Not Just Soylent Green

You remember the last line from Soylent Green?  Oct. 23, 2015 Yahoo Health reports on an analysis of hot dogs.  Many of the "vegetarian" ones contained meat, and some of the pork-free ones used to squeal.  Worse:

Even grosser: 2 percent of all samples were found to have traces of human DNA in them. Veggie dogs were the worst off, accounting for 67 percent of the hygiene issues and two-thirds of the human DNA found.

 I am not suggesting that someone is slaughtering people or that workers in the factories are short a few fingers. This is likely hair, fingernail clippings, etc.  But if you think diseases spread across species too easily, imagine within species.

Arthritis

I have been having pain in my right shoulder, hand, and wrist for some months, and I assumed it was strokr related.  My physical therapist says the shoulder pain is a stiff deltoid muscle, and she is working on loosening it, and gave me some exercises to do.  But the pain in the fingers and wrist she thought was arthritis, and my doctor confirmed this, pointing to Heberden's nodes in my right hand.

I suspect this pain plays some part in difficulty regaining my touch typing skills.

UPDATE: A reader mentioned that there is research showing a connection between vitamin K deficiency and osteoarthritis.  This study:

The PRs for OA, osteophytes, and JSN and adjusted mean number of joints with all 3 features in the hand decreased significantly with increasing plasma phylloquinone levels (P ≤ 0.03 for all). For example, as plasma phylloquinone levels rose, the PR for hand OA decreased from 1.0 to 0.7 (P = 0.005). For the knee, only the PR for osteophytes and the adjusted mean number of knee joints with osteophytes decreased significantly with increasing plasma phylloquinone levels (PR decreased from 1.0 to 0.6, P = 0.01).

and:

Results: This ancillary study had 378 participants (193 in vitamin K arm, 185 in placebo arm). There were no effects of randomisation to vitamin K for radiographic osteoarthritis outcomes. Those with insufficient vitamin K at baseline who attained sufficient concentrations at follow-up had trends towards 47% less joint space narrowing (p = 0.02).

 and many others.  One problem is that vitamin K increases blood clotting, and I am on warfarin to reduce clotting as a stroke preventative.  I need to talk to the anti-coagulation clinic before I increase consumption of green leafy vegetables (which I hate, so the arthritis is no surprise).