Dear Health-Conscious Friend,

They all cause distraction. Think about it... if you saw a clown on a unicycle in the middle of nowhere, it would distract you. When you're on your cell, the conversation you're having distracts you. So... what happens when you pass a clown on a unicycle while talking on your cell?

Jenny Thompson tells us...

In the name of good health,

Taryn Strugnell
Managing Editor of Nutrition & Healing

P.S. Supplements are important to our well-being and there are many conflicting stories around about dosages and relevance. A reader asks Dr Wright whether calcium or magnesium is more important. Keep reading...

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Quit clowning around
Jenny Thompson
Publisher, Health Sciences Institute

Any study that calls for a clown on a unicycle is okay by me.

Every year I read and report on hundreds of studies and way too few of them involve clowns on unicycles. In fact, almost none of them do.

Almost...

My thanks to Western Washington University researchers who put a clown suit on a student, put the student on a unicycle, then asked him to ride around one of the main gathering areas on campus.

As the clown zigzagged around the square for a while, researchers approached more than 340 people who had walked through the space and asked, "Did you see anything unusual?"

60% of people walking in pairs said they saw the clown. About 30% of people who were walking alone saw the clown. Only 8% of all cell phone users saw the clown.

The lead researcher, who is also a psychology professor, told the New York Times that the cell users were experiencing "inattention blindness". It's not an actual blindness, of course. But when you're looking right at something and you're too preoccupied to notice, it might as well not even be there.

The study points out that conversation isn't the problem. People walking through the square in pairs were engaged in conversations. Conversations on cell phones are entirely different.

A neuroscientist explained to the Times that during a phone conversation, a caller's brain engages visual functions to create imagery related to the conversation. This internal imagery can obscure real images. Even when those images are things you might usually notice.

Like clowns. On unicycles.

So it's not really a surprise that another recent study from the National Safety Council reveals a new reality of life on the road: Nearly 30% of all car accidents occur while drivers talk or sms on cell phones.

The NSC study recorded about 200,000 accidents linked to smsing while driving. But a recent Ohio State University study took the research out of the car and onto the pavements. Their findings: Accidents that occurred while pedestrians were talking or smsing on cell phones accounted for more than 1,000 emergency room visits in 2008 – a huge jump from the 250 visits recorded in 2006.

Last summer, a report on smsing-while-walking accidents sounded a little like a funniest home videos segment: A young girl fell down a manhole while texting, a man tripped over a traffic cone on one occasion and walked into a cyclist on another, a woman walked into a tree branch, another woman walked into a pole, another stepped in something a dog left behind.

If you're shaking your head, thinking "those crazy kids" you're only partly right. The majority of pedestrian accidents caused by talking or smsing on a cell involved people under the age of 30. But more than 25% of those injuries occurred in people between the ages of 41 and 60.

As smsing becomes a more common way to communicate, people are inventing more interesting ways to hurt themselves. The report ended with a video clip of a man who had figured a way to sms while driving a motorbike.

I believe these cell-phone pioneers are going to open up an exciting new category for the annual Darwin Awards.

More magnesium?

Q: I recently read that I should be getting much more magnesium than calcium. But I think I remember you saying something entirely different. So, what's the real answer here?

Dr. Wright: I can't imagine what would happen to children growing up on a diet higher in magnesium than calcium, but I don't think it would be pretty!

Don't get me wrong: magnesium is important for all sorts of body functions and it has some great therapeutic effects. And you also should be taking it along with calcium to fight bone loss.

But as helpful as magnesium can be, your body needs more calcium than magnesium. The human skeleton is proof of that: calcium, not magnesium, is found in the greatest abundance in your bones.