| Heartburn pills may harm hips
Q: I saw part of a news story on TV that said people who take Nexium (and similar drugs) for a year or more are at greater risk of bone-density loss and have more bone fractures. I have been taking Nexium for heartburn for almost a year and a half. I have had a knee replacement and a total hip replacement. I did not get the details of who did the study and how. I want to ask my gastroenterologist if I can stop taking Nexium, but I would like to be able to give him some details. Can you supply them? .
Katie Couric and her skirt
CBS news anchor Katie Couric, invited to a briefing at the White House, complained about being the only journalist in attendance "wearing a skirt." Her colleagues included ABC's Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos; NBC's Brian Williams and Tim Russert; CBS's Bob Schieffer; CNN's Wolf Blitzer; and Fox's Brit Hume. Presumably, Couric's complaint concerned her status as the lone female in that room, rather than the restrictive dress code. Few viewers, I suspect, wish to see Tim Russert in a tutu or Brit Hume sporting a bra. So let's deal with Couric's complaint. Couric, on her CBS "Couric & Co." blog, thought it astonishing that, in the post-1970s women's liberation era, she found herself the only female news anchor in the room. In her blog entry, called, "Katie: A Woman at the Table," she wrote that women "only" comprise 16 percent of Congress but account for 51 percent of the population.
Dealing with gastric ulcers
It is widely believed that eating chilli causes gastric ulcers in some people and they are adviced to avoid the spice and eat bland food. But an epidemiological survey conducted in Singapore in 1994 shows that the incidence of gastric ulcers is more common among the Chinese than among Indians who eat far more chillis.
In 1984, ulcer patients in a Delhi hospital were given 1gm chilli powder/meal in the three meals consumed per day along with a healing agent, showed no adverse effect of chilli on healing as observed by endoscopic examination.
Peptic (gastric and duodenal) ulcers are the most common afflicting humans all over the world and considered to be caused when there is an imbalance between the rate of gastric secretion and level of protection. Smoking causes ulcers because it stimulates nerves involved in gastric secretions.
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