January 2008 - Posts

Hats off to dubious and delusional diseases

Thu, Jan 24, 2008 at 9:00AM
55085 views
By Dr. Billy Goldberg and Mark Leyner

Well, here it goes…Our Body Odd podcast is becoming a blog, and now we apparently have to write something logical and organized rather than just rambling on incessantly from one topic to another. Or do we? This is the blogosphere isn’t it? Which always reminds me of that eco-experiment in the Arizona desert or worse the 1996 Pauly Shore movie, Bio-Dome.


Anyway, Leyner and I hope to maintain the same back and forth, free-wheeling, question and answer, educational and entertaining banter that we (and hopefully you, too) enjoy.

Today we’ll try to shed some light on a variety of syndromes with vague, subjective symptoms and how physicians sometimes view them as “dubious diseases.” Don’t expect a clear answer.

The true blue story of Paul Karason

Tue, Jan 22, 2008 at 5:15PM
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26040 views
By Linda Dahlstrom, health editor

One can’t help but wonder if the Blue Man Group is feeling threatened.

Sure, they have a good thing going with their sold out shows, percussion prowess and dancing skills. But we all know what really makes them a hit. Their own advertising slogan points out: “They’re dazzling, they’re outrageous and most of all – THEY’RE BLUE!”

Yes, they’ve got a lot riding on it. But we all know it’s just a facade. When the “blue” men go home at night, they strip off their blue latex, paint or whatever it is that makes them azure and become just like everyone else.


Not so for Paul Karason. He’s blue for real. Permanently, deeply, completely, Violet Beaure-garde post-Willy Wonka blue.

He’s so hardcore blue that NBC’s Dr. Nancy Snyderman speculates that even his organs are blue.

Take that, Blue Man Group.

Why Sean Paul’s tunes made one woman sick

Tue, Jan 22, 2008 at 10:50AM
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18148 views
By Melissa Dahl, health writer

Does the very sound of a Fergie tune make you feel a bit ill? Maybe it’s not all in your head.


For Stacey Gayle, it was hip-hop artist Sean Paul who was making her sick – specifically his 2005 hit “Temperature.” Before the Jamaican rapper could promise to keep her warm, to shelter her from the storm, Paul had sent Gayle into a seizure.

When Gayle collapsed at a barbecue immediately after a Sean Paul song started playing, the 25-year-old started to put the pieces together. She brought her iPod to a medical center and played a Sean Paul song for her doctors – and suffered through three seizures shortly after.

Infections, rashes and fungus. Oh my.

Fri, Jan 18, 2008 at 12:15PM
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18423 views
By Jane Weaver, health editor

Hardly a week passes without scientists warning about some scary new germ.

Even if bird flu is now being called the pandemic that wasn’t there are plenty of deadly viruses to worry about these days – drug-resistant staph infections, the return of bubonic plague and a new, crippling mosquito-borne virus spreading worldwide that experts think is connected to global warming. There’s even a mutated cold virus that’s been killing young adults – mostly military personnel—over the last 18 months.

All the talk about those nasty bugs may turn you into an obsessive hand-washing germphobe, but what about the infections and bugs that are just more annoying than deadly?

About the blog

Insights and ruminations on the strangeness of all things medical, pharmaceutical and biological.

Msnbc.com writers and editors will muse upon the wonderfully weird human body and the medical curiosities that make you go huh, ewww or ouch! Looking for informed, unhinged meditations on everything from dubious diseases to recipes for ersatz mucous? Well, this is the place.

If you have a question, e-mail The Body Odd.

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