Persons with diabetes (see Stories for the Waiting Room below) have trouble maintaining healthy levels of insulin in their blood, which requires some of them to externally supplement through injections or a pump. To make that process easier, researchers have been investigating implanting insulin-producing designer cells in capsules that can be controlled through signals such as light, temperature or electric fields.

In the latest effort, they've tried music with sound frequencies and volume levels acting as the triggers. The approach appears to be promising, especially using some types of music. In experiments, Queen's "We Will Rock You" was particularly effective.

Body of Knowledge

The Egyptians, who encountered it while preparing mummies, called the appendix "the worm" for its small, squishy, tubular shape.

Get Me That, Stat!

Low-dose aspirin has been linked to anemia in older adults. A study found that otherwise healthy adults in Australia (over age 70) and in the U.S. (over 65) who took a regular low-dose aspirin to reduce risk of heart attack or stroke were 20% more likely to be anemic than a group taking a placebo.

The anemia was likely caused by minor internal bleeding over time.

Counts

100 — Amount, in dollars, that half of surveyed Americans say they would pay each month to get their hands on one of the new, highly touted weight loss drugs: Wegovy, Ozempic or Mounjaro.

33 — Percent who say they would pay whatever they could afford indefinitely

Source: STAT/Harris Poll

Stories for the Waiting Room

Diabetes will be the defining disease of the 21st century, with the number of people having the chronic condition more than doubling to 1.3 billion by 2050. By that time, about 1 in 10 people around the world are predicted to have the disease, representing a 60% surge in prevalence, according to a recent Lancet study.

Doc Talk

Torsades de pointes — This is a rare abnormal heart rhythm that can lead to sudden cardiac death. The name relates to the electrical waveforms produced by the heart on an electrocardiogram trace, which contort and writhe. Torsades de pointes is French for "twisting of the points."

Mania of the Week

Toxicomania — a morbid craving for poisons, typically short-lived

Best Medicine

First person: As part of my new diet, I removed all of the food from my house.

Second person: Congratulations. It must have been difficult.

First person: A little, but also delicious.

Observation

"I don't count my sit-ups. I only start counting when it starts hurting because they're the only ones that count." — American boxer Muhammad Ali (1942-2016)

Medical History

This week in 1878, warning against the use of tobacco, the senior physician to the Metropolitan Free Hospital wrote in The London Times about the huge health and social costs of tobacco consumption. "The use of tobacco is one of the most evident of all the retrograde influences of our time," opined Dr. Charles Drysdale.

Earlier, Drysdale had published medical data noting excessive tobacco use was linked to jaundice and heart palpitations. In 1875, he wrote a booklet entitled "Tobacco and the Diseases It Produces."

Just 89 years later, the U.S. surgeon general would famously declare that cigarette smoked causes lung cancer and probably heart disease.

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 Biology went to Peter Fong of Gettysburg College for contributing to the happiness of clams by giving them Prozac.

Sum Body

Fifteen diseases by their old monikers and current names.

1. Ablepsy — blindness

2. Apoplexy — stroke

3. Bronze John — yellow fever

4. Congestive fever — malaria

5. Consumption — tuberculosis

6. Falling sickness — epilepsy

7. Green sickness — anemia

8. Grippe — flu

9. Leprosy — Hansen's disease

10. Lumbago — back pain

11. Mortification — gangrene

12. Quinsy — tonsillitis

13. Scrumpox — impetigo

14. Shakes — Parkinson's disease

15. Winter fever — pneumonia

Last Words

"How did the Mets do today?" — Major League Baseball player Moe Berg (1902-1972). Berg played 15 seasons but was never more than an average player. He is perhaps better remembered as being a spy for the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (precursor to the CIA) during World War II. Berg never actually played for the Mets who, incidentally, won that day.

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: Aditya Chinchure at Unsplash