Shouldering On

The human shoulder is the most complex, mobile joint in the body, which makes it especially vulnerable to injury in people of all ages. Most often, injuries are related to aging as tendons become more vulnerable to repetitive or strenuous activity, leading to inflammation, pain and worse.

Acute shoulder injuries can result from sports, yardwork, lifting heavy objects and falling. They can occur from sleeping on one's side, which puts extra pressure on the shoulder joint, and persistent hunched posture, which can impinge nerves and muscles.

You should see a doctor if you are experiencing chronic pain or your shoulder increasingly doesn't work as you think it should. If you suffer an acute injury and suddenly can't raise your arm, you may have a fracture, dislocation or torn rotator cuff.

Shoulder surgery is an increasingly common option. More than 1 million shoulder surgeries were performed in the U.S. alone last year. Shoulder replacement is among the fastest-growing orthopedic procedures, with the highest rate in patients over the age of 80.

Body of Knowledge

There are 10 human body parts that are only three letters long: eye, hip, arm, leg, ear, toe, jaw, rib, lip and gum.

Get Me That, Stat!

The United States ranks No. 1 in health care spending but No. 47 in life expectancy, according to Worldometer.

Citizens of Monaco, San Marino, Hong Kong, Japan, Switzerland, Singapore, Italy, South Korea, Spain, Malta, Australia, Sweden, Norway, France, Israel, New Zealand, Canada, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Austria, Finland, Belgium, Portugal, United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark, Greece, Qatar, Taiwan, Chile, the United Arab Emirates, Costa Rica and the Czech Republic can all expect to live longer than the average American.

Doc Talk

Fluttering eye syndrome: A patient faking unconsciousness

Phobia of the Week

Catoptrophobia: Fear of mirrors. Aibohphobia is the unrecognized phobia of looking in rearview mirrors.

Never Say 'Diet'

The world's speed-eating record for chicken nuggets is 80 in five minutes, held by Sonya Thomas.

Best Medicine

Doctor: "I'm afraid you have chlamydia, gonorrhea and onomatopoeia."

Patient: "Onomatopoeia? What's that?"

Doctor: "I'm afraid it's exactly what it sounds like."

Observation

"A narcissist is someone better looking than you are." -- American writer and public intellectual Gore Vidal (1925-2012)

Medical History

This week in 1993, the first lab test was released in Arizona confirming a bee involved in a fatal attack on a small dog at a Tucson home was an Africanized honeybee. Because of their more intense defensive swarming behavior, such nonnative bees earned the name "killer bee" in the media.

Arizona was the second state to be invaded, less than three years after the species spread north into Texas from Mexico. Currently, the bees are firmly established across the southern U.S., from Florida to California. Cold weather restricts their northward expansion. Since their introduction, it's estimated Africanized honeybees have killed roughly 24 people.

Perishable Publications

Many, if not most, published research papers have titles that defy comprehension. They use specialized jargon, complex words and opaque phrases like "nonlinear dynamics." Sometimes they don't, yet they're still hard to figure out. Here's an actual title of actual published research study: "The effect of breast support on the kinematics of the breast during the running gait cycle."

In the study, published in the Journal of Sports Sciences in 2010, 15 females were asked to run 2.8 miles wearing a sports bra, an everyday bra and no bra at all. Three-dimensional coordinates of breast and body markers were tracked during 10 gait cycles. Following each trial, the participants rated their breast comfort.

Bottom line, wrote the authors, "Breast velocity (movement) displayed the strongest relationship to comfort." More movement, less comfort.

Self-Exam

True or false: Logical thinkers are left-brain dominant, while artistic people are right-brain dominant.

False. Brain imaging technology has found that there is no such thing as dominance when it comes to the brain's hemispheres. While both halves tend to handle separate tasks, they work together in complex ways and are not linked to specific personality traits.

Curtain Calls

In 1974, a British health food enthusiast and scientist named Basil Brown consumed approximately 10 gallons of carrot juice over the course of 10 days. He subsequently died of massive liver damage due to hypervitaminosis A, with his skin turning bright yellow due to severe carotene accumulation.

Unlike with other vitamins, prolonged and excessive consumption of vitamin A can accumulate in the liver, leading to severe headaches, nausea, dizziness, hair loss, dry skin, bone pain and, in the case of Brown, death.

Brown compounded the problem by also taking high-dose vitamin A supplements.

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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.