Our daily energy expenditure, otherwise known as our metabolism, changes over the course of our lives. A slower metabolism is often credited (blamed) for why we put on weight in later life, especially women.

As it turns out, while metabolism does change over time, it doesn't necessarily do it in the way we thought. New research shows distinct life stages. In the first, total energy expenditure revs up rapidly in newborns to roughly 50% more than adult levels at age 1 and then slowly declines to adult levels around age 20, where it remains stable (even during pregnancy) until age 60.

At 60, metabolic rates begin to decline again, gradually. And once other factors are accounted for, the metabolic rates of men and women were determined to be pretty much the same.

The Heat Is On

Heated tobacco products may be the next big thing among teens. HTPs aren't traditional cigarettes and they aren't e-cigarettes, which use a heating element to vaporize nicotine-containing liquids. Rather, HTPs heat actual tobacco leaves to release compounds. A survey of teens in California found that while HTPs were not yet widely marketed, 10% of high schoolers had already heard of them.

Body of Knowledge

Between fertilization and birth, a baby's weight multiplies 5 million times.

Get Me That, Stat!

In a recent study of 310 health systems across the U.S., researchers found that 90% of hospitals prescribed opioids doses at higher levels for white patients compared to Black patients.

Stories for the Waiting Room

The oldest known functional prosthesis is a bronze leg dating from 300 B.C., discovered in Capua, Italy. The leg was displayed at the Royal College of Surgeons in London, but destroyed during a Luftwaffe bombing raid in World War II.

Doc Talk

Catatonia: a neuropsychiatric behavioral syndrome characterized by abnormal movements, immobility, odd behaviors and withdrawal. It is almost always secondary to another underlying illness.

Mania of the Week

Chionomania: an obsession with snow

Food for Thought

These plants are definitely not to be eaten, being seven of the world's most poisonous:

No. 7: Water hemlock

No. 6: Deadly nightshade

No. 5: White snakeroot

No. 4: Castor bean

No. 3: Rosary pea, also called jequirity beans

No. 2: Oleander

No. 1: Tobacco

Best Medicine

Patient: "Doc, you've got to help me. I can't stop thinking I'm a goat."

Psychiatrist: "How long have you had this problem?"

Patient: "Ever since I was a kid."

Hypochondriac's Guide

Popcorn workers' lung is a nickname for bronchiolitis obliterans, a very real condition that damages the lungs' smallest airways, resulting in coughing and shortness of breath. The nickname is due to the fact that breathing in a chemical (diacetyl) used to flavor microwave popcorn can cause the condition. Diacetyl isn't used as a popcorn flavoring anymore, but it's still found in some e-cigarette flavors.

Observation

"I have the perfect cure for a sore throat. Cut it." — American horror filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980). Hitchcock was joking, we think.

Medical History

This week in 1936, X-ray moving pictures of human internal organs were reported for the first time at the 37th annual meeting of the American Roentgen Ray Society in Cleveland by William H. Stewart, William J. Hoffman and Francis H. Ghiselin of Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. They used a home 16-millimeter camera to film moving X-ray images on a fluoroscopic screen at 16 frames per second. Two seconds of exposure could capture two or three beats of the heart, the act of breathing, movements of the diaphragm or motion of joints.

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 2019, the Ig Nobel Prize in psychology went to Fritz Strack for discovering that holding a pen in one's mouth makes one smile, which makes one happier — and for then discovering that it does not.

Sum Body

Here are the top deadliest infectious diseases, based on mortality rate if untreated. Fortunately, most are either rare or prevented through vaccination:

No. 1: (tie) Creutzfeld-Jakob disease (Mad cow disease)

No. 2: (tie) Rabies Mortality rate:

No. 3.: Balamuthia encephalitis (amoeba borne disease)

No. 4: Brain-eating amoeba, i.e. Naegleria fowleri

No. 5: Nipah virus (bat-borne)

No. 6: Avian flu (H5N1)

No. 7: Hendra virus (bat-borne)

No. 8: (tie) Marburg virus

No. 9: (tie) Ebola virus

No. 10: African sleeping sickness

Med School

If you're training to become a psychiatrist or mental health worker, here are the top five most stressed out states in the country (go where the patients are), according to Vaped.com, which analyzed the mindsets of residents based on 5 million tweets: South Dakota, South Carolina, West Virginia, Rhode Island and New York.

Curtain Calls

American author Olivia Goldsmith (1949-2004) became well-known after publication of her debut novel "The First Wives Club," which in part satirized cosmetic surgery. She died at the age of 55 after suffering complications (heart attack) following cosmetic surgery.

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: com329329 at Pixabay