
- August 5, 2008
- Why do some women go bald?
Alopecia-hair loss or baldness-affects some 30 million women in the United States, young and old, according to the American Academy of Dermatology. But hair loss in women is different from male pattern baldness (androgenic alopecia). For years, scientists believed that the same process was at work in female pattern baldness as in the male version-a [...]
- August 2, 2008
- Does thumb sucking cause buckteeth?
Thumb sucking is a normal behavior. Well, sucking your own thumb is normal. If you are sucking someone else’s, that’s a little weird! Thumb sucking only becomes a problem if it continues for too long. It can begin during the fetal period, but should be curtailed by the time that permanent teeth come in. permanent [...]
- August 1, 2008
- Does smoking help you lose weight?
There is ample evidence that nicotine does cause an increase in metabolism, and smoking cigarettes may act as an appetite suppressant. The main reason, though, that we tend to associate smoking with weight loss is that people who quit smoking often report gaining some weight. But addiction specialists point out that this is simply because, [...]
- August 1, 2008
- Do women have wet dreams?
Sorry, Virginia, there is no Santa Claus, but women can have wet dreams or, more specifically, nocturnal orgasms-and that may be better than finding a new cashmere sweater under your tree.
Alfred Kinsey, the famous sex researcher, found that nocturnal orgasms were reported by 90 percent of the men, but by less than 40 percent [...]
- August 1, 2008
- Why do women always get urinary tract infections?
Many women are familiar with the symptoms of a urinary tract infection or UTI. It usually starts with a persistent urge to urinate or a burning sensation when you pee. You also can have blood in the urine, cloudy, strong-smelling urine, or pain in the lower part of your abdomen. About 50 percent of women [...]
- July 28, 2008
- What makes self-tanner work?
The active ingredient in self-tanners (or “sunless tanners,” as they’re also called) is dihydroxyacetone (DHA). DHA is a colorless sugar that interacts with the amino acid arginine in the dead cells of the stratum corneum, the outermost layer of your epidermis, which is the outer layer of your skin. The interaction of the DHA with [...]
- July 26, 2008
- Does a calcium deficiency cause rough nails?
There are two facets of our anatomies that are basically dead. (By dead, I mean not sentient, not comprised of living cells, inanimate, muerto, y’know…dead.) Our hair and nails. (The parts we cut, shave, and clip.) And yet we seem to spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about these very parts…
Ironic, isn’t it? I [...]
- July 25, 2008
- Can you get toe fungus from a pedicure?
Is there danger lurking down at the local Happy Nails? The fungus among us is something doctors affectionately call onychomycosis, and it’s fairly common. Some 15 percent of us have it and almost half of people over the age of seventy suffer from this ailment, which causes the toenail-particularly on the big toe-to become thick [...]
- July 23, 2008
- Can you get herpes from a hot tub?
So, you settle in for a nice soak, without a care in the world. But is there danger lurking in the water?
Well, we don’t want to be the bearers of bad news, but if that whirlpool or hot tub isn’t properly cleaned or chlorinated, you could end up with a nice body rash. The Centers [...]
- July 18, 2008
- Why does your get thinner as you age?
As we get older, there are some unavoidable processes at work that age our skin. This is something we will all experience and there’s not really much we can do to prevent it. When a person ages, his or her epidermal cells-the cells at the outer skin layer-become thinner, which makes the skin appear noticeably [...]
- July 16, 2008
- Do growing pains really exist?
Growing up-in and of itself-is an enormous pain in the butt. The grades, the melodramatic infatuations, the looming necessity of earning a living… And hey, why do homework when , in five billion years, the sun is going to exhaust all its nuclear fuel and collapse into a dead, cold, shrunken cinder? And I didn’t [...]
- July 14, 2008
- Why does your voice change at puberty?
Ah, yes, what a dignified time of life-when, in the course of the same sentence, you can sound like Issac Hayes and Alvin the Chipmunk.
Your larynx is a hollow, tube-shaped piece of cartilage that is located at the top of your trachea (windpipe). There are two thin muscles-called vocal cords-that are stretched across the trachea, [...]
