Disease and Injury Facts:

1. Monday is the day of the week when the risk of heart attack is greatest. Yet another
reason to loathe Mondays! A ten year study in Scotland found that 20% more people die
of heart attacks on Mondays than any other day of the week. Researchers theorize that it’s
a combination of too much fun over the weekend with the stress of going back to work
that causes the increase.
2. Humans can make do longer without food than sleep. While you might feel better
prepared to stay up all night partying than to give up eating, that feeling will be relatively
short lived. Provided there is water, the average human could survive a month to two
months without food depending on their body fat and other factors. Sleep deprived
people, however, start experiencing radical personality and psychological changes after
only a few sleepless days. The longest recorded time anyone has ever gone without sleep
is 11 days, at the end of which the experimenter was awake, but stumbled over words,
hallucinated and frequently forgot what he was doing.
3. A simple, moderately severe sunburn damages the blood vessels extensively. How
extensively? Studies have shown that it can take four to fifteen months for them to return
to their normal condition. Consider that the next time you’re feeling too lazy to apply
sunscreen before heading outside.
4. Over 90% of diseases are caused or complicated by stress. That high stress job you
have could be doing more than just wearing you down each day. It could also be
increasing your chances of having a variety of serious medical conditions like depression,
high blood pressure and heart disease.
5. A human head remains conscious for about 15 to 20 seconds after it is been
decapitated. While it might be gross to think about, the blood in the head may be enough
to keep someone alive and conscious for a few seconds after the head has been separated
from the body, though reports as to the accuracy of this are widely varying.