Whatever You Do, Refrain From Eating the Tinsel

Deck the halls with . . . press releases from universities offering tips on how to get through the holiday season without adding pounds of lard to your frame, blowing a gasket at your insufferable brother-in-law, or taking a break between turkey and plum pudding to rush Junior down to the ER to have mistletoe pumped from his stomach.

UC San Diego, for instance, warns us that all parts of mistletoe and also English holly berries are poisonous (to say nothing of alcohol, should tots decide to knock back cocktail dregs). Poinsettias can sometimes cause skin irritation or stomach upset. So can Christmas trees, when eaten.

UCSD also warns us about potential dangers from glass baubles (they can cut you) and angel hair (it can irritate skin and eyes), and imported, painted ornaments (which may have toxic lead in the paint). And then there is tinsel, which--when eaten to excess--can block the gastrointestinal tract.

And let’s not forget our little bacterial friends: The University at Buffalo reminds us to wash kitchen surfaces with hot, soapy water, to avoid using raw eggs in eggnog and to cook poultry thoroughly to avoid food poisoning.

And so the list goes on.

We uncovered more Christmas-hazard cheer in the British magazine New Scientist, in an article compiled from various sources including the U.K.’s Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents.

Christmas trees, lights and decorations were responsible for 2,000 injuries to Britons in one recent year, writes the magazine. Decorations were the cause of nearly half--due to falls by people teetering on tables and chairs to put them up or injuries to kids chewing on baubles.

About a third of the injuries were Christmas-tree-related, including predictable pokes in faces with twigs, but also one incident in which an insect flew out of the tree and into someone’s ear.

Christmas trees are also a fire hazard. Maybe 500 fires a year are linked to festive trees in the U.S., according to the article. In one case, it reports, a fire started after residents, when burning their tree in the fireplace, decided to start with the pointy end and “push the trunk in bit by bit.”

Don’t you go doing that now.

Remember This About Vitamin E

To help you remember not to burn a Christmas tree by feeding it into the fireplace, pointy end first, there’s always vitamin E. Remember? The potential memory booster we discussed a few weeks back with UCLA memory expert Dr. Gary Small? We received a letter from a reader asking for information on dosage and purity.

In the best-known vitamin E study, Small says, patients with Alzheimer’s disease were given a whopping (but safe) dose of vitamin E: 2,000 international units. Patients who took the vitamin were delayed in a number of measures of the progression of Alzheimer’s, including institutionalization and ability to perform daily tasks. But lower doses may also help--something more like 400 IU daily. (Large doses of vitamin E may prolong bleeding or cause an upset stomach, so check with your doctor.)

Susan Bowerman, a registered dietitian at the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition, couldn’t recommend a brand, but suggests that people take natural vitamin E (d-alpha tocopherol) rather than a synthetic form (dl-alpha tocopherol). The natural chemical is more available to the body, she says.

Either Way, Barbara Was the Inspiration

Finally, did you know that Saturday is St. Barbara’s Day, named in honor of a 3rd century maiden who was martyred by her father for converting to Christianity?

It’s also the day that may have given a whole class of sedative and sleep-inducing drugs their name: barbiturates.

That, in any case, is one story we’ve come across. According to this version of events, the chemical from which barbiturates are made--barbituric acid--was discovered on St. Barbara’s Day by German chemist Adolf von Baeyer (as in aspirin) back in the 1860s.

But we’re confused. In a book on medical terms, we read quite a different tale, concerning a certain waitress named Barbara who helped Von Baeyer in his studies by supplying urine samples.

We’re not sure which of the stories we prefer.