Stories tagged health

Woman contemplates a future of urine drinking: As she sips her apple juice.
Courtesy vcalzoneHey, hey, don’t get too excited, Buzzketeers. We’ve been drinking our own pee for a long time. Way back in the past, we drank it for ceremonial purposes. And back in the present we drank it all the time! We drank it to stay alive, we drank it to be on TV (we loved TV back then, didn’t we?), and sometimes we drank it just because we were into that sort of thing.

But here in the future, we’ve really perfected drinking pee. And not just in the Kevin Costner/Waterworld way—that method requires gravity and science fiction, and we’ve figured out how to do it without gravity, with science.

The obvious application here is astronauts. As intriguing as zero gravity and space travel might sound initially, the fact remains that astronauts are trapped in a relatively tiny capsule for great lengths of time with little to occupy their time beyond telling dirty jokes and drinking their own urine. Unfortunately, there are only so many dirty jokes (although mixing and matching punch lines can extend things), and, as wikipedia’s entry on urophagia reminds us, you can only drink your own wiz so many times before problems arise. (Although, as I understand it, the problem with repeatedly drinking pee isn’t that you end up drinking super-pee, but that you get dehydrated, and your body has to reabsorb the toxins from the urine.)

With this new development in urophage tech, however, it looks like astronauts will be able to while away mission hours drinking pee to their hearts’ content.

Now, it should at least be mentioned that the aim of technology here is to turn the pee into something called “water,” and to then drink it. But the principle remains the same. Existing urine-recycling systems rely on gravity, but, again, that’s not an option for astronauts. The new system, soon to be installed on the International Space Station, will take urine, along with water from hand washing, tooth brushing, showering, and space suit sweat, and extract free gas and solid materials from the fluid, before removing remaining contaminants with “a high-temperature chemical reaction.” The result, according to one astronaut, can be “purer than what you drink here on Earth.”

That, ma’am, sounds like a challenge.

Potential efforts to defeat the system through dietary or medical methods aside, the water reclamation process makes a lot of sense. Previously, urine was vented into space, and more water needed to be delivered to the space station. This process should cut about 15,000 pounds from the amount of water and consumables that need to be brought to the station each year, and with the cost of shipping each pint of fresh water into space hovering around $10,000, the savings are nothing to sneeze at. (Considering that “a pint’s a pound the world around,” the system should save something like $150,000,000 a year, if the cost is actually as simple as those figures.)

And no doubt it’ll keep the astronauts happy.

Tags : astronauts, International Space Station, urine, drinking water, health, water

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This isn't me: It's some other handsome devil.
Courtesy Max SparberIt’s true! And these facial scars aren’t from chicken pox or acne, no sir. Do you need me to provide a description of each scar and what it’s from? No, it’s no problem at all! Really. Here:

The parallel lines on my left cheek and jaw line: I call them “The Empire Builder” and they’re from the time a tiger bit me in the face. The tiger and I were wrestling, and things got serious when the beast realized that it was losing.

The two small circles on my right cheek: These are from getting shot by the vice-president. Which vice-president? Dan Quayle. He shot me twice in the mouf with a handgun. We were wresting, and things got serious… It was only a .22, though, so I don’t hold it against him. The man has enough problems.

The cheese-grater chin: I don’t know what it’s from, and that’s why I call it “Mr. E.” All I know is that I woke up tied to a snowmobile, underwater, with a sore chin. When I broke the surface, I was surprised to find myself in the Stillwater Junior High School swimming pool.

The lightning bolt running over the right side of my mouth: I call this one “The Harry Potter.” It’s from the other time a tiger bit me in the face.

So… What do y’all think? Pretty attractive, am I right?

Think about your answer carefully—you wouldn’t want to imply that the journal Personality and Individual Differences is a liar.

See, a new study published in the journal seems to indicate that women are attracted to men with facial scars, at least for short-term relationships. The best scars, too, aren’t from surgery or a scarring skin condition; the scars women in the study found the most attractive appeared to have been inflicted through violence of some kind.

The scientists behind the study (and it wasn’t mentioned as it whether or not they had scarred faces) believed that the scars implied that a potential mate was more aggressive, or had a greater risk taking personality. The scars could also suggest “good genes or a strong immune system.” So your scarred guy could have some nice, powerful genetic material, but may not necessarily be the type you want to pair up with for a long-term relationship.

Tags : scars, genetics, attractiveness, health

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Crestor: :Rosuvastatin
Courtesy Mykhal The drug company, AstraZenca, makes a drug called Crestor and also receives royalties from a particular blood test (hsCRP) which detects C-reactive protein (CRP), an indicator of infection.

AstraZenca funded a study which found that their product, Crestor, when given to patients identified as having infection via their blood test (hsCRP), "slashed the risk (of heart attack or stroke) of those flagged by the test by about half -- even if their cholesterol was normal".

Infection's role in cardiovascular risk

Why people with normal cholesterol levels suffered heart attacks or strokes has been puzzling. In the study,

either 20 milligrams of the statin Crestor or an inert placebo (was given) daily to 17,802 middle-aged and elderly men and women who had what are considered safe cholesterol levels but high CRP -- 2 milligrams per liter of blood or above.
(They)stopped the trial ... after an average follow-up of less than two years, concluding that the benefit was so striking that it would unethical to continue withholding the real drug from those taking the placebo.
Compared with those getting the placebo, those taking Crestor were 54 percent less likely to have a heart attack, 48 percent less to have a stroke, 46 percent less likely to need angioplasty or bypass surgery to open a clogged artery, 44 percent less likely to suffer any of those events and 20 percent less likely to die from any cause, the researchers reported yesterday. WashingtonPost

Costs, benefits, and alternatives

For every 1000 people in this study who took Crestor, there were about 2 who had heart attacks compared to about 4 in the placebo group (per year).

Some skeptics, however, argued that the actual risk reduction for an individual would be very small, given the relatively low risk for most middle-aged people, so the benefits easily could be outweighed by the costs of thousands more people taking tests and drugs and being monitored by doctors.

The risks from extended use of Crestor by millions of patients is unknown. We do know that lifestyle interventions are effective.

Join the discussion, learn more

Washington Post Staff Writer Rob Stein will be online Monday, Nov. 10 at 11 a.m. ET to discuss a new study that could transform efforts to prevent heart attacks and strokes. You can discuss whether you think drugs and money or lifestyle changes are best for our future there or in comments below.

Read the research paper: Rosuvastatin to Prevent Vascular Events in Men and Women with Elevated C-Reactive Protein

Tags : rosuvastatin, risk, prevention, Paul M. Ridker, health, drugs, Crestor, cardiovascular, Brigham and Women's Hospital, AstraZenca

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