Why Do Men Fall Asleep After Sex? (19 page)

DOES GINGER HAVE ANY MEDICINAL QUALITIES?

In the Goldberg and Leyner families, the first thing our mothers did when we had stomachaches was reach for ginger ale.

Ginger has been studied for a variety of medical purposes for many years. In China it is often prescribed for headaches, stomach problems, and the common cold. Indian practitioners of aryuvedic medicine also use it for digestion and arthritis. In the West, it is used most commonly for the prevention of nausea.

There are many scientific studies about different uses of ginger, but the only use whose efficacy is clinically proven is for the treatment of nausea and vomiting associated with pregnancy. In low doses, ginger may be appropriate for pregnant patients, but check with your doctor first.

Despite the best intentions of our mothers, commercially available ginger ale doesn’t even contain any real ginger. But it still seemed to work. That’s the placebo effect. Thanks anyway, Mom.

CAN GARLIC PREVENT HEART DISEASE OR CANCER?

Many common medications that doctors use come from natural sources. Warfarin (Coumadin), a common blood thinner, was discovered from bleeding cows that had eaten yellow sweet clover. Digitalis, a heart medication, is derived from the plant foxglove, and penicillin comes from the penicillium mold. Recent studies point to the antioxidant properties of red wine, pomegranate juice, and dark chocolate. And ethnobotanists are scouring the Amazon to explore the medicinal potential of indigenous flora. So what about garlic?

We love garlic, but unfortunately there just isn’t any data in yet that decisively proves this pungent bulb’s health benefits. Garlic has been studied in high blood pressure, cholesterol lowering, blood thinning, and cancer prevention, to name a few. The best available data suggest that garlic is slightly better than a placebo in reducing total cholesterol levels, but this effect is debatable.

Don’t worry, when we find more evidence, we will let you know and we can all go out and celebrate by gorging ourselves on a huge plate of shrimp scampi. Until then, feel free to wear a clove around your neck or hang it on your door to keep evil spirits and vampires at bay.

DO MAGNETS WORK TO CURE PAIN?

Thanks to a variety of questionable claims, the medical magnet business is booming. Annual sales are about $300 million in the United States alone and over $1 billion worldwide. Magnets have been said to increase circulation, reduce inflammation, speed recovery from injuries, relieve low back pain, and even increase longevity and aid in cancer treatment. None of these claims are supported by any data.

There are two types of magnets: static (permanent) magnets whose electromagnetic fields are unchanging (these are the ones that are marketed to gullible grandmas) and electromagnets that generate magnetic fields only when electric current flows through them. In the future, science may find roles for the use of electromagnets, but we doubt that static magnets will ever have any utility.

One best-selling author, a vociferous proponent of magnet therapy, urges us to “neutralize electromagnetic chaos.” How do you do that, you might ask? You run out and buy an Electromagnetic Chaos Eliminator Pendant, stupid. Feel free to waste $99.99 if you wish.

We think a better use of magnets is for sticking your kids’ artwork to the fridge.

DO DOCTORS REALLY STILL USE MAGGOTS AND LEECHES?

It’s not uncommon for us to see a homeless patient come in with a leg infection that is covered in maggots. After we brush away the “bugs” (maggots are actually flies at a larval stage), the wounds are surprisingly clean.

Yes, maggots eat away dead tissue and leave only the healthy stuff behind. This is not a very appetizing solution, but it works, and doctors have indeed used these little creatures as a therapy for cleaning stubborn wounds. Sterile maggots of the green bottle fly,
Lucilia sericata,
are used for this procedure, which is called “maggot debridement therapy.” The maggots (about five to ten) are placed on each square centimeter of a wound. The wound is then covered with a breathable protective dressing and the maggots are left for about two to three days to do their work. Not only do the maggots eat the infected tissue, it is believed that they secrete substances that kill bacteria and promote wound healing.

Now for the leeches…

Medical leeches are making a comeback, but it’s not for those good old bloodlettings. The use of leeches in medicine dates back to antiquity. The first use of a medical leech was about 1000
B.C
., probably in ancient India. They reached their peak of popularity in the nineteenth century. Leeches were used for a variety of ailments, the idea being that blood carried evil humors and that thinning the blood would lead to good health. Leeching fell from favor, but today the little bloodsuckers are used by plastic surgeons throughout the world as tools in skin grafts and reattachment surgery.

If you want to read an intriguing tale about medical leeches, get a copy of
The New Yorker
from July 25, 2005, and enjoy John Colapinto’s article “Bloodsuckers.” You can learn that “Leeches are found in virtually every kind of habitat—including a species in the Sahara that resides in the noses of camels; one that resides in the anuses of hippopotamuses; a cave-dwelling leech in New Guinea that sucks on the blood of bats; and one that attacks the armpits of turtles.” The leech used for medical purposes doesn’t come from a hippo anus, it is a European leech,
Hirudo medicinalis,
that is raised on leech farms.

Leeches do their work by removing blood from the site of skin grafts or reattached parts and relieving congestion in the blood vessels. The Hirudo leech also has a chemical in its saliva that acts as an anticoagulant to prevent blood clotting. The bite of a leech is painless due to its own anesthetic.

WHY DO THEY CALL IT YOUR FUNNY BONE IF IT HURTS SO BAD?

Now, this is some serious medical humor. The “funny bone” refers to the superficial site where the ulnar nerve crosses the elbow. The name funny bone apparently came from a pun in the 1800s. It’s a play on the word humorous and the upper arm bone, the humerus.

Try and contain your laughter.

The pain that you get from banging the funny bone occurs when you bang the nerve against the bony prominence of the humerus, the medial condyle. A simple bang of the elbow is painful, but there are some severe problems that can come from injuring this vulnerable nerve. Cubital tunnel syndrome is a condition that is also known as ulnar nerve entrapment neuropathy at the elbow. This is the second most common condition where a peripheral nerve gets compressed. The most common is carpal tunnel syndrome.

Ulnar nerve entrapment neuropathy at the elbow typically has an insidious onset—the cubital tunnel syndrome causes numbness in the ring and small fingers of the hand, elbow pain, and hand weakness. The symptoms are worsened by any activity that involves repeated flexing of the elbow. It is three times more common in men than women. Sometimes it even requires a surgical decompression to take pressure off the nerve.

Not so funny.

HOW DOES ASPIRIN FIND THE PAIN?

Aspirin is really a magical little pill and probably one of the most important medications available. Aspirin has a very powerful preventive effect associated with strokes and heart disease. But most of us know it for curing pain, and it’s common for people to wonder just how aspirin knows how to find that aching area.

The answer is that it doesn’t! Aspirin is not the pain-seeking bloodhound it appears to be. Pain is a very complex process, and although we would love to avoid an explanation, here is a simplified version….

Let’s say you’re bowling with your friend Barney and you drop the bowling ball on your toe. Although the pain is felt in the throbbing toe, it is really processed in the brain. After the ball crushes the toe, the cells and nerve endings are damaged and release chemicals. These chemicals send messages along the pain fibers to the brain where they are registered as pain. One group of chemicals involved is called prostaglandins, and aspirin works by stopping the cells from making prostaglandins. Prostaglandins are also responsible for inflammation and aspirin also blocks this effect.

So now you need some pain medication. When you take aspirin, it is absorbed in the stomach or intestine and it enters the bloodstream. From there it goes throughout the entire body, not just the injured area. It works its magic wherever prostaglandins are being made. The result—temporary relief of pain and inflammation.

WHY DO FEET SMELL?

The fancy term for smelly feet is
bromohydrosis. Hyperhidrosis
refers to sweaty feet. In our family we call it “swamp foot.”

Foot odor is caused primarily from sweat, and the feet contain an estimated quarter of a million sweat glands. Just as in the armpits, foot sweat is odor-free when it comes out, but the bacteria on the surface of the feet act on the sweat and the stink begins. It becomes more of an issue down there, because our shoes and socks create a dark and moist environment that allows the bacteria to flourish.

The two solutions to the smelly foot problem are to keep your feet clean and to keep them dry. In the ER, we have a lot of experience with smelly feet. When caring for a particularly unkempt patient, an experienced ER doctor or nurse knows that the smell gets worse when the socks come off. There is a special name for this condition—we call it “toxic sock syndrome.”

DOES ARTHRITIS FLAIR UP IN BAD WEATHER?

Here we go again. We know what’s going to happen when we say that there is no relationship between weather changes and arthritis. It will happen on some obscure radio program in Scottsdale, Arizona. The host will take calls, and some angry senior will call in, get all indignant, and berate us about the misinformation that we are irresponsibly spreading. He will tell us how he was hobbled by arthritis while living in Walla Walla, Washington, but now plays three sets of tennis a day. When we explain that the research literature has found no connection, he will become even more incensed.

There is no conspiracy here. Studies that have looked at the subjective perception of pain have found that changes in barometric pressure have caused increased pain, decreased pain, or no change at all. There is no consistent pattern. When researchers tried to look at objective measures of inflammation with weather changes, no study was able to find any connection.

So whether you live in New York City; an Amazonian rain forest; Tucson, Arizona; Piscataway, New Jersey; or the Gobi Desert, science cannot predict any changes with your arthritis with the climate. Check them all out and see which locale you prefer. ( We would choose New York—the take-out is better.)

WHY DOES IT FEEL SO HOT OUTSIDE WHEN IT IS 90 DEGREES IF OUR BODY TEMPERATURE IS 98.6?

This is a great question that we have been asked many times. There is a relatively simple explanation.

It’s all about the thermoregulation. Doesn’t sound very simple, does it? That’s why we’re here. Our bodies are constantly producing heat from our metabolism. This heat needs to go somewhere. Thermoregulation is the mechanism by which our body attempts to balance heat gain and loss in order to maintain a constant body temperature. This becomes more complicated when we are dealing with rising outside temperatures. It is much easier to release this heat when there is a large gradient (a bigger difference) between body and outside temperature. When it is hot outside, the body ends up having to work harder to lose heat. That makes you sweat and flush, as you try to increase blood flow to the skin and allow heat loss.

This just goes with the territory of being the warm-blooded animals that we are. Cold-blooded animals only get as hot or as cold as it is outside—which could be trouble for a rattlesnake trapped in an ice-cream truck.

WHY DOES SUCKING ON HELIUM MAKE YOUR VOICE SOUND FUNNY?

Helium is a colorless, odorless noble gas. The noble moniker doesn’t make sense when you imagine a grown man at a child’s party taking a balloon, inhaling, and then giggling like a five-year-old when he hears his own squeaky cartoonlike voice.

Helium causes this voice change by altering the environment where sound is formed. In normal conditions, the voice makes sounds using the vocal cords. The cords or folds vibrate, releasing pulses or waves of air into the throat. These waves are interpreted as sound. If we change the composition of the air, we change the way the vocal cords vibrate. Helium is lighter than air so our vocal cords will vibrate faster in this environment. The speed of sound in air is approximately 350m/s, but the speed of sound in helium is 900m/s. The faster vibration causes the higher pitch.

List of our favorite high-pitched voices:

Tweety Bird

Tiny Tim

Alvin and the Chipmunks

Megan Mullally

Mike Tyson

WHAT TURNS SNOT GREEN?

People are obsessed with the color of their secretions. In the hospital, you often get detailed descriptions about the color changes in a person’s stool, urine, or sputum. Stool color changes can reflect illness, but urine color is rarely helpful unless blood is present. As for snot, indentifying the rainbow of possibilities may be helpful in some patients. Green is the only potentially worrisome shade. The green color comes from white blood cells called neutrophils. These immune cells appear when bacteria starts infecting the nasal passages or airways. When the white cells start fighting the infection, they produce an enzyme called myeloperoxidase. Myeloperoxidase is green because it contains a lot of iron.

Now, the hint of a green tinge doesn’t necessarily mean that you need antibiotics. If it is just in your nose at the beginning of an illness, it will probably pass. But if you are coughing it up, have underlying lung disease, or symptoms persist, go see your doctor.

So don’t take umbrage with people who blow their noses and then carefully inspect the tissue or handkerchief to evaluate their production. They are just being vigilant.