Farting is good for you!

Beans, beans, they're good for your heart

The more you eat, the more you fart

The more you fart, the better you feel

So eat some beans at every meal!

Who amongst us has not heard this ancient schoolboy rhyme? [Who, indeed? Ed.] Turns out there's some medical truth behind it. Canada's QMI Agency today published this short but informative item, titled "Gas we pass could have health benefits".

The gas that we pass has health benefits, believe it or not.

A new study says that when used in the right tiny dosage, hydrogen sulfide has the potential to help treat diabetes, stroke, heart attacks and dementia.

Scientists at the University of Exeter [UK] have designed a new compound (AP39) they claim could hold the key to future therapies, by delivering small amounts of the substance to the right (or key) places inside cells.

The team says it has already found that the compound protects mitochondria, which drive energy production in blood vessel cells. Preventing or reversing mitochondrial damage is a key strategy for treatments of a variety of conditions such as stroke, heart failure, diabetes and arthritis, dementia and ageing.

Prof. Matt Whiteman said, “When cells become stressed by disease, they draw in enzymes to generate minute quantities of hydrogen sulfide. This keeps the mitochondria ticking over and allows cells to live. If this doesn’t happen, the cells die and lose the ability to regulate survival and control inflammation. We have exploited this natural process by making a compound, called AP39, which slowly delivers very small amounts of this gas specifically to the mitochondria. Our results indicate that if stressed cells are treated with AP39, mitochondria are protected and cells stay alive.”

The research is being conducted in several models of disease, and pre-clinical results are promising, the team says on the university's site.

So get that in ya! Or rather...get that out of ya!

Eating your nose goblins could be good for you!

If you don’t know what a "nose goblin" is, you haven't been watching Ren & Stimpy! Yes, gentle readers, the videos that were too gross for kids TV are still out there. But if you don't like that kind of thing, this story is snot for you.

Canadian Press reports today that an associate professor of biochemistry at the University of Saskatchewan is trying to get more students interested in science by looking at the health benefits of picking your nose and eating it.

Prof S. Napper -- no kidding: his first name is "Scott" -- says nature pushes us to do different things because it is to our advantage to have certain behaviours, to consume different types of foods. Mucus traps germs and stops them from getting into our body, but if we consume that mucus, it could help train our immune system by exposing it to the germs. So he says when children have the urge to pick their nose and eat it, parents shouldn’t get upset.

Dr. Napper says he hopes to conduct a study where some type of molecule is inserted in people’s noses and then half the participants pick their nose and eat it and the other half don’t.
“I think the challenge would be getting volunteers to participate in this experiment,” he says with a laugh. [A snort, possibly. Ed.] “Especially if you didn’t know which group you were going to fall into.”

Napper also says making science more humorous and fun keeps students interested and engaged.
“I don’t try to convert them all to biochemistry. My goal is always if I can teach you one thing that you’re going to tell somebody else about outside the scope of this class, then I’ve prompted you to think a little bit, to question these things and I think with this example, it probably succeeded in that.”

Walt must admit that he always found such experiments fascinating, back in his school days. Haven't we all -- all the boys at least -- tried to find out if it's true that you can ignite a fart? We even had songs and poems about flatulence and other excretions... like this one...

Everybody's doin' it, doin' it, doin' it
Pickin' their nose and chewin' it, chewin' it.
They think it's candy
But it's not.