Step Away From the Water

Adrienne Martini — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:30:00 GMT

If you're spoiling for a fight, here's a good way to start one. "Hey," you should say to your aunt who drinks eight glasses of water per day or your college buddy who swears by colonics or your best friend who insists on only natural cures, "you know that's a myth, right?"

I'd follow up by handing Jane Brody's list of medical misapprehensions to the person whose belief system you've just shattered. I'd do that knowing they're probably to ticked off to read it right that second. But maybe, just maybe, they'd get to it shortly after sputtering about how they just know they're absolutely right.

If you're a person who likes to keep the peace, I'd say nothing. And if your water swilling aunt tosses glass number seven in your face, don't say you weren't warned.

We Don't Even Know What We Don't Know

Adrienne Martini — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 19:00:00 GMT

While doctors know more about recurrent miscarriages than they ever have, the amount that they don't know about the process is vast. It's not for lack of trying, mind you. Human beings are just very, very complicated. Still, steps have been taken.

The New York Times' Jane Brody recently rounded up all of that is known about recurrent miscarriages, sifting through the evidence to tease fact from fiction. Some tidbits: Blood thinners seem to work -- unless they don't. A chromosomal abnormality is to blame -- unless it isn't.

What is unequivocally pinned down is that it is a minor miracle that any woman ever gets and stays pregnant in the first place. Yet anecdotal evidence would prove that's not true either.

Perhaps the take-away is that life is capricious and random -- but that might be too existential for the paper of record to print, yes?

Illo credit: Andy Martin for the NYT

Strollerderby : Jane Brody

Step Away From the Water

We Don't Even Know What We Don't Know