The price of pain
At any given moment, roughly 28 percent of Americans are in pain. Those with less education or lower incomes spend more of their time in pain. And those in pain much of the time spend more of their time watching television.
These are the findings of a novel study conducted by Alan Krueger, a professor of economics at Princeton University and Arthur Stone, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at Stony Brook University. The study – the first to attempt to quantify a “pain gap” in American society – appears in the British medical journal Lancet.
Krueger and Stone asked a representative group of 4,000 Americans to keep a 24-hour diary detailing their activities and the occurrence and intensity of any pain. They did not ask participants to differentiate between mental and physical pain.
The researchers found that people with less than a high school degree reported twice the average pain rating throughout the day as college graduates. The average pain rating was also twice as high for those in households with annual incomes below $30,000 as for those in households with incomes above $100,000.
Workers in blue collar jobs reported higher occurrences and more severe pain than those in white collar jobs. The former also experienced more pain while on the job than when off.
People were more likely to feel pain when they were alone. And those who were in pain for significant amounts of time spent the most time watching TV: 25 percent compared with 16 percent for others.
Body of knowledge
Brain waves come in four lengths: alpha, when we let go of anxiety; beta, when we puzzle over a problem; theta, when we come up with bright ideas; and delta, when we sleep.
Get me that. Stat!
A nationwide survey conducted in 2001-2003 showed that the average annual earned income for people with serious mental illness was $16,306 less per person than for other respondents. The data came from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication; the findings are reported in this month's American Journal of Psychiatry.
Never say diet
The world's speed-eating record for reindeer sausage is 28 in 10 minutes, held by Dale Boone.
Medtronica
Estronaut
estronaut.com
A Web site devoted exclusively to women's health issues at all stages of life, from puberty to pregnancy to menopause. The short articles are no substitute for professional medical advice, but they do address the basics and might help you ask your doctor the right questions.
Stories for the waiting room
In the early part of the 20th century, focal sepsis or localized infection, usually of the teeth, was blamed for many ailments, from rheumatism and gastritis to sclerosis and pernicious anemia.
The usual remedy was tooth extraction – all of them – which didn't really do much good for the patients since the vast majority of diseases had little or nothing to do with teeth. Pernicious anemia, for example, is caused by a vitamin B-12 deficiency.
As the real causes of these diseases were identified, the malady of focal sepsis began to disappear from doctors' diagnoses. These days, a diagnosis merits a second opinion – and perhaps a closed mouth.
Doc Talk
Betty – a patient with diabetes
Phobia of the week
Liticaphobia – fear of lawsuits
Best medicine
Visitor: I'm here to see a friend who was admitted to the hospital this morning. He was run over by a steamroller.
Nurse: He's in Room 105, 106, 107 and 108.
Observation I'm addicted to placebos. I'd give them up, but it wouldn't make any difference.
– Comedian Jay Leno
Medical history
This week in 1878, the name Vaseline was registered as a trademark for a petroleum jelly developed by an English-born chemist named Robert Augustus Chesebrough. Nineteen years earlier, Chesebrough had visited the oil fields of Titusville, Pa., in search of a career. He noticed that a pasty residue clogged oil drilling rods; workers used it to treat burns and speed healing. Chesebrough returned to Brooklyn and spent many years experimenting with the material, eventually developing Vaseline.
Epitaphs
On the gravestone of a Virginia man who died in 1748 from overeating:
Here lie the bones of Joseph Jones
Who ate while he was able
But once overfed, he dropt down dead
And fell beneath the table.
When from the tomb, to meet his doom,
He arises amidst sinners.
Since he must dwell in heaven or hell,
Take him – whichever gives the best dinners.
