By Mark Leyner and Dr. Billy Goldberg

No matter how careful we think we are, we’re all prone to doing some pretty stupid things to our bodies. Some of us take responsibility for our own actions. Others blame their defective thongs.

Remember Macrida Patterson? She’s the Los Angeles traffic cop who sued Victoria’s Secret for an eye injury that occurred when a heart-shaped metal fastener in her underwear snapped, popped into her eye and injured her cornea.

The case of the hazardous thong got us talking about the fact that people typically look for some excuse or someone else to blame when they get hurt. Nowhere is this more evident than in the emergency room.

Just this past week, Billy was working in the ER and he saw a classic example of a poor decision gone haywire. It was a busy Monday evening and the ER was filled with your usual assortment of injured, infirmed and intoxicated. Alcohol is usually involved in most of the ER’s most brilliantly dumb accidents. In fact, from 1992 through 2000, researchers found that there were about 68.6 emergency department visits related to alcohol, almost 8 percent of the total ER visits during that time period.

We have to assume that some intoxicant was involved in this particular case, but by the time Billy got involved, it was too late for questions. A middle-aged man had apparently needed to urinate and used a nearby plastic bottle. After inserting his penis in the hole, he found himself unable to extricate his now swollen member from the grasp of this plastic vise. It is unclear what attempts he made on his own, but by the time he arrived he was trapped and had been unable to relieve himself. After a hefty dose of morphine, two young residents and a junior attending physician unsuccessfully tried to free him from captivity. By the time Billy arrived, he was screaming in pain.

By Dr. Billy Goldberg and Mark Leyner

We hope that those of you who share our insatiable appetite for pungent biomedical fodder heard about a health clinic in Arkansas that was evacuated recently after more than 30 people were sickened. The staffers and some patients were hit with symptoms that included nausea, dizziness and uncontrollable drooling.

A hazmat unit from the National Guard ran precautionary tests, and health officials are looking into whether the outbreak might be connected to an exterminator’s visit.

Uncontrollable drooling?! Surely there’s a disaster film in the making here. Imagine scores of hapless villagers borne away on a tsunami of drool!!

It makes good sense that a hazmat unit was called in because the toxic effects of pesticides – and nerve gasses, for that matter – may include excess salivation with drooling.

But before we tackle the fascinating subject of excessive drooling, which in polite society is more properly known as sialorrhea, how about a quick tutorial about saliva? Drool School.

By Dr. Billy Goldberg and Mark Leyner

"For each ailment that doctors cure with medications (as I am told they do occasionally succeed in doing) they produce 10 others in healthy individuals by inoculating them with that pathogenic agent 1000 times more virulent than all the microbes - -the idea that they are ill."
 -- Marcel Proust, “The Guermantes Way”

This quote came to mind after a particularly grueling weekend in the ER. You see, I am just getting over a brief yet vicious bout of nosophobia. Nosophobia refers to a morbid fear of contracting a disease. In my case, I was terrified of about 37 different ailments that might strike me or one of my family members down.

It didn’t help that when I got home from the hospital I had to spend an hour convincing my sister that she didn’t have thyroid disease, liver failure or metastatic cervical cancer. My sister and I both share a genetic predisposition towards worrying that isn’t exactly helped by my practice of medicine.

Surprisingly, most doctors aren’t hypochondriacs. But medical students often go through a phase of thinking they have everything they learn about in school. I can recall sitting in a genetics lecture with a pregnant friend and watching her cringe and rub her belly as we learned about every horrendous ailment that might affect her unborn child. This condition has been called "medical student's disease," "hypochondriasis of medical students" – and best of all, "medical studentitis."

By Dr. Billy Goldberg and Mark Leyner

What ever happened to good old-fashioned romance? Oysters and champagne are passé as people reach for more exotic aphrodisiacs. The pursuit of a sex boost had a deadly result for one New York man after he ingested an aphrodisiac made from toad venom. This poor soul ate a product meant for the skin, and unfortunately it contained a chemical that had effects similar to the heart drug digitalis, which can cause irregular heart rate, nausea and vomiting.

What a terrible way to go.

Aphrodisiacs are by no means a new invention. The name comes from Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty, and throughout history many products have been believed to stimulate sexual desire – from rhino horns to snails to the beetle-derived “Spanish fly.”

Viagra is mistakenly thought of as an aphrodisiac, but rather it’s a treatment for ability (impotence), not desire. Unfortunately modern pharmaceutical companies have yet to find that magic little potion to increase sexual desire. Just this month, a highly touted compound, Bremelanotide, originally known as PT-141, was shelved as an aphrodisiac by its company Palatin Technologies. This nasal spray showed remarkable promise stimulating the desires of both men and women, but it also raised their blood pressure.

Don’t give up hope. The company has another compound, PL-6983, that they’re banking will take its place.

By Dr. William Goldberg and Mark Leyner

Is it just us, or does it seem like everyone is either searching for that little something to get a competitive edge or simply struggling to keep up?

Americans are 24-7-365. We are both guilty of swilling espresso as we burn the candle at both ends to finish our new book. But that doesn’t disturb us nearly as much as the overwhelming amount of highly caffeinated “energy” products being marketed to help stimulate our competitive kids. Snack food maker Mars has even released a new “Snickers Charged,” so even candy can now give you an extra nudge.

The pharmaceutical industry is, of course, lurking right there with a whole slew of cognitive enhancers to push our bodies and brains to their max.

As a society, we tend to reflexively deride and often morally condemn the instant fix (while at the same time scrambling for it). But what about drugs that can instantly improve your cognitive functioning? Not good, right? They’re unfair – like steroids for the brain. Until you consider the pilot who’s flying your plane for the next 10 hours or the neurosurgeon operating on your mom. Maybe a hit of Provigil doesn’t sound like such a bad idea.

Dr. Billy Goldberg and Mark Leyner

Dr. Billy Goldberg: I was working overnight in the ER last week and I saw a simple case that left me rattled and worried. This wasn’t some gruesome trauma or a heart-wrenching medical story.

It was simply the case of a 10-year-old girl whose parents brought her in for what turned out to be her first menstrual period. What disturbed me was when the pediatrics resident mentioned that they consider the normal range of menarche, the onset of menstruation, to be anywhere from 8 to 14 years. 8-years-old!

I have mentioned in this blog that I have two young children at home – a 2-year-old boy and a 3-month-old girl. Eight just doesn’t seem that far away. This sent me on a quest to investigate what happened to the innocence of youth.

It turns out that experts agree that the average age at menarche has dropped by 2.5 to 4 months over the past 25 years – and is now 12.5 years. Eight is still very early but it doesn’t necessarily get doctors scurrying to search for a cause of what is called precocious puberty.

By Dr. Billy Goldberg and Mark Leyner

Dr. Billy Goldberg: If obsessively eating ice is pagophagia, and eating raw potatoes is geomelophagia – then what would eating 420 oysters in eight minutes be? Victory!

Just ask Patrick "Deep Dish" Bertoletti from Chicago who this past Saturday downed 35 dozen oysters to win The Acme World Oyster Eating Championship belt.

I have to admit that I’ve always been a little fascinated with Major League Eating and was a little disappointed that Deep Dish took down one of my favorite gurgitators, Crazy Legs Conti, who finished third with an impressive tally of 24 dozen. My interest in Pro Eating took a personal twist last Thursday when I celebrated my birthday while hosting my weekly radio show on Sirius’ new satellite channel, Doctor Radio. I was overjoyed when I found out that Crazy Legs was going to be a guest. My joy quickly turned to fear when I found out I was going to compete against Crazy Legs and another gustatory athlete, Arturo Rios Jr., in a birthday cake battle.

By Dr. Billy Goldberg and Mark Leyner

Dr. Billy Goldberg: There is no better impetus for a Body Odd blog than Demi Moore making a public declaration that she uses leeches to keep herself looking fresh and feeling healthy. Now, I can’t agree with Demi’s personal use of leeches (although she does look pretty fantastic), but the truth is, these little creatures are medical marvels.

In a throwback to the days of the medieval barber, today’s doctors use leeches, as well as maggots, with great success. Surgeons, for instance, use these creepy crawlers to remove blood from the site of skin grafts or reattached parts and to relieve congestion in the blood vessels.

The leeches used for medical purposes are a European variety called Hirudo Medicinalis and are raised on special leech farms. The Hirudo leech works some additional magic by secreting a chemical in its saliva that acts as an anti-coagulant to prevent blood clotting.

Oh, by the way, the bite of a leech is painless due to its own anesthetic.

Leeches aren’t the only bugs on the medical scene.

By Dr. Billy Goldberg and Mark Leyner

Dr. Billy Goldberg: The past eight weeks of my life have revolved around gas. On Jan. 22, I welcomed my second child into the world, a beautiful baby girl. It didn’t take long to realize that she was gassy like her daddy. In the wee hours of the morning when she was wailing from overwhelming intestinal distress, I had a revelation. I came to realize that we can mark the different stages of our life by how we handle our flatulence.

My poor little newborn desperately needed to let one rip. This is how we begin our life, unable to get them out.

Then comes adolescence – a stage where we are thrilled to let them out. Oh, the hilarious joy of the public fart! But BEWARE if you are in Camden, Maine. The Camden-Rockport Middle School has issued a ban on intentional flatulence – gas-passing students are threatened with detention.

Next comes puberty and we enter the phase of frantically trying to hold them in. I can just imagine my sweet little girl all grown up on a dinner date, squirming to prevent that embarrassing unintentional release.

Life gradually becomes more and more complicated and we find ourselves increasingly awash in uncontrolled flatulence and odor. We begin to reach for the Beano and even find ourselves considering the purchase of Odor Control Nether Garments. One of the many indignities of the aging process is that loss of muscle tone occurs – even around the anal sphincter. Yes, that is why an older person has a harder time holding ‘em in.

By Dr. Billy Goldberg and Mark Leyner

What do you think presents a more imminent danger to your average American citizen today? An Al-Qaida sleeper cell? A nuclear warhead hurtling toward the U.S. from some mobile launch pad in Tora Bora or Pakistan? A giant asteroid? An invasion of transnational flesh-eating zombies from Canada and Mexico emboldened by NAFTA? How about a lemon wedge in your Diet Coke?

Surprise! It’s the lemon wedge.