LSNED

Chapstick is a trade-marked brand name for lip balm, but the name has become so popular to use with any kind of lip balm that they could be in danger of losing their trade-mark. (like what happened to the Yo-Yo) The one and only Chapstick was invented in the 1870s by Dr. Charles Browne Fleet, a physician who dabbled in this sort of stuff. His original product was like a large wick-less candle wrapped in tinfoil… which wasn’t exactly a blockbuster seller. In 1912 John Morton bought the rights to the product for a whopping five dollars. His wife melted down the large pieces of the balm and formed it into smaller sticks, and its future success got underway.

Now, back to my needlessly shocking headline, how can Chapstick kill you? Strictly speaking, it can’t. Well, I suppose anything could become a choking hazard. Or if Chapstick could be fired from an air cannon at a high enough velocity… (hmm) But what I meant was some of the interesting ingredients in Chapstick. Most of it is made up of wax and oil, along with the usual suspects of any skin lotion. (vitamin E, aloe vera, etc.) One of the more interesting ingredients is Phenol… a.k.a. the Nazi Death Toxin!

Phenol is used in medicine as a germ-killing antiseptic. It even smells like “hospital”. It’s also the structural ingredient in aspirin, and had it’s debut in the manufacturing industry as a chief ingredient of Bakelite, one of the original types of plastic. Most intriguing was it’s popularity in Nazi Germany as a lethal injection. Primarily due to it’s ready availability and quick, effective results. The reason for it to be in your Chapstick is not so dastardly. It has exfoliating properties (removing dead skin) as well as some UV-protection.

Another controversial ingredient in Chapstick is oxybenzone, as found in many sunscreen products. There is some evidence to suggest that this UV absorbing compound becomes carcinogenic on the skin, which can actually cause skin cancer… which the sunscreen was trying to avoid in the first place! So you can add that to the infinite list of “_____ may cause cancer”. Yippee!

But really, the choking hazard is still the most dangerous potential of Chapstick. I’m just saying… you might not want to yawn with your eyes closed while Chapstick is nearby. Who knows what could happen?

• Source: http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/ChapStick

Many of my lessons here at LSNED are inspired by random curiosity. Yesterday the thought came to me, as I was standing outside in my wool jacket, scarf, mittens, and toque… why does my nose run when it’s cold? Being that November is an ideal month for general nose awareness, I thought it appropriate to pass on what I learned about snot.

Snot, or more technically accurate (but not as fun) “mucus”, is produced inside your nose and sinuses as a first line defence against germs and dust in the air. It works like fly-paper, basically, as particles will stick in the goop before it gets inhaled into your lungs where it could cause more serious trouble. You produce about a quart of mucus every day. Or a litre, for you metrically-inclined. That’s a full bottle of snot every day. Gross.

As for why it might be dripping out your nose, it could be one of many reasons. Of course, when we’re sick with a flu or cold our mucus production goes into overdrive making more than the usual daily quota. It can overfill your sinuses, causing you to get stuffed up, and we all know it runs out your nose like a gooey waterfall. It’s working extra hard to prevent those airborne germs from coming in and getting you doubly sick.

If you have allergies to pet hair, or pollen, or anything else it can cause a runny nose. Allergies are caused when your body interprets something, like dog hair, as a germ and it reacts the same as if you were sick. Again, turning on the snot faucet.

When you cry (and we already learned the health benefits of crying) you get a runny nose, but it has nothing to do with sickness or germs. In that case, the tears produced in your eyes also drain into your sinuses, mixing with the mucus, and making things all runny.

Lastly, the answer to my pondering, when it’s cold outside your body turns on your nose heater so as to warm up the incoming air before it hits your lungs. As the flow increases to the blood vessels in the nose, that triggers more mucus production and the overflow starts on it’s epic journey south causing the traditional Canadian greeting: “(sniff) Hi, (sniff – sniff) it sure is (sniff) cold out there! (sniff)”

• Source: http://kidshealth.org/kid/talk/qa/nose_run.html

Penicillin remains one of the most significant medical advancements, umm, ever. Before its first use in 1940, infections from a skinned knee or a shaving cut could prove fatal. There was nothing doctors could do to fight bacteria. Until the P-bomb came along.

Alexander Fleming is credited as the one who discovered penicillin while working at St. Mary’s Hospital in London. How he got to St. Mary’s in the first place is by pure chance. His brother, already a doctor, suggested he invest his sudden inheritance in medical school. He chose to attend St. Mary’s because, earlier in his life, he had played water polo against a team from there. Later on, faced with the decision to leave St. Mary’s, he was influenced to stay by the captain of the rifle club. Fleming was a good shot, it would have been a shame to lose him.

So there he was, working in the lab studying the staphylococci bacteria. (aka: staph infection, which at the time was deadly) He was a rather messy kinda guy, and at one point came back to his lab after a long absence to find his bacteria samples ruined. There was penicillium fungus growing in his petri dishes. As he was throwing them out, he saved a couple to show a colleague, at which point he took a closer look. Where the fungi had grown, the bacteria had retreated. (cue dramatic science music)

Now, fast forward a decade through a long, slow moving process of un-exciting research. So un-exciting that the other scientists were tired of Fleming and his fungi. (apparently, he was a terribly dull lecturer who showed no passion for his work) He had managed to extract the “active ingredient” from the penicillium, which he named penicillin, but not much more. Still, had he not continued to work diligently, the medical breakthroughs would have been missed.

It was actually other researchers, first Dr. Cecil Paine, and later Dr. Howard Florey, who did the work of applying penicillin to medical testing. The first human patient, a police officer who had cut himself shaving, was a successful test… except that he died. The penicillin did stop the infection, and he did get better, but then they ran out. (they were even trying to reclaim the fungi from the man’s urine!)

Such was the problem for a few years. The medicine worked great, but they could not produce enough. Until the final random events in the story. A different sort of the penicillium fungi was found… in a grocery store… on a cantaloupe. This one produced 200 times the amount of penicillin. After some mad-science experiments with x-rays and UV light, they produced a mutation that generated 1000 times as much. That oughtta do it.

So consider that next time you’re shaving. Have you thanked a cantaloupe lately?

• Source: http://www.botany.hawaii.edu/faculty/wong/BOT135/Lect21b.htm (the loooong story)

So let’s say you had a fever and, for some crazy reason, you wanted to be rid of it. Perhaps you thought it would be nice if you could make it disappear with magic. Ta-da, you’re healed! Well once upon the time, that was the number one over-the-counter prescription.

The wise doctor was Serenus Sammonicus working in the second century as the top physician for the Roman empire. If you came to him with hay fever, or a runny nose, he’d probably offer up his most famous cure… Abracadabra! No really… the word abracadabra was the cure. You couldn’t just say it, though. You needed an amulet with the word engraved across the top. It would be written again on the next line, but missing the last letter. The third line again, missing two letters, and so on. It would go from ABRACADABRA all the way down to just A in a triangle shape.

Nowadays, the word Abracadabra is more likely to cause sneezing than cure it, since the word is often said immediately before the appearance of furry, allergy-inducing bunny rabbits. Ta-da-choo!

Hopefully, you realize that using a magic incantation or amulet is a ridiculously ridiculous idea for any medical doctor, but at the time (200 AD) Sammonicus was among the top scholars of the world. Fortunately knowledge marches on. It’s important to keep in mind that just because an idea comes from the top, it doesn’t make it right.

• Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abracadabra

As I sit here, all sniffly, clinging to a tall glass of orange juice, I am somewhat surprised to discover that there is no evidence to support vitamin C as an effective protector against colds. Whether you take it as a regular supplement, or just pack it in after the cold hits, it doesn’t help prevent colds, and it doesn’t help you recover from colds. Bummer.

This is the conclusion of multiple scientific studies, comparing vitamin C against placebos in varying doses and schedules. With the rather odd exception of marathon runners, skiers, and soldiers training in the arctic, most people received no increased protection from the ravages of the sniffles.

So vitamin C won’t help your achy-stuffy-watery-goobery self get through a cold, but don’t knock it. It still has many other health benefits such as preventing further complications from colds, keeping your skin looking young, and reduce the risk of strokes, cancer, and heart troubles. Oh, and scurvy.

Bonus fact: On the other hand, grandma’s chicken soup has been proven to have scientific merit for fighting colds. The combination of the heat, the broth, and the vegetables do make for a beneficial treatment.

• Source: http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Vitamin_C_and_the_common_cold
• Source: http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/the-benefits-of-vitamin-c

I’m sure you’ve heard of the dangers of lead paint, and that you shouldn’t lick old furniture. I was surprised to hear that it was only white paint that contained lead, which was in fact the pigment used to make the paint white. Through a chemical reaction, the dull gray lead would “grow” a covering of white flakes that would be scraped off as powder and used to make paint a brilliant white. While a pure-blue paint would have no reason to contain lead, many coloured paints would have been mixed with the lead-based white. So generally it’s still best to keep antiques out of your mouth, no matter the colour.

Another interesting story here is how it took so long for lead paint to be banned in America. Though mentioned as far back as 200 BC, the poisonous affects of lead was medically established in 1887 in the US, and again in 1897 in Australia. (They noticed children would become ill after chewing on porch railings.) The link to lead-paint was confirmed in a 1904 study, again in Australia, finding that the lead can be transferred when children merely touch paint, then the fingers inevitably go in the ol’ pie-hole.

Over in the US of A, a bill makes it to congress in 1910 to keep lead-based paint out of homes, and another bill the same year to label lead paints with a poison warning. Both attempts fail. In 1921 the League of Nations (that’s the original United Nations… nothing to do with superheroes) got together to make official the dangers of lead paint. The USA did not attend, and did not agree with the resolution.

With mounting scientific evidence, and public concern, the Lead Industry Association and paint manufacturers ran an advertising campaign throughout the 20s up to the 50s playing down the hazards. The “Dutch Boy”, mascot of the National Lead Company, specifically told kids how great lead paint was. Advertisements featured babies touching brilliant white walls. A children’s book was published entitled “Dutch Boy’s Lead Party”.

The tide began to turn in America with increased media coverage of the hazards. In 1943 it hit the mainstream with a TIME magazine report. The biggest hit came with the 1956 issue of PARADE magazine and the article “Don’t Let Your Child Get Lead Poisoning” which reached 7 million homes, plus the national television coverage that followed. With an amazingly swift response, the US government finally decided to put a ban on lead-based paints… in 1978. Due to the 68 year delay, there is a still lead paint present in millions of American homes.

• Source: http://www.lead411.org/Templates/history/white_lead_pigment.htm
• Lead timeline: http://www.lead.org.au/fs/fst29.html
• Many examples of lead advertising: http://www.cincinnatichildrens.org/research/project/enviro/hazard/lead/lead-advertising/default.htm

It has long been believed that the appendix, a small cul-de-sac thingy that hangs off your intestine, served no purpose. The theory was that it was merely a dried up evolutionary leftover of something that used to serve a purpose. Well not anymore! The appendix is finally getting the credit it has deserved (for the last 80 million years or so) as a contributor to the well-being of your body.

New research at Duke University Medical Center is suggesting that the appendix might play an important role in your immune system. That little soft-tissue cubby-hole might in fact be a clubhouse where all the cool white blood cells can hang out and trade tips on fighting disease. Also it can store good bacteria so it’s ready and waiting when called upon to support the troops.

Perhaps the reason that the appendix remained a mystery for so long is that we are too darn healthy. Due to modern sanitation, the immune system has less work to do. Much like teenagers, boredom equals trouble. Some medical problems, from allergies to diabetes (things that barely existed more than 100 years ago), may in fact be caused by an under-utilized immune system. So get out there and eat some dirt.*

*I’m not a real doctor, so you probably shouldn’t accept any medical advice on this blog.

• Source: http://www.livescience.com/health/090824-appendix-evolution.html (suggested by David Greene)