Taking your canine pal for a walk is good for both of you, but it's not without its dangers. A Johns Hopkins University study looked at emergency room injuries from 2001 to 2020 related to walking a leashed dog.

There were nearly 423,000 accidents. The top three injuries: finger fractures, traumatic brain injury and shoulder sprains. Women and adults over age 65 were most likely to sustain serious injury, usually due to falls.

"Clinicians should be aware of these risks and convey them to patients, especially women and older adults," said the researchers. "We encourage clinicians to screen for pet ownership, assess fracture and fall risk, and discuss safe dog walking practices at regular health maintenance visits for these vulnerable groups.

"Despite our findings, we also strongly encourage people to leash their dogs wherever it is legally required."

Body of Knowledge

The human body glows, emitting visible light at levels that rise and fall throughout the day. However, the light emitted is 1,000 times less intense than the levels necessary to be seen by our naked eyes.

Get Me That, Stat!

Half as many children in the United States were diagnosed with asthma in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic compared with previous years. Researchers think fewer colds may be part of the reason, aided and abetted by masking and keeping children separated, i.e., not going to school.

Counts

248: Number of previously unknown viral families found in fecal samples of newborns

Source: Nature Microbiology

Stories for the Waiting Room

New research suggests that deep sleep — when a person's brain activity, breathing and heart rate slow down, body temperature drops and muscles relax — may act as a buffer against memory loss caused by Alzheimer's disease because it increases resilience against an accumulating amyloid beta protein in the brain linked to dementia.

"If we believe that sleep is so critical for memory," said professor of neuroscience and psychology Matthew Walker at the University of California, Berkeley, "could sleep be one of those missing pieces in the explanatory puzzle that would tell us exactly why two people with the same amounts of severe amyloid pathology have very different memory?

"If the findings supported the hypothesis, it would be thrilling because sleep is something we can change. It is a modifiable factor."

Doc Talk

Occult: In medicine, it refers to something not visible to the naked eye, but detectable using tools such as a microscope or lab tests, thus ruling out supernatural entities.

Mania of the Week

Etheromania: a craving for ether, a pleasant-smelling, colorless anesthetic and industrial solvent. The craving is very specific, not ether/or.

Never Say 'Diet'

The Major League Eating record for pork and beans is 84 ounces in 58 seconds, held by Micah Collins, who won with an explosive finish.

Best Medicine

Q: Why can't you hear psychologists urinating?

A: Because the p is silent.

Observation

"Some things you have to do every day. Eating seven apples on Saturday night instead of one a day just isn't going to get the job done." — American motivational speaker Jim Rohn (1930-2009)

Medical History

This week in 1933, R. Plato Schwartz debuted the electrobasograph, a device that created photographic records of "the walking gait of individuals to distinguish between actual and spurious limps in damage claims for injuries." Later, Schwartz would expand his research to study the effects of poliomyelitis and cerebral palsy on muscle function.

Ig Nobel Apprised

The Ig Nobel Prizes celebrate achievements that make people laugh, then think. A look at real science that's hard to take seriously, and even harder to ignore.

In 1998, the Ig Nobel Prize in science education went to Dolores Krieger, professor emerita at New York University for demonstrating the merits of therapeutic touch, a method by which nurses manipulate the energy fields of ailing patients by carefully avoiding physical contact with those patients.

Self-Exam

Q: How many parts are there to the brain?

A: While there are many designated regions (think amygdala or hypothalamus), there are three main parts: the cerebrum, the cerebellum and the brainstem. The cerebrum is the largest, comprising roughly 85% of the organ's total weight. It controls emotions, thought, memory and speech, and is divided into a right and left side called hemispheres.Each hemisphere is further split into parts called lobes.

The cerebellum coordinates the kinds of movements we don't usually think about: It helps us walk upright and in a straight line, it keeps us balanced so we don't tip over and it gives us coordination.

The brainstem connects the brain with the spinal cord and controls vital processes, such as breathing, digestion and heart rate.

Med School

Q: What is the biggest joint in the human body?

A: The knee. The hip joint is second largest.

Last Words

"Bring me a bulletproof vest." — Convicted murderer James W. Rodgers (1910-1960) when facing a Utah firing squad and asked if he had any last requests

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: Alexandra Gorn at Unsplash