Researchers in the Netherlands and Scotland say a new study suggests that eating apples throughout a pregnancy appears to help protect children from wheezing and asthma while regular fish consumption lowers the risk of eczema, an allergic skin condition.
Similar studies have already reported that maternal intake of vitamins E and D and zinc during pregnancy appears to lower the risk of asthma, wheezing and eczema in children. In the latest study, researchers were interested in how eating different foods - rather than individual nutrients - during pregnancy impact children.
They found that the children of women who ate more than four apples a week during pregnancy were 37% less likely to have ever wheezed, 46% less likely to have had asthma symptoms and 53% less likely to have had a doctor-confirmed case of asthma than children of mothers who ate one or no apples a week.
Children of women who ate fish once or more a week were 43% less likely to have had eczema at age 5 than children of mothers who never ate fish.
BODY OF KNOWLEDGE
The whole of an average-sized person's skin weighs twice as much as his or her brain.
GET ME THAT. STAT!
A diagnosis of diabetes means losing an average of eight years from your expected life span, according to a study by Danish and English researchers.
NEVER SAY DIET
Richard LeFevre holds the world record for eating Spam: six pounds in 12 minutes. LeFevre also holds the record for watermelon consumption: 11.5 pounds in 15 minutes. Presumably, the records were not at one sitting.
MEDTRONICA
MedGadget
medgadget.com
An Internet journal that keeps tabs on emerging medical news technologies. Among the latest stories: pillcams, a radio-frequency system for keeping track of surgical sponges and genetically modified rice containing a cholera vaccine.
The "Canadian Home Cook Book," published in 1877, offered this inexplicable advice for treating a person who has been struck by lightning: "Shower with cold water for two hours; if the patient does not show signs of life, put salt in the water and continue to shower for an hour longer."
After that, one presumes, you'll have a waterlogged and pruney corpse.
PHOBIA OF THE WEEK
Linonophobia - fear of string
BEST MEDICINE
Doctor: What seems to be the matter?
Patient: I have a sore throat, Doc. I ache. I have a fever.
Doctor: Sounds like some kind of virus.
Patient: Everyone in the office has it.
Doctor: Well then, it's likely a staff infection.
OBSERVATION
My father wanted me to become a doctor, but I wanted to do something that required more imagination. So we compromised, and I became a hypochondriac.
- WALLY WANG
CURTAIN CALLS
American poet and novelist Hart Crane was good with words, but not so much at goodbyes. Returning home from a Guggenheim Fellowship in Mexico in 1932 aboard the ocean liner Orizaba, the 32-year-old Crane stood up on a rail, waved "Goodbye everybody!" and jumped into the ship's propeller churn. His body was never found.
An aside: Crane's father, Clarence, made a fortune in the candy business. He invented Life Savers.
