Hypertension, or high blood pressure, during pregnancy is a growing problem, one that affects twice as many Black as white patients. Results from a new clinical trial of more than 2,400 women (almost half of them Black) found that patients who received medication for "mild" hypertension (above 140/90) experienced fewer pregnancy problems. They also had fewer severe complications, such as preeclampsia, in which blood pressure spikes and damages organs.

Golden State

A study published in Health Affairs evaluated commercial health plans in the U.S. and their steadily rising costs. Nineteen regions in the country were identified with the highest growth in hospital prices paid by private insurers; 11 of them were in California, and eight of those were in Northern California.

"We end up with this situation where the most regulated state has the highest prices," Ge Bai of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health told STAT News. "This is the exact opposite of what regulators had intended to achieve."

Previous research blames much of the problem on hospital consolidation.

Body of Knowledge

In 2006, actor William Shatner (Captain Kirk of Star Trek fame) passed and auctioned a kidney stone, with the proceeds going to the housing charity Habitat for Humanity. "This takes organ donors to a new height, to a new low, maybe. How much is a piece of me worth?" he said at the time.

So, how much does a celebrity renal calculi (medical term for kidney stone) go for? $25,000.

Get Me That, Stat!

A new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey of high school students found that 37% said they experienced poor mental health during the pandemic and 44% reported feeling persistently sad or hopeless during the past year.

Lesbian, gay and bisexual youth and female youth reported greater levels of poor mental health, and 36% of these students said they experienced racism before or during the pandemic.

Mark Your Calendar

June is awareness month for Alzheimer's, cataracts, migraines and headaches, scoliosis, myasthenia gravis (an autoimmune disorder affecting nerves and muscles), aphasia (loss of ability to speak or understand speech), post-traumatic stress disorder and men's health (most of whom won't admit they suffer from anything listed here).

Doc Talk

Outpatient: a person who has fainted

Phobia of the Week

Atelophobia: fear of imperfecshun

Food for Thought

Sodium bisulfite is an ingredient in many toilet bowl cleaning agents. It's also found in potato chips, where it bleaches out discoloration and extends shelf life, and in dried fruits and jams, where it acts as an anti-browning agent.

Best Medicine

At the maternity hospital, patients who park their cars in the C section are required to exit through their sunroofs.

Observation

"Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you." — American writer Anne Lamott (1954-)

Medical History

This week in 1961, Carl Gustav Jung, 85, died. Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist who collaborated with Sigmund Freud but then developed his own theories, which he called "analytical psychology" to distinguish them from Freud's psychoanalysis or Alfred Adler's individual psychology. Jung proposed and developed the concepts of the extroverted and introverted personality, archetypes and the collective unconscious.

Perishable Publications

Many, if not most, published research papers have titles that defy comprehension. They use specialized jargon, complex words and opaque phrases like "nonlinear dynamics." Sometimes they don't, and yet they're still hard to figure out. Here's an actual title of actual published research study: "Chickens prefer beautiful humans."

Published in 2002 in the journal Human Nature, Swedish researchers trained chickens to react to an average human female face, but not to an average male face (or vice versa). Subsequently, the chickens showed preferences for faces consistent with human sexual preferences, i.e., they liked those best that reflected more attractive elements.

Med School

Q: What is the largest gland in the human body?

a) Liver

b) Pineal gland

c) Thyroid

d) Pancreas

A: a) Liver

Curtain Calls

On the evening of Aug. 2, 1923, President Warren Harding suddenly died in a San Francisco hotel room. Details of his death — or the absence of them — have prompted rumors and consternation ever since.

Most historians now believe Harding died from a heart attack, but at the time, he was under investigation, part of the Teapot Dome scandal. Newspapers had also uncovered a mistress and illegitimate daughter. Some contend that Harding was poisoned, either self-administered or by his wife. No autopsy was performed, and his wife ordered his body embalmed within an hour of his death.

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: silviarita at Pixabay