Health and medical information

Eggs are enjoyed by most people every day. It will be helpful for arthritics to know that the value of eggs is not affected by the colour of the shells. The most important part of the egg is the yolk. And it doesn’t matter whether the yolk is light or medium yellow.
Farmers everywhere realise that the colour of the yolk is determined by the chicken’s environment. Many farmers confine their flocks to keep the yolks a true yellow. Roaming chickens, it seems, yield darker yolks. Actually, the colour is not important, but the vitamin assay is.
If you let your imagination create ways to prepare eggs, you could compile an almost endless list. For arthritics, however, the best methods of preparing eggs are these:
Three-minute boiled eggs.
Poached eggs.
Coddled eggs.
Raw egg nog (no sugar).
To gain the maximum vitamin D from an egg, serve a three-minute boiled egg on whole-wheat toast. Scrambling an egg—or combining it in other forms of cooking—is throwing away many benefits. As for a hard-boiled egg, the only advantage it offers is that it is harder to digest.
If, as we grow older, we are unfortunate enough to develop heart or gall-bladder trouble, we are told to restrict our consumption of eggs. Children eat eggs every day and never suffer any ill effects. Yet adults who do the same thing often get into health difficulties. Why?
The explanation is not due to just “growing older.” The damage is caused by the difference in the dietary habits of the two age groups. Children generally follow their eggs with milk, a liquid with low tension on oil. Adults, on the other hand, drink coffee, a high-tension liquid. Since coffee and eggs do not mix well, a lifelong habit of using the two together causes trouble later in life.
Let’s not forget that coffee is essentially water. When taken with coffee, egg yolk then turns into a rubbery material which taxes the gall-bladder and heart. Respect the egg yolk. It can offer health, or, when not used wisely, can be a detriment.
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Is a rabbit killed each time a woman is tested for pregnancy? Is this really how pregnancy tests are done today?
P.L.
Jacksonville, Arkansas
Only in the movies. “The rabbit test” is historically interesting, but it is not used any longer. Pregnancy testing dates back to the Egyptians who, in those days before modern plumbing, noticed that the urine of pregnant women caused certain flowers to bloom. The urine contained biotropic substances. In 1927, the first “modern” pregnancy test was developed—a bioassay based on the studies of Drs. Aschheim and Zondek, two physicians who discovered that specific hormones developed during pregnancy. Their test changed forever the way women would know they were pregnant.
Ironically, the first bioassay pregnancy test was performed on a mouse. A woman’s urine was injected into a mouse that had not yet begun to ovulate. Five days after being injected, the mouse was killed and its ovaries were examined by a lab technician. If the urine was from a pregnant woman, it would contain hormones that would have caused the mouse ovaries to mature rapidly and develop blood spots. If the urine was from a woman who was not pregnant, the mouse ovaries would still be small and immature. Depending on the state of the mouse ovaries, a woman would be told whether or not she was pregnant. This method was used from 1927 to 1929.
In 1929, an improved pregnancy bioassay, which only took two days, was developed using immature rabbits instead of mice, and henceforth, the bioassay was known as the rabbit test. But all the wives who told their husbands they were pregnant by using the expression “The rabbit died” were saying something that didn’t apply. In the rabbit test, all the rabbits died, not because they were injected with a pregnant woman’s urine—they were killed by doctors who were examining their ovaries. Fortunately, with the advances in pregnancy testing today, no rabbits are dying because no one is doing a bioassay.
The urine test is not one of the innovative testing methods, but it is still frequently used. Two weeks after a woman misses her period, her urine may be tested for the presence of HCG (human chorionic gonadotrophin), a hormone that pregnancy causes to rise. Physicians often perform convenient urine slide tests in their offices by putting a drop of a woman’s urine on a slide and adding a test solution and HCG antibodies. Within two minutes, if the test is positive, the mixture turns a milky white but remains smooth. When the result is negative, the mixture stays clear and gets a lumpy sour-milk consistency.
If a doctor prefers not to conduct a slide test in his office, he may send the urine to a lab for analysis. The laboratory test of a woman’s morning urine is based on the same principle as the slide test. The urine is mixed in a test tube with a test solution and HCG antibodies. After two hours, if a red ring appears at the bottom of the test tube, the test result is positive. A woman learns she is pregnant, but she has had to wait two weeks beyond a missed period before she knows. The new pregnancy tests eliminate the wait.
A radioimmunoassay (RIA) blood test for the beta-subunit HCG, the placenta-produced hormone that increases with pregnancy, can determine a pregnancy within a week after conception, even before a missed period. It is probably the most popular pregnancy blood test today. The RIA is extremely sensitive and if it is carefully conducted in a reputable laboratory, it is virtually free from error. Another pregnancy blood test, the radioreceptor assay (RRA) is equally sensitive, and is also used in several laboratories. The beta-subunit HCG was undetectable before the development of these blood tests.
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In addition to the common environmental health threats faced by both women and men women encounter particular diseases that are specific to their sex. Environmental health threats very well may play a role in their development and persistence. The following conditions are currently being studied to determine specific environmental influences.

Breast cancer
Scientists are studying the possible links between environmental estrogens and breast cancer. Environmental estrogens are synthetic and natural compounds scientists believe may mimic the female hormone estrogen and may either act like estrogens or block the body’s natural hormone. Environmental estrogens are found in pesticides, PCBs, and even natural plant products in our diet.

Endometriosis
Endometriosis is a condition in which the tissue that lines the uterus and is shed during menstruation grows outside the uterus, often creating painful implants on the ovaries, fallopian tubes, and ligaments that support the uterus. Again, environmental estrogens are suspect in the development of endometriosis.

Osteoporosis
Osteoporosis, a debilitating bone fragility, commonly occurs in postmenopausal women. Scientists think that cadmium, lead, and possibly other heavy metals in the environment may contribute to the development of this disease.

Autoimmune diseases
Women are more susceptible to autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, scleroderma (a connective tissue disease), and systemic lupus erythematosus. Scientists have linked autoimmune diseases to chemicals such as pharmaceuticals, solvents, and food additives.
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