Coffee good for that heart?

Drinking coffee 'protects the heart'. Researchers have discovered that regular coffee drinkers are less likely to be admitted to hospital with irregular heart beats or rhythms. And the more cups they drink a day, the less likely they are to suffer from the condition. (From The Telegraph).

OK.

But isn't red wine and whiskey good for the heart as well? Hook me up to a combo drip of the 3 of those.

I've thought of SA Doc's next post. WHY COFFEE WILL KILL YOU.

Awesome.

Two vaginas?

And THIS?!


Click the image to see it full size...

Yowsers. Will have to wait for SA Doc's comment on this. She's still at work.

I think this is two vagina lady's blog: I have two vaginas!

A quote from the article, if you will...

When I was dating, I'd just say, "So I have a little something to tell you." I never got any other reaction except, "Oh, my God, that's so cool," because they'd want to have sex in both sides and see what it felt like. Apparently, the right side is, well, more normal. The left side is a lot smaller. But they're both tight. That's a plus. I've got two G-spots, too, so I've always appreciated men who were extra dexterous with their fingers. I get to have two orgasms at the same time.

So, who calls bullshit?

Male Pregnancy: True or Hoax?

Now I'm confused. Anonymous (WHY always anonymous!?) posted a link to an urban myth page - with this exact story on it.

Extract from that site here:

Claim: A man who has had an embryo implanted in his abdomen is engaged in the world's first human male pregnancy.

Status: False.

Origins: The possibility of a man's becoming pregnant has been the subject of more than a few works of speculative fiction and comedy, and the topic was given some sober consideration in the media after the British weekly New Society ran an article discussing specifics of the procedure in 1986. It could be done, New Society reasoned, if an egg were fertilized in vitro and implanted in a man's abdominal cavity. The embryo would have to attach itself to a major organ, the man would have to undergo hormone injections, and the child would have to be delivered by caesarian section, but it was possible, they speculated. (The child would have to be male, though, or else the necessary hormone injections would effectively castrate the male host.)

The dangers of such a course of action are far too high for the idea to be taken as anything more than a bit of scientific "what if" entertainment, however. Although some women have successfully given birth to children conceived outside the womb, ectopic pregnancies are quite dangerous, and nearly all ectopic embryos are removed soon after diagnosis. For a man to attempt to carry a child to term in such a manner would be an unacceptably high risk (especially since the placenta would have to be left to decay inside the man's body after he gave "birth," as its removal would result in major haemorrhaging).

Now, fourteen years later, people have begun to wonder about the web site at http://malepregnancy.com, which purports to chronicle the efforts of one Lee Mingwei to carry off the "first human male pregnancy." The site hosts video clips of "Mr. Lee," an ultrasound video of his "baby," an "interview" in which he explains why he's doing this, a discussion of how male pregnancy is scientifically possible, and a chat room where visitors can discuss the "social implications" of male pregnancies.

Is this for real? No. It is, like its sister site at http://www.genochoice.com (where you can "Create your own genetically healthy child online!"), an exercise in speculative fantasy. Follow the links from the "Credits" section, and eventually you'll find a disclaimer which reads:

This site ("Site") was created to be an exploration of a very likely scenario that may one day result from new advances in biotechnology and infertility treatments. The Site itself does not provide actual commercial services, and the information contained on the Site is not represented as being factually accurate. This is a fictitious web site created by a single artist.

(You can also read profiles of Lee Mingwei and his collaborator, Virgil Wong, on the web.)

Perhaps some day these concepts might indeed become reality, but for now they exist only within the realm of fiction.

Odd. I searched around on their site for a while, even looking at their disclaimer which only reads:

The information on RYT Hospital-Dwayne Medical Center's web site is provided as a general reference; it is not to be used or relied upon for any medical decisions, diagnostic purposes, or medical treatments. This information is not intended to be patient education, and it does not create any patient-physician relationship. This site should not be used as a substitute for diagnosis and treatment by a medical professional.

Please consult your physician before making any healthcare decisions or for guidance about a specific medical condition. RYT Hospital-Dwayne Medical Center expressly disclaims responsibility, and shall have no liability, for any damages, loss, injury, or liability whatsoever suffered as a result of your reliance on the information contained in this site. RYT Hospital-Dwayne Medical Center does not endorse specifically any test, treatment, or procedure mentioned on this site.

By visiting this site you agree to the foregoing terms and conditions, which may from time to time be changed by RYT Hospital-Dwayne Medical Center. If you do not agree to the foregoing terms and conditions, please leave this site immediately.

Now what?

Male Pregnancy: The YouTube Interview

There have been a couple of comments over the last week on our male pregnancy post. Nooo. Can't be. Impossible. You're yanking our chain. La la la.

Chaps. It's true.

Check out the interview...

Male Pregnancy?

OK. So this isn't new news... But I'm willing to bet there are a BUNCH of people out there who don't read Time Magazine. So here it is. And it's FASCINATING! This is why I became a doctor (for weird shit, of course!).

My last post introduced the concept of extra-uterine pregnancy. So, is male pregnancy possible? Time magazine seems to think so...

Now, my position on this first of all (scroll down if you really must see the picture). As a women's rights activist (mostly), I DON'T think that men should throw down the corporate life and take up the child bearing role. Firstly, as a Doctor, I believe that it is extemely dangerous and you risk the life of not only the fetus, but also of the father.

Implantation has to be in a good place (where the HELL might that be in a man?! - Andy) giving a good supply of blood to the fetus... and at the same time not harming the father. Believe it or not, the liver is NOT a good place (when the placenta detaches, the liver could bleed out... it gets messy!).

There are a LOT of variables that Doctors have to get extremely right to make this safe.

Secondly, I don't know whether I believe that men should have to go through the extremely artificial physiological process required to have a baby. Any man wishing this on himself would have to be pumped with the right hormones to keep the fetus alive. What long lasting effects will this have on his body? How is this going to affect his emotions? God. Can you imagine a man PMS'ing? They can barely handle flu as it is.

Which brings me to my final (emotional - because I can) point. Do men have the nuturing emotional capability to go through pregnancy? I know a lot of girls wouldn't appear to have the traits. Then they get pregnant - and everything changes. I dont' know why, I can't explain it - but I think at least a good portion of it is encoded into our DNA as genetically historic child-bearers!
Can open. Worms everywhere.



Check it out... The world's first male pregnancy from RYT Hospital. Good luck Mr Lee Mingwei!

Major drug companies turn a blind eye to fake malaria medication!

Now here's a scary story...

The world's major drug companies have been accused of turning a blind eye to the multibillion-dollar trade in fake medicine that has resulted in an explosion of child malaria deaths in developing countries.

According to the British Independent newspaper, the problem has been particularly acute in Africa, with anti-malarial drugs faked on an industrial scale. One of the world's leading experts on malaria, Prof Nick White of Oxford University, estimates that malaria causes more than one million deaths each year of which 90% are children.

He said that counterfeit medicine was a major reason why malaria had become, over the past 30 years, Africa's biggest child killer, 'from an illness that used to be easily treated with medicines'.

Some of the fake drugs contain no medicine at all, but others have tiny traces of the real ingredients - which leads to another, potentially bigger problem as it allows the malaria parasite to build up resistance to the drug.

Read further here.

Hell's Teeth! What a catastrophe... especially in developing societies where there isn't enough money to correct the "mistakes" or alternatively sue the pants off the companies making these counterfeits. Me, I would kick them out of Africa - but there's no money for that even.

I can only begin to imagine what would happen if some idiot company started making counterfeit ARV's. We already have enough of a resistance problem.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that 10% of medicines available in developing countries is fake with prevalence higher where regulatory control is weakest.

All of a sudden, I'm grateful that our Medicines Control Council (MCC) are such painful, pedantic regulators! What the hell is going on north of the border?

Through the vagina to do what?!

Recently I read an article in the medical chronicals that blew me away. It was about a Doctor in New York (oh praise his alpha malesness) that is doing some experimental surgery... Wait for it... Trans-vaginal cholecystectomy!

Oh my. Maybe it is because I have a vagina that this shocks me, but can you really imagine having your gallbladder (which lies up under your right ribs) removed through your vagina. THAT'S A DISTANCE OF AT LEAST 25CM! And exactly what our trans-vaginal cholecystectomy pioneer dude is attempting.

The article claims that it will cause less pain, less scarring and quicker recovery! As it is, the conventional way to remove a gallbladder is via laproscope. So... you choose: 5 small (1-2cm) cuts in your abdomen or getting the think yanked through your love hole?

This just proves the point that male doctors have no absolutely no cooking clue about female systems.

Let's see how much he would like the surgery if we did it trans-urethrally (that's up the japs eye for our non medical readers).

Smart Card system for Johannesburg hospitals...

HERE's a story. After all the debate around the possibility of using Ubuntu to roll out a cheap technology infrastructure to aid SA hospitals - it seems like someone took notice. Whether the Premier, Mr Mbhazima Shilowa (who looks absolutely DASHING in his jazz hat) reads All Scrubbed Up or not is another question. But hark the sounds of technology actually helping the patient situation.

Reported in the Citizen recently...

Shilowa also announced that long queues at provincial hospitals and clinics could soon be a thing of the past, should the government’s smart-card plan materialise.

In his State of the Province address he painted a picture of a paperless information system that would ensure speedy access to healthcare in all communities, especially for chronically ill patients.

He said the province would develop a computerised card system so patients would just have to “swipe” their cards when rushed into hospital for medical emergencies or when collecting medicines.

“This system will prevent long queues at dispensaries as pharmacists can immediately begin to package a patient’s medicinal supply without having to wait for long. The card system will also help doctors identify the patients’ previous treatment and prescribed medication. The doctor will in turn be able to speedily diagnose patients.”

Wow. That's thinking. The DA (our opposition party for international readers) had the customary negative things to say.

DA health spokesman Jack Bloom said the computerised plan for hospitals had been promised before.

Ah, what can ya do. Still, it remains one of the biggest problems - sharing information between the clinics and the hospitals. Not only in Johannesburg - but across the entire country.

Gotta wonder whether a fat cat government buddy is going to get the contract - or whether they'll have the nouse to farm it out to a low cost Linux collective. I can think of a few. If you're out there - here's a business pitch waiting to happen!

Manto, our unhealthy minister...

It started a couple of days ago, as reported on IOL.

Outshone by colleagues who were brimming with good health at a cabinet cluster briefing in Cape Town on Thursday, Health Minister Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang became an object of pity and embarrassment.

And continued yesterday as reports flooded the media of the honorable Tshabalala-Msimang descending onto a ventilator at Joburg General private section.

Tshabalala-Msimang's health has been under the microscope since she returned to duty earlier this year - after a long illness.

She was admitted to the same hospital last year for several weeks suffering from a lung infection.

Her spokesman, Sibani Mngadi, confirmed she was being treated for severe anaemia and residual pleural effusion (fluid in the lining of the lungs).

Now, we would never wish this on anyone. Even though she's done some pretty pathetic things - health is health. And, somewhere deep inside, our beloved Manto understands some of the primary care issues facing this country.

Get better Sisi.

Discovery investigates (refutes?) Schabir Shaik’s 76 day medical aid claim!

Recently spotted on iAfrica.com.

Medical scheme, Discovery Health, is investigating claims made by fraud convict Schabir Shaik for his 76-day stay at a Durban hospital, the Sunday Times reported.

Yeah. Isn’t it great when your medical aid is working for you. Making sure dodgy claims get thoroughly investigated before implementing a rate hike to cover its losses.

Shaik, a dependent on his wife Zuleika's Discovery medical scheme, was admitted to a private hospital, St Augustine's, where the cost of his bed alone totals more than R150 000.

His admission into hospital, 16 days after his prison term commenced, sparked an outcry from medical experts and the public.

No shit, Sherlock! R150k just on a bed is a cause for concern! So is the very fortunate timing of our beloved fraudster taking ill.

I wonder what’s wrong with the poor man? Nothing a quick stint at Bara won’t fix?

Joburg Hospitals reduce intubation weight of babies to 900 grams

More Ubuntu stuff soon... Keep reading! Some important news though... just in.

It happened the other day. Anything 900g or less must breathe by itself or die. There are reasons of course, like not enough staff or intubators. Studies have also shown poor prognoses in lower grammages. Therefore those with a higher chance of surviving - will get the intubators.






This one is 3500 grams. Makes you think. Doesn't it?

DSTV responds to 'Be Unfaithful" advert

Vindicated! Yes!

I wasn't as much of a zealot as I thought I was. The DSTV Streetpole ad series that featured pouty-lips Rihanna with a subheading 'Be Unfaithful' - of couse referring to decoders at a special special low price... has been changed.

It now says Visit Paris. That's clever, while not encouraging promiscuity. Win win.

PS. Buhle Dlamini wrote a piece for Business Day on the same subject. Published 5 December. Self-congratulatory pat on the Scrubbed Up back for scooping the story by 15 days!

Red Bull + Jagermeister = Rape Cocktail

Spotted in The Saturday Star, a wonderfully non-investigative lambasting of Energy Drink Cocktails. Hold on tight - this one's gonna get tabloid.



Firstly, let's state the obvious. People who drink a lot, don't remember what happens to them. Duh. Yes, by adding stimulants like caffeinated energy drinks, you're slightly masking how drunk you really are. But the cold hard truth remains, it's not the energy drinks causing young girls to wake up in a stranger's bed - it's the 7 vodkas that got mixed with it.

Nothing has changed. You drink 7 vodkas. You get plonked.



So, let's analyse. The article reads like a high-school scare poster. BIG warnings about drinking energy drinks, going to the bathroom in pairs an avoiding scary men... but coffee and espresso cause the same medical issues! If you suffer from high blood pressure or pre-existing heart disease, even a wild afternoon in the coffee shop can be as dangerous.

What they say is vague and generic enough to be true, but it's completely sensationalist. Can you imagine the ignorant, the parents and the tee-totalers running around all panicky over the cheeky Red Bull they had last night? To compare it to Rohypnol is irresponsible and likely to attract a lawsuit from both Red Bull and Jagermeister, who have been plastered over this article like a Tokoloshe on the front page of the Daily Sun! What could have been a scientific re-examination of an old argument, shed in some kind of new light, has been turned into tabloid rubbish.



Christine/Shereen (the esteemed journalists), please focus on the real dangers that beset ladies in the clubbing world. Real, scary drugs that get slipped in people's drinks all the time. And the big bad men that do it. Not this crap.

If you don't believe us? Trust the Google Diagnosis (that wonderful laymans approach to Googling your symptoms or suspected problems). In fact, there's so much Google Diagnosis that I'm convinced The Saturday Star was on a tight deadline and rehashed the same crap that's been around for as long as drunk kids in clubs. Please, oh please, take the following articles with a pinch of salt!

• Red Bull in suspected link to Deaths
• Red Bull killed my son Michael
• Death by Caffeine
• Red Bull Kills
• Oh No! Red Bull kills!
• The Glories of Red Bull

The largest hospital in the world!

So, Google Maps just opened its warm capitalist arms to South Africa. We took a quick trip to show the world of blogging... Baragwanath Hospital. Old Bara is apparently the biggest hospital in the world by bed count. It's also the most multi-cultural Doctor-fest around. SA Doc had a Russian, Yugoslavian, Pakistanian, Congonese, Indian and 4 South Africans... just in one unit!


Feast your eyes ladies and gents. Note size of shacks bottom left and houses middle top. Just under 2km in diameter - no wonder the porters laze off.

An HIV Zealot?

A DSTV StreetPole ad recently caught my attention. In true DSTV style, it offered out some big words, some sexy pictures and a great special on decoders. It was the words that got me thinking. Score Big. Go Wild. Be Unfaithful. DSTV R599. The Be Unfaithful portion of that ad came complete with smacker lips Rihanna looking seductive (pretty sure it was her).

You can't really fault the ad (can you?) - because then you'd have to fault every magazine cover and E! Entertainment programme this side of 1989. But it does get you thinking though.

In public media, where do you draw the line between sexy, suggestive tease and promoting unsafe behaviour? We live in a country that is more uneducated regarding sexual issues than we care to admit. Just where and when, I wonder, should the public start asking questions?

Or am I just turning into an HIV zealot?

Naked Doctors tradition to continue?

It’s nearing that time of year again. Med Students getting sweaty, trying to cram 6 years of lungs, guns and antibiotics into a mind already warped by the smell of formaldehyde. They’re dosing up on whatever they can get there hands on (with the imminent promise of Schedule 5+ if they can just… get… through… this).

That’s because, after November at the University of Cape Town – 6th year medical students become DOCTORS.

The class of 2003 used to mark these momentous yearly occasions with their own brand of cleansing ritual. The whole class, dressed to theme (Doctors by Day, Victoria Secret by Night was my personal favourite), would flock to an arbitrary building on the side M3. They would quickly and clinically get themselves boozed… and flash the traffic.

This wasn’t any ordinary flashing of the traffic. With stethoscopes flying, lab coats swirling and SA’s finest wiggling their jiggly bit – the event made KFM news 3 years in a row, and was responsible for more than a few dented bumpers.

I’d like to say I met my anonymous SA Doc like that… Idling down the highway, afternoon traffic, sweet sounds of some boy band playing (dial obviously stuck – irony is students just don’t listen to KFM!)… There she would appear, like a vision… Mouth open in a drawn out Savanna-induced whoop of delight. Her nipple catches my eye… It would be love.

But alas, I was usually the sucker holding the bra.

At All Scrubbed, we’re wondering if this great tradition is going to continue – and would like to appeal to our readers to get in touch with any UCT medical student they know. Spread the word – it would be a crime to deprave the M3 of its most exciting yearly onslaught.

Americans investigate guided missile to TERMINATE HIV.

Recently spotted on BodyHack, a Wired Magazine blog about medical stuff. Raised the heckles a tad, no?

"In some cases the best way to fight a fire is to light a fire of your own. But could the best way to fight AIDS possibly be with AIDS?

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania are testing the idea that a modified strain of the HIV virus, called a lentivirus, could be turned into a sort of anti-AIDS guided missile that could directly target the HIV virus already in patients. Naturally safety was the primary concern.

The Scientist reports:

One safety concern with using lentiviruses as gene delivery vectors is that they might form replication-competent lentiviruses, but Levine and his colleagues found no evidence of this in any of the patients. Another concern is vector mobilization, which the researchers saw in the first 60 days after injection, but not after that. This mobilization probably doesn't mean the vector isn't safe, said Richard Sutton of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, who was not involved in the study, but he acknowledged that it is "a little bit concerning. Usually we don't like these vectors to jump around once they're inside a person."

While safe, the therapy still has a long way to go before it could be used for treatment. In the trial on 5 patients, only one showed a significant decrease in their viral load. "

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for research, innovation and striving beyond the boundaries of our little human imaginations in order to help cure/prevent the most obnoxious virus of our time... But, typical Americans think that everytime there's a hope and a prayer, it's worth publishing it to the world! Doesn't that grate?

This idea is in its infancy - we've come so much further in our HIV/Aids vaccine studies - yet our media coverage is merely a dribble. Even if this "guided missile" is as potent as they hope, Africa could never afford to use it.

Ain't it kak, in a world of shrinking borders - somethings still push the third world further and further away?

As for the comments, well that just adds fuel to the stereotypical fire - the garlic and parsley brigade can bite my ass. Manto called... she wants her idea back.

All Scrubbed goes cooking with Prixige...

Nope. Not part of the Anarchy Cookbook on interesting ways to heat up an anti-inflammatory - but rather some pharmaceutical DRM (that's Doctor Relationship Management for those in the know).

The Wicked Food Cooking School played host to the latest round of Novartis talks on Prixige's Lumiracoxib - the Cox2 inhibitor (not as rude as it sounds) to end all Cox2 inhibitors - or so they tell me. The introductory speech washed over me like morphine - very few intelligent questions from the nonDoc. Except one interesting case scenario:

56 year old banker. Presenting with Osteo-Arthritis in the knee. Panado just wasn't cutting it because the poor bugger was walking 5km, 4 times a week. Stop me when it's starting to sound like crazy talk... but what 56 year old South African banker has the time to walk 20km a week!? God is in the details after all.

Turns out the answer was easy. Prescribe Lumiracoxib. (PS. That's why doctors are so smart... you can only prescribe Lumiracoxib if you can SAY Lumiracoxib.)

Jokes aside, the message was pretty clear. This wasn't any old anti-inflammatory. And in the days of some pretty serious gastric ulcers - you want a drug with the least gastro-intestinal side effects that also keeps those CV issues (yes, at first I was wondering whether it was my high school or university education that was threatening) at bay. The cardio-vascular ones.

Then to the cooking. At first, I must say, I wondered about the brand connection between an anti-inflammatory and cooking. Then I stopped wondering. As if in a surreal dream, I was cooking next to Barry Lambson. His wife, the lovely Dr. Lambson had hauled him away from the 1987 reruns of Western Province vs. Orange Free State at Newlands. Pharaceutical event. Barry Lambson. Box wine. And some spicy tomato soup.



As the haze of Claret Select finally descended... Barry left me. I think I was taking too long chopping the mushrooms - he went in search of greener pastures - the can opener for a particularly stubborn can of tomoatoes most likely.

All in all, great evening. I was left pining for samples and prepped with enough knowledge to dangerously convince someone I knew what I was talking about.

Can't wait for the Cox3 function.

(Note: Thanks to Dawn and Zama for making it a helluva evening. Also thank to the Wiki Wicked Food School for whipping my culinary skills into shape. Highly recommended.)