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Physiology - Health and Fitness

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Thongs (flip-flops) are bad for your feet

June 13th 2008 09:11

Thongs or 'flip-flops', as they are called elsewhere in places such as the US and UK, are an Aussie favourite and an important part of the summer beach wear culture.

But not for the first time, thongs have been blamed for causing health problems and this time, researchers at Auburn University in Alabama, US studied the biomechanics of the footwear and concluded that prolonged wearing of thongs leads to sore feet, ankles and legs.

This is because studies and experiments showed that wearers altered their walking style and gait when in a pair of thongs and in doing so, could lead to pain from the foot and all the way up to the lower back.

"Flip-flop wearers took shorter steps and their heels hit the ground with less vertical force than when the same walkers wore athletic shoes. People wearing flip-flops also don’t bring their toes up as much as the leg swings forward. That results in a larger angle to the ankle and a shorter stride length, the study showed. The reason may be that people tend to grip flip-flops with their toes."

While this may come as bad news for most us, thongs only tend to cause problems when they're worn for prolonged periods which means we can still wear them at the beach or for short periods of time.[nytimes.com]

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Posted By: Arnold - Category: Health, Physiology

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Chilli Activates Same Pain Receptor as Spider Bites

November 21st 2006 05:14

Chilli Activates Same Pain Receptor as Spider Bites

New research has found that molecules in ‘hot peppers’ (i.e. chilli) and in a certain spider’s venom target the same receptor on neurons. This find was reported in Science News Online last week.

It has already been discovered that a channel on neurons is opened by ‘capsaicin’ which is the active component of chilli and is responsible for the associated burning sensation that occurs at any body tissue capsaicin comes into contact with. It is this burn which is responsible for the spiciness and the feeling of heat in a meal with chilli. There is even a scale which measures the degree of heat found in chilli called The Scoville Scale. Using this scale, ‘bell pepper’ (i.e. capsicum) measures 0 and pure capsaicin has a 15 – 16,000,000 rating. Jalapenos average about 5,000 and Thai Chilli at 50 – 100,000.

Chemistry: Why Doesn’t Water Help After Taking Chilli?

Wikipedia says that Capsaicin is a nonpolar molecule, and is therefore hydrophobic (doesn't dissolve in water, but it is ‘lipophilic’ – i.e. dissolves in fats). So drinking water to reduce the burning of chilli doesn’t work, as the nonpolar capsaicin is unable to dissolve in the polar water molecules, and is instead spread across the surface of the mouth. This works by the same principle that causes oil and water to separate.

So you’re better off eating or drinking something high in fats and oils like milk or bread and butter. This way, the capsaicin molecules will be mixed in with whatever you take and can be flushed from the mouth. And if you’ve got an open bottle of wine or something at your ready, alcohol also helps to get rid of the burning as ethanol is a solvent.

Chilli and Spider Bites

Research on capsaicin over the years has showed that the channel for capsaicin is a member of a family of cell-surface receptors that sense both chemicals and temperature. When these channels are activated, ions flood into neurons and cause them to fire.

Scientists have very much studied the components of spider venom that cause shock, paralysis, and death, but not much is known about the molecules that cause the pain from a spider bite. David Julius of the University of California, San Francisco and his research team wondered whether pain-inducing venom ingredients might activate the dual-purpose cell-surface channels (that were found to respond to capsaicin).

The team looked at the venom from spider, scorpion, and snail species that are known to deliver painful bites. The researchers diluted the venoms and added them to dishes containing human-kidney cells that had been genetically altered to carry various types of channels.

It was found that the venom of one West Indian tarantula species, Psalmopoeus cambridgei, sent a flood of ions into cells which had the same receptor that's sent by capsaicin.

Julius says that because triggering this studied receptor produces such strong sensations of pain, it's not surprising that organisms as distantly related as pepper (chilli) plants and tarantulas use the same defensive mechanism.

"Different organisms have figured out how to tap this site as a way of telling predators, 'You won't be comfortable if you mess with me,'" he says.

Image part of Public Domain

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Posted By: RachDegab - Category: Physiology

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Elephants Can Recognise Themselves in a Mirror

November 5th 2006 22:05

Elephants Can Recognise Themselves in a Mirror

According To the book I am reading, Robert Winston’s The Human Mind, babies develop the sense of self-awareness between 18 months and 2 years of age. A good experiment to test if your baby has developed a sense of ’me-self’ is by painting a red dot on the child’s nose and placing him/her in front of a mirror. Babies who have developed the sense will realise they have a mark on their nose and touch it, rub it or maybe even cry because they think they have a blemish! But babies who don’t see themselves as an entity will reach out and touch the mirror, only understanding that there is an external environment which can be acted upon but not realising that they are a person acting within that environment.

Chimps can develop this sense of self-awareness but much later, at around 6 years of age. Dogs however, may try and form ‘friends’ with the ‘other dog’ they see in the mirror. Until recently, this sense was thought to only exist with humans and great apes (chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans) but in 2001, Diana Reiss of Columbia University found this ability in dolphins.

The New Scientist reported last week that Reiss showed that dolphins tended to position themselves to view a mark on their bodies that would not otherwise be visible, showing they could also recognise their own reflections. And now, Reiss has tried a trick with Asian elephants. She placed a huge mirror next to elephants at the Bronx Zoo in New York City, and the elephants passed the test by staring at their reflections and touching the mark on their heads.

The dolphin’s and elephant’s abilities to obtain self-awareness may be attributed to their large brains, like us humans.

Sources: The New Scentist and Robert Winston's The Human Mind

Image of the GNU Free Documentation License

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Posted By: RachDegab - Category: Physiology

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Sneezing When You Look At the Sun - Photic Sneeze Reflex

August 21st 2006 01:06

Sneezing When You Look At the Sun - Photic Sneeze Reflex

Many stimuli can trigger a sneeze, such as colds, allergies, cold air, humidity, irritants such as pepper, eating too much, cooling certain parts of the skin, sexual excitement, hair pulling, shivering, eyebrow plucking, and as you’ll find here - exposure to bright sunlight.
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Posted By: RachDegab - Category: Physiology

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Joint Position Sense - Proprioception

August 16th 2006 09:17

Joint Position Sense, or proprioception (“one’s own perception”), is a 6th sense we all have that indicates the position of a part of the body relative to another part. Our five senses – sight, taste, hearing, touch and smell - advise us of the outside environment but the 6th sense, proprioception, provides the status of the body itself.

This sense was developed by the nervous system as a means to keep track of and control the different parts of the body. In people with joint position sense nerves destroyed, doing something as mundane as moving a finger requires a conscious effort and the use of vision to make sure your finger is doing what you want it to. Normal people are aware that their finger is moving and can say in what direction without even looking at it, thanks to Joint Position Sense.
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Posted By: RachDegab - Category: Physiology

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Mummy, Why Do I Have Hair Down There?

August 1st 2006 07:20

Mummy, Why Do I Have Hair Down There?

The bodily inquisitive of our readers may have once wondered, ‘Ok, I get that I have hair on my head, but what is the purpose of all this extra body hair?’ Here are some answers for your hairy pleasure…
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Posted By: RachDegab - Category: Physiology

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Referred Pain

July 13th 2006 06:07

Referred Pain

Referred pain is a painful sensation that is felt in an area of the body that is not actually the source of the pain. Usually, this referred pain is felt in the skin or other superficial (closer to the surface of the body) areas when deeper structures like internal organs are damaged or inflamed.
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Posted By: RachDegab - Category: Physiology

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The Skeletal Muscle Pump

June 27th 2006 06:45

The skeletal-muscle pump is the pumping effect of skeletal muscle on veins to increase blood flow. During exercise, muscles squeeze veins, effectively pumping blood back to the heart. This is a significant factor affecting venous return which is the amount of blood that returns to the heart via the veins.

When the skeletal muscle surrounding a vein is relaxed, both the upper and lower vein valves are closed to prevent backflow of the blood inside the vein.
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Posted By: RachDegab - Category: Physiology

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Bone Marrow

June 2nd 2006 06:30

Bone Marrow

Marrow is a soft tissue of the medullary cavities (medullar = the centre of an organ) of the bone. There are two types of marrow. Yellow marrow consists mostly of fat, and red marrow consists of blood-forming cells and is the only site of blood formation in adults.
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Posted By: RachDegab - Category: Physiology

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Reflexes

May 29th 2006 03:24

A reflex is an involuntary reaction in response to a stimulus applied to the periphery (e.g. arms, legs, etc) and transmitted to the Central Nervous System (CNS). The purpose of the reflex is to react to stimuli more quickly than is possible by conscious thought. As such, reflexes do not involve the brain which is only aware of the response after it has taken place. Most reflexes occur in the spinal cord or brainstem. Many reflexes have a high survival value, enabling rapid action to avoid potential danger. For example, the withdrawal reflex; which includes the situation of the sudden withdrawal of the hand in response to a pain stimulus.

1) Brain, 2) Brain and Spinal Cord which = CNS, 3) Spinal Cord

There are also learned/conditioned reflexes such as the sight and smell of food which triggers a salivation response. For example, in Pavlov’s Dog experiment: On numerous occasions a bell is rung just before a dog is fed. The dog salivates as usual on receiving its food. Then the bell is rung without any food being presented. The dog still salivates, as it is in response to the bell ringing.
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Posted By: RachDegab - Category: Physiology

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The Layers of the Heart and Heart Attacks

May 25th 2006 00:33

There are three layers of tissue in the heart; the epicardium, the endocardium, and the myocardium.

The epicardium is also called the visceral pericardium and is a thin membrane forming the smooth outer surface of the heart (‘peri’ = around, and ‘cardium’ = heart).
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Posted By: RachDegab - Category: Physiology

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The ABO Blood Group System

May 19th 2006 06:55

The ABO Blood Group System

The ABO blood group system is used to categorise human blood. ABO antigens (which can be attacked by disease-fighting antibodies) appear on the surface of red blood cells.
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Posted By: RachDegab - Category: Physiology

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The Vertebral Column - The Spine

May 18th 2006 00:52

Body Part of the Day – The Spine

The vertebral column, otherwise known as the spine or backbone, is the central axis for the skeleton of vertebrates (organisms with backbones). It extends from the base of the skull to slightly past the end of the pelvis. It consists of 26 individual bones, grouped into 4 region of curvatures: cervical (meaning ‘neck’), thoracic, lumbar and pelvic (which includes sacral and coccygeal - from ‘coccyx’, the tailbone).
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Posted By: RachDegab - Category: Physiology

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The Teeth

May 13th 2006 01:34

Body Part of the Day – The Teeth

There are 32 teeth in the adult mouth, located in the mandible (lower jawbone) and maxillae (bones of upper jaw). Starting from the front of the mouth, each quadrant of teeth contains 2 incisors, one canine, 2 premolars and 3 molars (the third molars are the ‘wisdom teeth’ as they usually appear when the individual is in their late teens or early twenties, when they are supposedly old enough to have acquired some wisdom!).
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Posted By: RachDegab - Category: Physiology

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