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All, Medicine

Jellyfish Sting

Image result for jellyfish

Image from PBS

Andrea Hernandez

You might have been warned by your parents to avoid touching a jellyfish on the beach because it might sting you. And some say urine eliminates the pain. Although it is true jellyfish do sting, this method to treat the sting is incorrect.

Treating jellyfish stings with urine is a long-standing myth that even appeared on the TV Show, Friends. In the show, Monica got stung by a jellyfish and her friend, Joey, suggested that she urinate on the sting because he saw a documentary stating it would relieve the pain. It worked for Monica but in real life you may feel worse. 

The tentacles of the jellyfish have tiny stingers called nematocysts which can detach, stick to skin, and release venom. Even if the jellyfish is dead, it can still sting you because the cell structure of nematocysts is maintained long after death. Nematocysts release a thread that contains the venom when a foreign object brushes against the cell and will continue releasing venom until the cells are removed.   

Urine is made up of water, salt, and chemicals like urea and uric acid. If you consume a lot of liquid your urine becomes more diluted (meaning mostly water). Fresh water can cause a change in osmotic pressure which can activate the nematocysts to release more venom.

It is advised by physicians to carefully remove the nematocysts from the skin with tweezers and after removing the cells wash the affected area with hot water. If the pain persists or there are signs of an allergic reaction, you should consult with your doctor.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-urinating/

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/jellyfish-stings/symptoms-causes/syc-20353284

https://uamshealth.com/healthlibrary2/medicalmyths/urineforjellyfishsting/

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/jellyfish-stings/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20353290

https://www.webmd.com/urinary-incontinence-oab/qa/what-is-urine

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1046/j.1529-8019.2002.01508.x

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/77123227.pdf

All

Should We Eat Like Cavemen?

 

Image result for paleo diet

Image from Everyday Health

Isabel Draper

The Paleo diet claims to help with weight loss and health by returning to the diet that their ancestors consumed thousands of years ago. Grains and processed foods are avoided.  The diet consists mostly of meat and vegetables. The diet also prohibits the consumption of legumes and added sugars. 

 We know that paleolithic people didn’t eat cauliflower rice or coconut clusters. Paleolithic people likely ate lean small animals, including the inner organs (offal) and the bone marrow. They ate what they could kill or could find. The meat available to be eaten today is from fattened cattle. And most of us don’t eat offal or bone marrow. Still, the Paleo diet stresses the benefits of consuming grass-fed beef while not directly addressing the potential drawbacks of consuming large quantities of red meat. 

The idea that paleolithic people ate more meat than vegetables may reflect the fact that animal bones are more easily preserved than plant matter. The exact amount of meat that they ate compared to vegetation is impossible to determine. Humans lack certain teeth that carnivorous animals use to shred meat. Our teeth closely resemble other omnivores or herbivores.

Proponents of the paleo diet have not provided satisfactory evidence that the elimination of potentially nutrient dense foods like legumes, dairy, and grains promotes health. For example, the potato, which was available to some paleolithic people, is generally avoided by followers of the diet due to its high glycemic index. 

Avoiding processed foods and grains may facilitate weight loss and improve overall health, but the claims for other aspects of the diet are speculative. There is no way to know what the paleolithic humans ate thousands of years ago. What we do know is that they ate to survive. If a paleolithic human found a cheeseburger out on the savannah, he might have eaten that and asked for some fries to go with it. 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4997304/

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-weight/diet-reviews/paleo-diet/

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/01/06/260185944/looks-like-the-paleo-diet-wasnt-so-hot-for-ancient-hunters-teeth

All, Women's Health

Do bras cause breast cancer?

Image result for bra cartoon

Photo from Gemma Correll

Andrea Hernandez

You might have heard on social media that wired bras and sleeping in bras can cause breast cancer. Negative ideas are more compelling to the human mind.  Let’s think twice and look at the evidence.  

The source of this idea came from the book, Dressed to Kill, and internet rumors. The authors of the book believed the confining nature of bras constrained lymphatic circulation and would result in fluid build up in breast tissue. Many medical organizations like the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the American Cancer Society noted there is no evidence that wearing bras increases the risk of breast cancer. 

One study countered the book and Internet claims by inspecting over 1,500 postmenopausal women first diagnosed with invasive breast cancer. These women were asked a series of structured questions to find lifetime patterns of bra wearing before their breast cancer diagnosis. The researchers found no connection of invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC) or invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC) breast cancer with bra wearing such as bra cup size, recency, average number of hours in a day worn, underwire bras, and age at which bras were worn regularly.

Worrying is no fun. The next time you are taking a nap with your bra on, don’t stress about the risk of breast cancer!

Sources

http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/23/10/2181.short

https://www.breastcancer.org/risk/factors/no_evidence

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/science/16qna.html?ref=science

https://www.cancer.org/cancer/breast-cancer/risk-and-prevention/disproven-or-controversial-breast-cancer-risk-factors.html