For The Union-Tribune
Global suicide
According to the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries and Risk Factors Study, approximately 746,000 people died by suicide worldwide in 2021. That’s a grim number, but also encouraging. It reflects an ongoing downward trend, from almost 15 deaths per 100,000 in 1990 to 9 per 100,000 in 2021.
While the overall suicide mortality rate has decreased over the last three decades, there are regions where it has increased, specifically parts of Latin America and North America. Regional mortality rates are highest in eastern Europe and sub-Saharan Africa.
Not surprisingly, the gun-related suicide rate was highest in the U.S., almost double the next two countries: Venezuela and Greenland.
Body of knowledge
You cannot taste food if your saliva cannot break down its constituent chemicals for detection by receptors on taste buds. And when you’re about to throw up, your salivary glands work overtime to produce additional protection from exiting stomach contents, whose acidity can harm your throat, mouth and teeth.
Get me that. Stat!
Fewer than 10 percent of women called back for more tests after a mammogram are found to have breast cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute.
Stories for the waiting room
The U.S. could face a national hospital bed shortage within seven years if there isn’t a reduction in the hospitalization rate, an increase in the number of staffed hospital beds or some combination, say researchers in a new study.
A shortage occurs when 85 percent of hospital beds across the country are occupied. Estimates put that happening as soon as 2032.
The authors projected the total number of annual hospitalizations in the U.S. to increase from 36,174,000 this year to 40,177,000 in 2035.
There are some caveats, including substantial variation between states and an inability to predict future trends, good or bad, that might affect hospitalizations.
Stay healthy, America!
Doc talk
Medulla — Refers to the middle of something, such as medulla oblongata, part of the long, stemlike structure that enters into the bottom middle of the brain or the medulla, the innermost layer of the hair shaft
Mania of the week
Dromomania — an old psychiatric term for an obsession with walking or just wandering about, also called traveling fugue
Food for thought
Maltodextrin is a highly refined carbohydrate derived from rice, corn, wheat or potato starch. In its final form, it’s a white powder used as an additive in everything from yogurt and beer to spices and soft drinks. It replaces sugar and improves texture, shelf life and taste. The FDA considers it a generally safe food additive, though it should be consumed in moderation by persons with celiac disease or diabetes.
Best medicine
Patient: “I think I’m suffering from memory loss.”
Doctor: “Have you ever had it before?”
Observation
“Death is nature’s way of telling you to slow down.”
— British scriptwriter Dick Sharples (1927-2015)
Medical history
This week in 1923, the first operation using only a local painkiller during removal of a brain tumor was performed using cocaine on the patient’s scalp. The condition of the patient, Henry A. Brown, had been deemed too risky for general anesthesia.
The procedure was undertaken at Beth Israel Hospital in New York City. The large tumor was life-threatening, but not malignant. Brown remained fully conscious while his skull was opened, able to answer the doctors’ questions and was reported to have “cooperated cheerfully.”
(The brain itself has no pain receptors. It cannot sense pain directly, but it processes pain signals from other parts of the body, such as meninges, blood vessels and nerves in the head and neck.)
Self-exam
Q: What is mind blindness?
A: Formally known as aphantasia, it’s a rare condition that affects only 4 percent of the general population. It happens when the brain doesn’t form or use mental images as part of thinking or imagination. It can occur in degrees. Experts don’t define aphantasia as a medical condition, disorder or disability, but rather as a characteristic, a difference in how an individual’s mind works.
Epitaphs
“Curiosity did not kill this cat.”
— American writer Louis “Studs” Terkel (1912-2008), best known for his oral histories of ordinary Americans. Terkel died at age 96 from complications of a fall in his home earlier in the month.
LaFee is vice president of communications for the Sanford Burnham Prebys research institute.
