Kick to the Head
A new study finds that high school football students already have differences in their brains compared to swimmers, cross-country runners and tennis players, contrary to thinking that suggested it takes years of head impacts to change brain structure.
Football players had cortical thinning and changes in brain folding as well as lower brain signaling and coherence in frontal and medial parts of the brain, but they had increased signaling and coherence in the occipital lobe.
"These findings suggest playing football may be associated with a different trajectory of cortical maturations and aging processes," the authors noted.
Body of Knowledge
The sternum is a three-part structure at the midline of the chest. It helps protect organs such as the lungs and heart, and it connects the ribs. In children, the parts of the sternum are joined by flexible cartilage to accommodate growth, but these slowly turn to bone called the xiphoid process.
Get Me That, Stat!
One in eight Americans have hearing loss, depending on where they live and work, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Hearing loss was more prevalent among men, Hispanic people and rural residents. After mining, working in retail or restaurants were the two occupations tied most closely to hearing loss.
West Virginia, Alaska, Wyoming, Oklahoma and Arizona had the highest rates of hearing loss; the District of Columbia, New Jersey, New York, Maryland and Connecticut had the lowest. Noise in big cities appeared to be less harmful than a rural life spent working outdoors with heavy machinery, riding ATVs or hunting with firearms, reported STAT.
Doc Talk
Dyscopia -- difficulty coping at home; often used by internists to imply that the patient requires admission to hospital despite having no obvious acute illness
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