World of Warcraft boosts brain power...

When Geeks and Nerds join forces, they can conquer the world... or at least they could if they weren't so busy trying to slay imaginary dragons. 


No, instead they round up a group of unsuspecting senior citizens in Carolina, log them on to WoW (World of Warcraft) for two weeks and then monitor their behaviour. Their findings? WoW  boosts brain power in the elderly - so sayeth the study they went on to publish in the journal Computers in Human Behavior this week. 


According to Andrea Kuszewski who writes for Scientific America, this may actually make sense. The key factors in holding onto your marbles includes a willingness to: engage in novel experiences, network with others, take on challenges and do things the 'hard way'. Contrary to popular belief she believes the only thing Sudoku improves is your ability to play Sudoku. Constant fresh challenges are the way to wire your brain for optimal outcomes.


What the study doesn't mention is that WoW has also been found in other literature to be addictive and hazardous to marriages. So you will be extremely clever and  proficient at bludgeoning trolls - but quite possibly alone.

Sorry God....

Dear God,


Funny story. I think I may have figured out where Jesus has got to. I don't know when you last saw him, but I think I accidentally admitted him to the loony bin last week. Looking back on it there were perhaps a few signs - the hemp sack cloth outfit (very circa BC) and a walking stick (presumably a make-shift shepherd staff).  Anyway, he did introduce himself as Jesus, but I was extremely busy mopping up blood, harassing small children etc (quite frankly I think he could have chipped in a bit more in the 'saving lives' front - we're very short staffed). He was after all the third Jesus of the week (do you send them in batches?). 


Unfortunately 'normal' is all a numbers game nowadays. If it's just the one guy telling us he's Jesus, we have to inject him with antipsychotics. If there are a few in agreement,  we would classify it as a 'cult'. If you get a whole bunch of people, it's a religion.


If he was the real Jesus I am terribly sorry and hope I haven't doomed us all. If he wasn't, apologies for using up your valuable time.


Kind regards,


Dr KK

'Yes I killed her. But I was asleep at the time.'

Here's an alibi you may not have considered - sleepmurdering. It's not foolproof, but for 40-year old Brian Thomas, it was enough to convince the judge. Brian awoke one morning to find that he had accidentally throttled his wife to death, believing her to be in intruder.

Sleepwalking is one of those bizarre human behaviours we don’t fully understand. Humans have been sleepwalking for as long as we have been sleeping. Since we spend about one third of our lives sleeping it’s not surprising that a whole range of conditions can occur while in this state.

Most sleepwalking consists of just that.  Walking. The person won’t remember anything, but will usually walk a short distance, occasionally ramble nonsensical muttering and then return to sleep. About 15 percent of all children sleepwalk and most will stop by their early teens. 

But did you know that people 'sleep drive', 'sleep walk the dog' and 'sleep email'? 

Sleep-murdering isn't a definite 'get out of jail free card'. Here's the line up:

• 1997: Scott Falater, a devout Mormon, stabbed his wife 44 times with a hunting knife. He then dragged her into a backyard pool and held her head under water. Falater tried to conceal evidence in his car. Found guilty of first degree murder.
• 2001: Stephen Reitz killed his married lover, Eva Weinfurtner during a romantic Catalina Island getaway. He smashed her head with a flowerpot, dislocated her arm, stabbed her with a plastic fork and fractured her wrist, ribs, jaw, facial bones, and skull, allegedly fighting off a would-be intruder. Found guilty of first-degree murder.
• 2003: Jules Lowe, 32 punched and kicked his aged father, Edward Lowe, 82, over ninety times until he died. He had a strong history of sleepwalking. He was acquitted

The moral of the story? Think of a better alibi!

Bariatric surgery may shed kilos, but it doesn't cure addiction

Bariatric surgery is currently touted as the ‘only known cure for diabetes’. The physical facts are simple. Bariatric surgery limits the quantity of food the person can eat and the results speak for themselves – the kilograms normally melt off, but the real underlying problem may not have been addressed.

The biological need to eat is right up there with sleeping, drinking fluid and mating. We need to do these things to survive and the brain has developed complex neurochemical ‘rewards’ programmes to compel us to eat.

It doesn’t take much to push them into the realm of addiction. And unlike other addictions, you can’t simply refuse to eat food – so the treatment is different. Many obese individuals suffer from a food addiction. The addiction is normally triggered by underlying psychological problems. If these are not dealt with and the person undergoes bariatric surgery, they become at very high risk for other forms of addiction as an outlet or expression for these needs. This is known as ‘addiction transfer’ and is commonly seen in other areas of substance abuse. Addiction transfer occurs in around 1-in-5 people who undergo bariatric surgery.

Fundamentally this outlines that excessive eating is a complex behaviour involving elements of socialisation, habits, psychological make-up and often food addiction. Simply wiring up someone’s jaw, sending them to a fat camp or cutting off half their stomach may change their weight, but not the addiction.

Childhood obesity or childhood abuse?

This week an Ohio mom had her 7-year old 200 pound (90kg) child taken into foster care when she failed to help him meet health-related weight loss targets. Maybe it is extreme, but with childhood obesity having tripled over the last two decades, the health risks for our future generations are serious. Fundamentally we’re looking at the first generation in the last 100 years who has a lower life expectance than their previous generation.

South Africa obviously has far more serious issues like sexual abuse, malnutrition and childhood HIV to cope with and yet, third world countries also predicted as those which will be hardest hit by the rise in metabolic syndrome. Countries like Australia are discussing the responsibility of doctors to report childhood obesity to Child Protection Services.

Anybody who’s watched an episode of “Too fat for 15” will see that the issue of obesity is more systemic than simply the child. The parents are almost never pictures of perfect health themselves. Children in their earliest development phases have no real sense of ‘good’ from ‘bad’ food. Yes, some children are born with a preference for sweet foods, but really they have no judgement where food is concerned.

What makes it worse is that the ‘abusers’ are my own generation of peers. We were brought up on the ‘eat everything until your plate is empty’ policy. This, in addition to the guilt of the starving children in Ethiopia seems to have backfired in a way that makes us punish the next generation.

The issue really is that bad eating habits start incredibly early in life. These habits get harder to change with time. By the age of 7 or 8, a parent still has some control of their child’s eating, but certainly not as much as at earlier ages. Moreover, the parents may also need foster care – they’re probably not feeding themselves correctly either.