The Urine Test

In a recent edition of the Otago Daily Times, there was a reprint of an essay Chris Harris wrote on the need to find a better method of detecting prostate cancer.

At present one of the prime methods used is a biopsy in which a needle is pushed up into the man's anus, and then through the wall dividing the bowel and the prostate. Tiny pieces of his prostate are chipped off and then sent to the lab for examination. This is the examination I had back in late 2008. There were complications as a result of this biopsy which I describe in some detail in my ebook, Diary of a Prostate Wimp. [This ebook is currently available at half-price at Smashwords to support Movember, the prostate cancer month.]

The problem with this biopsy - the transrectal method - is that infection can easily occur. In fact, men are routinely given antibiotics after the biopsy because it's assumed there will be infections. It's hardly surprising that there are, because the wall between two parts of the body - one of them intended to deal with faecal matter - is pierced and broken open. It's a bit like sticking your hand in a toilet, then using your hand straightaway to put food in your mouth. If you don't get infected, it'll be surprising.

Chris Harris wrote about a new option that's being looked at to avoid this biopsy. Currently several PSA blood tests are done before a biopsy is considered, in tandem with the unpleasant finger up the bum approach that shows whether the prostate is unduly enlarged or not. Chris says the PSA test was never designed to do what it's being used for now, and writes: 'We aim to take a more direct approach by analysing small amounts of prostate cells exfoliated in urine. There is evidence that very small amounts of prostate cancer cells, between one and a few dozen, are shed normally into the urine at an early stage of the disease. Our aim is to pick out these cancer cells and extract molecular information from them to predict if a tumour is going to become a malignant monster or a benign wimp.'

It's normal for men's prostates to enlarge as they get older. Most of the time this isn't anything to do with cancer; it's a common problem many men will have to deal with - as I did. Surgery is performed to decrease the size of the prostate, thus allowing the urinary tract to function properly. (The urinary tract gets blocked by the prostate rather like a large stone in a small river bed.)

There is hope that the urine test will be readily available soon - possibly within months. In the UK, trial tests of the urine samples were accurate in about 70% of cases. However Chris warns that there is still work to be done to ensure thorough accuracy. And of course, as always, funding is a problem.

Don't swallow your gum

Came across a book at the library the other day called, Don't Swallow Your Gum! - myths, half-truths and outright lies about your body and health. It's by Aaron Carroll and Rachel Vreeman.

It's basically disputing a number of the commonly-held 'beliefs' about things many of us now take for granted as being true, or have had foisted upon us by the health community. One that I was particularly pleased to see downgraded from medical 'truth' to basic twaddle was the idea that you should drink eight glasses of water each day. This has been hammered home for a couple of decades now, but has no basis in fact at all. The authors give reasons for all their conclusions, which are too detailed to go into here, but frequently ideas such as this come out of a small piece of study, or an article, or even from urban mythology, and take hold. You will not get dehydrated if you fail to sip water constantly; furthermore, too much water in your system is actually bad for you!

So all those who carry water-bottles from A to B and back again - forget it. You can blame the bottled water industry for much of this myth.

'You only use ten percent of your brain' gets the works - it's twaddle. 'Your urine should be almost clear' is untrue (it's quite normal for it to vary from yellow to clear - though obviously constant dark brown or darker is worth mentioning to the doctor). 'Men think about sex every seven seconds' - I've never heard it being reckoned as quite so frequently, but whatever the supposed frequency is, it's untrue. As the authors point out, if men thought about sex as often as they're supposed to, they'd never get anything else done in life, such as building bridges, making road, putting up houses, writing books, making movies, composing symphones and painting Sistine Chapels.

There's a great deal more, but these were the particular ones that appealed to me.

PS Just came across another review of this book - seemingly in Chinglish

Blog Action Day 2009

This year the focus of Blog Action Day is on Climate Change, a theme which I am still in two minds about. I am clear enough that the weather isn't being its normal self, but I'm not entirely convinced of the many 'reasons' behind it. In almost every case there's a counter reason which says either the opposite or undermines the original argument.

So rather than go on about the endless debate - which I suspect will continue until we suddenly discover that we're on the other side of 'climate change' and are wondering what the fuss was all about. I'm sure the same sorts of things happened when the Thames in London froze over, or Greenland was literally green. People no doubt raised all sorts of arguments for and against climate change (in whatever terms they used at that point), and then lo and behold, some decades later, things appear to have reverted to 'normality.'

Anyway, a colleague handed me a recent New Scientist magazine today and told me (she's my boss) to check out the article called Top tech for a cooler planet. There are two good things about it. Firstly it doesn't mention New Scientist's favourite word, evolution, once, and secondly it shows that in spite of the hysteria that surrounds the climate change concept, there are plenty of people out there working on new ideas to save energy, and plenty of others investing in the ideas.

Rather than mention the various ideas here, I recommend going to the site and reading the information. One thing I found slightly amusing was that the first entry is Pee-n-grow, which discusses the use of human urine as a superior fertilizer - this is already happening in China where urine is collected in basement storage tanks in apartment buildings. Why it was amusing was that I have a newspaper clipping in front of me on the desk which talks about peeing on your tomatoes to make them grow bigger and better. Apparently it works. In fact it works on cabbages and cauliflowers as well. You just have to avoid telling people in your family who might find this a little disgusting that it's all for the good of the planet.

Now for athlete's hands

It’s difficult to resist coming back to the topic of athlete’s foot/fingers/hands even though the focus of this blog is supposed to be the arts rather than the sporting world. Still, if one can’t be a bit random at times in terms of topics on a blog entitled Random Notes, what’s the point of having such a blog? And, after all, searches for athlete’s foot/fingers/hands are very common; whereas searches for other topics on my blog aren’t quite so frequent.
So, onto the gross part: as a result of checking out the searches for athlete’s foot/fingers/hands I discovered an article on ‘why athletes pee on their hands.’ O…k….
Seemingly it’s a waste of time for them to do so, so it’s a bit of a superstition, and the writer of the article Why Athletes Pee on Their Hands explains why. Urine, rather than toughening the hands, actually softens the skin, since it’s a form of moisturiser. One lives and learns. However, I won’t offer that usual advice: Don’t try this at home. Try it - it certainly won’t hurt you. Just make sure you clean up after you!
Another site notes that, ‘One of our most cherished honours is to have become the preferred destination for care of the professional athlete’s hand and wrist.’ When I wrote my original tongue-in-cheek post I hadn’t given the care of athlete’s hands the slightest thought; while the fingers had come into the picture, the hands hadn't. And there’s no doubt athlete’s hands suffer enormously, taking a huge amount of strain. This applies especially to those who toss themselves around by the hands on athletic horses or those uneven bars. The strain on the hands must be enormous. (I was watching some young people doing just this on telly, on the weekend.)
Yet another good reason why people should stick to music and forget sport. If you’re going to have some form of RSI, then far better to have got it in the pursuit of beauty.