In China, there is an indoor farm that raises cockroaches — about 6 billion per year. It's the biggest farm of its type in the world, but not the only one. There are at least 100 other large-scale Chinese farms.
What's the demand for the insect, which has never seemed to have much trouble breeding abundantly on its own, in the wild or in the nooks and crannies of our homes? Pulverized roach powder, it turns out, is a prime ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine. In fact, a liquid concoction popular for treating respiratory, gastric and other illnesses in China is comprised entirely of Periplaneta Americana, the fancy Latin name for the American cockroach, that skittering reddish-brown insect we all know.
The pharmaceutical company that operates the farm is called Gooddoctor.
Body of Knowledge
Humans shed about 600,000 particles of skin per hour on average, about 1.5 pounds a year or 105 pounds of skin by the time they are 70 years old. This translates to an entirely new outer layer of skin cells every 27 days, almost 1,000 new skins in an average lifetime.
Get Me That, Stat!
In 2015, revenue for Gilead Sciences' hepatitis C treatment peaked at $12.5 billion. This year, sales are predicted to be less than $4 billion. The decline is credited to the treatment's cure rate of more than 90 percent, which means that successful patients are no longer customers. For most people, this is good news — medicine successfully cures disease — but for people whose calling in life is to wring out every possible dollar from a pharmaceutical company, curing patients may in fact be an unsustainable business mode, observes the technology publication Ars Technica.
Counts
1.2: Percentage that retail sales of traditional milk are projected to drop in 2018
3: Percentage that alternative "milks" — oat, soy and almond — projected to increase
Source: Bloomberg
Stories for the Waiting Room
Doctors often recommend taking fish oil supplements for dry eyes, based on the idea that the condition is due to inflammation and omega-3 fatty acids in fish oil are associated with reducing inflammation elsewhere in the body so they might work for the eyes, too.
A new study, however, suggests otherwise. Five hundred people with chronic dry eyes were given a daily fish oil pill or placebo for a year. At the end of that period, there was no difference in the groups' symptoms.
Doc Talk
Bury the hatchet: to accidentally leave a surgical instrument inside a patient
Phobia of the Week
Scopophobia: fear of being looked at or stared at
Number Cruncher
A serving of two microwaveable White Castle hamburgers (89.6 grams) contains 260 calories, 117 from fat. It has 13 grams of total fat or 20 percent of the recommended total fat intake for a 2,000-calorie daily diet.
It also contains 25 milligrams of cholesterol (8 percent); 350 mg of sodium (15 percent); 25 grams of total carbohydrates (8 percent); 1 gram of dietary fiber, 3 g of sugar and 12 g of protein.
Never Say Diet
The Major League Eating record for chocolate candy bars is two pounds in six minutes, held by Eric Booker, proving that success does indeed taste sweet — and likely involves cavities.
Best Medicine
Patient: "Doctor, I swallowed a bone!"
Doctor: "Are you choking?"
Patient: "No, I really did."
Observation
"The colder the X-ray table, the more of your body is required to be on it."
—Comedian Steven Wright
Medical History
This week in 1944, the first eye bank in the United States opened in New York City. Today, there are approximately 80, providing tissue for roughly 46,000 corneal transplants annually.
Med School
Q: How many eyelashes are on the upper eyelid?
a) 30-50
b) 50-100
c) 100-150
d) 150-250
A: d) 150-250
Last Words
"I haven't had champagne for a long time."
—Russian playwright Anton Chekhov (1860-1904). His doctor gave him champagne after all attempts to ease his tuberculosis symptoms had failed.
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.
View Comments