For men, weight gain and obesity are longtime, well-known villains, linked to all sorts of increased health risks from cardiovascular disease to joint failure.

But being thin may be problematic, too. A new Norwegian study suggests that men who have low weight in middle age and who reduce their weight as they age increase their chance of suffering osteoporosis and bone fractures.

"Low weight among middle-aged men was related to the risk of osteoporosis three decades later, and the risk was significantly affected by weight changes," said Haakon E. Meyer of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. "Weight increase reduced the risk, whereas weight loss increased the risk."

Meyer and colleagues revisited 1,476 men who had been part of two health studies in the mid-1970s. They found that the thinnest quarter of men in the 1970s who had later lost weight suffered almost a third of the cases of osteoporosis that appeared later in life.

In contrast, there were no cases of osteoporosis among the 25 percent of the men in the 1970s who were heaviest and whose weight had not changed over the years.

BODY OF KNOWLEDGE

People blink once every 2 to 10 seconds, on average. The blink-rate is roughly the same between genders, but babies blink less often than adults, albeit for reasons unknown.

Some possible explanations: The area of a baby's eye that's exposed to air is smaller, relative to adults, and so requires less lubrication. Babies spend more time asleep; fatigued eyes blink more.

NUMBER CRUNCHER

A small 16-ounce Orange Julius drink (448 grams) contains 220 calories, 9 from fat. That's 2 percent of the recommended total fat intake for a 2,000-calorie daily diet.

It also contains 10 milligrams of sodium (less than 1 percent); 54 grams of total carbohydrates (18 percent); 1g of dietary fiber (4 percent); 50 g of sugar and 1 g of protein.

MEDTRONICA

Museum of Questionable Medical Devices

museumofquackery.com

There really is such a place, though it's actually part of the Science Museum of Minnesota in St. Paul. Visit the virtual version here. Marvel at various bloodletting devices, a foot-operated breast enlarger and a radium ore "revigorator," a 1920s invention that infused ordinary water with the then-assumed healthful properties of radioactive radium.

DOC TALK

Rainbow draw — when a phlebotomist (a person trained to extract blood for tests) cannot read the doctor's blood draw orders and fills every color-coded vial just to be safe.

HYPOCHONDRIAC'S GUIDE

Stendhal syndrome is a psychosomatic illness characterized by rapid heartbeat, dizziness, confusion and sometimes hallucinations. The purported cause: Exposure to art, especially when the art is perceived to be unusually beautiful or abundant, such as when visiting a museum.

The condition is named after the French author Stendhal (pseudonym of Henri-Marie Beyle) who described these symptoms after visiting Florence, Italy, in 1817.

PHOBIA OF THE WEEK

Oenophobia — fear of wines

OBSERVATION

My biggest nightmare is I'm driving home and get sick and go to hospital. I say, 'Please help me.' And people say, 'Hey, you look like ... And I'm dying while they're wondering whether I'm Barbra Streisand.

— Singer Barbra Streisand

LAST WORDS

"No. Awfully jolly of you to suggest it, though."

— Ronald Knox (1888-1957). Knox was a British priest and author who served as the Catholic chaplain at Oxford University for many years. For several days before his death from liver cancer, he lay comatose, attended by close friends. Shortly before dying, a friend noticed he had regained consciousness. She asked if he would like her to read from his own translation of the New Testament.

To find out more about Scott Lafee and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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