Corpus - conversations about medicine and life

How to bake a healthy chocolate brownie

10 September 2018 Leave a Comment

Ruth Harvie

One of my favourite recipes is this chocolate brownie recipe from healthyfood.co.nz which is made without butter and uses unsweetened apple sauce instead of sugar. It allows me to over-indulge in the chocolate flavour and avoid the added richness of butter.

However, for many people this ‘healthy’ version of a brownie is anything but healthy. It may cause diarrhoea, farting, pain, bloating and stomach gurgling. This is because the recipe is high in short-chain carbohydrates known as FODMAPs (fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides and polyols) which are poorly absorbed by about fifteen percent of the population. [Read more…] about How to bake a healthy chocolate brownie

Mother language medicine

3 September 2018 5 Comments

Tui Bevin

Tui and her father Kaj Westerskov in Naenae 1955 — Tui Bevin and her father Kaj Westerskov in Naenae (New Zealand) 1955

My father lost his English three times. Once, he reverted to his mother language when he was very ill in intensive care while visiting Germany, but his English returned as he recovered. However he lost it twice more before he died in Dunedin Hospital ten years later.

Dad grew up in Denmark and lived in New Zealand for his last fifty years. His enjoyment of words, languages and bilingual jokes is an important part of how I remember him. It’s not surprising therefore, that the issue of language emerged when I wrote a series of poems about my parents.

Women in adventure sports: why it matters

3 September 2018 3 Comments

Nicola Wilson-Jones

Emma Pegg surfing Schnappers Point. Photo courtesy of Bill Evans.

As a teenager in the 1980s, my first experience of surfing was on a giant woodchip pile at Port Nelson. While I was welcome to hurl my body down a pseudo-wave, the boys never invited me into the ocean. Most often I’d watch them hightail away to the surf, wedged in their rusty Datsun, with that high beam of adventure thick as thieves between them.

Likewise, a friend told me that when she was growing up on a Central Otago farm she dearly wanted to go mountaineering with her father and brothers. “They climbed to the top of Mount Aspiring and I was left to be allowed to drive the tractor around the farm and have a holiday job teaching disabled skiing,” my friend recalled. It was apparent to us that free will was encouraged only between the men and boys.

What’s cooking in forensic anthropology?

3 September 2018 Leave a Comment

Jade S. De La Paz

I am a forensic anthropologist. No, not like Bones, but I’m glad you have heard of it! For those who have not, forensic anthropology is the application of biological anthropology in a medico-legal setting. In reality, it has many more uses than Bones gives it credit for. In forensic anthropology, we focus on estimating the biological profile of human skeletal remains: age, sex, stature, ancestry, trauma, disease, time since death, burial context, number of individuals, etc. All this information, gleaned from skeletal analysis, helps with identification efforts, trauma analysis, and the scientific understanding of death(s).

What’s cooking in physiology research: “Towards safer births”

27 August 2018 5 Comments

Shalini Kumar

On Tuesday morning I was sitting at my desk working on this article, struggling to put my research into comprehensible sentences by avoiding any scientific jargon that would drive my potential reader(s) away. That was when I came across this cartoon. A pregnant woman is putting on a brave face, saying that her pregnancy is going “just fine”, when the truth is nowhere close! Her thought bubble precisely sums up everything a pregnant woman is most likely to face during those precious nine months of her pregnancy. Although I was spared the varicose veins, thank God!

And then … a story of caregiving and poetry

27 August 2018 4 Comments

Benita Helen Kape

Pat & Benita 40th anniversary (1993) — Benita and Pat on their 40th wedding anniversary, three years prior to Pat’s operation.

It all began when my husband Pat, always a keen sportsman, had difficulty walking off the course one morning after a round of golf with his mates. Within a week we were in Auckland Hospital and Pat was in the process of recovering from a major spinal operation. This was a school of learning neither of us ever for a moment thought we would have to face. Both of us were healthy, even seeming young for our age. Pat had been retired for two or three years, and I had only a few years of work ahead of me before I would join him.

Things didn’t go well; the operation took longer than expected. Pat was cheerful, a tone that wavered little until much later. He was a man who saw the best in people. Bravely he struggled with rehabilitation, and we returned to Gisborne. Several days later, he became seriously ill. Meningitis was managed and contended with. We are forever grateful to all the doctors, nurses and agencies involved in his care. [Read more…] about And then … a story of caregiving and poetry