Maurice Gueret

Consumption of fish oil led to some fairy-tale results in the testicles of Danish men, writes Maurice Gueret, as he kayaks through Dublin’s puddled parks

On the extra benefits of fish oil

Fairytale oil Denmark’s third city, Odense, is situated on the island of Funen, and has a similar population to Cork. It’s the birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen, renowned for fairy tales such as the ugly duckling who turned into a beautiful swan, and the snowman who was less fortunate when he fell in love with a hot stove. The university at Odense is also home to some very interesting recent research on young men, their testicles and their sperm counts. Thousands of young Danes, most in their late teens, attend compulsory medicals to have their fitness for military service tested.

Over a five-year period, for a €70 fee, almost 1,700 of them consented to have a hormone blood test, their testicles measured, and a sperm sample examined. Recently published analysis suggests that those young men who took fish oil supplements in the three months before testing, produced more semen, more sperm, and had larger testicles. Before rushing to the drugstore, it’s worth noting that those who took supplements were less likely to smoke and may have had healthier lifestyles, too. More research is needed. In the meantime, one freshwater and one marine fish every week on the dinner table may be a sensible holding position.

Hip, hip

Going private or going public isn’t a choice everyone has when it comes to hip replacement. The length of the queue is the deciding factor for anyone lucky enough to be able to afford health insurance. There was an interesting review of data on hip surgery in a recent British Medical Journal, which looked at outcomes for hip replacements and revisions, and whether NHS hospital results were as good as private ones. The good news was that 90pc of patients who completed questionnaires after surgery reported an improvement in their general health. The best-performing hospitals included both public and private ones, and the worst-performing hospitals also included both. The broad conclusion of the study suggests that there really isn’t much difference between public and private hospitals in outcomes. As we all know, the difference is access. That won’t be cured until we abandon health apartheid and opt for universal healthcare.

Dublin puddles

I won’t be using the new whitewater-rafting facility that Dublin’s councillors have voted to spend €23m on. I’ll continue my daily dog-walk through the city’s parks, trying to avoid the impassable puddles of rainwater that have become too numerous to report. Many older people give up walking completely in city and county parks, such is the number of paths that block completely after the slightest shower. Not a penny is spent rectifying the issue. One ageing doctor took a nasty tumble last year that required a full box of bandages. He was in a south-city park by the Dodder, skirting around a puddle that hadn’t been drained in years. It’s not rocket science to ameliorate this problem. The same paths flood, season after season.

Councillors need to get out of their kayaks and witness a reallife problem for themselves. Doctor droop

Doctors make fascinating use of social media among themselves. Their postings and admissions can also be a great source of learning. An emergency-department doctor wrote recently about a patient who was rushed in with a possible stroke. Somebody had noticed an asymmetrical droop to his face. A doctor checked under the patient’s copious moustache, where all was well. Uneven trimming of his facial coiffure was the cause. An Irish psychiatrist in Australia was once asked to review a male patient who had ‘pressure of speech’, as nurses thought he might be manic. They were surprised when the doctor correctly diagnosed that the patient did not have pressure of speech.

She pointed out that he simply hailed from Cork where free-flowing speech rhythms are entirely normal. Buttercup baby

I wrote last week about the girl from Co Laois who was sent out many years ago to pick a yellow-flowered plant and its roots so that her mother could make a haemorrhoid remedy. Happy to report now that the plant indeed was pilewort, cousin of the buttercup. The hideous smell she remembers may have something to do with the fact that her mother mixed and cooked the plant with dripping! As a remedy for midlands haemorrhoids, people came from far and wide.