In September 2016, David Wartinger (Urologist and Professor Emeritus at Michigan State University) He published a study according to which the Russian mountains facilitated the passage of kidney stones and, of course, the media went crazy.
The kidney calculations They usually cause intense pain, bleeding, nausea and vomiting. In many cases they do not even go through the ureter them alone and you have to reduce them to dust with shock waves. The mere idea that a simple walk in a fair attraction could help solve it was a bombing.
Of course, the story had a small print.
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. At some point in the late nineteenth century, someone found A colossal gold vein in Big Thundera mountain of the southwest of the United States. Quickly, the small mining camp in the immediate vicinity became a prosperous city and the mountain was filled with an intricate system of trains that moved the mineral from one place to another.
No one suspected that Big Thunder was a sacred place for the Native Americans. Or, rather, it was a damn place that the natives avoided as a soul that the devil carried. It was inevitable that, sooner or later, a catastrophe would pass. And it passed.
Some speak of an earthquake, others of a sudden flood. Be that as it may, the town was abandoned and the mine was closed until, years later, an expedition discovered that the wagons continued to move through the heart of the mountain without anyone who handled them. No, As Randy Meeks explained to usIt is not a real event: the plot of the most mythical mountain of Disneyland. That’s where history begins.
A urologist in Michigan. As Wartinger himself explainedthe idea came unexpectedly.
“Basically, I had patients who told me that after getting on a certain Russian mountain in Walt Disney World, they were able to expel their kidney calculations (…) I even had a patient who said he expelled three different calculations after climbing several times”
As it seems, this theory did not pay much attention until, already retired, he discovered that other urologists They told similar things. It was then, when he felt the need to put it into practice. He did not do it with people, of course: he did it with a 3D model of a kidney with three calculations. He put it in the backpack, went to Orlando and rode 20 times in the Big Thunder Mountain.
And what did you discover? “In total, we use 174 kidney calculations in different shapes, sizes and weights to see if each model worked in the same attraction and in two other roller mountains,” Wartinger explained in Msu Today. Interestingly, Big Thunder was the only one that gave positive results.
“In the pilot study, sitting on the last car of the Russian mountain showed a success rate of around 64 percent, while sitting in the first cars only had a successful rate of 16 percent.”
A simple curiosity … that quickly took out of context. With the help of the same Wartinger, by the way. As explained in Snopesin the interviews given by the retired urologist went far beyond reporting the results of his study.
“If you have kidney calculations, but otherwise it is healthy and meets the requirements of the trip, patients should try it. It is certainly a cheaper alternative to medical care,” he said. The problem is that the basis for this is weak.
What really does science say? There is no doubt that, as other urologists pointed out, This preliminary evidence suggests that a roller coaster can help naturally expel (very “) small. But, obviously, there is no empirical basis to recommend it.
That is, it is a very striking study that could give an interesting clinical trial. A study that was never conducted. And without which, raising it as an alternative is risky: the experience of riding in that roller coaster with a large calculation can be terrible.
Image | Renato Mitra
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