Apple of My I

Over the last decade, Apple has regularly increased the number of health-related features on its popular smartwatch. Aside from the now-pedestrian ability to count steps, the Apple Watch purportedly can spot possible atrial fibrillation (an irregular heart rhythm) and sleep apnea.

The latest feature flags hypertension or high blood pressure, a condition that affects approximately half of all American adults and if untreated can lead to more serious ailments like cardiovascular disease, dementia and kidney problems.

So does the watch do what Apple claims? A recent clinical study of 2,200 without a hypertension diagnosis found the watch catches less than half of users who actually have hypertension.

According to reporting from STAT, that's an acceptable rate that minimizes false positives yet encourages people to pay closer attention to their health.

"If there are reliable devices that the (Food and Drug Administration) will approve and we can continue to follow with real world data, that may increase the catchment of individuals willing to find out if blood pressure is an issue for them," Ami Bhatt, chief innovation officer for the American College of Cardiology told STAT. "It is a step in the right direction for population health."

Body of Knowledge

The total weight of bacteria in the human body is approximately half a pound -- roughly 0.3% of a 155-pound person. That's total wet mass. If you remove bacterial water weight, the total is 50 to 100 grams, the equivalent of a medium-sized tomato, small bar of soap, four AA batteries or a small hamster.

Get Me That, Stat!

After hospitals are acquired by private equity firms, patient deaths in the emergency room rise by roughly 13%, according to a new study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. At the same time, full-time staff and salary expenditures are reduced by nearly 12% and 17%, respectively.

The findings track with an earlier study that found complications spiked 25% in hospitals bought by private equity.

Counts

99: Percentage of people who suffered a heart attack, heart failure or stroke who had at least one of four risk factors for cardiovascular disease: hypertension, high cholesterol, high blood sugar levels, or being a current or former smoker (Source: Journal of the American College of Cardiology)

Doc Talk

Polypharmacy: A term that describes taking multiple medications. Roughly 40% of Americans take more than one prescription drug daily; 24% take four or more. One-third of adults in their 60s and 70s take five or more.

Mania of the Week

Ecdemomania: An abnormal compulsion to wander. (Readers of this column have an abnormal compulsion to wonder.)

Best Medicine

Doctor: "I have some good news and some bad news. I'll start with the bad news."

Patient: "Why?"

Doctor: "I can give the good news to your widow."

Observation

"I'm killing time while I wait for life to shower me with meaning and happiness." -- American cartoonist Bill Watterson, creator of "Calvin and Hobbes" (b. 1958)

Medical History

This week in 1935, the first modern surgery on the frontal lobes for treatment of mental disorders was performed by Antonio Egas Moniz at Santa Marta Hospital in Lisbon, Portugal. Moniz injected absolute alcohol into the frontal lobes of a mental patient through two holes drilled in the skull. Moniz later used a technique that severed neurons and led to the prefrontal lobotomy techniques of the1940s. Moniz was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 1949 for his work, but the radical surgery fell out of favor when psychoactive medications became available.

Perishable Publications

Many, if not most, published research papers have titles that defy comprehension. They use specialized jargon, complex words and opaque phrases like "nonlinear dynamics." Sometimes they don't, yet they're still hard to figure out. Here's an actual title of actual published research study: "Consumption of red-hot chili pepper increases symptoms in patients with acute anal fissures. A prospective, randomized, placebo-controlled, double blind, crossover trial."

The paper, published in 2008 in the Archives of Gastroenterology, builds upon an earlier study that also determined that spicy foods can burn going in and going out among persons with, uh, back-end issues.

Self-Exam

True or false: Veins look blue because the unoxygenated blood in them is blue.

A) False. Red portions of the visible light spectrum easily penetrate skin and become absorbed by hemoglobin in the blood. Blue light scatters when it hits skin and gets reflected back to your eye, causing veins to appear blue.

Last Words

"I'd rather die watching football than in bed with my boots off." -- Bert Bell (1895-1959), founding owner of the Philadelphia Eagles football team and commissioner of the National Football League. Bell was true to his word, dying of a heart attack while watching an Eagles game that day.

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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.