Hearts and Minds

Suffering a heart attack or other severe cardiac event is a life-threatening and life-changing event. It happens a lot. Every year, roughly 805,000 people in the U.S. have a heart attack -- that's about one every 40 seconds.

Physical recovery can be arduous and lengthy, but there's a mental toll as well. One in three heart patients, according to a 2023 meta-analysis of more than 100 studies, live with anxiety, depression and ongoing stress.

"The technology of cardiology is locked down. People get that. What's not locked down is the patient experience," Sam Sears, a professor of health psychology at East Carolina University and author of more than 200 research studies on psychological interventions for heart health, told STAT. "The human factors in all this just don't get addressed as a standard of care."

An improved standard of care, advise Sears and others, is helping patients to not only change lifestyles and habits to become heart-healthier, but also to embrace and live with their new lives.

Body of Knowledge

The human brain makes up 2% of a human's body mass. A shrew's brain is about 10% of its body mass, the greatest brain size percentage relative to body mass with one known exception: An especially tiny genus of ant called Brachymyrmex boasts a brain roughly 12% of its body mass.

Get Me That, Stat!

Females are typically found to suffer from dental caries (cavities) more than males: 8.8% to 4.5% according to one study. Three factors help explain this: 1. Teeth come in earlier in girls, lengthening exposure; 2. Easier access to food and frequent snacking during food preparation; 3. Pregnancy.

According to the NIH, 2.2% of American adults ages 20 to 64 have no teeth, while the same age demographic has, on average, 25.5 remaining teeth. A full complement of teeth is 32, including wisdom teeth.

Stories for the Waiting Room

In 1854, a doctor in Logansport, Indiana, named Alpheus Myers devised a treatment for tapeworms, a malady he saw often in his rural practice. Myers patented a "trap" consisting of a small spring-loaded, hollow cylinder of gold, platinum or another rustproof metal that would be baited with something like cheese and swallowed by the patient. The cylinder was attached to a cord that presumably dangled out of the mouth.

After six to 12 hours, the cylinder would be retrieved, sooner if the patient noted a tug on the cord like that of a fish on a baited hook. Inside the cylinder would presumably be a captured worm. If nothing happened during the 12-hour period, the trap would be pulled out, rebaited and swallowed again.

One year after Myers patented his invention, he claimed at least one success, as reported at the time in Scientific American, removing a worm "50 feet in length, from a patient, who, since then, has had a new lease on life."

Most tapeworms, of course, are significantly smaller, though Taenia saginata (beef tapeworm) can grow to approximately 75 feet, and 6 to 30 feet in length is not uncommon.

Doc Talk

Food snorkel -- feeding tube

Mania of the Week

Monomania -- an excessive mental preoccupation with one thing, idea, etc.

Never Say 'Diet'

The Major League Eating record for lamb meat sandwiches is 81 four-ounce sandwiches in 10 minutes, held by Joey Chestnut, famed mutton for punishment.

Best Medicine

The doctor told his patient to stop using a Q-tip, but it went in one ear and out the other.

Observation

"Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart." -- American humorist Erma Bombeck (1927-1996)

Medical History

This week in 1875, the first well-documented U.S. birth of quintuplets was five boys born in Watertown, Wisconsin, to Edna Beecham Kanouse and her husband, Edward. Though the babies appeared normally developed, one was stillborn, three died within minutes of delivery and the remaining newborn survived only a few hours. Their total birth weight was 10 pounds, 2 ounces. The doctor -- and the father sent to fetch him -- arrived after delivery, delayed by heavy snow.

Edna would have another child several years later, but she died a few months after that from a contagious disease contracted while caring for a sick friend.

Until 1934 and the birth of the famous and healthy Dionne quintuplets in Canada, the longest known survival of a quint was 55 days, born in Lisbon, Portugal.

Ig Nobel Apprised

The Ig Nobel Prizes celebrate achievements that make people laugh, then think. A look at real science that's hard to take seriously, and even harder to ignore.

In 1997, the Ig Nobel Prize in medicine went to a trio of researchers for their discovery that listening to Muzak stimulates the immune system and may help prevent the common cold.

Med School

Can you match the top five most prescribed drugs in 2023 by their chemical and market names?

1. Levothyroxine

2. Vitamin D

3. Amoxicillin

4. Lisinopril

5. Amphetamine/dextroamphetamine

a) Adderall

b) Synthroid, Levoxyl, Tirosint

c) Drisdol, Calciferol

d) Prinivil, Zestril

e) Moxatag, Trimox

Answers: 1-b; 2-c; 3-e; 4-d; 5-a

Bonus quiz: What are these popular drugs' market names: Fluticasone, Sertraline and Omeprazole? (Flonase, Zoloft and Prilosec)

Last Words

"Weep not, friend, for me, who dies innocent, by the lawless act of wicked men. My condition is much better than theirs." -- Agis IV, King of Sparta (241 BCE), who was executed by strangulation, but apparently given enough time to say a few final words

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To find out more about Scott LaFee and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.