HUB's LIST of medical fun facts

*Best Fun Facts selected by a panel of one anonymous individual using vague, variable criteria.

Benefits of Basic Research: Feb. 15
Studies of the angler fish, rat pancreas and gut, and lizard salivary glands in 1984 led to the development in 2017 of a new miracle drug — Ozempic.

Studies of neomycin ointment in the noses of hamsters and mice showed that it could prevent COVID 19 infection.

Studies of why hornets don’t act drunk when fed only 80% alcohol because they metabolize alcohol 300 times faster than honeybees (who do get drunk on that diet) led to the discovery of the gene the hornet has that allows that. What other animals have that gene?

Fake Wellness Actions That Don’t Benefit Healthy People: Sept. 1
Coffee enemas, intestinal parasite cleansing, intravenous vitamin infusion, mouth taping for sleep apnea (Tik Tok), and dietary supplements; all provide no  benefit to normally healthy people.

Reality Tests for Trendy Buzzes, “What’s The Fuss!”: Jan. 15
Transgender Adolescents “Epidemic”: Review of 5 million U.S, teenage medical insurance claims revealed 926 with a transgender diagnosis, 1927 patients had received some puberty-blocking hormones (0.1% of the total 5 million), and that surgery was so rare in this age group that a percentage could not be calculated.

New Jersey Drone Invasion: “It just went away because the brain loves to see patterns that are not there.”  Cosmic pareidolla is the definition of that process..

“Housing First” for the Homeless: Temporary (6 mons.) housing reduced their use of ERs by 52% and inpatient hospitalization by 60% in Boston (hospital avg. cost/day = $3,500). 75% of housed people with substance disorders stayed sober while housed.

Vitamin D Supplementation Not Necessary: It benefits pregnant women, high-risk pre-diabetics, and, maybe, people over 75 yo. Measuring vitamin D blood levels is not necessary in otherwise healthy people.

ZOOM Learning Is Missing Something: Multiple studies show that communication is less effective in the absence of physical cues. Only 7% of effective communication is from the spoken word. 50% is from body language – facial expressions, eye contact/movements, tone of voice, and posture. In my experience what medical student does not remember “the attending physician’s piercing gaze during a ‘learning’ moment for the student”. Enhanced learning and facial recognition abilities both reside in our medial prefrontal brain cortex.

Coffee is Good For You, Now: June 1
People who drank seven 8-ounce cups of coffee per day were 13% healthier than those who only drank one cup a day. One-half of a teaspoon of sugar or one tablespoon of half-and-half chopped that health “bonus” in half to 7%.

ICE protection cards issued by a Cape Cod Health Center to its patients: June 15
Cards with four instructions on how to prevent an ICE agent from entering your home and arresting you and four statements to recite in exercising your constitutional rights in any situation were made available to both citizens and non-citizens alike. (Yes, to both, . . . a bit chilling that, and in four languages.)

Cause of the Havana Syndrome: Feb. 15
The U.S. Office of National Intelligence reported that no ultrasound, subliminal sound waves, or radar projections were responsible for the Havana Syndrome, AND that it was NOT a psychosomatic disorder . “It was most likely caused by ‘pulsed electro-magnetic energy’ (otherwise undefined), and that further research is needed.”

Medical AI Programs Are Not All That Great: Sept. 1
The diagnostic accuracy of 83 different “analytical” AI programs that reviewed hospitalized patients’ records was 52% compared to the 70% diagnostic accuracy of attending physicians reviewing the same cases. The hospital discharge summaries by “generative” AI programs (which produce narratives) were equally accurate as the physicians’, were free of significant errors and omissions, but,  maybe, were easier for patients to understand than those dictated by a physician. AI use for discharge summaries would be a great physician documentation time saver, and very safe if reviewed by a human.

“Foodomics” – A New Research Area of “Nutritional Dark Matter”: May 15
Of the 139,000 chemicals found in food, 2,000 of them have already found use as prescription drugs. The rest of the 137,000 chemicals comprise a “nutritional dark matter”. These food chemicals can have significant effects on multiple human proteins. Only 10% of our diseases are linked to gene effects. Foodomic research by the American Heart Association and others is searching for those human protein/food chemical interactions associated with disease states.

MAID law passed in New York State: June 15
Eleven states and D.C. have passed Medical Aid In Dying (MAID) laws allowing two agreeing physicians to prescribe a lethal oral cocktail to a requesting patient with a terminal disease. The cocktail is self-administered by the patient. The terms “Physician-Assisted Suicide” (PAS) and “euthanasia” are now obsolete in those states.

2025 Annual Ig Noble Peace Prize: Nov. 15
A scientific study showed that alcohol ingestion improved peoples’ ability to speak a foreign language. Drunken German students pronounced Dutch words better than sober German students; perhaps a small step, but a significant insight toward our achievement of world peace. Other 2025 Annual Ig Noble Prizes for world-wide clever and irreproducible scientific studies, may be found in the November 15 Hubslist blog (hubslist.org).

Honorable Mentions: Locals Raising More Chickens (April 1). Roses Are The Least Allergic Flower (April 15), Brain Can Be Trained to “See” Objects By Echolocation (February 15)

HAPPY NEW YEAR