March 3rd, 2007 by Dr. Val Jones in News
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A Canadian news story piqued my interest today – apparently, a man living near Edmonton, Alberta was bitten by a bat during his sleep. Curiosity got the better of me as I tried to recreate the scenario in my head. First of all, “vampire bats” (the kind that feed on the blood of livestock) don’t live in Canada, so this little guy was probably a generic “brown bat.” Brown bats are shy creatures who live on insects primarily, so we know that this bat was in a pretty wacky frame of mind to boldly mistake a sleeping human for a beetle.
Stranger than the behavior of this culinarily confused little mammal, was the behavior of the sleeping victim. Apparently he was unconcerned by the bite and went back to sleep afterwards, never seeking medical attention. I don’t know about you, but if I woke up in the middle of the night with any wild animal sinking its teeth into my flesh, I’d probably not shrug and roll over.
Anyway, the sad news is that this man didn’t get his life-saving rabies shots. Rabies is a very serious condition with a 50% mortality rate! The rabies virus (transmitted through infected animal saliva) wreaks havoc on the brain and nerves. The CDC describes it:
Early symptoms of rabies in humans are nonspecific, consisting of fever, headache, and general malaise. As the disease progresses, neurological symptoms appear and may include insomnia, anxiety, confusion, slight or partial paralysis, excitation, hallucinations, agitation, hypersalivation, difficulty swallowing, and hydrophobia (fear of water). Death usually occurs within days of the onset of symptoms.
Isn’t it strange that “fear of water” is part of the rabies syndrome? I’d like to get an explanation of that one from a neurologist…
Anyway, human cases of rabies are quite rare (about 7000 cases/year in the US) and are usually caused by raccoon or skunk attacks. So if you come face to face with a raccoon or skunk “gone wild” my advice is to run away. But if you do get bitten, please go to the hospital immediately and get your rabies shots. You can prevent progression of the disease.
Now, if you’re curious to see if you’re in a rabies “hot zone” check out the CDC’s skunk and raccoon tracking maps (can you believe that someone’s job is to create these?)
And for a good spoof of dangerous animals – check out Dr. Rob’s recent warnings against the common goat. You can tell that he must enjoy Monty Python style humor.
Are you an animal lover? Know of some funny websites or links about animal antics? Do share!
This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
February 4th, 2007 by Dr. Val Jones in News
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Gone are the days of Beaver Cleaver – and apparently the days of Mickey & Minnie mouse are numbered as well.
In this new study, humans give LSD to the little rodents:
“Of course, we don’t know what the mice experience when they are treated with these drugs,” Sealfon said. “But we do know that there is a head twitch response in the mice that provides a good correlation with drugs that are known to be hallucinogenic in humans.”
So um… why are we doing this?
The Onion spoofed animal research very nicely, picturing an obesity study lab rat nestled among snickers bars and M&Ms.
And in another recent study, we gave mad cow disease to our furry friends:
“As expected… at 9 weeks of age they developed sponginess in the brain tissue, all the mice developed behavior and memory problems, for example they stopped burrowing.”
Hey, I have an idea for a new study – let’s see what mice infected with mad cow disease do if we also give them LSD?
I feel a bit sad for the tiny critters, don’t you?This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
December 31st, 2006 by Dr. Val Jones in News
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As I was reviewing some research articles for a blog I was planning about the benefits of pet therapy in pain management, I came across a recent Finnish study suggesting that pet owners are more likely to be overweight and unhealthy than those who had no pets. It just didn’t seem right to me – so I decided to go to the source and read the original article.
The researchers surveyed about 8 thousand people. They found that a total of 80% of those with pets and 82% of those without pets reported good health.
They also said,
“In the multivariate ordinal logistic regression analysis, perceived health was no longer associated with pet ownership. When investigating which explanatory variables included in the model caused the disappearance of the statistical significance, basic education, form of housing, or BMI did so.”
Translation: being at risk for poorer health is not really about your pet, it’s about your socio-economic status and the degree to which you are overweight.
But this still begs the question: why are Finnish people in poorer health more likely to have a pet?
The authors offer this explanation:
“Pets seem to be part of the lives of older people who have settled down and experience an increase in the number of illnesses, whereas young healthy single people have no time, need, or possibility for a pet.”
Hmmm. Would an American survey find similar results I wonder? Is there any cultural bias in these data? What do you think? Are American pet owners more likely to be overweight and socio-economically challenged than non-pet owners?
Source: Koivusilta, L. and Ojanlatva, A. PloS ONE, December 2006; vol 1: pp e109. News release, Public Library of Science.
This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
