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customer eating a "triple bypass burger" at the Heart Attack
Grille in Las Vegas ... may actually need one:
A man who scarfed down a burger and fries at a Heart Attack Grill restaurant in Las Vegas over the weekend actually suffered a heart attack mid chew, authorities said.
Witnesses said the man, who was in his 40s, was grubbing on one of the grill's notorious "Triple Bypass Burgers" when his symptoms started.
Link (Photo: Matt York/AP)
Do
you love working but are constantly told by naysayers that you're a workaholic
working yourself into an early grave?
Science to the rescue! Researchers say that there's nothing wrong with "engaged workaholics":
Engaged workaholics, these experts say, are distinct from the classic, compulsively driven worker who can't unplug ever and always feels like he or she should be working and suffer greater-than-average ill effects: more conflicts at work, less job satisfaction, poorer social relationships, more heart attacks, more divorces.
Engaged workaholics may dodge some or all of those nasty repercussions for one simple reason: They love what they do. They get a kick out of it. They don't feel stressed by it.
'"They work because work is fun," says Wilmar Schaufeli, professor of work and organizational psychology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, whose team coined the "engaged workaholic" term.
Work engagement is a fairly new term in occupational psychology circles: It's basically defined as a healthy, positive passion for work — the opposite of the stereotypical uninterested slacker who slides by doing as little as possible throughout the day.
Link (Photo: Shutterstock)
3d printing continues to take us boldly into the brave new world of the 21st century, and not surprisingly medical applications are at the top of the innovation ladder, since replacement parts are always in demand.
Recently, an entire mandible was created in a 3d printer by mixing titanium with the printing compound, and an elderly woman got a new lease on life thanks to the 3d printing of this replacement part. Here’s the scoop:
The patient was an elderly woman of 83 years who had developed a chronic bone infection in her lower jaw. Reconstructive surgery would be risky (and expensive) at her age so they decided to try something new – an operation that is literally the first of its kind.
They crafted a brand new jaw for her, made from titanium powder fused in a 3D printer. The complex body part comes complete with articulated joints, cavities to promote muscle attachment, and grooves to direct regrowth of nerves and veins. It will also be equipped with a specially made dental bridge into which false teeth can be screwed into holes. That will happen later this month during a follow-up surgery.
The operation was done in June last year, but has only recently been publicized – probably because they decided to make sure it actually worked first!
And work it did: our lovely old granny got to walk away from the hospital only four days after a surgery that only took four hours – a fifth of the time it would have taken to do a traditional reconstructive surgery. The day after the surgery the woman was already able to swallow with her new mouth!
Now, doctors just need to team up with Pirate Bay and start sending bones to each other via torrent file. Modern medicine just keeps getting cooler and cooler!
Link –image credit: organprinter
M2A: Fantastic Voyage is a project that tries to demonstrate the differences between processed foods and whole foods inside the human body. Stefani Bardin, a professor of design, and Braden Kuo, a gastroenterologist, sent a M2A* pill camera through two human subjects. One (left) ate ramen noodles, blue Gatorade, and gummi bears. The other (right) ate whole foods, including fresh made noodles. I choose to interpret Bardin’s assessment as praise for industrially-manufactured ramen:
Notice how the shape of the ramen noodles is still apparent on the left and the handmade ramen noodles on the right are no longer recognizable as noodles? Even after two and a half hours? That’s because top ramen is made to survive Armageddon. Our homemade ramen noodles are made to be eaten.
Link -via Geekosystem
*’M’ refers to the camera’s point of entry into the human body and ‘A’ to the point of exit. The designers clearly didn’t want there to be any confusion about how to use it.
Sally is a 44-year-old Sumatran orangutan at the Denver Zoo. She developed a benign fibroid tumor of the uterus that was interfering with her other organs. Veterinarian Diana Boon arranged to collect orangutan blood from around the country and enlisted volunteer surgeons to remove the growth. The doctors tried to prepare but found a dearth of information on orangutan anatomy.
But when Sally lost the ability to go to the bathroom, Boon understood she had only days to live if the obstruction wasn’t removed. So on a Friday afternoon she fired off e-mails to the team, telling them the surgery had to be done by Sunday. And they wouldn’t have blood.
“It had to be a bloodless surgery,” Boon said. “It was either this would work, or this wouldn’t work and it would be fatal for Sally.”
And then, the group got a break. Covidien, a Boulder company that makes a device called LigaSure that helps limit blood-loss during surgery, donated the use of a machine for Sally’s sake.
Another snag loomed. The procedure demanded quite a bit of rummaging around in Sally’s abdomen. If a wayward blade nicked her distended bowel, she would die; Sally would not understand how to use a colostomy bag.
There were other hairy moments during the six hours of surgery, but Sally came through it. Read the entire story (and see a video) at The Denver Post. Link -via Fark
No matter how much you think you know, science is always coming up with new findings. Think you are safe from STDs? Think again:
Studies show over 80% of all sexually active adults will contract an STD at some point, although most won’t notice. That’s because 80% of all people who contract one of the 25 varieties of STDs don’t show any symptoms and most don’t even realize they have one. In fact, the American Social Health Association estimates that 80% of sexually active people contract the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) at one point in their life. While those statistics were taken before the HPV vaccine was released, the vaccine only prevents two of the most dangerous strains of the disease, meaning even those vaccinated can still catch one of the many other strains.
While the numbers sound scary, the upside is that most people who contract an STD won’t suffer any negative effects as a result.
That’s just one of a list of ten thing you probably didn’t know that you can learn about at Oddee. Be prepared that this list contains adults-only subject matter, but the images are SFW. Link
It’s not just your age. It’s what you do while you’re aging, as these MRI scans show.
Link -via Swiss Miss | Photo: Physician and Sports Medicine
Doctors from the Texas Heart Institute have successfully replaced a patient’s heart with a device that keeps the blood flowing, thereby allowing him to live without a detectable heartbeat or even a pulse. Here’s how it works:
The turbine-like device, that are simple whirling rotors, developed by the doctors does not beat like a heart, rather provides a ‘continuous flow’ like a garden hose.
Craig Lewis was a 55-year-old, dying from amyloidosis, which causes a build-up of abnormal proteins. The proteins clog the organs so much that they stop working, according to NPR.
But after the operation, with the ‘machine’ as his heart’s replacement, Lewis’ blood continued to spin and move through his body.
However, when doctors put a stethoscope to his chest, no heartbeat or pulse can be heard (only a ‘humming’ sound)—which “by all criteria that we conventionally use to analyze patients”, Doctor Cohn said, he is dead.
This is proof that “human physiology can be supported without a pulse”.
With all the talk of replacing human organs with those of an animal and electronic hearts, it’s surprising that medical researchers overlooked taking a trip to the plumbing section of the hardware store for replacement parts!
Methodist Hospital in Houston has some advice for football fans who are looking forward to the Super Bowl this Sunday: don’t forget to pee.
“During most sporting events people will get up and use the restroom during the commercials and not have any problem,” said Dr. Jeff Kalina, associate medical director of emergency medicine at Methodist. “However, most of the time the commercials are the best part of the Super Bowl, so we have seen people who have to come in and have a catheter put in to relieve themselves.”
Super Bowl TV ads: Annoying and dangerous.
Methodist says “people who drink too much and fail to get up and go to the bathroom can also develop a problem called urinary retention, a condition where the bladder gets so full that the muscles are not strong enough to generate a stream.”
Link -via The Big Game
Whether or not you agree with graffiti as an art form, you have to respect the heart and passion this fallen street artist exhibits in this trailer for the upcoming documentary Getting Up.
Bedridden and paralyzed with ALS, graffiti artist Tony “Tempt” Quan gets a second chance to create art via new technology that allows him to paint with his eyes, and as you can see that, despite being immobilized, his mind is still soaring.
–via Booooooom
Here’s a little nugget of retro goodness for ya, courtesy of BoingBoing-it’s a comic handed out at a Madonna concert at Madison Square Garden in 1987, warning youngsters about AIDS and urging them not to disrespect those who have contracted the virus. It’s a delightfully colorful fear mongering flyer public service announcement, and look! Free Madonna pinup!
Meet
Rita Lawlor, a seven-year-old girl from Sarasota, Florida, who recently
became the youngest person to receive an award from her local fire department
for saving her mom's life:
When seven-year-old Rita Lawlor couldn't wake her mother up, she did what many have probably never thought of doing.
She slapped her with a slice of pizza. [...]
When this didn't work Rita realised her mother may be in serious trouble and rang for help.
One, two, three, four; Pick up a mop and clean the floor;
five, six, seven, eight; house cleaning and exercise are the perfect mate!
Here's the solution to those pressed for time (and clean clothes), Aerobic House Cleaning by Steve Markovich:
If house cleaning were an Olympic sport, Stevie Markovich would be in the running for a medal.
Without resorting to gym fees or spandex, the 57-year-old Mr. Markovich has kept himself fit for the past 16 years by using the "aerobic house cleaning" exercises he devised.
He does squats while washing windows. He performs lunges and hip twists while using the vacuum cleaner, "the most versatile exercise machine" he knows.
Link - via Oddity Central
Is there a picky eater in your family? This story may be useful to back up your warnings to the child who won’t eat anything but chicken nuggets or peanut butter sandwiches or bread. British 17-year-old Stacey Irvine was admitted to a hospital after she collapsed and had trouble breathing. It came to light that she had eaten hardly anything at all besides chicken nuggets since she was two years old.
Miss Irvine, who has never eaten fruit or vegetables, had swollen veins in her tongue and was found to have anaemia.
Medics gave her a series of injections and started her on an urgent course of vitamins.
But, despite being warned that she could die if she sticks to her nugget addiction, she still can’t resist the fast food.
Miss Irvine, who prefers McDonald’s treats but also enjoys KFC’s, told The Sun: ‘I am starting to realise this is really bad for me.’
That understatement is not news to Irvine’s mother, who has been warning her for years that her diet would send her to a hospital. But Irvine had eaten other things -fries, chips, and an occasional piece of toast to go with her nuggets. Link -via Arbroath
(Image credit: NTI)
Shoving pork up one’s nose is a folk remedy for nosebleeds in some cultures. Now medical researchers think that it may be an effective and safe treatment. The Guardian quotes a recent medical journal article:
“Cured salted pork crafted as a nasal tampon and packed within the nasal vaults successfully stopped nasal hemorrhage promptly, effectively, and without sequelae … To our knowledge, this represents the first description of nasal packing with strips of cured pork for treatment of life-threatening hemorrhage in a patient with Glanzmann thrombasthenia.”
They acknowledge a long tradition of using pork to treat general epistaxis, ie nosebleed. The technique fell into disuse, they speculate, because “packing with salt pork was fraught with bacterial and parasitic complications. As newer synthetic hemostatic agents and surgical techniques evolved, the use of packing with salt pork diminished.”
Link -via Dave Barry | Photo: Flickr user TheDeliciousLife
It’s hard to watch the mind of a beloved family member slip, and also painful to know that you’re losing mental acuity with age. Now there’s a nursing home in Wiedlisbach, Switzerland designed to make that transition easier. Caretakers lead residents to believe that they’re living independent lives in the past:
The newly approved €20m (£17m) housing project is to be built next to the Swiss village of Wiedlisbach near Bern and will provide sheltered accommodation and care for 150 elderly dementia patients in 23 purpose-built 1950s-style houses. The homes will be deliberately designed to recreate the atmosphere of times past.
The scheme’s promoters said there will be no closed doors and residents will be free to move about. To reinforce an atmosphere of normality, the carers will dress as gardeners, hairdressers and shop assistants. The only catch is that Wiedlisbach’s inhabitants will not be allowed to leave the village.
Link -via Marginal Revolution | Photo (unrelated) via Flickr user Jess & Peter
Nail in the head ain't nothin' to Dante Autullo, who accidentally fired a three-inch nail into his brain and didn't even feel it:
Dante Autullo remained conscious after the self-inflicted injury and initially believed he had only brushed his nail gun against his head.
The 32-year-old, who is recovering in hospital, even continued doing handiwork around his Chicago home for the rest of the day and chatted to his family.
But he was taken to hospital the following afternoon after waking up from a nap feeling ill.An X-ray revealed the nail lodged in his brain – but Mr Autullo was still well enough to post an image of the scan on Facebook during an ambulance ride between hospitals.
This entertaining and insightful web series by mortician Caitlin Doughty answers the questions we are afraid to ask, or never really wanted to know, in case the answers make us even more afraid of death.
In episode 5 she answers what happens to our bodies in space, if cremating a larger person creates a grease fire, and how often people ask for parts of their loved ones before they’re cremated. It’s a ghastly good time, even if the subject matter makes you feel a bit queasy…
–via The Mary Sue
There's something unusual about the X-ray above of a man who went to an Italian hospital's emergency room: he had two hearts, and he got double heart attacks!
It turned out that a few years earlier, the man had undergone a procedure known as a heterotopic heart transplant. Unlike an orthotopic transplant, in which one organ is removed and another put in its place, a heterotopic transplant pairs a new organ with a diseased one. [...]
In the case of the ailing Italian, reported in the Annals of Emergency Medicine, the transplant team had mated his new heart with his malfunctioning old one. Chambers and blood vessels of the two hearts were married so that the new heart could support the old one.
But there’s a risk, explained Vukmir. “You can develop two independent heart rhythms, especially in a scenario where one heart gets a little better,” he said.
Last year marked the 150th anniversary of the first gunshots of the Civil War -and the first gunshot wounds. As it turns out, the bloodiest war in American history was also one of the most influential in battlefield medicine. Civil War surgeons learned fast, and many of their MacGyver-like solutions have had lasting impact. Here are some of the advances and the people behind them.
Life Saving Amputation: The General who Visited his Leg
The old battlefield technique of trying to save limbs with doses of TLC (aided by wound-cleaning rats and maggots) quickly fell out of favor During the Civil War, even for top officers. The sheer number of injured was too high, and war surgeons quickly discovered the best way to stave deadly infections was to simply lop off the area -quickly.
Among those saved by the saw was Daniel E. Sickles, the eccentric commander of the 3rd Army Corps. In 1863, at the Battle of Gettysburg, the major general’s right leg was shattered by a Confederate shell. Within the hour, the leg was amputated just above the knee. His procedure, publicized in the military press, paved the way for many more. Since the new Army Medical Museum in Washington, D.C. had requested battlefield donations, Sickles sent the limb to them in a box labeled “With the compliments of Major General D.E.S.” Sickles visited his leg yearly on the anniversary of its emancipation.
Daniel Sickles' leg on display at the the National Museum of Health and Medicine.
(Image credit: Wikipedia user Nis Hoff)
Amputation saved more lives than any other wartime medical procedure by instantly turning complex injuries into simple ones. Battlefield surgeons eventually took no longer than six minutes to get each moaning man on the table, apply a handkerchief soaked in chloroform or ether, and make the deep cut. Union surgeons became the most skilled limb hackers in history. Even in deplorable conditions, they lost only about 25 percent of their patients -compared to a 75 percent mortality rate among similarly injured civilians at the time. The techniques invented by wartime surgeons -including cutting as far from the heart as possible and never slicing through joints- became the standard.
As for the nutty-sounding behavior of the leg-visiting commander, Sickles can be justifiably accused. In 1859, while serving in Congress, he shot and killed U.S. Attorney Philip Barton Key for sleeping with Sickles’ wife. Charged with murder, Sickles became the first person in the United States to be found not guilty by reason of temporary insanity.
The Anesthesia Inhaler: A Knockout Breakthrough
In 1863, Stonewall Jackson’s surgeon recommended the removal of his left arm, which had been badly damaged by friendly fire. When a chloroform-soaked cloth was placed over his nose, the Confederate general, in great pain, muttered, “What an infinite blessing,” before going limp.
According to the CDC, one in six American adults is a binge drinker:
The study — which defines binge drinking as five or more drinks in a short period of time for men and four or more for women — breaks down the nation’s 38 million binge drinkers by a variety of measures, including geography, age and income level. Wisconsin is the state with the most binge drinkers at 25 percent of the population, while Utah, home to the teetotaling Mormon church, comes in last at less than 11 percent. [...]
The CDC report noted that half of all alcohol consumed in the U.S. is consumed during binge drinking. For young people, that rate shoots up to 90 percent.
The Awl has some great charts detailing how the common cold is transferred, profiling the one guy who infects your entire workplace, and a flow chart to determine whether you will catch a cold. That’s in addition to these handy tips for avoiding a cold. Link -via Nag on the Lake
Peter Stevens of Cambridge, England, was in his car Friday when a thief opened up the back door and grabbed his laptop.
The 34-year-old runner and IT expert chased him and was surprised when he caught up with the thief after just 225 metres.
Realising the game was up, the puffed-out criminal dropped the laptop, allowing Mr Stevens to pick it up.
Mr Stevens said: “I was appalled by how unfit this guy was. I thought it would take a lot longer to catch up with him. If you are going to go into the snatch-and-run business at least try and get fit or at least play to your strengths and go for something less energetic.”
The thief, who Stevens believes is much younger than he is, has not been caught, but Stevens put his money where his mouth is.
The next day Mr Stevens made a donation to a charity which promotes fitness.
He said: “I made a small donation at Milton Country Park to Cambridge Parkrun to help encourage youngsters to get fit. They seem to need all the help they can get.”
Sure
hospital bills are notorious for being expensive, but one New York man
learned that he racked up an unusually high bill for a doctor's visit:
The hospital cured his pneumonia, but the bill — for an eye-popping $44 million — made him sick.
Unemployed doorman Alexis Rodriguez couldn’t believe his eyes when he opened an envelope from Bronx-Lebanon Hospital last week and saw what he appeared to owe.
“I almost had an asthma attack,” said Rodriguez, 28, just one of several hundred patients to receive absurdly inflated bills because of a “system error.”
His amount due was $44,776,587 for outpatient services that in reality amounted to no more than $300.
From The New York Daily News: Link (Photo: James Keivom/NY Daily News)
If you get stung by a jelly fish, don’t ask your friend to pee on you. Similarly, reading in the dark won’t make you go blind. For explanations and more interesting body myths, head over to Life Hacker.
We all know that Americans are getting fatter, but it's still surprising to see just how quickly we get fat.
The figure above, compiled using data from the Centers for Disease Control (which began tracking the increase in obesity in the USA since 1985) shows the rise of obesity in just four years.
Link - via Kevin Bonham's article over at Science in the News and We, Beasties
Previously on Neatorama: The United States of Fat: A Map of Obesity in the USA | More about obesity
A while back I posted an article about a urinal which doubles as a video game, and this invention was actually well received, even though I still don’t understand the allure.
But this concept design for an e-Urinal really makes sense to me–a unit which is able to scan your urine and report possible health issues to you while you wait. And, while this particular model may still be in the conceptual stage of development, I can see this kind of thing catching on and changing the way our health issues are diagnosed.
Let’s just hope you don’t have to show proof of health insurance in order to use this urinal, or I predict a lot of wet floors surrounding these things!
About two miles (three kilometers) per hour. That’s the conclusion of a group of researchers at the University of Sidney, who found that the walking speed of adults correlated inversely with their risk of death.
The Grim Reaper’s preferred walking speed is 0.82 m/s (2 miles (about 3 km) per hour) under working conditions. As none of the men in the study with walking speeds of 1.36 m/s (3 miles (about 5 km) per hour) or greater had contact with Death, this seems to be the Grim Reaper’s most likely maximum speed; for those wishing to avoid their allotted fate, this would be the advised walking speed.
Details of the methodology and analysis of the results are published in the British Medical Journal. The authors note also that “the preferred walking speed of the Grim Reaper while collecting souls is relatively constant irrespective of people’s geographical location, sex, or ethnic background.”
Link. Image credit Belle Mellor.
Well, Children's Healthcare of Atlanta is trying. It's battling childhood obesity (Georgia is ranked second highest in the United States) with its new ad campaign, which has been labeled "grim" and "building a climate of hate" by critics.
The ads, which appear on the campaign’s website, strong4life.com, are modeled after blunt — but effective — campaigns attacking methamphetamine use and smoking.
In one spot, an overweight girl named Maritza says: “My doctors say I have something called hypertension. I’m really scared.” And in another, that ends with “Being fat takes the fun out of being a kid,” a child named Tina says she doesn’t like going to school because the other kids pick on her.
Critics say the ads will further ostracize children such as Tina. In posts on the Strong4Life Facebook page, they accuse the campaign of building a “climate of hate.”
What do you think? Will that be effective?
Carrie Teegardin of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has the story: Link | Strong4Life website
Just like humans, when an animal loses a leg or other important body part, a prosthetic can mean the difference between living a normal life and struggling on a day to day basis. Here are ten stories of animals that suffered loss and then learned to live with a new adaptation to their body.
While some people criticize the efforts put into these prosthetics, particularly in species that are not under threat of extinction, it is important to realize that these developments could help save a critical breeding member of an endangered species one day. Additionally, many of these techniques are brand new and by testing them on animals, researchers are developing useful insights to see if they may one day work on humans. If you end up losing a body part and get a bionic replacement twenty years from now, you might just have a cat or dog to thank for your top-of-the-line prosthetic.
Oscar lost his two rear legs in an accident with a combine harvester. After losing so much blood, his owners were told to expect the worst, but even after he survived the ordeal, their vet warned that cats rarely live happy lives with only two legs. Fortunately, he referred Oscars owners, Kate Allen and Mike Nolan to a veterinary surgeon who specializes in state-of-the-art animal medicine.
After looking at Oscar’s situation, Dr. Noel Fitzpatrick agreed to take on the new patient, surgically fitting him with implants that can eventually be attached to prosthetic paws. The surgery makes Oscar a notable kitty as he is the first cat to ever have prosthetic paws.
While the process was a success, Oscar’s paws haven’t yet been perfected for outdoor use. He has been made to be a house cat for the rest of his life, but really…that’s not all that bad now is it, especially when you consider how he was injured in the first place.
The first animal to receive such treatment though was Storm, a Belgian Sheperd, who lost his paw after it became infected with a tumor. The same vet that would later provide Oscar with his bionic paws, Noel Fitzpatrick, was the first to offer this service to any animal and Storm was the perfect candidate. Fitzpatrick says that he hopes his developments can eventually be used to help soldiers returning from Iraq and victims of the July 7th bombings in London.
Earlier this year, Naki’o became the first dog in the world to be fitted with a full set of bionic paws from Orthopets, a leader in the pet prosthetics industry. Far from just helping him walk easier, the paws are so well attached that he can now run and swim just as he did before the accident. Naki’o lost his paws due to severe frostbite after his previous owners abandoned him to fend for himself throughout the freezing winter in Nebraska. Despite the fact that the poor pup had to crawl on his stomach to move, he still found a loving adoptive family who worked tirelessly to raise the money to get Naki’o the prosthetics he desperately needed. Their efforts paid off as Naki’o is now thrilled to have his bionic paws and is eager to run, jump and fetch with his new family.
