In recent years, vitamin D has been touted as a potential therapeutic for everything from heart disease and cancer to diabetes and depression. The jury is still out on many of these claims, even if supplement makers remain, uh, overenthusiastic.

But rule out at least one assertion: In a new, large, published study, researchers found vitamin D, taken as a supplement or part of a multivitamin, did not lower the risk of bone fractures.

It has long been known that vitamin D is important to bone health. The takeaway message of the study was that it doesn't take a lot of vitamin D for maximum benefit, and that can be obtained through a good diet and sun exposure. Extra vitamin D adds nothing.

Body of Knowledge

Humans have three pairs of major salivary glands (parotid, submandibular and sublingual) that open into the mouth through ducts. The parotid glands, the largest of the three, are located in each cheek over the jaw in front of the ears. Submandibular glands lie just under both sides of the lower jaw and carry saliva up to the floor of the mouth under the tongue. Sublingual glands are located just under the front-most area of the floor of the mouth.

Get Me That, Stat!

Lyme disease diagnoses are rising in the U.S. Cases of the tick-borne bacterial illness rose 357% in rural regions and 65% in urban areas between 2007 and 2021. Lyme disease is treated with antibiotics, but some Lyme patients have long-term symptoms, such as fatigue, muscle and joint pain and cognitive issues.

Stories for the Waiting Room

"Nicotine pouches" are the latest option in alternatives to smoking tobacco. They look and sound like candy, reports STAT, with flavors like "cherry bomb" and "fruit medley." And unlike older products, such as Nicorette, current nicotine pouches, lozenges, chewing gums and gummies aren't marketed to help people quit smoking.

Instead, they've become popular with youth. A new study of 3,500 ninth and tenth graders in Southern California put e-cigarette use first (ever: 9.6%; past six months: 5.5%), followed by nontobacco oral nicotine products (ever: 3.4%; past six months: 1.7%), and under 1% for other nicotine and tobacco products.

Those sound low, but researchers say it's concerning because nicotine exposure in adolescence may harm brain development and increase attention, memory, learning and impulse-control problems.

Doc Talk

Distal pulse: the pulse farthest from the heart

Mania of the Week

Pteridomania: an obsession with ferns

Best Medicine

Patient: "Doctor, are the test results ready yet? I'm dying of curiosity!"

Doctor: "Not curiosity."

Observation

"You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes a day unless you're too busy, then you should sit for an hour." — Zen proverb

Medical History

This week in 1666, the English diarist Samuel Pepys made a record describing the first known blood transfusion. "Dr. Croone told me ... there was a pretty experiment of the blood of one dog let out till he died into the body of another on one side while all his own run out on the other side. The first died upon the place, and the other very well and likely to do well. This did give occasion to many pretty wishes, as of the blood of a Quaker to be let into an Archbishop and such like; but, as Dr. Croone says, may, if it takes, be of mighty use to man's health, for the amending of bad blood by borrowing from a better body."

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 2021, the Ig Nobel Prize in ecology went to a group of Spanish researchers for analyzing the bacterial species residing in discarded wads of chewing gum stuck to pavements in various countries.

Sum Body

If you answer "yes" to two or more of these questions, talk with your health care provider about alcohol use disorder. In the past year, have you:

— Had times when you ended up drinking more, or longer, than you intended?

— More than once wanted to cut down or stop drinking, or tried to, but couldn't?

— Wanted a drink so badly you couldn't think of anything else?

— Found that drinking — or being sick from drinking — often interfered with taking care of your home or family or causes trouble at work or school?

— Continued to drink even though it was causing problems with your family or friends?

— Given up or cut back on activities that were important or interesting to you, or gave you pleasure, in order to drink?

— Had to drink much more than you once did to get the effect you want?

— Found that when the effects of alcohol were wearing off, you had withdrawal symptoms, such as nausea, sweating or shakiness?

— More than once gotten into situations while or after drinking that increased your chances of getting hurt?

— Continued to drink even though it was making you feel depressed, anxious or added to another health problem?

Source: National Institutes of Health

Last Words

"This is no way to live." — Comedian Groucho Marx (1890-1977). Marx had been hospitalized for two months with pneumonia. Media coverage of his death was overshadowed by the sudden death of Elvis Presley, 42, who had died three days earlier, found collapsed on the bathroom floor of his Graceland mansion.

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: PublicDomainPictures at Pixabay