World Baseball Classic. Women’s History Month. A Gut Feeling?

World Baseball Classic. Women’s History Month. A Gut Feeling?

Fun baseball in March!

At the World Baseball Classic, the highly favorite US team got saved from an unceremonious ouster by that juggernaut baseball country – Italy. Yes Italy, the winners of Pool B which was comprised of the US, Mexico, Brazil and Great Britain. If Italy had lost to Mexico or won by fewer than four runs, the US would have been out. But the Italians who beat the US 8-6 beat Mexico 9-1. Both stunners given the talent of those two teams. It’s my granddaughter’s fault. Her team at Major League Baseball was responsible for putting together the lists of players eligible to play for each country. So all the teams featured major league and high minor league players. Most had Americans on their squads. Philadelphia’s Aaron Nola pitched for Italy. Kansas City’s Vinnie Pasquantino was the hitting star for Team Italia. The British team only had two players from the United Kingdom on its roster. There were two from the Bahamas (including Jazz Chisholm) and all the rest were born in the US. Interestingly, there were more black American starters for the British team than for any US major league team. Still my favorite player is Lars Nootbaar who in the last WBC played for Team Japan.

March is Women’s History Month

It is women’s History Month. Isn’t it interesting that both “women” and “history” have men in them? Women and history. Regardless, this is the month in which we tell her-story. I find it particularly interesting that in Women’s History Month, the congress is finally getting around to authorizing an Office on Men’s Health. The Office on Women’s Health was established in 1991 as part of the Department of Health and Human Services. But no men’s health. That will soon be rectified. The bill has two democrat and two republican sponsors. The AMA has endorsed it and Kennedy wants it as part of his MAHA agenda. Will this be one of the few bills that will pass unanimously?

Eight Years?

The website Stat Morning Rounds reports that there is a study published in Nature Medicine stating that eight years is how long the composition of someone’s gut microbiome may be affected by a course of oral antibiotics. Eight years? I was rendered speechless. Does Kennedy know about this? Read the article for yourself and see what you think. Here is Stat’s summary:

Nature Medicine. In a study of nearly 15,000 people in Sweden, those who’d taken antibiotics within a year of testing had a major reduction in specimen diversity in the gut microbiome. But there was also significant diversity loss when antibiotics were taken 1-4 years and 4-8 years earlier. Specific antibiotics had the strongest associations: clindamycin, fluoroquinolones, and flucloxacillin. Penicillin V, common outside of Sweden, saw small and short-lasting gut changes. The researchers are collecting additional samples from almost half the participants for more longitudinal data.