Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 168

This is known as a sympathetic pregnancy, or Couvade Syndrome (from the French verb couver, meaning to brood or hatch).

Some men experience pains and changes to their body similar to those of their pregnant partner. For instance, a man might feel stomach and back pain, develop odd food cravings, and even have his breasts swell.

Some cultures deliberately force fathers to undergo suffering similar to that of the woman.

The most elaborate ritual of this kind is found among Huichol Indians. During childbirth, the father sits above his wife, with ropes tied around his testicles and held by his wife. Each time the woman experiences a painful contraction, she pulls on the ropes so that her husband will share her pain [Reference]

Yes

Research has shown that people with left hand dominance have left nasal dominance and the same correlation is seen in right hand dominance.

• Searleman A et al. Nostril dominance: differences in nasal airflow and preferred handedness. Laterality. 2005 Mar;10(2):111-20.

Urine

During the Second World War, prisoners held by the Japanese in an internment camp in Dutch Indonesia discovered that ammonium carbonate, formed when the urea in stale urine combines with water. Ammonium carbonate decomposes to form ammonia and carbon dioxide, and it’s these gases that cause the pockets or bubbles of air that make the dough rise. [Reference]

Allergic lung disease due to hairspray inhalation resulting in either chest x-ray findings or reduced vital capacity initially described in the 1950s. [Reference]

However, subsequent epidemiological research in the 1980s suggests this may be a non-existent disease or at least a transient concept as 25 cosmetologists and 24 non-cosmetologists (for controls) had a potential diagnosis of thesaurosis based on DLCO, vital capacity or chest x-ray changes. A review 2 years later showed there was no substantial evidence for thesaurosis in 24 of these original cosmetologists. [Reference]

• Bergmann M et al. Thesaurosis following inhalation of hair spray; a clinical and experimental study. N Engl J Med. 1958 Mar 6;258(10):471-6.
• Renzetti AD Jr et al. Thesaurosis–from hairspray exposure–a nondisease. Validation studies of an epidemiologic survey of cosmetologists. Environ Res. 1980 Jun;22(1):130-8.

Reactive arthritis (formerly Reiter syndrome)

Keratoderma blennorrhagica is commonly seen as an additional feature of reactive arthritis in almost 15% of male patients. The appearance is usually of a vesico-pustular waxy lesion with a yellow brown colour. These lesions may join together to form larger crusty plaques with desquamating edges.