Studies suggest flu shots are less effective in people with obesity, perhaps due to an altered immune response, so similar concerns have been raised about COVID vaccines. But a large study found that the two-dose COVID vaccines were effective in preventing severe illness across the spectrum of weight.

Nonetheless, there was some variation: People with very low or very high body mass indexes were at greater risk of hospitalization and death compared with healthy vaccinated people. As with flu shots, the reason might be a reduced immune response, frailty or other conditions associated with low body weight.

Kneed Something More

Options for treating osteoarthritis in knees, marked by a breakdown of cartilage that cushions the joint, are limited: exercise, physical therapy, medications and injections of hyaluronic acid as a replacement buffer.

But a review of 50 years of data regarding injected hyaluronic acid found that it was only slightly more effective than the placebo effect at reducing pain and improving function. That's not good news for a lot of Americans who resort to the costly therapy, with accounts for $300 million a year in Medicare claims alone.

Get Me That, Stat!

Even before the pandemic, the life expectancy of Native American and Alaska Native populations appears to have plateaued at 73.1 years on average in 2019. That's nearly six years less than white Americans.

Overall, life expectancy for Americans rose slightly to 79.1 years in 2019 but has since dropped due to COVID.

Doc Talk

Obdormition: when a limb "falls asleep," caused by pressure on a sensory nerve

Phobia of the Week

Hyelophobia or hyalophobia — fear of glass (This is a rare phobia, rarely seen.)

Best Medicine

Q: Did you hear about the nurse who died and went straight to hell?

A: It took her two weeks to realize that she wasn't at work anymore!

Observation

"Sickness and health are neighbors with a common wall." — Ancient Greek tragedian Aeschylus (525-456 BC)

Medical History

This week in 1968, Dr. Michael E. DeBakey of Houston led the first simultaneous multiorgan transplant from one donor to four recipients. Two kidneys, one lobe of a lung and the heart were removed from a 20-year-old woman who died from a gunshot. The organs were transplanted into four men at Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas.

The surgery, which began within eight hours of the woman's death, was performed by five teams totaling more than 60 physicians, nurses and support persons. The heart, lung lobe and two kidneys were transplanted into men ages 50, 39, 41 and 22, respectively.

Ig Nobel Apprised

The Ig Nobel Prizes celebrate achievements that make people laugh, then think. A look at real science that's hard to take seriously, and even harder to ignore.

In 2018, the Ig Nobel Prize in medicine went to the authors of the seminal paper: "Validation of a Functional Pyelocalyceal Renal Model for the Evaluation of Renal Calculi Passage While Riding a Roller Coaster," which attempted to confirm that roller coaster rides could hasten the dislodging and passage of kidney stones.

Self-exam

Q: What are the parts of the integumentary system?

A: Skin, hair, nails and exocrine glands, i.e., the glands that secrete or excrete sweat, oils and ear wax.

Fit to Be Tried

There are thousands of exercises, and you've only got one body, but that doesn't mean you can't try them all: Bodyweight Squat.

Stand tall with your feet spread apart slightly wider than shoulder-width. Hold arms straight out in front of your body at shoulder level, parallel to the floor. Keep torso upright, with lower back slightly arched. Brace your abs and lower your body as far as you can by pushing your hips back and bending your knees. Pause and then rise back to starting position. Do 15 to 20 repetitions.

Curtain Calls

On Oct. 17, 1814, a 22-foot-tall wooden vat of fermenting porter burst at the Meux & Company's Horse Shoe Brewery in London. A series of chain reactions caused a wave of beer to wash over a nearby slum, killing eight people. Several others subsequently died from alcohol poisoning from inhaling vaporized liquor.

Almost a century later, on Jan. 15, 1919, 21 people were killed and 150 injured when a large tank of molasses broke apart, flooding a neighborhood in Boston's North End.

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.

Photo credit: neelam279 at Pixabay