Get me that. Stat!
The rising popularity of pickleball (a combination of tennis, pingpong and bton played on a smallish court) appears to be increasing the popularity of emergency rooms too. CNN reports that estimated pickleball-related injuries are estimated to cost the U.S. health care system roughly $377 million this year.
That breaks down to 67,000 ER visits, 366,000 outpatient visits and 9,000 outpatient surgeries. The reason: Most pickleball devotees tend to be older (8 in 10 players are age 60-plus) and the most common injuries are damage to arms, wrists or ankles, usually sprains or strains to ligaments or tendons.
Bath to the future
The benefits of bathing have long been appreciated, despite colorful depictions of past cultures and predecessors literally wallowing in their aversion to hygiene.
Egyptians were known for their cleanliness. Babylonians invented a form of soap; ancient Greeks created a kind of shower. Romans favored public baths.
In a recent paper re-examining medieval urban sanitation, the reputation of public bathhouses gets a sprucing up, with the authors noting that they were places that not only provided a cleansing experience, but also promoted emerging public health policies.
Bathhouses in the late-Middle Ages across Europe provided visitors with a chance to be seen by a “bader,” licensed practitioners skilled at lancing abscesses, pulling teeth, cupping and bloodletting. Steam rooms and mineral baths were touted as ways to alleviate ailments, from scabies and leprosy to migraines and miscarriages. One could buy medicinal herbal concoctions.
The medical establishment opposed the businesses of baders, who were cheaper, but bathhouses held a strong social place in communities (in part because they were places to socialize) until contagions like the bubonic plague, smallpox and syphilis made crowded spaces places to avoid.
By the time those infectious scourges were addressed, baths and showers were appearing in private homes and traipsing off to a public bathhouse was no longer quite so appealing, regardless of the sparkling conversation.
Galvanic response
Researchers have tested, with success, a self-charging, implantable battery that essentially sucks oxygen from tumors, making them more vulnerable to destruction. Cancerous tumors often outgrow their blood supply, leaving some malignant cells oxygen-deprived. Perversely, this condition, known as hypoxia, can stimulate further mutations that make the cells resistant to cancer therapies.
But that difference also distinguishes them from healthy cells. In mouse studies, researchers implanted into tumors a tiny, self-charging battery that consumes oxygen. That spurred cancer cells to respond and also to paint a bigger target on themselves for drugs that are activated in low-oxygen conditions.
Two weeks after implantation, researchers reported the batteries had shrunk tumors in mice by 26 percent.
Phobia of the week
Mark your calendar
August is awareness month for breastfeeding, immunizations, children’s eye health, digestive tract paralysis and gastroparesis (the latter is part of the former, both involve the digestive tract basically not functioning as it should) and, heartbreakingly, psoriasis.
Doc talk
Never say diet
The Major League Eating speed-eating record for glazed doughnuts is 59.5 in 8 minutes, held by James Webb. It could be said James chowed down in a glaze of glory.
Best medicine
Start your day with this mental acuity test:
This sentence contains exactly threee erors.
Answers: An extra E in three. A missing E in erors. And the fact there are only two errors in the sentence.
Observation
“I know a man who gave up smoking, drinking, sex and rich food. He was healthy right up to the day he killed himself.”
Medical history
This week in 2000, a man in Israel became the first recipient of the Jarvik 2000, the first total artificial heart that can maintain blood flow and generate a pulse. The first Jarvik heart transplant occurred in 1982.
Sum body
Twelve key symptoms that characterize long COVID:
1. Post-exertional malaise
2. Fatigue
3. Brain fog
4. Dizziness
5. GI symptoms
6. Palpitations
7. Changes in sexual desire or capacity
8. Loss of or change in smell or taste
9. Thirst
10. Chronic cough
11. Chest pain
12. Abnormal movements.
These traits are detailed in the NIH-funded RECOVER initiative studying long COVID. The study also confirmed earlier research finding unvaccinated people and people infected before the Omicron variant’s arrival were more likely to develop long COVID.
Curtain calls
On Dec. 1, 1135, Henry the First, King of England, reportedly consumed too many lampreys against his physician’s advice. He fell, well, eel and died shortly thereafter.
LaFee is vice president of communications for the Sanford Burnham Prebys research institute.
