New data suggests teen girls in American are being swept up in a wave of sadness and trauma, reports STAT, citing CDC data. They are experiencing record levels of violence, sadness and thoughts of suicide, almost double the rate for teen boys.

Nearly 3 in 5 teen girls said they felt persistently sad or hopeless in 2021, STAT reported — a 60% increase compared to a decade earlier. Nearly 1 in 5 female students reported experiencing sexual violence, up 20% since 2017. About 30% had seriously considered attempting suicide, up nearly 60% from 2011.

Nearly 70% of LGBTQ+ students reported feeling persistently sad or hopeless in the past year. More than 1 in 5 had attempted suicide in the past year.

Body of Knowledge

If you could remove all the space from the atoms that make up your body, you would be small enough to pass through the eye of a needle. (The human body is 99.99999999% empty space, though some quantum physicists would argue otherwise.)

Get Me That, Stat!

The number of deaths in the U.S. during or shortly after pregnancy rose from 2,019 in 2019 to 2,516 in 2020. Deaths from pregnancy complications rose, too. COVID-19 was cited as the cause of 23 of those deaths in 2020 and contributed to 171 of them.

Doc Talk

Microaneurysm: A tiny bulge that develops in the wall of a blood vessel

Mania of the Week

Mythomania: A pathological desire to lie (no, really, honest)

Never Say 'Diet'

The Major League Eating record for peas is nine and a half 1-pound bowls in 12 minutes, held by Eric Booker. His competitors were green with envy and none too hap-pea.

Best Medicine

Caller: "Is this the Incontinence Hotline?"

Answerer: "Yes. Please hold."

Observation

"Middle age is having a choice between two temptations and choosing the one that'll get you home earlier." — Comedian Dan Bennett

Medical History

This week in 1882, a stethoscope of the now-classic design, invented by William F. Ford, was issued U.S. Patent No. 257,487.

Med School

Q: Sports drinks such as Gatorade and Powerade are chock-full of electrolytes, which are believed to require replenishing after strenuous activity (or, though this is less seemly, a bout of gastrointestinal distress). What exactly is an electrolyte and why do we need to maintain a steady supply?

A: Electrolytes is a catchall term for substances that assist in various biological and metabolic processes, such as chemical reactions and fluid balance. They get the name because of their positive or negative electrical charge when dissolved in water. Those charges contract muscles and control hydration levels.

Sodium, magnesium, potassium, calcium, chloride, phosphate and bicarbonate are all considered electrolytes. Too much or too little of any of them can result in adverse effects, such as weakness, muscle cramps or confusion.

Heavy activity that produces a lot of sweating can result in loss of electrolytes, though the effects of depletion usually occur an hour or more after the activity. A sports drink might be suitable if you've been sweating heavily for a prolonged period of time, but they also often come packed with unnecessary sugar. Water almost always is the better option.

Last Words

"I feel great." — Basketball legend Peter "Pistol Pete" Maravich (1947-1988), just before he collapsed during a pickup game. The cause of death was heart failure. An autopsy revealed that Maravich had lived 40 years with a rare congenital defect: His heart was missing its left coronary artery.

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.

Photo credit: dimitrisvetsikas1969 at Pixabay