Stinky Farts, Shrinking Breasts, and Cancer Fighting Beer.
Medical research boring? Not with headlines like these…
MSNBC led with a new study reporting how Stinky farts may help regulate blood pressure. Seems that a smelly rotten-egg gas (scientific name – hydrogen sulfide) in farts controls blood pressure, at least in mice. This gas, made natural in cells lining the mice’s blood vessels, apparently relaxes the blood vessels which, in turn, helps prevent hypertension (high blood pressure). Wow, wonder if this will open up a whole new avenue of treatments for hypertension based on ’stinky farts”?
Meanwhile, the Telegraph wrote about how Drinking too much coffee ‘could shrink women’s breasts’, based on a recent Swedish study which focused on the caffeine consumption and breast size of 300 women. After recording the number of cups of coffee per day a woman drank and measuring the size of her bust, the study concluded ‘too much caffeine can affect the hormones in their bodies, scientists believe, playing havoc with their bust size.’ Honestly, I’m not making this up.
And last, but not least, FoxNews wrote about Researchers Brewing Up a Cancer-Fighting Beer. At Rice University in Houston, researchers are trying to find a way to add resveratrol, the same compound that is said to give red wine its health benefits, to beer. It’s probably going to take some genetic engineering, but they’re determined to produce a good tasting, cancer fighting beer for your drinking pleasure. Only in Texas!
Who would have even thought of these studies?
You do have to wonder how some of these studies actually got funding, they seem so off the wall.