Medical News of the Obvious

At first, the results of this study seemed totally unobvious. Researchers found that people didn't lie any more often when online dating than they did in person, reported HealthDay. Really? This finding immediately led me to wonder how many daters are wearing platform shoes and compression garments on their in-person dates.

But then it turns out the methodology was to ask people whether they lied. Mightn't the liars be likely to lie to the surveyors, too?

Regardless of whether you believe them, most of the findings were pretty entertainingly obvious: older people lied more about their age, more "extroverted" people (ahem) lied more about their past romantic experiences. And interestingly, men lied more about "how nice and polite they are," according to a study author. Can you picture that? "I told her I open doors for women, and really I never do. Heh heh."

So what's the big conclusion we can draw from all this research? Hold on to your hats. "Online daters, speed-daters, and the like seem to be just like the rest of us in most ways," said the study's author. Does that mean that the people you see on the computer are also people in real life? This is going to require further investigation.

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posted by Stacey Butterfield at 8:00 AM   0 Comments

Medical News of the Obvious

You might not have guessed it from how we're beating up on them at the Olympics, but Americans are fatter and lazier than Canadians. At least according to a new study, published by Arthritis Care & Research but conducted at the Toronto Western Research Institute (hmm, do you get the feeling they might be less than totally impartial in this US/Canuck comparison?).

Anyway, the researchers concluded that it's Americans' slothful habits that cause us to develop more arthritis than our northern peers. As you've probably already guessed, the solution to this problem is obvious, too. "Public health initiatives that promote healthy weight and physical activity," recommended a study author, according to HealthDay.

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posted by Stacey Butterfield at 8:00 AM   0 Comments

Medical News of the Obvious

Continuing last week's "All I Need to Know about Medicine, I Learned from TV" theme, we have a new study about television portrayals of seizures, reported by HealthDay. Turns out that, actually, television is not the best way to learn first aid. According to these researchers, sometimes fake doctors fail to provide appropriate medical care! So much for that plan to take the boards based on watching four years of "House," "Grey's Anatomy," "Private Practice" and "ER."

In another follow-up from last week, more news that you probably learned in sex ed class. Men don't like condoms that don't fit, HealthDay tells us. In addition to being uncomfortable and more likely to be removed, ill-fitting protection also increases the risk of malfunction. The good news for TV watchers is that study authors suggested readying the problem with "public health efforts designed to promote the improved fit of condoms." So can we expect a plot line about condom fitting in an upcoming episode of "Grey's"?

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posted by Stacey Butterfield at 8:00 AM   0 Comments

Medical News of the Obvious

In honor of Valentine's Day, we've got some obvious news about dressing up and getting it on.

Confirming a fact that's well-known to any woman who has ever worn high heels, researchers found that walking heel-first requires less energy than tip-toeing. "In addition," reports HealthDay, "a heel-first foot posture 'may be advantageous during fighting by increasing stability and applying more torque to the ground to twist, push and shove. And it increases agility in rapid turning maneuvers during aggressive encounters.'" In other words, you're better off throwing your stiletto than trying to do karate while wearing it.

Walking in pretty shoes can also be harder when you're pregnant, or at least that's what I learned from "The OC." A study, reported by HealthDay, surveyed female college students about their thoughts on teen pregnancy after they watched either an episode of the popular TV show or a "news-type segment developed for high school students by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy" and found that "The OC" was a more convincing argument for birth control--a result that would be painfully obvious for anyone who's ever had to sit through the snorefest that is a high school sex ed class.

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posted by Stacey Butterfield at 8:00 AM   0 Comments

Medical News of the Obvious

Again this week, the mainstream reporters are doing our job for us. Newswise brings us reports of "an unmet need to study what might seem obvious: Gay kids will be pushed around." Researchers, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, attempted to fill that need by surveying thousands of kids to learn that the very few who identified themselves as homosexual (less than 2%) or bisexual (0.5%) were also more likely to be bullied than the blend-in-with-the-crowd heteros.

In other news of those mysterious little miniature humans, it turns out that kids don't take themselves to the dentist. "About 86 percent of children whose parents had a dental visit during the preceding year had a dental exam, compared to about 63 percent of the children whose parents hadn't," HealthDay reports. What, that other 23% couldn't get it together to call a cab or hitchike to the dentist's office?

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posted by Stacey Butterfield at 8:00 AM   0 Comments

Medical News of the Obvious

You know a study's obvious when the news article covering it begins "Just in case the world needed more evidence on the matter..." We totally second the HealthDay reporter's opinion, and welcome her to our subspecialty of journalism. The link between exercise and good health--most recently and most frequently uncovered by the Archives of Internal Medicine--has become such a MNO staple that we're considering banning it from our coverage. If even HealthDay knows it's a given, perhaps we need to devote our energies to highlighting some less-obvious obvious news.

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posted by Stacey Butterfield at 8:00 AM   0 Comments

Medical News of the Obvious

As someone who is already reading a blog, you may be more likely than most to know that contemporary Americans consume a lot of media. But did you know that kids do, too?

That's the news brought to us by a new study of children's media consumption habits, reported by HealthDay. Turns out kids watch TV, listen to music, surf the net, and mess around with their cell phones a lot. The rise in kids' media consumption may even be linked to wider use of cell and smart phones.

Other not-so-surprising facts revealed by the survey:

• Fewer children are reading magazines and newspapers, but more of this reading is done online.
• Boys spend more time playing video and computer games than girls.
• Oh, and kids who spend 16 hours or more a day consuming media are more likely to get bad grades. (Just hypothesizing here, but would that perhaps relate to the fact that they don't have time to either sleep or go to school?)

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posted by Stacey Butterfield at 8:00 AM   0 Comments

Medical News of the Obvious

This week's obvious news consists of findings that you might have hoped weren't true, but really you already knew they were.

First, sending your spouse off to war will make you unhappy, according to the New England Journal. "Among wives of soldiers deployed for up to 11 months, researchers found almost 3,500 more diagnoses of depression, anxiety, sleep disorders and other mental health issues than among wives who husbands stayed home," reported HealthDay. Guess these women actually liked their husbands!

Then, it turns out that diabetics should not pig out, especially on salt, according to the Archives of Opthamology via HealthDay. A study of black patients with diabetes found that those who ate more calories and more sodium were more likely to develop diabetic retinopathy. "These results suggest that low caloric and sodium intakes in African-American individuals with type 1 diabetes mellitus...might be part of dietary recommendations for this population," the authors concluded. Shoot, now we will have throw out those "hot dog a day keeps the doctor away" guidelines.

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posted by Stacey Butterfield at 8:00 AM   0 Comments

Medical News of the Obvious

Finally, a study so shockingly innovative that it will have convince the anti-vaccine activists of the error of their ways. It turns out that the chicken pox vaccine actually...prevents chicken pox! A new study from Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine found that more cases of the disease occurred among unvaccinated children than those who had been vaccinated. The study authors expressed hope that this new data would entice reluctant parents to opt for vaccination. Think of it as the "tipping point" theory of obvious research--if you report the same results enough times, maybe eventually Jenny McCarthy will listen.

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posted by Stacey Butterfield at 4:00 PM   0 Comments

Medical News of the Obvious

We'd like to thank the Journal of the American College of Cardiology for sponsoring this edition of MNO by providing all of our content in a single issue.

First up, making chubby kids run turns out to serve a purpose besides the pleasure of unhappy gym teachers. The sadists (um, I mean, researchers) enrolled the fattest kids in the class (97th percentile for their 6 to 11 year old age range) in mandatory 60-minute exercise programs. Not surprisingly, they found that the exercise was good for the children's cardiovascular fitness. More surprisingly, they claim that the program was "deliberately made enjoyable for the children with activities including swimming and ball games." Right. Can't you just picture the coach yelling, "Get your butt on the field! This kickball game has been deliberately made enjoyable for you"?

Meanwhile, other researchers have been torturing older obese people by feeding them less to find out that weight loss is also good for your cardiovascular health. Oh, and smoking affects your recovery from a heart attack. That last one was observational. Apparently the researchers didn't have to make people smoke in order to prove that it's bad for you.

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posted by Stacey Butterfield at 10:10 AM   0 Comments

Medical News of the Obvious

The selections this week are not so much obvious as they are fruitless. Call it "Medical News that is Likely to be Ignored."

A new study "provides evidence that the average cigarette is crawling with germs, including bacteria that cause respiratory disease," HealthDay reports. Because, of course, smokers typically have shown great concern about protecting themselves from respiratory disease. This research is in its early stage and the experts expressed a "need to figure out if they [the bacteria] are impacting human health." Would that mean that cigarettes are impacting human health, too?

There's bad news for ecstasy users, too. If you're not already bleary-eyed from raving all night, sleep apnea might be impairing your rest. A comparison of 71 ecstasy users with controls found an association between the drug and sleep apnea, reported WebMD. "The scientists...say doctors should warn young people that the drug 'damages their brains' and may cause sleep apnea." Hmm, which half of that warning do you find more attention-grabbing?

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posted by Stacey Butterfield at 9:00 AM   0 Comments

Medical News of the Obvious

The holiday hasn't left us much time to find obvious news. But we did find one medical headline that--given the past few weeks of debate--seems like a truly impressive understatement: Breast Cancer Risk Is Not So Easy to Figure Out, according to HealthDay.

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posted by Stacey Butterfield at 8:00 AM   0 Comments

Medical News of the Obvious

Other reporters may have been excited about the guidelines or trials of new drugs that came out of the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions, but what really blew our minds was the news that fish is good for you, but not if you deep-fry it.

According to researchers, observation of men in California and Hawaii revealed that the cardioprotective effects typically associated with eating our finned friends were eliminated if you ate the fried, dried or salted varieties. This rings a bell; have we heard somewhere before that fat or salt is bad for your heart? But at least the study had practical application. Since they didn't assess grilled fish, the researchers recommended that you bake your fish, or for a weirder alternative, boil it.

Some additional good news for those who weren't sure whether the Filet-o-Fish or the soy patty was the healthy way to go: the study found that eating tofu also had a cardioprotective effect in all ethnic groups.

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posted by Stacey Butterfield at 8:00 AM   0 Comments

Medical news of the obvious

Sadly, we found no news of the obvious for this week. Maybe that's a good thing for medicine, but it means we don't get to highlight one of our favorite features. Send us your ideas and check back every Monday.

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posted by Ryan DuBosar at 9:00 AM   0 Comments

Medical news of the obvious

Men who get their sleep apnea treated golf better. Twelve golfers with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea who started nasal positive airway pressure (NPAP) treatment saw a drop in their mean handicap from 12.4 to 11.0 (P=0.01), compared to 12 controls. The rested duffers said they felt more alert, and NPAP compliance was 85%, said researcher, who added he wants to conduct a larger, multicenter study to explore what drives high treatment compliance. (It must be those really powerful tee shots.)

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posted by Ryan DuBosar at 9:00 AM   0 Comments

Medical News of the Obvious

Why are athletes young? Why are couch potatoes out of shape? If questions like these have been plaguing you, not to worry, researchers have the answer.

A new study from the Archives of Internal Medicine finds that "men and women become gradually less fit with age" and that "maintaining a healthy body mass index (BMI), not smoking and being physically active are associated with higher fitness levels throughout adult life."

The study authors also make a pretty dramatic leap from these findings to proposed interventions. “These data indicate the need for physicians to recommend to their patients the necessity to maintain their weight, engage in regular aerobic exercise and abstain from smoking,” they concluded. Call me overly cautious, but I think we should see some data from controlled trials first. Bet there'd be no problem finding volunteers for the eating, sitting around and smoking arm.

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posted by Stacey Butterfield at 9:27 AM   0 Comments

Medical News of the Obvious

Kids are more likely than their peers to become addicted to the Internet if they're depressed, hostile or have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or a social phobia. On the positive side, they also use it as therapy to overcome their face-to-face limitations or find kids like themselves.

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posted by Ryan DuBosar at 9:00 AM   0 Comments

Medical News of the Obvious

Two of this week's highlights are best described by their headlines: "Study Finds Fish Won't Prevent Heart Failure" and "Eating in America Still Unhealthy: CDC."

It's a little surprising that our third study of the week didn't get such a catchy headline since it's easy to imagine one: Sex Makes People Happy. The intrepid scientists found that "women who are happy with their sex lives have higher well-being scores and more vitality than women who are sexually dissatisfied," according to HealthDay. But that's not all. It also turns out that getting some in itself is not sufficient to make women happy. Rather, some of them are having unsatisfying sex. "Frequency of sexual activity in women cannot be employed as a reliable indicator of sexual well-being," a researcher concluded.

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posted by Stacey Butterfield at 9:00 AM   0 Comments

Medical News of the Obvious

It's time for another medical-education themed journal issue (thanks, JAMA), which means it's time for more Obvious Facts about Med Students:

They say stupid stuff on Facebook.
They make mistakes when they're tired and upset.
Cutting people open makes them nervous.
If they're well-trained, they'll do a better job.

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posted by Stacey Butterfield at 11:57 AM   0 Comments

Medical News of the Obvious

This may come as news to those of you who were unsure of the purpose of that black rectangular thing in your living room, but not to the rest of us. Researchers put toddlers and parents in a room either with no TV or one where they could pick a show to watch.

"The study authors found that while the TV was on, parents spent about 20 percent less time talking to their children and were less active, attentive and responsive to their kids, resulting in a decrease in the quality of the interactions," reports HealthDay. Only 20 percent? Clearly this sample didn't include any fathers watching playoff games.

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posted by Stacey Butterfield at 9:25 AM   0 Comments

Medical News of the Obvious

It's like the scientists think if they keep reporting the same evidence, eventually someone will listen. A new study in Archives found that exercise is still good for you. And it's never too late to start. "The benefits associated with physical activity were observed not only in those who maintained an existing level of physical activity, but also in those who began exercising between ages 70 and 85," said the press release. Actually, sounds like a good excuse to wait another couple of decades before starting that workout routine.

Or maybe you can get your exercise in the bedroom. As long as you don't have allergies, that is. A new study, reported by HealthDay, finds that snot is not sexy. According to a study of 350 untreated sufferers of allergic rhinitis, 83% said that their allergies affected their sex lives. Perhaps the most obvious part of the study was the solution offered by researchers: shut the bedroom window.

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posted by Stacey Butterfield at 4:00 PM   0 Comments

Medical News of the Obvious

It seems safe to assume that this week's researchers of the already-known have been to a bar before, given that they're grad students at one of the top-ranked party schools in the country. Perhaps, in fact, their hypothesis was cooked up over a happy hour pitcher or two. Because even they are not denying the obviousness of their undertaking.

"It may seem intuitive that cheaper alcohol can lead to higher intoxication levels and related consequence--such as fighting, drunk driving, sexual victimization, injury, even death--especially among the vulnerable college student population," a study author told HealthDay.

Yes, after intensive study (read: hanging out in bars) the researchers concluded that higher drink prices were associated with a decreased risk of patrons being inebriated. Might this also correlate with the lower incidence of vomiting on the floor seen in four-star restaurants as compared to college bars? Further research is clearly needed.

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posted by Stacey Butterfield at 12:14 PM   0 Comments

Medical news of the obvious

Remember when your Scout leader told you to hug a tree if you got lost in the woods? Turns out they were right, according to a new study.

Researchers had subjects walk in the woods, then the Sahara, and finally through a field blindfolded. What happened? Not so surprisingly, without the sun or some other object to guide themselves by, the people got lost and wandered around in circles. Especially the poor blindfolded ones. "Not only did they walk in circles, some of the circles were as small as about 66 feet, similar in size to a basketball court," sniffs the HealthDay article about the study.

We're looking forward to the follow-up, in which Smokey the Bear finally provides the evidence that only you can prevent forest fires.

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posted by Stacey Butterfield at 9:00 AM   0 Comments

Medical news of the obvious

Someone needs to buy these researchers a drink. Because it's pretty clear they've never been to a bar before.

Their study (which was oh-so-appropriately published in Human Nature) found that men are more likely than women to agree to casual sex. Greater percentages of men said they would go out, go to an apartment, and go to bed with members of the opposite sex whether they were "slightly unattractive," "moderately attractive" or "exceptionally attractive." (Don't worry, the scientists weren't categorizing actual women that way; it was all hypothetical.) Women, on the other hand, reserved their one-night stands for the exceptionally attractive guys.

In an addendum that will only be shocking to anyone who has never walked down the street in Europe, Italian men were most likely to accept sex with a stranger, followed by American guys and then Germans.

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posted by Stacey Butterfield at 8:00 AM   0 Comments

Medical news of the obvious

Depressed people were almost three times as likely to have impaired cognition after gloomy weather in one study. Researchers screened by phone 16,800 Americans enrolled in a stroke study for signs of depression and then administered a cognition test. Data were correlated with NASA's daily records of how bright sunlight was at any given location for the two weeks before the test. We're not rocket scientists, but two weeks of cloudy weather is enough to fog anyone's senses, let alone people who are already depressed.

This next video starts off with what exercisers knew intuitively: Working out makes one hungrier. But does exercise really make it harder to lose weight? Let's sit on the couch for a while and mull that over ...

-Compiled by the staff of ACP Hospitalist

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posted by Jessica Berthold at 3:55 PM   0 Comments

Medical news of the obvious

We did learn something new from this week's study--research on the elderly can be just as obvious as that focused on children.

Elderly people who neglect themselves or are abused are also more likely to die, according to the latest issue of JAMA. The researchers even state the obviousness of their own point at the start: "Reports of elder self-neglect or abuse are often initiated based on significant concerns for an older person's welfare, health, and safety, perhaps to levels that suggest that there may be strong concerns for the older person's wellbeing."

In other words, reports of dangerous things happening to people seem to be associated with dangerous things actually happening to people.

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posted by Stacey Butterfield at 4:00 PM   0 Comments