Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 23:09:24 +0800
From: "Kin-Chung Lee"
A modest proposition
Recently, the barrage of out-of-topic posts have come to my concern, as ithas come to mind that there are severe health effects related to such posts.Firstly, there are about 8 or so posts a day, of which about only 10% areuseful (apart from the supposedly theraputic jokes and mind teasers), and ofthe 90% of the other posts, only 10% of people read. (note 1) However, the90% of people are still forced to sift through all these frivolous emailsjust to find out serious stuff, like, what topics are tested for CA? Arethere notes to print? Is there a scandal between the girl sitting 2 rowsbehind of me, and that guy who I saw in the library the other day? Thiscauses immense strains to the human body, physiologically, biochemically,anatomically and strressmanagemently.The great amounts of mental stimulation from those brain teasers can causecontinuous depolarisation of your neurones, thus making them unable to fireanymore action potentials if your Na+/K+/ATPase pumps are not workingsufficiently hard enough.Thus, like A/P Lee Chee Wee says, your brain will become tired and you willhave to sleep more. In addition, these questions stimulates your sympatheticnervous system, causing numerous physiological effects such as decreased GITmotility, increased heart rate (and blood pressure, due to both increasedTPR and HR) and so on.Biochemically, you would be spending hours immobile in your chair figuringout which dogs to kill, so you will keep on eating and not exercising,causing an increased concentration of insulin, leading to increased uptakeof triglycerides by adiopse tissue, thus making you fat.In addition to spending hours figuring out if Snell or Moore dies(personally, I hope that Moore does, considering thetrichotillomania-inducing (note 2) verbosity of his text), students areforced to press the delete key numerous times to get rid of these pointlessemails.This puts stress on your flexor digitorum superficialis and profundus, andpossibly the lumbricals (for the motor-coordination challenged, or for thosewho pee on the delete key, if you remember the obscure jokes of ourprofessors), leading to repeatitive strain injury, due to friction oftendons and the sheath surrounding it, and even carpal tunnel syndrome ifyour tendons end up swelling up and compressing your median nerve. In thatcase, the process is self-limiting as you will no longer be able to doubleclick Outlook Express anyway.Stressmanagemently, we will spend stupid amounts of time sending stupidanswers to even stupider questions, thus making us neglect our revision, andthat would cause even more stress. Stress causes sympathetic stimulation,which has been covered earlier in this email.If you suffer from hypertension, make sure you get your blood pressurecontrolled, for your heart may hypertrophy, your vessels may developatherosclerosis and your abdominal aorta may develop an aneurysm! Rememberwhat Prof Chia Boon Lock mentioned about the dire consequences ofhypertension!Therefore, I hope you understand the horrors that the barrage of emails maybring upon us, and I suggest using alternative methods such as the Medsocforums to discuss such topics.Stick to yahoogroups only for critical,life-and-death information such as whether there is a scandal between thegirl sitting 2 rows behind of me, and that guy who I saw in the library theother day.Thank you.
K. C. Lee(1): K. C. Lee et. al. (2004) The effectiveness of emails on nus medyahoogroups(2) trichotillomania - comuplsive pulling out of one's hair (Dorland'sPocket Medical Dictionary 27th ed.)
Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 02:21:37 +0000
From: "Larry Kang"
RE: A modest proposition
Whoops, sounds like a health warning to me...Geez, actually i think the recent posts do not post much of a threat, really...Let me explain:According to Henry Yu's notes, the neurons have to fire up to 500 times faster than usual (wow!) before it becomes fatigue (i.e. the K+ and Na+ concentrations on both sides of the membrane are too screwed up for depolarization to occur), so unless you are mugging 500 times harder than usual, which is probably not the case for most people, the brain will not be tired out as your Na+/K+ pumps at a normal rate and you won't exactly need to sleep more due to fatigue.Biochemically, I wouldn't spend more than an hr on the computer for anything at all at a times like that, so i would attribute this situation as a case of poor time management, not due to the brainteasers. Anyway, if solving the brainteasers actually stimulates the sympathetic nervous system as you stated earlier, wouldn't you eat less due to decreased GIT motility and burn more carbo by having a brain and heart which are the major energy consumers in your body? In this way, your ephinephrine will be able to counter the effects of increased insulin/glucagon levels, so you won't get fat so easily after all.Anatomically, Carpal Tunnel syndrome comes about due to typing in such a way that your wrists are resting on the edge of the keyboard, leading to compression of your median nerve and so on. I don't think that pressing the delete key with your index finger will cause damage to the entire digitorum superficialis and profundus and lumbricals. The worst that can happen is u get a trigger finger, which sounds pretty cool considering the number of pple out there cracking their knuckles for fun.Stressmanagemently, I think the questions are not so stupid either, considering that the dog question is used to test the thought processes of the final candidates of some scholarship interview.And once again, i stress that one should not spend hours in front of the computer on the questions. Its either you can solve it or you can't. To get seriously stressed over them would sound like an unhealthy obsession, in which a counsellor is needed.I believe this yahoo groups is a place for us M1s to share everything and anything under the sun. It is one of the few places, if not the only one for us to actually communicate with one another. To pose just the so called important stuff here will turn this into another MedNet. Its entirely up to an individual's choice of whether or not to read the mails. But to deprive others of a choice at all does not seem like a good decision to make.
