Today’s interesting fact has to do with green potatoes.

This past weekend, I was asked if it was safe to eat green potatoes.

The simple answer is that it isn’t.

I was then asked why… no one should ever ask me why if they don’t want the answer.

When potatoes are exposed to light, they turn green.

This is caused by chlorophyll becoming active in the tuber under the skin.

But it is not the chlorophyll that causes the problem, but the glycoalkaloids that are produced along with the chlorophyll.

These are mostly the chemicals solanine and chaconine, but there are others.

High concentrations of these compounds can cause headaches, diarrhoea, cramps, coma and death.

So don’t eat green potatoes.

Today’s interesting fact has to do with colonic irrigation.

A recent study at St George University in the UK has taken followed the health records of a large number of individuals who have had colonic irrigation over a number of years.

The outcome of the study suggests that there are no health benefits to colonic irrigation, instead it can actually be bad for you as it may remove beneficial bacteria and there are side effects that can vary from nausea, vomiting, intestinal injury and death.

Doctors sometimes give patients with impacted faeces an enema, but these tend to use no more than a half a litre of an isotonic fluid or distilled water.

A colonic irrigation on the other hand can have as much as 65 litres of water introduced into the large intestine.

It has been known for a number of years that the introduction of water used in a colonic irrigation can cause blood isotonic issues, where the process of osmosis means at essential salts are drawn from the blood into the intestine, which is why doctors often use isotonic fluids.

But until now, no one has ever done a study to see what the benefits of colonic irrigation actually are, and now we know there are none.

Today's interesting fact has to do with bicycles and trucks.

In the UK, 50% of cyclist deaths are caused by collisions with Lorries (Trucks or 18 wheelers in the US) which are only 5% of UK traffic.

Haven't been posting lately, but I've renewed my pledge to try to do so on a daily basis, Monday through Friday.

Today's interesting fact.

One hundred years ago, one third of all children born, died before the age of five. Today it is less than one half of one percent.

And we can thank science and the application of it to modern medicine for this result.