We’ve heard “don’t drink and drive,” and I know I’ve seen campaigns in the summer for people not to drink while operating a boat – but the warning not to drink and ski or snowboard is a new one on me. Apparently, drinking and alpine winter months is a big enough problem that the British government has issued a warning to their citizens who travel to Europe to ski and snowboard.

Acccording to this article, Alpine enthusiasts, “don’t drink and ski,”

More than thirty Britons died in Alpine accidents last year, half of whom were under 25. Many died because they underestimated the risk of drinking at a high altitude.

While the person who is drinking may feel “ok,” there are added effects to alcohol when you are at a higher altitude;  this could play a role in the increasing number of alcohol-related ski and snowboard accidents.

Alcohol-fueled skiers and snowboarders don’t just put themselves in danger. Authorities in France have said that tipsy or drunk people can – and do – set off avalanches when they go into barred areas. The sections that are sectioned off are done so because they are either too dangerous to use or they are avalanche-prone.

Seriously, why do such public campaigns have to be put in place? I know – common sense isn’t so common any more. You have to wonder though, we *know* that alcohol does things to our perception and ability to react. To put people in danger because you choose to drink is just selfish and,  yes, stupid.

~~~

Image: PhotoXpress.com

Drunk driving is a bit of a misnomer. It gives you the impression that you need to be obviously drunk: weaving as you walk, slurring your speech, acting like a jerk. But driving drunk is not that obvious most of the time. Driving while under the influence is a better term, but it boils down to the same thing: You’ve had too much to drink and you shouldn’t be driving because you’re a buzzed driver. Maybe, no matter how much alcohol you’ve had, you shouldn’t be driving at all. It works in many Northern European countries, there’s no reason why …read more

December 6, 1989, is a date that many Montrealers, many Canadians, and others across the world, may never forget. While here at Healthbolt, we like to have fun at the expense of some news, some news is just too serious, to painful, to be made light of. But it also needs to be shared if anything is going to be successful with stopping it from ever happening again.
Twenty years ago, a man who hated feminists, entered a male-dominated educational institution and began a massacre. At the end of it all, 14 young women were dead and 10 were physically injured, …read more

Bah Humbug might be the new motto at Ottawa, Canada’s 150-bed Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario. The powers-that-be have decided that having Santa visit was too risky considering the H1N1 flu virus that is making the rounds.
Poppycock, rubbish, and every other non-offending word from me. This is not necessary – a visit from Santa has no more of a chance of increasing illness than the video link-ups with Santa that the hospital is planning – with immunosuppressed children being the exception. The administrators said that each child will be receiving a personalized video greeting from the man himself.
It’s understandable that …read more

Time to open the Duh File for yet another Duh Study: Magazine ads for alcohol target youths not yet legally old enough to drink. In other words, teen-agers.
They’re kidding right? The companies can’t possibly trying to tempt young people by  using images of young adults having a lot of fun and they just all happen to be holding on to a glass or bottle filled with alcohol. (Sarcasm doesn’t translate well to the Internet, does it?)
Researchers decided to do a study about magazine ads and teens to determine if the Wine Institute, the Beer Institute, and the Distilled Spirits Council …read more

Another woman has died, as have women before her, after undergoing plastic surgery.  When will this madness stop? Other women haven’t died, but have had to live with disfiguring complications from surgeries that have gone wrong or were done by uncertified people.
This time, it’s Solange Magnano, mother to 7-year-old twins and Miss Argentina in 1994. She died this past Sunday from complications arising during a gluteoplasty. She wanted a nicer backside, so she went for a “bum lift,” but she never had a chance to show off her new body. Her death follows the deaths of other women, including celebrities …read more

I’m not quite sure where this would fit, after all, we’d like to think that people should know better.
Baby boomers and older people may remember the pull tabs on drink cans. We used to pick up the edge of the tab, a circle usually, pull up and the tab would pull off. Most people would throw them away and then drink out of the can, but some people would push the tab into the can or it some how ended up in there. The result was some people would end up swallowing the tab and choke on it. To counter …read more

I’m going to do more research to see if I can find information on this story – but according to this news report, Hospital mistakenly amputates legs from toddler who burnt hands, a horrible mistake has happened.
A two-year-old girl had been admitted to the hospital because she had burned her hands. How her legs became amputated will have to be seen. Authorities are looking into the matter.
Just how do mistakes like this happen? Are they mistakes or are they malpractice? It’s so scary that they do happen, but the trick is finding out how and why they happen.
We’ve all heard …read more

Depression affects job performance – that’s been known for a while now. Burn out does as well. When the worker is not involved in keeping humans safe and healthy, this can be costly to the employer and frustrating to coworkers, but when the worker is a doctor, much more is at risk.
It isn’t hard to imagine doctors getting burned out or depressed. They usually see people at their worst and their most vulnerable. The responsibilities on a doctor can become overwhelming. Surgeons, for example, have to make split second decisions sometimes as their patients lie open, literally, in front of …read more

According to a study published earlier this year, women – both pre and post menopausal who had sex at least twice a month were happier and more vital if they were sexually satisfied than women who weren’t sexually satisfied. The study, done in Australia, involved 295 women, aged from 20 to 65 years.
The women were asked if they were pre or post menopausal and then whether they felt sexually satisfied or not.
“We found that women who were sexually dissatisfied had lower well-being and lower vitality. This finding highlights the importance of addressing these areas as an essential part of women’s …read more