The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Commentary By Roger Cathcart Health Advice and More There are experts on everything: politics, medicine, and more. Sometimes they are listened to and most often they are not, but in many cases they really should be. A 2010 end-of-the-year column by my favourite medical writer, Dr. Gifford-Jones, asks how much readers learned from his findings last year and asks us to do his health quiz Ð 20 questions in total, true or false. One tidbit learned from the quiz is that cat lovers have fewer winter blues, fewer headaches, fewer colds, and sleep better than the rest of the population. A second is that one per cent of whites and 30 per cent of those of African ancestry have a gene that increases the rate at which codeine turns into morphine, which has caused respiratory death in children after a simple operation. A third is that excess salt causes as many deaths in North America as a commuter jet would by crashing each day. Time to limit our sodium intake! Another recommendation, from a British researcher, is to take lysine along with vitamin C to decrease your risk of a heart attack. A fifth piece of info is that fetal alcohol syndrome is the leading cause of mental retardation and birth defects in North America. Some of what the quiz taught readers is quite strange. For example: it is safer to spend the night with bats than with cows; an Australian study claims male circumcision does not reduce the risk of sexual disease or cancer; a Scottish study concludes that frequent sex slows the aging process; 80 per cent of men with a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) of 4-10 do not have prostate cancer; and liars blink more often, develop a red nose, touch it often, and take more deep breaths than truth-tellers. One piece of advice that is easy for all of us to follow is to clean up public toilet seats before use in order to prevent catching herpes. A recent study shows that the virus can survive several hours after being deposited on the seat. Others claim 20 studies show drinking coffee reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes. Did you know shockwave therapy to hasten the healing of fractures is now available in Canada? It has been used in Europe for 20 years! Finally, if at a party three to six people dip their chips in a communal dip, you can pick up 50 to 100 bacteria. And lastly, one in 20 people suffer from compulsive hoarding, a compulsion difficult to treat. Dr. Gifford-Jones claims that all of the above notes are true and have been verified by medical studies. His columns, which appear in the Winnipeg Free Press, are simply great! * * * Problems with tobacco are being debated in the U.S., which by the way has among the world's lowest cigarette prices. A pack in Australia is over $14, and in Canada $10 to $12, which is enough to make a lot of smokers quit. In a new 700-page report, the U.S. Surgeon-General claims that cigarettes now deliver more nicotine, and faster, which is most dangerous to adolescents as their bodies are more sensitive to nicotine and they are more easily addicted than adults. The report notes that a 10-year decline in teen smoking has halted among younger teens and is actually up by over one per cent since 2008. The report warns that if the campaign against smoking slacks off, the new generation will become addicted and 400,000 Americans will continue to die each year. A critic emphasizes that there is no safe cigarette, and the best thing smokers can do is quit. Also, it should be noted that the billion-dollar tobacco settlement fund has been squandered by many states, with exceptions being Maine and Washington, which have made significant progress. * * * One significant appointment that got little press in mid-December was Prime Minister Stephen Harper's selection to co-chair the newly created Commission on Information and Accountability for Women and Children's Health. The commission wants to significantly reduce the massive mortality rate among women and children in developing countries. Let us hope they succeed, as the Conservatives have put a major emphasis on making aid more effective since they took office in 2006. Roger's Right Corner runs Wednesdays.3/18/2011
