That's a lot of questions.

I think I'll take Al's advice and defer the spinach question to the experts. (I mean, it could just be an osmotic effect of non-digestible carbohydrates like cellulose bulking-up your stools -- in the same manner as how lactulose works as a laxative -- but that'd just be me hypothesizing.)

As for your other questions, well, I'll still be hypothesizing. But why let that stop me? Let me tackle number 3 first.

"Poor circulation" doesn't seem like the right way to describe it. People with diabetes have poor circulation. People with atherosclerotic disease -- the kind that increases their risk of heart attacks and strokes -- have poor peripheral circulation. They end up with atrophy of tissues (a common sign is hair loss on one's feet) and poor healing -- actual detrimental effects.

A better explanation might be more peripheral vasoconstriction -- not that the blood isn't getting to your extremities, but that your body is autoregulating to reduce bloodflow to your extremities.

When your peripheral arterial circulation dilates, your extremities feel warmer; when it constricts, you feel colder. There are a number of chemicals that control when your arterioles dilate and constrict. One simple example is alcohol (which is why you feel warm after a stiff drink -- you're actually losing heat faster, but your blood vessels are dilating, so you feel warmer.)

There's a whole list of endogenous factors that cause vasodilation that I can never remember. One of the important ones, though, is nitric oxide. And one of the factors that affects arteriolar smooth muscle response to nitric oxide is estrogen. There have been studies (well, I found a study, but it portends the existence of more studies) that show that there is a significant difference between genders in response to nitric oxide because of estrogen.

So what does this mean? Well, I can think of two possibilities:

1. Increased response to vasodilators centrally means a corresponding increased vasoconstriction peripherally
2. Adjustment to a normal baseline at higher estrogen levels means a more noticeable vasoconstriction and cooling of extremities when estrogen levels drop

Update, that is season 1 and season 2 arena gear(full).

Better hurry on that druid! Some guy is getting it for his girlfriend's little brother!

Heads up WoWdudes! Some guy is trading a lvl 70 druid (epic gear) on Tradio this morning! He's just asking for as much captain morgan he can get his hands on.

# is 999-6336

A food type question?!! You should ask my sister she is a Registered Dietian now.

And while I'm on the topic of asking Paras questions regarding human biology:

How come raw spinach makes me shit like a motherfucker???

Gawdang, I shit green every time I eat spinach, and it fucking assplodes out of me like the great hindenberg of turds.

Is that normal? I suppose maybe my body can't deal with that much cellulose at one time or something... I don't know. I like eating it, but I hate shitting it. It's painful and it makes my stomach very upset too.

Paras, maybe you can answer this for me:

In the entirety of my life, it has been my experience that girls have cold hands and cold feet. I don't know why. For the longest time I just assumed that this was just a fluke random trait about the girls I had met in my life. But lately I've started wondering if this is really the case or not. In the course of the last year I've made a point of asking girls why their hands/feet are so cold whenever I noticed it (wondering if there was some sort of credible explanation for this; maybe the room was cold while I was wearing a big sweater or something like that). But to my great astonishment, the answer has thus far always come back the same:

"it's because I have poor circulation in my hands/feet".

That was not an answer I expected; not the first time, not the second time, and certainly not the third time. But it's invariably ALWAYS blamed on circulation. Now, I don't get intimate enough with girls so regularly that I have a great number of chances to hold hands/touch feet, but of the most recent THREE that I HAVE, the answer has been the same.

So my question to you Paras, is four-fold:

1. Is it true that women generally have colder hands and feet than men?

and if so:

2. Is "circulation" a viable explanation, or is this just a canned response that's used when they really actually have no answer to the question themselves.

AND:

3. If circulation is a viable explanation, AND if women generally have colder extremities than men, does that mean women in general just have poorer/slower/whatever circulation in the tips of their fingers/toes than men?

AND:

4. Supposing all of the above is true, is there a biological reason for this?



This has been bugging me for a while now...

Ah, no way! Jimmy Stewart is like one of my favourite actors! I love how "down home" of a guy he always seems to be. He was awesome in "The man who shot Liberty Valence" which is probably my favourite western movie of all time.

I don't know what you think is pink, but the links are easy enough to make more visible. That'll go on the list.

(As well as, apparently, letting people writing a message know that a new message has been posted in the eternity they've taken to make their post "right". Oops.)

When I first met our new resident, I couldn't help but think there was something familiar about him. I mean, sure his hairstyle is a little old-fashioned (not that I'm one to talk about trendy hairstyles), but that wasn't it. Or maybe that wasn't just it.

He also has a weird way of talking. A little slow, a little deliberate, with a little bit of a funny accent. Which is strange, because he's from Edmonton.

Still I couldn't place it.

Today, though, was the first time I actually saw patients with him. And, as I'm wont to do with doctors I'm unfamiliar with, I sat back for the first patient and observed his style (it's always nice to crib parts of a doctor's rapport for your own use later.) But that familiar way of talking and familiar look became even more so.

And that's when it hit me. The 1940s hair. The slow talking. The slightly off voice.

Our new resident is Jimmy Stewart.

(And you have no idea how hard it is to work the rest of the day and have no one to say that to.)