People who run marathons are indisputably to be admired, and the best of them possess a sort of loping grace as they bound 26.2 miles from start to finish. Sometimes, though, that finish line does not come soon enough.

Among marathoners, it's called "catching the gingerbread man," a picturesque term for what is also known as runner's diarrhea, a condition that involves the sudden, explosive need to empty one's bowls in the heat of a race.

Though runners take precautions, the act can become a biological imperative. During periods of physical stress, the body redirects blood away from organs not necessary in the moment, which includes the intestines. The lack of blood flow to the gastric tract causes disruptions to normal function, irritation and, ultimately, pressing movement of the bowel sort.

Such moments are not uncommon, including in high-profile marathon races. During the 2005 London Marathon, for example, Paula Radcliffe suffered multiple episodes, but still proved victorious in the end.

There's No Air There

As bad as air quality has been recently in part of the U.S. due to smoke from the Canadian wildfires, there are places where it's just bad on a regular basis. Based on IQAir's World Air Quality report, the 20 most air-polluted cities all are currently located in Pakistan, China, India and Iraq.

The U.S. city with the worst air quality (for the moment) is Oak Ridge, Tennessee, checking in at No. 382 on the list. Much-maligned Los Angeles comes in at No. 2,891.

Get Me That, Stat!

Incidence rates of HIV infections declined 12% between 2017 and 2021. That's the good news. The less good news is that the infection rate decline was uneven. Young gay and bisexual men drove the decline among 13- to 24-year-olds, reports STAT, but disparities persist among Black and Latino boys and men. For white males of this age, the decline was 45%, compared with 36% for Hispanic or Latino males and 27% for Black males.

Counts

10 — Percentage of Americans surveyed who said they had been diagnosed with depression at some point in their lives a decade ago

29 — Percentage who said the same thing in a 2023 survey

Source: Gallup

Stories for the Waiting Room

Six ways to make a bug bite stop itching:

1. Use hydrocortisone cream, a steroid that alleviates inflammation and related itching and swelling.

2. Use ice.

3. Use Benadryl, an antihistamine that can reduce itching and swelling (but not for more than seven days if used topically, since it can cause skin irritation).

4. Use calamine lotion, a blend of ferric oxide, zinc oxide, antiseptics and astringents to reduce discomfort and cool skin.

5. Apply steady pressure for 10 seconds, not breaking skin.

6. Don't keep scratching the bite, which just introduces the chance of a secondary bacterial infection.

Doc Talk

Asystole — the absence of electrical activity in the heart, causing it to stop pumping. Otherwise known as "flatlining," which describes the phenomenon on an electrocardiogram

Mania of the Week

Habromania — a type of insanity featuring cheerful delusions

Best Medicine

The seven stages of life: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.

Observation

"Objection, evasion, joyous distrust, and love of irony are signs of health; everything absolute belongs to pathology." — German philosopher and all-around fun guy Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) in "Beyond Good and Evil"

Medical History

This week in 1897, Felix Hoffmann successfully created a chemically pure and stable form of acetylsalicylic acid, which was eventually trademarked as aspirin. It was a better pain reliever for his father's rheumatoid arthritis than the salicylic acid previously used, which had an unpleasant taste and side effects, such as stomach bleeding. Hoffmann improved on earlier work of French chemist Charles Frederic Gerhardt, who derived acetylsalicylic acid from plants, but only in an impure, unstable form.

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 1999, the Ig Nobel Prize in sociology went to Steve Penfold of York University in Toronto for his Ph.D. thesis exploring the history of donuts in Canada. Convivial Canadians eat more donuts per capita and claim more donut shops per capita than any other nation on earth. According to Penfold's thesis, they are not just a ubiquitous, mass-consumed commodity, but the edible symbol of Canadianness, giving new meaning to the phrase "it's cruller to be kind."

Self-Exam

Q: What's the highest-calorie item on McDonald's menu?

A: If your first thought went to the Double Quarter Pounder or Big Mac — wrong. The chain's Big Breakfast with Hotcakes (hash browns, hotcakes, sausage and biscuits) weighs in at 1,150 calories (plus 35 grams of fat and 2,090 milligrams of sodium).

If you wash that down with a McFlurry with M&Ms (well, somebody might,) that adds another 930 calories and approaches the entire recommended daily calorie intake for an adult male. (It exceeds the recommended intake for an adult female.)

Epitaphs

"I knew if I waited around long enough something like this would happen." — The Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) joked that this would be his epitaph, but after his death at age 94 from injuries incurred while pruning a tree, he was cremated and his ashes scattered in his garden. (Good fertilizer for that killer tree.)

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: Miguel A Amutio at Unsplash