12-Journal Club #2: I may have tried it during college, but i *did not* inhale

Exam over. If anyone has taken the USMLE Step 1 then...well...don't. I would much rather have had a month of daily colonoscopies. And they would have still seemed like a luxury cruise in comparison to the never-ending hell that is the 8 hour exam. And it has Biochemistry in it. All those dehydrogenases and carboxylases. Just makes you want to go phosphorylate yourself.

Anyways...another contribution from Jen, my exclusive insider source from deep within the US. What with the Vatican relaxing their rules, and the global burden of AIDS and stuff, this week's article has an even more serious public health message than last time. Let's see you if you can guess the missing word...

"Accidental ?????? inhalation"
Arya CL, Gupta R & Arora VK. Indian J Chest Dis Allied Sci 2004;46:55-58

Let's set the scene:

"A 27-year-old lady presented with persistent cough, sputum and fever for the preceeding 6-months. Inspite of trials with antibiotics and anti-tuberculosis treatment for the preceeding 4-months, her symptoms did not improve."

OK. Any thoughts?

"A rigid bronchoscopy was then performed & the object was easily removed with biopsy forceps, though, it tore into pieces during procedure. The pieces were identified as being those of a ‘condom’."

For those of you that thought it was infact a rather large nut, you weren't far off.

"Retrospectively, both the husband and wife accepted to having undergone a fellatio. They could recollect that the condom had loosened during the act, and at that time, the lady had also experienced an episode of sneezing or coughing."

Now I'm not quite sure if 'a fellatio' is any different to 'fellatio', but either way, make sure you ladies dose up on strong anti-histamines before. Sneezing appears to be a bit of a boo-boo. In addition:

"The possibility of seminal aspiration also taking place simultaneously may not be ruled out. Perhaps, the young lady in our case was also quite apprehensive
about fellatio, a fact, that could have played a part in the condom inhalation."

Stage-fright or over-enthusiasm? You kids take care now. There is a very important lesson to be learnt here. And I think we all know what that is.

Anyone for strawberries?

11-My apologies

I would like to apologies to his reader for not posting anything for a few days. I have yet another exam. I am scared. And somewhere in between drinking excess caffeine, fear of work, changing my underwear, trying to work, fear of the fact that caffeine excess can lead to cancer of the renal pelvis, more pant changing...you get the idea...I haven't had time to post anything. Provided I make it through alive next week, I have a special treat for Journal Club #2.

In order to stop all that anticipatory salivation being wasted, here's a little something to wet your beaks. The secret ingredient in KFC chicken. Turns out eating fried chicken is linked to high cholesterol and heart disease. Well I never. Better stick to my intense curry diet.

10-Improving efficiency

How the NHS management consultants have decided to allocate healthcare funding this week:

9-Turn of the century

The site counter is on 100! Have 100 people actually read this page? Do so many people have such poor taste combined with quite this much time to waste? Shouldn't you all be out working or doing some sport or reading a real book or writing a real book or doing some charity work or getting cosmetic plastic surgery? Some of you probably really need it. But instead you're reading this. Wow. Losers.

PS. Have just realised...given that I am the one actually writing this, yes, I do realise the slight irony of my above comments. I'm sorry. Please keep reading this. And you probably don't really need surgery.

Disclaimer: Please do not really use this site as your source of medical information, and please consult your real surgeon before actually undertaking surgery of any kind on yourself. And, preferrably, ensure that it is the surgeon that does the surgery. Not you. Put that fork down.

8-Relationship corner

It may not be Valentines day yet, but a nice gesture never goes unnoticed.

7-Journal club #1

Today we have a contribution from the American Chemical Society, courtesy of Jen. I mention the fact that she sent me this, because I want to make it absolutely clear that I do not scour the scientific literature looking for obscure references to post here to make me look cool. I have better things to do. Jen, however, does not. Let us begin:

"Lifting a Wet Glass from a Table: A Microscopic Picture".
David van der Spoel, Erik JW Wensink, Alex C Hoffmann

"Using MD, van der Spoel and colleagues calculate the energetics of separating surfaces approximating a glass and table. They find that there's a net entropy loss in the presence of water, but in the presence of alcohol there's a net entropy gain...

[it goes on for 6 pages like this, but i'll skip to the discussion because we all know that the central pages of scientific papers are largely there to add volume and make the publication look more important]

...This work was done in compliance with ethical guidelines for basic research. Nevertheless, the results may have severe social implications. We note that the energy required for lifting a glass from a wet table is lowest for hard liquor. Hence, intoxicated persons may be tempted to drink, for example, whisky rather than water as it requires only half the effort to pick up the glass. The impact of this finding on alcohol consumption patterns falls beyond the scope of this work, however."

Astounding. Money well spent. I wonder if this report was commissioned by an NHS manager somewhere?

Until next week, happy drinking. I wonder if the ethics committee got free samples...

6-Educational update

I was just flicking through other people's blogs on this site, just to see if mine was marginally less dull than the rest, and came across this article by 'Healing food', a 'healthcare specialist' working in the US. To quote:

"People at India have low rate of Alzheimers disease. Since curries are a dietary staple there, it is natural for researchers to study the medical effect of curry on humans mental health. It turned out that curry contains a spice called curcumin, which gives curry its yellow color, can curb mental decline and even slow the effects of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimers disease.

Firstly, people found curcumin may activate a key enzyme that protects the brain against natural cellular oxidation. Cellular oxidation causes inflammation, which causes cell death, then disease, and then neurodegeneration. Secondly, Doctors at UCLA’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center have found that curcumin has one additional property not shared by most spices. It directly inhibits the production of amyloid plaques, the sticky substances that directly causes Alzheimer’s disease. Curcumin, in fact, seems to cut the number of amyloid plaques in half.

I heard India food has been the most popular international food in UK for the last 2-3 years. In my hometown, I see several India restaurants opened in the last 2 years as well. A healthy trend!"

Better listen to the expert then. Curry it is for breakfast, lunch and dinner. That'll ward off the heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, peripheral vascular disease, diabetes and chilli-induced oral cancer.

5-Urgent update

I have decided to support 'Annika's Casserole Campaign'. I'm not actually sure what this is, but I presume it has something to with casserole. To be honest I don't care much for casserole, but the logo looks like something charitable and so if it helps keep the kids of crack, then I'm in. You should be to. Click on the link to help. Then come back and tell me where it leads - I'm too scared to click on it myself just incase it turns out to be some kind of gay pornography site or suchlike.

4-Dysmorphic watch #1

Whilst I admit I would rather eat my own head than watch another series of Big Brother, I do feel compelled to comment on these articles I've read regarding the producers' exploitation of people with mental health problems.

Whilst gender assignment is not strictly a mental-health issue, I for one commend them for promoting both medical education and public awareness with their inclusion of this array of transgender contestants from all races. We can always do with more cross-dressing celebrities. A special prize if you can name the disorder producing the characteristic facies seen on the top-right.

Disclaimer: In the highly unlikely event that someone both actually reads this and finds this posting abusive, I would like to point out that strange-looking D-list celebrities have chosen to be publicly probed. Like Chesney Hawkes, for example.

3-Are you a sex-smart woman?

I, apparently, am not. Funny that. It appears that I am a 'total medium'. Worryingly, I got only 6/10 on the 'knowledge'. There's high quality medical education for you. Besides - everyone knows that herpes, like a puppy, is for Christmas and not for life.

Given that Radio 1 are promoting STIs by handing out their 'sex packs' (your guess is as good as mine), I thought that I would break my 'no-doing-crappy-online-tests' rule and would give this one that I was forwarded a go.

Try it for yourself: Tickle.com test: are you a sex-smart woman?

PS. Having just looked, there is actually a 'are you a sex-smart man' one too. Hopefully it doesn't go on about 'dental dams' quite as much. They sound scary. My grandad used to build dams. Perhaps he knows what they are.

2-My first ever blog update: Photo Albums

I did think that I would be so excited by making a blog that I would never actually return. But here I am. And, I do actually have some photos uploaded too. Well, I have created the online album things to store them in anyway. I'll eventually upload the photos. There are 2 albums:

1. KK finest: A collection of tantalizingly delectable photographic treats to satisfy even the most refined of artistic palates. Viewable by all.

2. Main gallery: Unsurprising, most of my photos don't fall into the above category, so have been collectively dumped here. In order to make sure I can keep the filthy mitts of societies ingrates off these, however, they are by approved MSN login ID only (so you have to be on my MSN contact list). As they say, if you ain't on the list, you...um...probably have no interest in seeing my holiday photos anyway. So there.

1-My first ever blog

This is my first ever post in my first ever blog.

I would say how this feels...wonderfully emotional. And tantalizingly exhilarating. Even a touch liberating perhaps. A chance to unleash my creative wings and let those deepest and most intimate of thoughts take flight. A blank canvas, if you will, with which to explore the infinitely mesmerising and intensely effervescence foibles of life at it's core. And to muse over whether or not I have appropriately used apostrophes so far in this paragraph. This blog shall personify man's primitive desire to inspire, to understand, and, fundamentally, to intensify the immense power of pure and raw transcribed thought. After all, is such power not manifest in the overman's independence, creativity, and originality?

But I'll probably just end up using this page to put some shared photos of holidays up or something. Besides - I probably won't put lots of posts about my innermost thoughts, secrets and exploits on here because the thought of random weird internet folk reading them is...well just a little creepy. In any case, if you're reading this, it's probably because I've forced you here with the promise of stuff. We'll there's nothing actually here yet. So I lied. Enjoy. K