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Gout that Out!

By on January 27, 2011 in But is it art?, Odd Science

Breathtaking news for all you caffeine addicts out there — not only does coffee taste good and wake you up, it can prevent gout. Plus, you smell like coffee and it make you bulletproof.*

Never mind the tachycardia and frequent (sometimes alarmingly frequent) trips to use the gents, coffee is where it’s at.

According to a study of 45,000 men, if you drink four to six cups of coffee a day, then you cut your chances of developing gout (the most common kind of arthritis) in half!

Uh, But Watch for Caffeine Intoxication

However, if you have more than three or four cups of coffee, you may over-stimulate your central nervous system. I know, that sounds cool, but it can be bad. How bad? Well, symptoms include:

  • restlessness
  • nervousness
  • excitement
  • insomnia
  • flushing of the face
  • increased urination & gastrointestinal disturbance (count on these, and they won’t be pleasant)
  • muscle twitching
  • a rambling flow of thought and speech (granted, for some of us it’s hard to tell)
  • irritability (ditto)
  • irregular or rapid heart beat, and,
  • psychomotor agitation.

What, pray tell, is psychomotor agitation? Well, essentially this will make you look like you have obsessive compulsive disorder, unless it just causes a terminal case of the Jiminy Leg. (Or arm, or hand, or feet, or teeth — wait, am I rambling, really, I didn’t think I was rambling, but then you said I was rambling and wait a minute, where did my coffee go, is that rambling coffee….)

*The Small Print: drinking excessive amounts of coffee does not make you bulletproof. (Though you may feel you’re fast enough to dodge them.)

You can find the New Scientist story about it all here. Photo by Snuggle Up & Read. The whole set of Talkin Timmy’s lids is here.

For similar reasons, Alltop drinks herbal tea laced with cocaine. Originally published in May 2007, when I thought gout was funny.

Professor Quippy: Writers beware, those rejection notes have a cost

By on August 10, 2010 in Odd Science

Professor Quippy.New research at the University of California, Los Angeles, shows that social rejection may increase your risk of developing arthritis.

This explains all the unpublished (or barely published) writers hobbling around with bad knees, out-of-work actors with permanent back-aches, and painters with gnarled knuckles. The cost of all those rejections has caused arthritis. (And a certain amount of existential crisis.)

Actually, I’m just inferring this — the study only looked at social rejection in the context of in-person rejection. (Which would STILL apply to the actors.) According to the New Scientist:

Psychologist George Slavich and colleagues asked 124 volunteers to give speeches and perform mental arithmetic in front of a panel of dismissive observers. Saliva analysis showed they exhibited elevated levels of two inflammation markers. … Functional MRI scans showed this triggered increased activity in two brain regions associated with rejection. Participants with the highest inflammatory responses showed the greatest increases in brain activity.

The research hopes to help understand the brain’s role in conditions related to inflammation (including asthma, arthritis, cardiovascular disease and depression).

Also, it is actively trying to discourage people from going into the arts, because apparently, low pay, parental ridicule and extensive existential crisis aren’t enough.

Alltop thinks you should get a real job. New Scientist: Harsh words may hurt your knees.