We tend to pay more attention to contagious diseases like COVID, tuberculosis and AIDS, which infect tens of millions of people annually and kill millions. But noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) take far more lives each year.

For example, cardiovascular diseases including heart disease and stroke, cancer, diabetes, chronic respiratory diseases and mental illness cause nearly three-quarters of deaths in the world, killing 41 million people annually.

Every year, 17 million people under age 70 die of NCDs, 86% of whom live in low- or middle-income countries.

The good news is that most NCDs are linked to preventable risk factors, such as tobacco use, unhealthy diets, harmful use of alcohol, physical inactivity and air pollution. It's estimated that interventions known to work could avert at least 39 million NCD deaths.

Hospitals Plus Google, It's a Fitbit

In 2021, Google paid $2.1 billion to acquire Fitbit, the company that makes the wearables that track things like daily step totals and heart rate. Now the duo are offering hospitals a cloud-based service in which patients wear Fitbit's devices and Google crunches the data.

The idea is to improve care models, clinician workflows and reduce time-consuming data collection.

Get Me That, Stat!

Medical debt is common in the United States. A new study in JAMA Network Open found that 1 in 11 American men have medical bills they have not or cannot pay, 1 in 8 women and nearly 1 in 5 households. People with middle-class or low incomes were most affected.

Stories for the Waiting Room

Here's a riddle: What's the difference between broccoli and boogers?

Answer: You can't get kids to eat broccoli.

Consuming one's dried nasal discharge is officially known as mucophagy. It's not advisable. Sticking one's finger into one's nose can introduce infectious materials or pass them along to others. It can also damage tender nasal tissues.

In 2013, a Canadian researcher proposed the practice evolved because it's an immune system booster, but peers said, "No, it's not!" and noted that most nasal mucus is swallowed and never makes it to booger status.

To the question of why kids or anybody eats them, a 1966 paper by a psychiatrist named Sidney Tarachow opined that it's a matter of taste. "The patients enjoy these activities," Tarachow wrote. "The nose pickings are reported to be quite tasty, salty, to be exact."

Doc Talk

I'll become ill if you remove the apostrophe.

Mania of the Week

Rhinotillexomania: excessive nose picking (see Stories in the Waiting Room)

Best Medicine

Lawyer: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?

Doctor: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.

Lawyer: And Mr. Eddington was dead at the time?

Lawyer: Doctor, did you say he was shot in the woods?

Doctor: No, I said he was shot in the lumbar region.

Lawyer: Now, Doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, in most cases he just passes quietly away and doesn't know anything about it until the next morning?

Observation

"Sickness and health are neighbors with a common wall." — Greek tragedian Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.)

Medical History

This week in 1845, ether was first used in childbirth by Dr. Crawford W. Long in Jefferson, Georgia, who gave it to his wife for the successful birth of their second child. Three years earlier, Long administered inhaled ether to James M. Venable for the removal of a tumor from his neck, preceding William T.G. Morton's public demonstration of ether four years later. Long is now widely credited with the discovery of surgical anesthesia.

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 of 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: What's the difference between pneumonia and walking pneumonia?

A: It's a matter of severity, with the latter usually having more mild symptoms. In both cases, a bacteria or virus infects the lungs, resulting in fever, sore throat, a persistent cough, headaches and chest pain. Patients with regular pneumonia experience worse symptoms, which may be life-threatening. Patients with walking pneumonia may not even notice their symptoms or think they have a cold.

Epitaphs

"To save your world you asked this man to die:

Would this man, could he see you now, ask why?" — Epitaph for the Unknown Soldier, written by W. H. Auden

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: Myriams-Fotos at Pixabay