Your Health This (Beautiful) Week

A simple hair color test may help doctors to advise how careful we should be in the sun. Dark, luscious hair replete with melanin = more of the pigment in the skin = gorgeous natural tanning potential with less skin cancer risk = bonus. Now for all of you unfortunate pale folk, lather up the SPF.

Botox, the popular wrinkle-reducing toxic injection, may help children with cerebral palsy. Kind of makes you feel better about the procedure. I mean your lipstick won’t be saving lives anytime soon, will it?

Speaking of Botox, why not use it to spruce up uber-sweaty armpits? I mean sure, botox is a potent neurotoxin, but at least it’ll keep you from getting CANCER from your antiperspirant. Okay, well, you wouldn’t actually get cancer from your antiperspirant, but you never know, you know? We just put so many toxic chemicals into our bodies. Do we ever REALLY know what’s going to happen in the long term?

Stretch marks are not only ugly, they’re bad for you. They may be the sign of overusing steroid creams or vitamin deficiencies. Be sure to investigate yours thoroughly and take the appropriate action.

Doctors in the U.S. performed 11.5 million cosmetic surgeries last year, up 1% since 2005. Boob jobs skyrocketed by 44%. The author says it’s because of a new FDA approval for silicone implants. Personally, I think it’s because boob jobs really do make you feel more beautiful. You know, on the inside.

Tobacco ads, which often feature the beautiful and the glamorous, are highly effective at persuading teens to smoke, says a study. The authors estimate that simply removing ads from stores would cut teen smoking by 13%. If only they had super-hot people selling those oh-so-cool vegetable steamers. Now that’s hot.

The American College of Obstetrician and Gynecologists has suggested that all fetuses should be screened for Down syndrome. New ultrasounds and blood tests can spot signs of trouble without the miscarriage risks of an amniocentesis, which is still the only way to confirm the chromosomal abnormality. The risks have meant amniocentesis is routinely performed only on older mothers, who are more likely to conceive babies with Down syndrome. An estimated 90% of women told of a Down syndrome diagnosis will abort the fetus. The prospect of deciding whether to raise a loving but mentally retarded child with an average lifespan of 49 just ain’t pretty. 

Now let’s talk about men for a tiny bit. Tossing aside any aesthetic preferences for circumcised or uncircumcised penises, the ever-present question of how to best handle the turtleneck, or the fact that circumcision has been shown to reduce the rate of HIV transmission, how does the big snip really affect male sensitivity? One study says not at all; another, funded by an anticircumcision group, says the foreskin contains the five most sensitive spots, and discarding it at birth can severely impinge on sex quality. And no, you can’t make up for it with quantity. Don’t ask.

Disclaimer: Your Health This Week and Inkling magazine would like to remind you that this is a humorous article. Please don’t fret if you are pasty, sweaty, stretch-marked and don’t even know what a vegetable steamer is. Remember that humorous is glamorous and laughing is healthy, which makes Your Health This Week really, really, really ridiculously good reading. Even if it isn’t written by real doctors. It’s a dangerous world out there; please look devastating whenever possible.