Maybe Don’t Throw It in Your Face
It’s time to check out the latest health news again. This week, people are advising us to sniff cocoa powder, but not to eat the meat of our own organs. Is their advice being tested? Let’s dig in.
If you eat the placenta, cook it well.
Headline : The CDC just had to issue a warning telling people not to eat a part of their own body (IFLS).
Story : A woman “ate” her placenta in the form of dried placenta pills – in fact, this is quite common – and her baby became ill. But there are a few bugs in the title above.
First, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) did not warn about anything. A group of scientists, including those who work for the CDC, wrote a report describing the child’s case . They concluded that taking placenta capsules “should be avoided,” and said doctors should discuss the risks with patients who are interested in encapsulating their placenta. The CDC itself has nothing to do with encapsulating the placenta.
Second, the problem is not eating the placenta; the point is that the encapsulation process does not always kill bacteria. If you order a plate of sweet bread at a restaurant, you know that someone inspected that restaurant to make sure they are not completely irresponsible with the meaty substances in the kitchen. But if you send your placenta to an encapsulation service, no one will check to see if they dehydrate it at a temperature high enough to kill the bacteria. In the case of the sick child, apparently they were not there.
Finally, the placenta is not really “part of your own body.” This is a group project done by you and your child.
Here’s what happened in this case. While my mother was pregnant, she was tested, like most of us later in pregnancy, for a bacterium called GBS. Many of us have this and are unaware of it, and in rare cases, it can cause an infection in a newborn. She did not have GBS at the time, but it can come and go, and somehow the child still fell ill with GBS. The child felt better, his mother took placenta pills, and later the child fell ill again. The bacteria from the first infection of the child, the second infection of the child and the pills from the placenta – all matched. So it’s unclear exactly how the bacteria got to the baby a second time, but placenta pills are the prime suspect.
Conclusion : There is no proven benefit of taking placenta pills. On the other hand, if babies can get GBS from a mother taking placenta pills, this is a rather serious (albeit rare) risk. Here at Dose of Reality we’re all about the balance of risk and benefit, so it’s probably best to eat the placenta well-fried or not at all.
Oh great, unstoppable STD
Headline : Oral Sex – The Irresistible Bacteria That Spread Bacteria (BBC).
History : We’re talking about drug-resistant gonorrhea here.
Gonorrhea is a sexually transmitted infection that can live in your throat, as well as in the penis, vagina, or rectum. And you don’t have to share fluids to catch it ; Sometimes contact with an infected part of the body is sufficient.
So yes: gonorrhea is partially transmitted through oral sex. This news is nothing new about oral sex; the problem is an increase in the number of drug-resistant forms of gonorrhea. It is not “unstoppable” yet, but it wears out our defenses.
Antibiotics are supposed to help fight gonorrhea infection, but over time, more and more of our medicines become useless for it. The World Health Organization recently called for more research to find new drugs and new combinations of old drugs that might work against it.
Takeaway : Switching from oral sex to another type of sex won’t save you, but condoms and dental pads can help reduce your risk . You may not have gonorrhea symptoms, so it’s important to ask your doctor or your favorite sexual health clinic about testing that is recommended for some people , in some places, but not for everyone.
Don’t smell this chocolate
Headline : ” Now You Can Sniff Chocolate, But Should You?” (Washington Post)
Story : Some genius put chopped chocolate into a jar.
The powder also includes a “special energy blend”, but the manufacturer does not disclose what it contains other than guarana (berries that contain caffeine) and taurine. The bottle is about the size of a jar of lip balm and costs $ 20 .
No one knows if this will actually give you the promised “endorphin boost” and “serotonin boost”. Doctors are skeptical . In terms of experience, this YouTube columnist winces in pain and then states that “he’s making a damn milkshake in the back of my nostrils.”
Conclusion : no, not worth it.