Back in 2012, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force told doctors prostate cancer screenings that use blood tests for prostate-specific antigen or PSA were dubious because the risk of false positives and resulting overtreatment far outweighed any benefits.

Recently, the USPSTF, a panel of independent, volunteer experts that develop evidence-based medical recommendations, tweaked its opinion. It now says PSA tests for men age 70 and older or men under the age of 55 should be discouraged. For men in between, well, the decision should be left to patients and their doctors.

The change was spurred by new research suggesting that PSA screenings prevent slightly more cancer deaths than previously thought and that more men and their physicians are opting for active surveillance — watching detected cancers closely. Prostate cancer is among the slowest growing of all cancers, and many men live full lives without ever experiencing symptoms.

Bun And Done

A Los Angeles-based group called the Physicians' Committee for Responsible Medicine is suing the Los Angeles Unified School District from serving students hot dogs and other processed meats, which it says increase the risk of cancer.

The group cited the World Health Organization's 2015 determination that processed meats are carcinogenic to humans. It said children deserve foods of the "highest quality" with "the greatest nutritional value possible." A standard beef hot dog contains 148 calories and 13 grams of fat, almost half of it saturated. It's also high in sodium.

A representative for the North American Meat Institute, speaking frankly, told the Associated Press that the industry stands by the nutrition benefits that meat — fresh and processed — provide growing children.

Body of Knowledge

Adult humans spend roughly one-third of their lives asleep. Dogs sleep approximately 44 percent of the time. But for not staying awake, check out the snake: pythons sleep three-quarters of their life.

Life in Big Macs

One hour of cleaning out the garage burns 340 calories (based on a 150-pound person) or the equivalent of 0.5 Big Macs.

Counts

1: Number of abortion clinics in Kentucky

Source: State of Kentucky (which recently, but unsuccessfully, sought to shut it down)

Doc Talk

Wallet biopsy: what happens to discharged patients when they meet with the hospital cashier

Phobia of the Week

Spheksophobia: fear of wasps. A fear of bees (or more precisely, bee stings) is called melissophobia. Different words, but hardly a sphek of difference in meaning.

Never Say Diet

The Major League Eating record for glazed and cream-filled doughnuts is 47 in 5 minutes, held by Patrick Bertoletti. Warning: Most of these records are held by professional eaters; the rest by people who really should find something better to do.

Best Medicine

During a visit to the mental asylum, a visitor asked the director how it was determined whether a patient should be institutionalized.

"Well," replied the director, "we fill up a bathtub, offer the patient a teaspoon, a teacup and a bucket and ask him or her to empty the bathtub."

"Oh, I see," said the visitor. "A normal person would choose the bucket because it's bigger than the spoon or the teacup."

"No," answered the director. "A normal person would pull the plug. Would you prefer a bed near a window?"

Observation

"I finally have a dental plan. I chew on the other side."

—Comedian Janine DiTullio

Medical History

This week in 1968, Denton Cooley of the Texas Heart Institute performed the first successful heart transplant in the United States on Everett Thomas, whose heart was damaged from rheumatic heart disease. Thomas lived 204 days with the heart donated from a 15-year-old girl. A year later, Cooley would become the first heart surgeon to implant an artificial heart in a human.

Medical Myths

Your heart does not stop momentarily when you sneeze, though some interesting things do happen. When you sneeze, pressure within your chest momentarily increases, causing a decrease in blood flow returning to the heart. The heart compensates by momentarily changing its regular rhythm. Electrical activity in the heart does not stop during the sneeze.

Med School

Q: What is superior canal dehiscence syndrome?

A: It's an actual medical disorder caused by a small hole in the bone covering part of the inner ear. The result is that affected persons can "hear" amplified sounds within their own body: heartbeats, pulse, even the movement of eyes in their sockets.

Epitaphs

"When I am dead, I hope it may be said: His sins were scarlet, but his books were read."

—Anglo-French writer Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953)

To find out more about Scott LaFee and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.