Madonna was framed in Body of Evidence. It's super hard to kill somebody with sex.

In the 1993 "erotic thriller" (everyone's favorite kind of thriller) Body of Evidence, Rebecca Carlson, played by Madonna, is taken to court for murder. Specifically, she's accused of having had rough or aggressive sex with a series of older rich men in order to cause their deaths. One survivor even says that she ended their relationship after he had heart surgery that made him healthier. Minor spoiler alert: she testifies on her own behalf and is eventually acquitted.

But her attorney, who she's been having rough sex with (natch), sneaks to her house after the trial and finds her with the doctor of one of her victims. The doc has coached her in how to kill men with sex. She taunts the doctor, who she's also been having sex with (natch), about how she can get him to do anything because of her world-class bedroom skills. When she tells him to get lost, he flies into a rage, eventually shoots her, and she falls out a window. I think there was some wrassling between the doctor and the lawyer in there somewhere. Aaaaaaaaand scene. At least that's how I remember it. I also remember some candle wax early in the movie, but I don't think it applies to the point I'm about to make. 

In a brand-new research letter in JACC (paywalled and not indexed by pubmed as of this writing), investigators studied 4557 cases of sudden cardiac arrest in or around Portland, Oregon, area between 2002 and 2015. Did I mention that Body of Evidence was set in Portland? Because it was. The mean age of the men was 65 years, which is prime Carlson Country, too.

They found that far less than <1% of cardiac arrest cases were linked to sex (34/4557, for an incidence of 0.28 per 100,000 adults per year). In 18 cases, the arrest occurred during sex. In 15, it was right after, and in one, the timing could not be determined. Only 1/3 of the people who had sex-associated cardiac arrests had any kind of bystander CPR. That's a hallmark of Rebecca Carlson if I've ever seen one. Also in the Rebecca Carlson tradition: almost 95% (32/24) of the sex-related cardiac arrests happened in men. The likelihood of a history of heart failure or heart disease was the same in sex-related and non-sex-related arrests. But men who had sex-associated arrests were on average five years younger than the non-sex-associated arrests. They were slightly more likely to be African-American, too. They note that an autopsy study in Germany came up with slightly higher risk, at around 0.2% of cases linked to sex.

So women: have all the high-intensity sex you want. You're safe. Men: If you're willing to roll the dice on your own personal Rebecca Carlson, the die is probably 100-sided, and you only die if it lands on the 100. Proceed accordingly. 

Spring link 5-pack April 26, 2017

What are Americans dying of? Spoiler alert: obesity. Second spoiler alert: complications of diabetes.

Artificial sweeteners may be associated with stroke and dementia risk. I've mostly given up artificial sweeteners, but not because of this paper. I'm making a bit of a Pascal's wager on artificial sweeteners: they're surely not good for us, even though they may not be as bad as sugar itself. So I take steps to avoid them, just like I take steps to avoid sugar itself. The fact that this paper didn't show any risk associated with sugar-sweetened beverages makes me a little suspicious of its results. Maybe the editorialists' note that people sometimes switch to diet soft drinks after they are flagged as "high risk" by their doctors is right. They're on their way to a stroke one way or the other, and they just happen to have switched to a diet drink beforehand.

Garden City, Kansas voted to raise the legal age for the purchase of tobacco or e-cigarettes to 21 years. The decision "grew from a request made by a group of Garden City High School students earlier this year." Garden City is the fifteenth (!) city in Kansas to make such a decision.

Exercise may help cognition (that's the thinking part) in the elderly. Seemingly if you work moderately hard for at least 45 minutes. What is moderate? According the ACSM guideline they used, it is hard enough to use "40%-60% heart rate reserve." That means halfway between your normal resting heart rate and your maximum heart rate, which is usually calculated by subtracting your age from 220. So if your normal heart rate is 70 and you're 50 years old, you have a maximum heart rate of ~170, so using 50% of your heart rate reserve would mean getting your heart rate to ~120. Confused? Well, "moderate" intensity is also about a 5 or 6 out of 10 in perceived exertion. There. 

The FDA is warning (again) about bogus internet cancer treatments. A couple observations here: 1) I can't believe it's only 65 products. That must barely scratch the surface. 2) I don't know if the fact that so many of the products are co-marketed for cats and dogs is a good sign or a bad sign. 3) Even a casual observer must be astonished that we know so much about how to prevent cancer, and it's not complicated, and it's generally cheap or even money-positive (don't smoke, get a little exercise, eat fruits and vegetables, wear sunscreen)

But yet we as a society are so much more interested in giving our money to snake-oil salesmen for untested bunk.