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Why it might be better to be a dog person
Here’s that old debate again: Dogs or cats? You probably have your own opinion, but research presented at this year’s Digestive Disease Week may have tipped the scale by showing that children who lived with dogs may be less likely to have Crohn’s disease as adults.
The research was done by having approximately 4,300 people closely related to patients with Crohn’s disease fill out an environmental questionnaire. Using these data, the research team looked into environmental factors such as size of the families, where the home was, how many bathrooms the homes had, and quality of drinking water.
The researchers found that those who had or were exposed to dogs between the ages of 5 and 15 years were more likely to have healthy gut permeability and balanced microbes, which increased their protection against Crohn’s disease.
“Our study seems to add to others that have explored the ‘hygiene hypothesis’ which suggests that the lack of exposure to microbes early in life may lead to lack of immune regulation toward environmental microbes,” senior author Williams Turpin, PhD, said in the written statement.
The researchers aren’t sure why they didn’t get the same findings with cats, but Dr. Turpin theorized that dog owners tend to be outside more with their dogs or live in places with more green space, which are good protectors against Crohn’s disease.
It’s all good for dog owners, but do their pets’ parasites make you more attractive? Just more fuel for the ongoing debate.
Come for the history, stay for the fossilized parasites
Another week, another analysis of old British poop. LOTME really is your one-stop shop for all the important, hard-hitting news about historic parasites. You’re welcome, Internet.
The news this week is from Stonehenge, which is apparently kind of a big deal. Rocks in a circle, celestial calendar, cultural significance, whatever. We’re not here to talk about rocks. We’re here to talk about, uh, rocks. Smaller rocks. Specifically, coprolites, which are essentially poop turned into a rock. (Though now we’re imagining Stonehenge made out of fossilized poop rocks. Would it still be a big tourist destination? We can see both sides of the argument on that one.)
Archaeologists from the University of Cambridge have conducted an analysis of coprolites from Durrington Walls, a Neolithic settlement just a few kilometers from Stonehenge. The town dates to the same time that Stonehenge was constructed, and it’s believed that the residents were responsible for building the landmark. These coprolites, depending on what’s inside, can tell us a lot about how the builders of Stonehenge lived and, more specifically, how they ate.
In this case, the coprolites of one human and three dogs contained capillariid worm eggs. These worms come from cows, and when a human is typically infected, the eggs embed in the liver and do not pass through the body. Finding them in excrement indicates that the people were eating raw cow organs and feeding leftovers to their dogs. This is interesting, because a preponderance of pottery and cooking implements also found at the site indicates that the residents of Durrington Walls were spit-roasting or boiling their beef and pork. So the meat was cooked, but not the organs. That is an interesting dietary decision, ancient British people. Then again, modern British cuisine exists. At least now we know where they got it from.
This new research raises one other very important question: When are we going to get a full-on guided tour of all the important coprolite sites in Britain? They’ve clearly got plenty of them, and the tourist demand for ancient parasites must be sky-high. Come on, capitalism, follow through on this. We’d go.
Everyone lies: Food intake edition
Do you have any patients on special diets? Do you ask them if they are following those diets? Don’t bother, because they’re lying. Everyone lies about the food they eat. Everyone. Obese people lie, and nonobese people lie.
Investigators at the University of Essex in England asked 221 adults to keep food diaries, and then they checked on energy consumption by analyzing radioactive water levels in the participants’ urine over a 10-day period.
Underreporting of food consumption was rampant, even among those who were not obese. The obese subjects did underreport by a greater extent (1,200 calories per day) than did those who were not obese, who were off by only 800 calories, but the obese participants burned about 400 calories more each day than did the nonobese, so the difference was a wash.
Everyone ended up underreporting their calorie consumption by an average of about 900 calories, and the investigators were good enough to provide some food equivalents, tops on the list being three MacDonald’s cheeseburgers.
“Public health recommendations have historically relied heavily on self-reported energy intake values,” senior author Gavin Sandercock, PhD, said in a EurekAlert statement, and “recognising that the measures of energy intake are incorrect might result in the setting of more realistic targets.”
Maybe you can be more realistic with your patients, too. Go ahead and ask Mr. Smith about the burger sticking out of his coat pocket, because there are probably two more you can’t see. We’ve each got 900 calories hiding on us somewhere. Ours is usually pizza.
The art of the gallbladder
Ever thought you would see a portrait of a gallbladder hanging up in a gallery? Not just an artist’s rendition, but an actual photo from an actual patient? Well, you can at the Soloway Gallery in Brooklyn, N.Y., at least until June 12.
The artist? K.C. Joseph, MD, a general surgeon from St. Marie, Pa., who died in 2015. His daughter Melissa is the curator of the show and told ARTnews about the interesting connection her father had with art and surgery.
In 2010, Dr. Joseph gave his daughter a box of photos and said “Make me a famous artist,” she recalled. At first, “I was like, ‘These are weird,’ and then I put them under my bed for 10 years.”
Apparently he had been making art with his patients’ organs for about 15 years and had a system in which he put each one together. Before a surgery Dr. Joseph would make a note card with the patient’s name handwritten in calligraphy with a couple of pages taken out of the magazine from the waiting room as the backdrop. Afterward, when the patient was in recovery, the removed organ would be placed among the pages and the name card. A photo was taken with the same endoscope that was used for the procedure.
After the show’s debut, people reached out expressing their love for their photos. “I wish, before he died, I had asked him more questions about it,” Ms. Joseph told ARTnews. “I’m regretting it so much now, kicking myself.”
Who gets to take home an artsy photo of their gallbladder after getting it removed? Not us, that’s who. Each collage is a one-of-a-kind piece. They definitely should be framed and shown in an art gallery. Oh, right. Never mind.
Why it might be better to be a dog person
Here’s that old debate again: Dogs or cats? You probably have your own opinion, but research presented at this year’s Digestive Disease Week may have tipped the scale by showing that children who lived with dogs may be less likely to have Crohn’s disease as adults.
The research was done by having approximately 4,300 people closely related to patients with Crohn’s disease fill out an environmental questionnaire. Using these data, the research team looked into environmental factors such as size of the families, where the home was, how many bathrooms the homes had, and quality of drinking water.
The researchers found that those who had or were exposed to dogs between the ages of 5 and 15 years were more likely to have healthy gut permeability and balanced microbes, which increased their protection against Crohn’s disease.
“Our study seems to add to others that have explored the ‘hygiene hypothesis’ which suggests that the lack of exposure to microbes early in life may lead to lack of immune regulation toward environmental microbes,” senior author Williams Turpin, PhD, said in the written statement.
The researchers aren’t sure why they didn’t get the same findings with cats, but Dr. Turpin theorized that dog owners tend to be outside more with their dogs or live in places with more green space, which are good protectors against Crohn’s disease.
It’s all good for dog owners, but do their pets’ parasites make you more attractive? Just more fuel for the ongoing debate.
Come for the history, stay for the fossilized parasites
Another week, another analysis of old British poop. LOTME really is your one-stop shop for all the important, hard-hitting news about historic parasites. You’re welcome, Internet.
The news this week is from Stonehenge, which is apparently kind of a big deal. Rocks in a circle, celestial calendar, cultural significance, whatever. We’re not here to talk about rocks. We’re here to talk about, uh, rocks. Smaller rocks. Specifically, coprolites, which are essentially poop turned into a rock. (Though now we’re imagining Stonehenge made out of fossilized poop rocks. Would it still be a big tourist destination? We can see both sides of the argument on that one.)
Archaeologists from the University of Cambridge have conducted an analysis of coprolites from Durrington Walls, a Neolithic settlement just a few kilometers from Stonehenge. The town dates to the same time that Stonehenge was constructed, and it’s believed that the residents were responsible for building the landmark. These coprolites, depending on what’s inside, can tell us a lot about how the builders of Stonehenge lived and, more specifically, how they ate.
In this case, the coprolites of one human and three dogs contained capillariid worm eggs. These worms come from cows, and when a human is typically infected, the eggs embed in the liver and do not pass through the body. Finding them in excrement indicates that the people were eating raw cow organs and feeding leftovers to their dogs. This is interesting, because a preponderance of pottery and cooking implements also found at the site indicates that the residents of Durrington Walls were spit-roasting or boiling their beef and pork. So the meat was cooked, but not the organs. That is an interesting dietary decision, ancient British people. Then again, modern British cuisine exists. At least now we know where they got it from.
This new research raises one other very important question: When are we going to get a full-on guided tour of all the important coprolite sites in Britain? They’ve clearly got plenty of them, and the tourist demand for ancient parasites must be sky-high. Come on, capitalism, follow through on this. We’d go.
Everyone lies: Food intake edition
Do you have any patients on special diets? Do you ask them if they are following those diets? Don’t bother, because they’re lying. Everyone lies about the food they eat. Everyone. Obese people lie, and nonobese people lie.
Investigators at the University of Essex in England asked 221 adults to keep food diaries, and then they checked on energy consumption by analyzing radioactive water levels in the participants’ urine over a 10-day period.
Underreporting of food consumption was rampant, even among those who were not obese. The obese subjects did underreport by a greater extent (1,200 calories per day) than did those who were not obese, who were off by only 800 calories, but the obese participants burned about 400 calories more each day than did the nonobese, so the difference was a wash.
Everyone ended up underreporting their calorie consumption by an average of about 900 calories, and the investigators were good enough to provide some food equivalents, tops on the list being three MacDonald’s cheeseburgers.
“Public health recommendations have historically relied heavily on self-reported energy intake values,” senior author Gavin Sandercock, PhD, said in a EurekAlert statement, and “recognising that the measures of energy intake are incorrect might result in the setting of more realistic targets.”
Maybe you can be more realistic with your patients, too. Go ahead and ask Mr. Smith about the burger sticking out of his coat pocket, because there are probably two more you can’t see. We’ve each got 900 calories hiding on us somewhere. Ours is usually pizza.
The art of the gallbladder
Ever thought you would see a portrait of a gallbladder hanging up in a gallery? Not just an artist’s rendition, but an actual photo from an actual patient? Well, you can at the Soloway Gallery in Brooklyn, N.Y., at least until June 12.
The artist? K.C. Joseph, MD, a general surgeon from St. Marie, Pa., who died in 2015. His daughter Melissa is the curator of the show and told ARTnews about the interesting connection her father had with art and surgery.
In 2010, Dr. Joseph gave his daughter a box of photos and said “Make me a famous artist,” she recalled. At first, “I was like, ‘These are weird,’ and then I put them under my bed for 10 years.”
Apparently he had been making art with his patients’ organs for about 15 years and had a system in which he put each one together. Before a surgery Dr. Joseph would make a note card with the patient’s name handwritten in calligraphy with a couple of pages taken out of the magazine from the waiting room as the backdrop. Afterward, when the patient was in recovery, the removed organ would be placed among the pages and the name card. A photo was taken with the same endoscope that was used for the procedure.
After the show’s debut, people reached out expressing their love for their photos. “I wish, before he died, I had asked him more questions about it,” Ms. Joseph told ARTnews. “I’m regretting it so much now, kicking myself.”
Who gets to take home an artsy photo of their gallbladder after getting it removed? Not us, that’s who. Each collage is a one-of-a-kind piece. They definitely should be framed and shown in an art gallery. Oh, right. Never mind.
Why it might be better to be a dog person
Here’s that old debate again: Dogs or cats? You probably have your own opinion, but research presented at this year’s Digestive Disease Week may have tipped the scale by showing that children who lived with dogs may be less likely to have Crohn’s disease as adults.
The research was done by having approximately 4,300 people closely related to patients with Crohn’s disease fill out an environmental questionnaire. Using these data, the research team looked into environmental factors such as size of the families, where the home was, how many bathrooms the homes had, and quality of drinking water.
The researchers found that those who had or were exposed to dogs between the ages of 5 and 15 years were more likely to have healthy gut permeability and balanced microbes, which increased their protection against Crohn’s disease.
“Our study seems to add to others that have explored the ‘hygiene hypothesis’ which suggests that the lack of exposure to microbes early in life may lead to lack of immune regulation toward environmental microbes,” senior author Williams Turpin, PhD, said in the written statement.
The researchers aren’t sure why they didn’t get the same findings with cats, but Dr. Turpin theorized that dog owners tend to be outside more with their dogs or live in places with more green space, which are good protectors against Crohn’s disease.
It’s all good for dog owners, but do their pets’ parasites make you more attractive? Just more fuel for the ongoing debate.
Come for the history, stay for the fossilized parasites
Another week, another analysis of old British poop. LOTME really is your one-stop shop for all the important, hard-hitting news about historic parasites. You’re welcome, Internet.
The news this week is from Stonehenge, which is apparently kind of a big deal. Rocks in a circle, celestial calendar, cultural significance, whatever. We’re not here to talk about rocks. We’re here to talk about, uh, rocks. Smaller rocks. Specifically, coprolites, which are essentially poop turned into a rock. (Though now we’re imagining Stonehenge made out of fossilized poop rocks. Would it still be a big tourist destination? We can see both sides of the argument on that one.)
Archaeologists from the University of Cambridge have conducted an analysis of coprolites from Durrington Walls, a Neolithic settlement just a few kilometers from Stonehenge. The town dates to the same time that Stonehenge was constructed, and it’s believed that the residents were responsible for building the landmark. These coprolites, depending on what’s inside, can tell us a lot about how the builders of Stonehenge lived and, more specifically, how they ate.
In this case, the coprolites of one human and three dogs contained capillariid worm eggs. These worms come from cows, and when a human is typically infected, the eggs embed in the liver and do not pass through the body. Finding them in excrement indicates that the people were eating raw cow organs and feeding leftovers to their dogs. This is interesting, because a preponderance of pottery and cooking implements also found at the site indicates that the residents of Durrington Walls were spit-roasting or boiling their beef and pork. So the meat was cooked, but not the organs. That is an interesting dietary decision, ancient British people. Then again, modern British cuisine exists. At least now we know where they got it from.
This new research raises one other very important question: When are we going to get a full-on guided tour of all the important coprolite sites in Britain? They’ve clearly got plenty of them, and the tourist demand for ancient parasites must be sky-high. Come on, capitalism, follow through on this. We’d go.
Everyone lies: Food intake edition
Do you have any patients on special diets? Do you ask them if they are following those diets? Don’t bother, because they’re lying. Everyone lies about the food they eat. Everyone. Obese people lie, and nonobese people lie.
Investigators at the University of Essex in England asked 221 adults to keep food diaries, and then they checked on energy consumption by analyzing radioactive water levels in the participants’ urine over a 10-day period.
Underreporting of food consumption was rampant, even among those who were not obese. The obese subjects did underreport by a greater extent (1,200 calories per day) than did those who were not obese, who were off by only 800 calories, but the obese participants burned about 400 calories more each day than did the nonobese, so the difference was a wash.
Everyone ended up underreporting their calorie consumption by an average of about 900 calories, and the investigators were good enough to provide some food equivalents, tops on the list being three MacDonald’s cheeseburgers.
“Public health recommendations have historically relied heavily on self-reported energy intake values,” senior author Gavin Sandercock, PhD, said in a EurekAlert statement, and “recognising that the measures of energy intake are incorrect might result in the setting of more realistic targets.”
Maybe you can be more realistic with your patients, too. Go ahead and ask Mr. Smith about the burger sticking out of his coat pocket, because there are probably two more you can’t see. We’ve each got 900 calories hiding on us somewhere. Ours is usually pizza.
The art of the gallbladder
Ever thought you would see a portrait of a gallbladder hanging up in a gallery? Not just an artist’s rendition, but an actual photo from an actual patient? Well, you can at the Soloway Gallery in Brooklyn, N.Y., at least until June 12.
The artist? K.C. Joseph, MD, a general surgeon from St. Marie, Pa., who died in 2015. His daughter Melissa is the curator of the show and told ARTnews about the interesting connection her father had with art and surgery.
In 2010, Dr. Joseph gave his daughter a box of photos and said “Make me a famous artist,” she recalled. At first, “I was like, ‘These are weird,’ and then I put them under my bed for 10 years.”
Apparently he had been making art with his patients’ organs for about 15 years and had a system in which he put each one together. Before a surgery Dr. Joseph would make a note card with the patient’s name handwritten in calligraphy with a couple of pages taken out of the magazine from the waiting room as the backdrop. Afterward, when the patient was in recovery, the removed organ would be placed among the pages and the name card. A photo was taken with the same endoscope that was used for the procedure.
After the show’s debut, people reached out expressing their love for their photos. “I wish, before he died, I had asked him more questions about it,” Ms. Joseph told ARTnews. “I’m regretting it so much now, kicking myself.”
Who gets to take home an artsy photo of their gallbladder after getting it removed? Not us, that’s who. Each collage is a one-of-a-kind piece. They definitely should be framed and shown in an art gallery. Oh, right. Never mind.