Releases Saturday 23 and 30 December 2000
No 7276 Volume 321
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(1) Important sporting events can trigger heart attacks in men
(2) Do animals bite more during a full moon?
(3) The spirits of Christmases past have a strong influence on our health today
(4) Boys may be more sensitive than girls
(5) Constipation is not the scourge we think it is
(1) Important sporting events can trigger heart attacks in men
(Cardiovascular mortality in Dutch
men during 1996
European football championship:
longitudinal population
study)
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/321/7276/1552
Men are more likely to suffer a heart attack
or stroke on the
day of important sporting events, probably
because of
increased stress, claim researchers from
The Netherlands in
this week's Christmas issue of the BMJ.
Witte and colleagues compared the number
of deaths on 22
June 1996 (the day the Dutch football
team was knocked out
of the European football championship)
with the number of
deaths five days before and after the
match and in the same
period in 1995 and 1997. In men, deaths
from heart attack or
stroke significantly increased on the
day of the football match,
compared with the five days on either
side. In total, about 14
additional deaths occurred - an increase
of around 50%. No
corresponding increase in deaths occurred
in women.
Factors such as increased mental and emotional
stress, high
alcohol intake, overeating and excessive
smoking are thought
to trigger cardiovascular deaths, explain
the authors. A critical
football match - which combines several
of these factors at
one point in time - may provoke a sufficient
level of stress to
trigger acute heart attack or stroke,
they say.
Contact:
Diederick E Grobbee,
Professor of Clinical Epidemiology,
University Medical Centre, Utrecht, The
Netherlands
Email: D.E.Grobbee{at}jc.azu.nl
(2) Do animals bite more during a full moon?
(Do animals bite more during a full
moon? Retrospective
observational analysis)
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/321/7276/1559
(Barking mad? Another lunatic hypothesis
bites the dust)
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/321/7276/1561
The power of the moon is often used to
explain a wide range
of events - from human insanity to traffic
accidents - but do
animals feel more inclined to bite humans
during the full moon
than at other times? Two studies in this
week's Christmas
issue of the BMJ attempt to shed some
light on a question that
has baffled science for too long.
Researchers in Bradford found that animals
do have an
increased propensity to bite humans during
the full moon
periods. During 1997 to 1999, they identified
1,621 patients
attending the accident and emergency department
at Bradford
Royal Infirmary after being bitten by
an animal. The chance of
being bitten was twice as high on or around
full moon days,
indicating that an association exists
between the lunar cycles
and changes in animal behaviour. However,
the authors
suggest that further experiments are needed
to verify these
results.
In contrast, another study shows that -
in Australia at least -
no positive relation seems to exist between
the full moon and
dog bites requiring hospital treatment.
Researchers at the
University of Sydney compared dates of
admission for dog
bites to public hospitals in Australia
with dates of the full
moon, over a 12-month period. Overall,
full moon days were
associated with slightly lower admissions
(4.6 compared with
4.8 per day). Of 18 peak days (more than
10 admissions per
day) the maximum peak centred on the New
Year break. Full
moons coincided with none of these peaks.
These findings suggest that more caution
with dogs might be
exercised over Christmas and especially
at New Year ?
irrespective of the full moon, conclude
the authors.
Contacts:
Chanchal Bhattacharjee, Accident and Emergency
Department, Bradford Royal Infirmary,
Bradford, UK
Email: cbhattacharjee{at}hotmail.com
Professor Simon Chapman, Department of
Public Health and
Community Medicine, University of Sydney,
Australia
Email: simonc{at}health.usyd.edu.au
(3) The spirits of Christmases
past have a strong influence on our
health today
(The Ghost of Christmas Past: health
effects of poverty in
London in 1896 and 1991)
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/321/7276/1547
Using maps of poverty, made over 100 years
ago,
researchers in this week's Christmas issue
of the BMJ, show
that there has been little change in the
distribution of poverty in
inner London between the 19th and 20th
centuries. They
suggest that the key message of Dickens's
A Christmas Carol
- that redistribution of wealth reduces
inequalities in health - is
as relevant today as when it was written
over 150 years ago.
Data from a comprehensive survey of inner
London in the
years leading up to 1896 were digitised
and matched to
contemporary local government wards to
compare patterns of
social deprivation and mortality. On the
whole, affluent places
have remained affluent and poor places
have remained
relatively poor, say the authors, and
the longer people spend
both in poverty and in poor places, the
earlier they tend to
die. The maps also show that, despite
overall improvements,
100 years of policy initiatives have had
almost no impact on
the patterns of inequality in inner London
and on the
relationship between people's socioeconomic
position and
their relative chances of dying.
Dickens advocated redistribution of wealth
at the end of his
tale, say the authors. More recently it
has been suggested that
greater income equality is beneficial
for the health of the whole
population ? including the relatively
affluent ? not just for those
who are badly off. They conclude that
inequalities in health are
likely to persist without as fundamental
change in social
attitudes as that which Scrooge experienced
at the end of A
Christmas Carol.
"A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow,
than I have given
you for many a year! I'll raise your salary,
and endeavour to
assist your struggling family"? Scrooge
was better than his
word. He did it all, and infinitely more;
and to Tiny Tim, who
did NOT die, he was a second father?His
own heart laughed:
and that was quite enough for him."
Contacts:
Danny Dorling, Professor of Quantitative
Human Geography,
School of Geography, University of Leeds,
UK
Email: D.Dorling{at}geography.leeds.ac.uk
Richard Mitchell, Research Fellow, School
of Geography,
University of Leeds, UK
Email: rich{at}social-medicine.com
Mary Shaw, Research Fellow, School of Geographical
Sciences, University of Bristol, UK
Email: mary.shaw{at}bristol.ac.uk
(4) Boys may be more sensitive than girls
(The fragile male)
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/321/7276/1609
From the beginning of life, males are more
vulnerable than
females, and our social and cultural attitudes
about the
resilience of boys amplifies this inborn
disadvantage.
Reporting in this week's Christmas issue
of the BMJ,
Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist,
Sebastian
Kraemer, suggests that if parents were
more aware of male
sensitivity, they might change the way
they treat their sons.
Before birth, the male fetus is at greater
risk of death or
damage, and by the time a boy is born
he is on average 4-6
weeks less developed than his sister.
Boys generally have
more physical and psychological developmental
problems and
require more attention. They are more
vulnerable to poor
parental care, and tend to take greater
risks. At school, girls
are better than boys at most academic
subjects, and later in
life the process continues unabated. Circulatory
disorders,
diabetes, alcoholism and lung cancer are
all commoner in men
and male suicide rates continue to exceed
those in females.
Men are more able to ignore symptoms,
which can delay
medical treatment. Women even survive
men by several years
in almost all countries, and the gap is
widening.
This report has implications for the upbringing
of boys, says
the author. The more developmental problems
there are, the
more sensitive care is required. Yet difficult
babies often
receive less good care, precisely because
they are more
difficult to look after. If parents were
more aware of male
sensitivity, they might change the way
they treat their sons.
The traditional attitude that "boys will
be boys" needs
exploring further, he concludes.
Contact:
Sebastian Kraemer, Consultant Child and
Adolescent
Psychiatrist, Tavistock and Portman NHS
Trust, London, UK
Email:sebastian{at}kraemer-zurne.freeserve.co.uk
(5) Constipation is not the scourge we think it is
(Civilization and the colon: constipation
as the "disease of
diseases")
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/321/7276/1586
Western civilisation has been misled about
the dangers of
constipation, says medical historian James
Whorton from the
University of Washington. And doubts have
now been raised
about the effectiveness of bran cereals
to ward off bowel
cancer.
In this week's Christmas issue of the BMJ,
Professor
Whorton reports that for well over two
centuries Britons and
North Americans have been convinced that
constipation is the
fundamental "disease of civilization."
The "compelling
suspicion" that a stagnant bowel filled
with putrefying matter
can become an infective source for the
rest of the body is not
supported by the science, he says. There
is no evidence that
bowel toxins can leach into the circulation.
The Ancient Egyptians first suggested the
notion that the body
can poison itself as a result of constipation,
known as intestinal
autointoxication. And every subsequent
civilization has
enthusiastically embraced the idea, writes
Professor Whorton.
But constipation has done more to provide
clinicians with the
obvious solution to undiagnosable ailments
and the
manufacturers of cereals, laxatives, purgatives,
and devices
with a rich source of revenue, he says.
Even though intestinal autointoxication
is no longer considered
medically valid, writes Professor Whorton,
Western
civilization's preoccupation with its
bowels and their
movement, or lack of, continues unabated.
But, he says, given
recent trial evidence showing that high
fiber cereals, and bran
in particular, do not protect against
bowel cancer, it is
perhaps time to challenge this "cherished
tenet of popular
health. culture."
Contact:
Professor James Whorton,
Department of Medical History and Ethics,
University of Washington School of Medicine,
Seattle
Email: jwhorton{at}u.washington.edu
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