Nosebleed Due to a Leech (IN the Nose)!

New England Journal of Medicine published a picture AND video on August 27, 2009 showing a leech inside of the nose that caused one man’s nosebleed (also known as epistaxis). Apparently, he had washed his face in freshwater stream 7 days prior to presentation.

Yikes! Poor fellow…

Read the NEJM article here. Watch the video of the surgeon removing the little bugger here…

Read about more common causes of nosebleeds and how to control them here.

Dr. Chang Featured in Local Newspaper

Well, to be more accurate, Fauquier Hospital used Dr. Chang as advertisement for its “Be Yourself” campaign. Other physicians have been portrayed in a similar fashion. This ad appeared in the September 2009 Discover Fauquier’s Values publication.

Chewing Gum Improves Memory?!!

I came across interesting research that hinted at the possibility that chewing gum improves tasks that require memory recall. This was first suggested in a study published in 2002 in the journal Appetite where chewing gum was found to selectively improve aspects of memory in healthy volunteers. The researchers took seventy-five adults and separated them into three groups: those that chewed gum during a twenty-minute test of memory and attention, those that mimicked the chewing movement, and those that did not chew at all.

They found that people who chewed scored better on long- and short-term memory tests (measured by word recall).

The authors speculated on three possible explanations: brain activity in the hippocampus increases while people chew, so this might help with memory; gum chewing promotes the release of insulin, which might indirectly affect memory; and the most straightforward—chewing can increase heart rate slightly, and this increased blood flow could deliver more oxygen to the brain.

Follow-up studies in 2004 supported these initial findings.

A more recent study in 2009 using 101 student volunteers found that it wasn’t the gum per se but any candy (cinnamon candy in the study) or oral stimulus can help a person remember information. Based on this study, it was felt that the oral action as well as the scent of the candy/gum served as a memory cue for information.

Maybe those gum-smacking kids in class did know something the rest of us did not.

Fortunately, fear not teachers… There are other studies that have been done that have not replicated these results at all and even contradicts them.

Chewing gum can also exacerbate/cause TMJ problems.

Image taken from Wikipedia.

Another Reason to Stop Smoking… Decreased Sense of Taste

Greek researchers published a study in which they described a significant decrease in taste ability in smokers compared to non-smokers. In the study titled “Evaluation of young smokers and non-smokers with electrogustometry and contact endoscopy,” 62 male Greek soldiers were evaluated for smoking and taste by using two different instruments called electrogustometry (measures taste thresholds) and contact endoscopy (wich evaluated the morphology and density of papillae on the tongue’s tip).

This study could explain why smokers not only complain of decreased sense of taste, but also change in the way things taste (dysgeusia).

Click here to read the study abstract.

Online Hearing Test (Audio)

Phonak, one of the major manufacturers of high end hearing aids, has developed a screening hearing test you can do online in the comfort of your home.

Take the test here.

If you do poorly on this exam, please see your local ENT in order to get a more reliable hearing test and see what options you have to improve your hearing (or keep what hearing you have left).

Another Article on Dangers of Hearing Loss from Loud Concerts and iPods

The Daily News on Aug 21, 2009 published yet another article on the dangers of loud concerts and iPods resulting in permanent hearing loss. The article is titled “Beware: Loud concerts and iPods make music dangerous.”

In our practice, there have been a few patients every year in their 20s and 30s who have experienced sudden hearing loss as bad as 80 year olds after attending a loud rock concert. The hearing disappears after the concert… and it never comes back. This phenomenon is called Sudden Sensori-Neural Hearing Loss or SSNHL for short.

Please wear ear plugs… and if you experience hearing loss or ringing/tinnitus after being exposed to loud noises that does NOT come back within a few days, see your local ENT as soon as possible. There are only a few medications that can help reverse the hearing loss, but only works if given within the first 2 weeks ideally and not more than 4 weeks.

Read the full article here.

Music Can Help Understanding Speech in Noisy Environments?

Many older adults will say, ‘I can hear what you’re saying, but I don’t understand you,’ especially in a location where there is background noise (such as a restaurant) leading to frustration and social isolation. However, new research is offering tantalizing clues to prevent this from happening through music training.

Musical training makes musicians really good at picking out melodies, such as the treble line or the sound of their own instruments, from surrounding complex sounds. This improved perception in noise in musicians was linked with better working memory and tone discrimination ability. The results imply that musical training enhances the ability to hear speech in challenging listening environments by strengthening auditory memory and the representation of important acoustic features

Thirty-one study participants, with normal hearing and a mean age of 23, were divided into one group with music experience and another without it. They had to listen to sentences presented in increasingly noisy conditions and repeat back what they heard. The music group did significantly better.

The study does suggest that by reinforcing the pervasive effects that musical experience has on sound-processing abilities, better speech understanding can be obtained in noisy environments and underscores the importance of music education being more accessible to the general population

Read the story here.

Reference:
Alexandra Parbery-Clark, Erika Skoe, Carrie Lam and Nina Kraus. Musician Enhancement for Speech-in-Noise. Ear and Hearing, (in press)

NYT: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Death Due to Strep Throat?

Well according to a NYT article published on Aug 17, 2009, yes he potentially did. In the article titled “What Really Killed Mozart? Maybe Strep,” the journalist reports on a paper published in the Aug. 18 issue of The Annals of Internal Medicine where the researchers have done an epidemiological analysis that suggested he was a victim of an epidemic streptococcal infection.

Read the NYT article here. Read the actual paper abstract here.

This story illustrates how far we have come in controlling what is now considered a benign infectious problem which can be easily treated with antibiotics or tonsillectomy.

Image taken from Wikipedia.

Stress Can INCREASE a Person’s Allergies!

Researchers at Ohio State University recently published an article in the June 2009 journal Psychoneuroendocrinology titled “How stress and anxiety can alter immediate and late phase skin test responses in allergic rhinitis.”

What they found was that allergic responses to a skin prick increased after a stressful event compared to a non-stressful event. Anxiety also substantially enhanced the effects of stress far into the future as even skin tests performed the day after the stressor reflected the continuing impact of the stressor among the more anxious participants.

Read the NYT article on this here.

Yet another thing to think about in allergic patients…

Read more about the study here.

Does Honey Relieve Allergy Symptoms? NO!

Came across an interesting blog article by allergist Dr. Ves Dimov regarding whether honey actually helps allergic individuals.

The blunt conclusion was that honey does NOT help people with their allergies. As quoted from a Fort Worth newspaper article, “The bees don’t know what you’re allergic to,” he said. Most people are allergic to windborne pollens that come from grass and trees, but bees mostly gather flower pollens, he said. Another problem: You’d have to eat dozens of pounds of honey for it to be beneficial, the allergist said. There isn’t enough pollen in the natural sweetener to make a big impact.”

In fact, there was a research study done in 2002 where 36 participants who complained of allergic rhinoconjunctivitis were randomly assigned to one of three groups receiving:

1. locally collected, unpasteurized, unfiltered honey
2. nationally collected, filtered, pasteurized honey
3. corn syrup with synthetic honey flavoring

All participants consumed 1 tablespoon/day and were instructed to maintain a diary tracking 10 subjective allergy symptoms.

Neither honey group experienced relief from their symptoms in excess of that seen in the placebo group.

This study did not confirm the widely held belief that honey relieves the symptoms of allergy.