Recently in Health Category

I read with interest the recently published report, from Imperial College, listing the relative densities of pollution in differing modes of transportation. You can see the BBC summary at the following link - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4598388.stm.

Why do we care about this? Well, as it happens there is a link between traffic pollution and cancer, according to the report here - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4368093.stm

The first report, which can be accessed from Imperial College itself here is an investigation into the amount of particulates that occur in the environment around people, the team analysed taxi, bus, cycling, walking, and private car use. Whether traffic fumes scale in a linear fashion with the ultrafine particulates sampled in the experiments is unclear. What is interesting is the findings of the report.

Last night it dawned on me that killer flu's have tended to appear when these two criterion are fullfilled:

• There is a flu type virus around - usually in animals.


• There is a large scale disaster or large amounts of disease around in the human population.

Well it seems that with avian flu having been present in Asia, and coupled with the terrible tsunami that engulfed the area that the conditions have been met. Will 2005 spell the next outbreak of killer flu? Hopefully not, but I think it's time to boost up our immune systems.

[ Filed by our European correspondent in France, Monsieur Chenapan]

At a time when most major American fast food chains are taking action to tackle the obesity issue, Hardee's has decided to go against the tide: the fast food giant, based in St-Louis, launched on Monday 15th November its "thick monsterburger".

Introduced as "a tribute to decadence", the culinary monster contains 1420 calories and 107 grams of fat on its own. This feat is accomplished through two 150 gram-beefburgers, four slices of bacon, three of cheese, butter and mayonnaise in a sesame bun. If one adds chips and a soft drink, this menu would contain more calories than the daily recommended intake.

The Science Centre for the Interest of the Public issued a statement calling it "food pornography".

[ Original Source - Le Nouvel Observateur ]

Anal retention, chronic or temporary, it can strike at any time and the effects can be devastating. Judging by the number of hits we have been getting from search engines about this issue Dr. Roos (our medical advisor) has provided this first installation about dealing with anal retention.

There can't be very many people who haven't heard of the SARS (Severe Accute Respiratory Syndrome) Virus by now. A lot of FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) seems to swirling round regarding SARS.

Reading the media reports, you might get the impression you'll keel over and die should you go near Canada, China, Hong Kong or Taiwan.

It certainly appears to be the case that as a race, humans have a severe inability to tailor their anxiety to the reality of the danger. Familiar dangers are much more readily accepted, whatever their size, than new ones, however remote.

You don't refuse to travel in cars because you have a one percent lifetime risk of dying in one. You have a 1 in 3 chance of being diagnosed with cancer at some point in your lifetime, but how many people stop smoking, change their dietary habits, stop going out in the sun, reduce their drinking, etc., to try and reduce that risk?

Dramatic dangers are more feared than insidious ones, even if it is the insidious ones that will put paid to most of us in the end.

The SARS virus kills about five percent of those who contract it. Moreover, it does not seem to be highly contagious, so that, even in those cities in which there have been cases, only a minority will actually contract it.

Of those five percent of fatal cases, a majority have been amongst people who are afflicted or debilitated by chronic disease. Not much consolation for those so afflicted, but it does mean that the end of the human race is not going to be caused by a little pneumonia like virus from China.

There is a popular superstition that once the cause of a disease is found, it is virtually defeated. This is not so, diseases whose cause has been known for decades have continued incurable, while other diseases have been controlled, if not eliminated before their causes were known.

So, what diseases are there around these days that seem to strike no fear in the average individual, despite being deadly?

Hrm... how about Malaria, which kills about ten times as many people a day as SARS has killed in total?

As a yearly figure, it is somewhere between 1.5 and 2.7 MILLION DEATHS a year.

As usual, a little common sense and slightly less hysteria (on the part of the press mostly) will go a long way.