Reader\'s Digest Canada - 05.2020

NICK FERRARI

ALTRUISM MAY EASE

PHYSICAL PAIN

Selflessly helping others changes your brain activ-

ity and alleviates your experience of pain, suggests

a series of experiments in China. In one, people

giving blood to earthquake victims found the needle

less painful than people getting blood tests. In

another, subjects who volunteered to help migrant

children found that immersing their hand in cold

water was less uncomfortable than those who

declined. And cancer patients who cleaned up for

others reported less pain than patients who merely

cleaned their own spaces. Researchers posit that

altruism may temper unpleasant experiences by

giving you a sense of reward, control and meaning.

BY Samantha Rideout

Testing for Radon?

Do It for at Least

Three Months

It’s odourless, invisible

and carcinogenic.

Radon gas, which

escapes naturally from

certain minerals in the

ground, dilutes to levels

that are irrelevant in

terms of health risk in

outside air. But it can

accumulate danger-

ously inside a building.

In fact, it’s responsible

for three to 14 per cent

of lung cancers in any

given country. That’s

why health authorities

recommend checking

how much radon expo-

sure you’re getting in

your home at least

once. For the most

accurate result, take a

longer-term measure-

ment. When Aaron

Goodarzi, a University

of Calgary scholar, and

his colleagues com-

pared 90-day test kits

to five-day test kits, the

short-term kits’ read-

ings were frequently

unreliable because

radon levels fluctuate

from day to day.

reader’s digest

22 may 2020

News from the

WORLD OF

MEDICINE