Bronx Cheer for Your Health

I’m never one to indulge in cheap fart jokes unless a deadline’s closing in and I can’t come up with a good zinger about doo-doo. So it’s not with any humorous undertone that I report to you that scientists at Johns Hopkins University have discovered that smelling farts could help control your blood pressure. Well, maybe it’s not that simple. Hydrogen sulfide is produced by bacteria inside our colons. It’s this nasty smelling gas that makes our farts stink. But it’s also this gas that’s produced in our blood vessels to control blood pressure. Hydrogen sulfide relaxes blood vessels to prevent hypertension. But while shoving your nose in someone’s nether regions won’t necessarily benefit your health (sorry, James Joyce), this information could lead to the development of new kinds of drugs for patients with hypertension. So three Bronx cheers for that. More details here.