4 Medical Facts That Will Blow Your Mind
Updated: Oct. 04, 2018The world of medicine is full of surprising developments. These four medical facts from around the world will blow your mind.
1. Use Pill Organizers with Caution
People sometimes experience adverse results, such as falls or low blood sugar, when they first use a pill organizer, according to research from the University of East Anglia in England. The probable cause: when patients forget to take their pills, they don’t see the desired health results, and their doctors increase the amount prescribed. Once they start regularly consuming all of their medication, thanks to the pill organizer, the dosages may be too high, resulting in side effects.
2. Card Games Aid Stroke Recovery
Virtual reality and video games are often used to help stroke survivors regain strength and co-ordination. However, a clinical trial involving patients from rehabilitation centres in Canada, Argentina, Peru and Thailand has found that playing cards, bingo or dominoes is just as effective. Subjects who spent 10 hours using a Nintendo Wii and those who spent the same amount of time playing low-tech games both improved their motor skills by 40 per cent.
3. Caffeine No Good After Three Nights of Little Sleep
In a recent study published in a Sleep supplement, subjects limited their shut-eye to five hours a night for five nights. Two hundred milligrams of caffeine (equivalent to two cups of drip coffee) improved their alertness in the first two days, but made no difference in the final three. Since caffeine is relied upon to compensate for lost sleep, it’s worth knowing it works for only a short period of time.
4. Nearly Half of Heart Attacks Are “Silent”
Sometimes heart attacks are so subtle that the damage is only seen during an MRI or an electrocardiogram. A study in Circulation looked at 9,498 subjects who’d been monitored for nearly 30 years. Around 45 per cent of the attacks that hit participants during the first decade went unnoticed initially. Over the following two decades, these “silent” episodes tripled the risk of dying from heart disease. Once they’re detected, they should be aggressively treated by controlling blood pressure and making lifestyle changes.
