Oh, the odd things we learned this year: Hannah Montana can give people seizures, Facebook can trigger asthma attacks and something you're probably doing right now -- sitting! -- is slowly killing you. Here, we remind you of all the things that made us say lol wut in 2010.

'Sleeping beauty' girl
Most of us are feeling pretty sleep-deprived this time of year -- but Louisa Ball never has that problem. The 15-year-old British girl has a rare condition called Kleine-Levin Syndrome, which causes her to sleep for days on end -- she once slept for nearly two weeks straight. And because she's as pretty as a Disney Princess, we all know her now as the "sleeping beauty girl." Sleep tight, Louisa.

When Facebook takes your breath away
An embarrassing amount of my sleep deprivation is directly linked to playing on Facebook late at night. But who knew Mark Zuckerberg's time-sucking creation could be linked to asthma, too? A case study last month reported on an Italian teenager who had an attack every time he looks at his ex-girlfriend's profile. It's complicated, indeed.

Stuck in 1994
In Michelle Philpots' world, Facebook doesn't exist, and Zuckerberg is only 10. For Philpots, it's still 1994. An extreme case of retrograde amnesia due to two car crashes wipes her memory clean every morning. When she wakes up, her husband must convince her that, yes, they're married and, no, grunge is no longer in style. 

The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out ...
If only retrograde amnesia could scrub out the terrible images you've seen on the Internet, but, as they say, some things cannot be unseen. A 25-year-old California man lived your worst fear, a fear you probably didn't even know you needed to have: A worm crawled its way into his eye. This was reported back in June -- and then, incredibly, almost the same thing happened to an Iowa man in September. And then there was that report earlier this month about swallowing worms to ease ulcerative colitis and, just, ew. Here's to fewer worm news stories in 2011.

And we can't forget the poor Swedish Weight Watchers group whose combined heft caused the floor to cave in, the 82-year-old Yogi who says he hasn't eaten for 70 years, the German teenagers who guzzled down chili sauce and ended up in the emergency room and the story of Kiko, the terrier who gnawed off his owner's big toe and may have saved his life in the process.

Did we miss something? Did you have a favorite? Pipe up! 

And, as always, you can find us on Twitter and on Facebook. 

Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.

Members of the Maryland State Police take a dip in the icy Chesapeake Bay on Jan. 30, 2010 to raise money for the Special Olympics.

While the rest of us are bleary-eyed and horizontal on New Year’s Day, 56-year-old Tom “Iceman” McGann of Brooklyn, N.Y., plans to charge into the frigid Atlantic Ocean wearing nothing but a bathing suit. 

McGann and hundreds of other (totally insane) people will gather at the boardwalk on Stillwell Avenue in Brooklyn, N.Y., for the annual Coney Island Polar Bear Plunge. It’s one of many similar dips taking place on New Year’s Day and throughout the winter. Most raise money for charity, and most usually draw plenty of “are they crazy?” media coverage. 

Immersing your scantily-clad body in ice-cold water may give you serious bragging rights. But does it pose any risks -- or offer any benefits -- for your health? The Finns (and Norwegians, and Russians) sure think so. All over Northern Europe, folks like to finish off a stint in the sauna with a plunge in any icy lake, touting the benefits the cold water has on the immune system, the complexion --even the libido. 

Dr. Alan Steinman, one of the country’s foremost experts on hypothermia and cold-water survival, is dubious about those claims. “I don’t know of any definitive medical studies that have been done to measure the health benefits of cold-water swimming,” he says.

What’s more, plunging into cold water has some real risks, says Steinman, who served as the Coast Guard’s director of health and safety from 1993 to 1997. When the body is suddenly immersed in icy water, there’s a sudden gasp, an inhalation, rapid breathing and the inability to hold your breath, “which can be a problem if your head’s underwater,” he says. For that reason, it’s better to “plunge” gradually, from shallow water, and not off a dock or a boardwalk. 

Physiologically, he explains, your body responds to a cold plunge in three ways: First, the small blood vessels constrict on the surface of your body as a defense mechanism, so you don’t lose heat. That means that a whole lot more blood is being squeezed into the same amount of blood vessels, which “serves to increase the effect on blood pressure,” he says. 

Next, blood rushes from extremities to the core, chilling the limbs and leading to weakness and impaired motor coordination. That's why people rescued from accidental plunges into icy water have trouble grabbing life rings or ropes from rescuers.

Finally, true hypothermia sets in, typically after more than 30 minutes of immersion. That's when core body temperature plunges below normal. If it falls far enough, hearbeat may be disrupted and breathing may fail, causing death.

The early stage of the process, cold shock response, happens to everyone -- even “Iceman” McGann, who admits, “you never get used to it.” But the danger comes if you have heart disease, and are prone to irregular heartbeat or cardiac arrest. “The potential medical problems are relatively infrequent, but it’s possible,” says Steinman. 

In the 14 years since its inception, the Maryland State Police Polar Bear Plungefest hasn’t had a single medical incident -- which is pretty astounding when you consider that the event drew 12,000 participants last year.

 “We have a very solid safety plan in place,” says event spokesperson Kelley Schniedwind, who adds that they’ve partnered with the world-class Johns Hopkins emergency medical team for support at the event. Participants  are also not allowed to stay in the water longer than five minutes, which is enforced by the 75-some-odd divers that patrol the waters at Sandy Point State Park, in Annapolis.

The event raises money for the Special Olympics, so there’s definitely a feel-good aspect about feeling the 35-degree chill of the Chesapeake. The Coney Island Polar Bear Plunge, which McGann will tackle for the 20^th time on Saturday, asks participants to donate to Camp Sunshine, a retreat for children with life-threatening illnesses.

But “Iceman” McGann doesn’t just dip for charity -- he dips throughout the winter, as his nickname might suggest. “It’s exhilarating, it’s refreshing, it’s a rebirth. I just like doing it. I like being outside,” he explains. “It’s fun to do alone, but it’s more fun to do with other people. You can yell and scream, and where else can you yell and scream in today’s world?”

Find The Body Odd on Twitter and Facebook.

Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.

Pjbrooks / PLoSmedicine.org

A condition called 'Asian flush' happens to certain people of Asian descent after they have consumed alcohol. The red blush, shown on right, is the result of a deficient gene.

Between the brisk cold and the holiday cheer, many of us get a little red in the face this time of year. But for some people of Asian descent, a New Year’s toast – or even a few beers after work – will trigger a bright red blush known as the “Asian flush,” which can also increase their risk of deadly esophageal cancer.

“When I drink, the skin in my face and even all the way down to my waist will start to turn red,” says Patrick McMahon, a 30-year-old education director from Seattle, who’s half-Japanese. “I think the blood vessels dilate and I get very flushed. It’s often mistaken for a sunburn.”

That response is typical for about a third of people from East Asian descent, says Philip J. Brooks, an investigator with the Division of Metabolism and Health Affects at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

“It happens predominantly in individuals of Japanese, Chinese or Korean descent,” he says. “People who have this will get a facial flush and a headache and will feel nauseous at the time they’re drinking. And it’s not just flushing. They’ll also get an increased heart rate. It’s a pretty unpleasant experience.”

What causes this reaction?

Brooks says it’s basically a genetic inability to properly metabolize alcohol (or ethanol) which, thanks to enzymes in the liver, is normally metabolized first into the toxic chemical acetaldehyde – an animal carcinogen that causes DNA damage and other cancer-promoting effects -- and then into the harmless substance acetate. People with the flushing response have a genetic deficiency in the alcohol-metabolizing enzyme ALDH2, which can lead to an accumulation of the toxic substance acetaldehyde.

“Individuals with this particular genetic disposition can’t metabolize it to the acetate,” says Brooks. “So it builds up in their body and causes the vasodilation which causes the flushing response.”

In some people – those with two copies of the deficient gene -- the symptoms are so severe they can’t tolerate alcohol at all. Those with only one copy of the gene often learn to live with the heart palpitations and the flushing, though.

And that’s where things get risky.

“People with this ALHD2 deficiency have a really high risk of getting esophageal cancer when they drink alcohol,” says Brooks, who wrote about the link between the Asian flush and esophageal cancer in a 2009 paper in PLoS Medicine, a journal published by the Public Library of Science.  “Anyone who drinks is at risk, but the more you drink, the more your risk goes up. And when you’re ADLH2-deficient, your risk goes up much more dramatically.”

According to studies, a person with a single copy of the deficient gene who drinks just two beers a day is up to 10 times more likely to develop esophageal cancer than a person who’s able to metabolize the alcohol properly.

Unfortunately, while many people of Asian descent are familiar with the flush, Brooks says too few realize it’s not just an inconvenience, but a red flag for one of the deadliest cancers worldwide.

“It’s not just an issue that affects appearance, but an indication that they’re at increased risk of esophageal cancer if they drink heavily,” says Brooks. ”You have to think about the production of acetaldehyde throughout the body.  We want people to discuss this with their doctor and be sure their doctor is aware of the data that’s out there.”

Find The Body Odd on Twitter and Facebook.

Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.

Cari Nierenberg writes: Getting older -- or at least getting past your 20s -- means getting better at recognizing faces. 

People in their early 30s topped all other age groups at remembering an unfamiliar mug, suggests a new study in the journal Cognition.  

In findings that even surprised researchers, the ability to learn faces seems to reach its peak between age 30 and 34 rather than in the early 20s, when the brain reaches full maturity and other mental talents, such as recalling names and solving problems, appear to hit their heyday. 

"Face recognition takes a long time to get really good at," explained Laura Germine, a graduate student in psychology at Harvard University who led the study team. "It takes a lot of years and experience to fine tune it." 

In the first of three experiments, nearly 45,000 people ages 10 to 70 went online and took a 15-minute facial recognition test. Participants were first asked to learn six computer-generated facial images (all young, white males), and then they had to identify the face from different angles or in different lighting. 

Men and women slightly beyond the big three-oh outperformed everyone by correctly identifying faces about 83 percent of the time. 

"We don't know why face recognition peaks at this age but my hunch is it's about visual experience, which makes the specialized machinery in the brain get better at it," Germine said.

In two other tests, folks in their early 30s were better at recalling the faces of adults and children, but people a decade younger were superior at linking names with faces and picking out faces when images were turned upside down. 

Story: Unable to recognize voices, unless it's Sean Connery

A flair for faces comes in handy: You'll be charming at cocktail parties and good at fingering a perp in a police lineup. 

One limitation of the study is that test takers were not asked for their ethnicity. So it's possible that more Caucasians in their early 30s participated in the research, and they might be better at placing faces of the same race, said Germine. 

Challenge your brain to the same test used for this research at http://www.testmybrain.org/. Scroll down just a bit, and click on "Face Recognition, Emotion Perception, and Personality." How'd you do?

Find The Body Odd on Twitter and Facebook.

Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.

For Ronni Shulman, a stroll down one of the refrigerated aisles in the grocery store is enough to freeze her fingers, turning them blue and numb. "They turn a purplish blue color, almost like they're stained from carbon paper," explains Shulman, who's 57 and lives in Bedford, N.Y. -- until the winter months, when she flees to North Venice, Fla. "Usually, my thumb, index and middle fingers on both hands are affected more than the others."

Shulman suffers from Raynaud's phenomenon, a painful, annoying and sometimes embarrassing disorder of the blood vessels that affects an estimated 5 percent of Americans, according to the National Institutes of Health. People with Raynaud's are unusually sensitive to cold temperatures, and even the briefest exposure (like holding a cold can of soda, or fishing something out of the freezer) can trigger a Raynaud's "attack," causing fingers or toes to feel numb as they turn a patriotic shade of either red, white or blue.

"Essentially, it's due to vasospasm, or hyperactivity of the blood vessels," explains Dr. Evan Lipsitz, chief of vascular surgery at Montefiore Medical Center in New York, "and it is a normal response of the body in trying to stay warm to constrict those vessels, but this is kind of a hyper-response to that."

In other words, when people with Raynaud's are cold, they're really cold. As Lipsitz explains, when you feel cold, your blood vessels constrict, which reduces blood flow and cuts down on heat leaving your body. But in people with Raynaud's, the blood vessels overreact, shrinking so much that very little blood is able to flow to the fingers or toes, which is what makes them feel numb and change color. (It's rare, but Raynaud's can affect ears, lips, noses -- and even nipples.)

About 80 percent of Raynaud's sufferers are women -- perhaps because women are more likely to suffer from autoimmune disorders, Lipsitz says. Sometimes, Raynaud's is caused by an autoimmune disorder, such as scleroderma, or by a medication, but in most people, Raynaud's has no known cause, and isn't an indicator of something more serious. The key is simply to keep warm -- even when that means looking a bit silly, as Shulman has learned.

"People make comments when they see me wearing gloves in what they consider to be relatively warm weather. I used to wear gloves during my children's soccer games and people would ask, 'What's with the gloves? It's April!'" says Shulman, who is the vice chairman for the Raynaud's Association. "I also used to wear gloves in my office and people would say, 'Um, are you cold?' Yes, I was."

TODAY covered Raynaud's this morning, speaking with two experts about the condition. Check out the video below.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Find The Body Odd on Twitter and Facebook.

Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.

Courtesy of Todd Schaeffer

Todd Schaeffer, 27, can bend his fingers completely backward and fold his ears forward due to Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a genetic disorder that affects the connective tissue.

Stacy Lipson writes: Todd Shaeffer of Philadelphia can bend his fingers completely backward, fold his ears forward so they stay that way and perform other cringe-worthy feats that would be impossible for most of us.

“I see it as a blessing,” says Shaeffer, 27. “I used to think I was a superhero.”

As a kid, Shaeffer impressed his friends with stunts like spinning his head around 180 degrees to look over his back and wrapping his arms around his entire waist and touching his fingers together.

While it sounds like something out of a circus show, Shaeffer suffers from Type 1 Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a genetic disorder also called Rubber Man Syndrome that affects the connective tissue. According to the journal Manual & Manipulative Therapy, the first case of the disorder was recorded in 1657, but wasn’t diagnosed until the early 1900s.

There are six different types of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, ranging from mild to life-threatening. In the most severe cases, patients can experience heart and kidney problems.

There’s no cure for Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, and diagnosing the disorder can be difficult for doctors and patients. Type 1 Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, one of the most common forms, occurs in fewer than 1 in 20,000 people and is characterized by traits such as joint hypermobility, soft skin and easy bruising.             

Dr. Reed E. Pyeritz, chief of medical genetics at the University of Pennsylvania, said possible symptoms of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome include skin abnormalities or very stretchy skin.  

“The range of joint mobility and patient discomfort can be an indicator," he said. Joint pain, without any redness or swelling, could be a sign of Ehlers-Danlos, Pyeritz said.

One of the biggest concerns for patients with Type 1 Ehlers-Danlos syndrome is degenerative arthritis, which can worsen as patients age. Shaeffer’s biggest worry about his diagnosis is how it will affect him in the future.

“I have to keep an eye on it,” says Shaeffer. “I try not to put too much stress on my joints.”

But that doesn’t stop him from performing for his friends and family.  “It’s given me the ability to entertain,” he says.  

Find The Body Odd on Twitter and on Facebook.

Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.

TLC

Lori Broady, right, who says she is addicted to sleeping with her blow dryer, stands with her sister, Tawni Abplanalp.

Joan Raymond writes: Most of us use our hair dryers to, well, dry our hair. But Lori Broady, 31, turns the dryer on, sticks it in her bed, and falls asleep to the soothing sound of hot air. She’s been doing this every night since she was 8 years old, despite knowing she may burn herself or start a fire. This, of course, raises the question: Why doesn’t she just buy a fan if she needs a little noise to fall asleep? Turns out, it's not that simple.

Broady appears on the new TLC 12-part series, "My Strange Addiction," which premieres Dec. 29 at 9 p.m. Also featured are folks with other extreme behaviors like thumb sucking, toilet paper eating, "tanorexia" and even a guy in a relationship with a silicone doll.

What’s clear is that it’s not easy being human. And unlike some creatures that simply run in circles to self-soothe (if you’ve ever owned a Jack Russell Terrier, you know what I mean) humans can be very creative in our attempts to control our lives and relieve stress. “Nothing (people do) surprises me,” says psychologist Jason Elias, Ph.D., director of psychological services and clinical research at McLean Hospital’s OCD Institute. 

You don’t need to be a Freudian scholar to know that some of these seemingly odd behaviors have a lot do with early childhood experiences and other factors that may make a person associate a behavior or object as pleasurable. But no matter what your addiction -- heroin, cheeseburgers or silicone dolls -- “the biology is the same,” with the brain releasing a little squirt of dopamine in anticipation of the reward, explains psychoanalyst Mike Dow, co-host of TLC’s "Freaky Eaters." The more a person begins to associate pleasure with a specific behavior, the more they want. Self-soothing is a problem -- and can even be considered an addiction -- when it’s self-injurious, affects relationships and interferes with a person’s ability to function. 

It’s important to remember that self-soothing strategies, of the non-extreme variety, are actually pretty common. So the next time you’re in a meeting, look around and see if your colleagues are twirling their hair, clicking a pen, or rubbing a pant leg (hopefully their own). All of these behaviors are self-soothing, says Elias, “but we consider them more acceptable than sucking on a thumb.”  Or, for that matter, taking a silicone doll out to dinner. 

Find The Body Odd on Twitter and Facebook.

Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.

Booze makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, sure. But does it actually ward off the cold weather?

That’s what Thomas Drummond, of Jackson, Mo., thought when he crashed his car into a ditch in the wee hours of the morning. He was stuck, it was freezing outside, and he just happened to have some brandy in the car.

By the time emergency workers reached him two hours later, he was “unresponsive,” but Drummond maintained he’d gotten smashed after the accident, not before.

A 12-person jury bought it, and found Drummond not guilty of driving while intoxicated, according to the Southeast Missourian. But is there any biological basis to the first-aid folk tale that tipple keeps you toasty?

Yes and no, says Dr. Sam Zakhari of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. When we drink alcohol, our blood vessels widen, causing increased blood flow, and bringing more heat to the skin. “If you’re sitting at home in a sweater and having dinner, the heat in the skin is kept in the skin, which is fine,” he says.

But if you’re outside in the cold and you drink, the heat on your skin dissipates into the atmosphere. “You’ll lose heat, and feel a lot colder,” says Zakhari. Unless, he adds, you’re dressed very warmly, or doing something physical, like skiing. (Good news for those of us who like to carry a wee flask of Schnapps on the slopes.)

What saved Drummond from hypothermia – or worse – was staying in his car, with the transmission in park and the motor running until help arrived. And while alcohol may have helped him feel warmer, it was a boneheaded move, says Zakhari. What if his rescuers were calling to him, and he was too drunk to respond?

“Drinking wouldn’t be my first choice,” he says. “Unless you’re giving up.”

 Find The Body Odd on Twitter and on Facebook.

Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.

High school nerds may not get the chicks, but they get better health as adults, says a new study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

 The findings are based on a study that followed 10,000 graduates from Wisconsin’s high school class of 1957. Researchers have gone back and asked the graduates various questions over the years, and for this report, participants were queried on their health.

UW Sociology professor Pamela Herd found that the better a study participant did in high school, the less likely he or she was to experience poor health as they reached retirement age.

Herd’s not exactly sure why straight A’s in high school would lead to healthier golden years. Initially she thought it was because smarty-pants students were conscientious, and applied that characteristic to health choices. But the data don’t support that finding.

“What we’re seeing is that what you learn in school may actually matter for your health,” since the health of the participants is directly tied to the grades they received in high school, says Herd.

(Whew. Glad I paid attention in freshman biology.)

Find The Body Odd on Twitter and on Facebook.

Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.

BMJ.com

Photos reveal how different someone looks after a good night's sleep (left) compared to staying up for 31-hours straight.

Everyone knows that getting too little sleep makes you feel terrible, but new research suggests that cutting back on Zzzs actually makes you look noticeably worse as well.

Turns out, there’s a reason they call it beauty sleep.

That’s the bottom line of a Swedish study that finds that people are perceived as less attractive -- as well as less healthy and more tired -- when they’re sleep-deprived than when they’re well-rested.

And it should be a wake-up call to the 1 in 5 Americans who routinely get less than six hours of sleep a night, said John Axelsson, the researcher who led the study conducted at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm.

“A good night’s sleep does not only improve your physiological health, it will also make you look healthier and more attractive, which in turn improves the chance of better treatments in a wide range of social situations,” said Axelsson, an associate professor in the clinical neuroscience department. His work was published online this week in the British Medical Journal.

Axelsson and his colleagues in Sweden and the Netherlands decided to test the notion that lack of sleep affects your looks -- in addition to your brain function, immune system, reaction time and vulnerability to a host of ills, including heart disease, diabetes and obesity.

So they recruited 23 healthy adults and took photos of them after a good night’s sleep and after they were forced to stay up for 31 hours straight. Then they asked 65 ordinary people to rate each photo according to how attractive, healthy and tired the subjects looked.

The results? The same people were perceived as 4 percent less attractive, 6 percent less healthy and 19 percent more tired when they were sleep deprived than when they were rested.

That’s not surprising to Dr. David E. Anderson of the Rocky Mountain Sleep Disorders Center in Great Falls, Mont. The physical effects of too little sleep can’t help but show up in your face, he said. It may not last after only a few missed snoozes, but long-term sleep deprivation can affect health -- and looks -- profoundly.

For everyone who believes that sleep deprivation doesn’t show, the new research proves otherwise, Axelsson said.

“We propose that sleep is a cheap and effective beauty treatment, both acutely and in the long-term,” he said. “Sleep should be seen as the body’s natural beauty treatment and a clear alternative or complement to other beauty treatments.”

How many hours of shut-eye do you get a night? Tell us about it in the comments.

Find The Body Odd on Twitter and on Facebook.

Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.

There are a lot of ways to get drunk (especially this time of year), but according to new research published in the British Medical Journal, soaking your feet in booze is not one of them.

Still, foot drinking (sole sipping?) is a popular urban myth widely circulated in Denmark -- and elsewhere (search “drunk,” “soaking your feet” and “alcohol” and you'll get more than 17,000 hits). So much so that Danish researchers decided it was high time to put an end to it with a little scientific investigation.

They chose two men and a woman in their 30s -- all of whom were healthy with no history of alcoholism or liver disease -- and asked them to abstain from alcohol for 24 hours (and loofah their feet). On the day of the experiment, they performed blood alcohol tests on all three subjects, then had the trio submerge their feet in a washbowl containing three 700 mL bottles of Karloff vodka, each carrying an alcohol content of 37.5% by volume.

And there they sat for three hours, or as the researchers put it, “a time frame corresponding to a medium-length visit to the local pub.”

Every half hour, researchers tested the volunteers’ blood for any change in the alcohol level. They also asked them to self-assess for any intoxication-related symptoms by scoring on a scale of zero to 10 their self-confidence, their urge to speak and their desire for “spontaneous hugs.” (They refrained from testing a desire to grab the person next to them and blubber “I love you, man.”)

Not surprisingly, results showed that “transcutaneous intake of alcohol through feet is not possible … we conclude that the Danish urban myth about being able to get drunk by submerging feet in strong alcoholic beverage is just that – a myth.”

Interestingly, foot drinking isn’t the only weird myth out there involving alcohol.

Students in Europe and the U.S. have also embraced “vodka eyeballing,” i.e., pouring shots of vodka directly into their eyeballs as a way to get drunk quickly without booze breath or stomach upset. Others are supposedly inserting tampons soaked with vodka into their vagina -- or elsewhere (and here we thought that was just a "30 Rock" punchline).

While no studies have been performed as to whether eyeball shots actually get you drunk faster, ophthalmologists warn the practice can result in burning, swollen, red eyes and possible damage to the optic nerve, which can result in permanent vision problems. As for soaking a tampon in 40-proof alcohol and inserting it into the most sensitive part of your body, we imagine if people are doing this, they’re only doing it once.

Ouch!

Find The Body Odd on Twitter and Facebook.

Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.

Soeren Stache / EPA file

UGG boots may be a health risk as well as a fashion hazard.

Cari Nierenberg writes: Some women are paying a price for sporting UGG boots beyond their $140 price tag.

When worn regularly, the uber-popular, sheepskin-lined boots may make feet miserable.

UGGs can be ugly to your feet and ankles, causing pain and throwing your walk out of whack so problems extend to the knees, hips and back. The plush lining also can create an ideal breeding ground for foot fungus.
 
The bulky, hobbit-looking boots are so comfy-cozy that fans rarely take them off, but they weren't actually made for long-distance walking.

"UGGs have little to no arch support," explained Krista Archer, a podiatrist and foot and ankle surgeon in Manhattan.

Karina Morris found this out the hard way.
 
The easy to slip on and off footwear seemed like a perfect fit for the busy 27-year-old mother when running around after two young boys. And UGGs kept her toes toasty, to boot, on wintry mornings while waiting for her son's school bus.
 
"They felt like slippers walking around on the outside pavement," said Morris.
 
But after wearing the trendy footwear from dawn to dusk for about a month, the Huntington, N.Y., native noticed that the arches of her feet and her heels were killing her. 
 
"I had to stop wearing them," admitted Morris, who owns two pairs of the boots and even UGG clogs.

 Still, when she sought the help of Archer, the podiatrist, Morris was surprised to hear she had developed posterior tibeal tendinitis and that her UGGs and flat feet were to blame.

When flat-footed people slog around in a loose-fitting boot like UGGs, their ankles roll inward and their arches and tendons collapse outward with every step. (You can actually see the lopsided wear on one side of the rubber soles.)
 
Archer is especially  worried about the boot's roominess in the ankles and heels now that the boots are popular with both tweens and toddlers. (Baby versions of the boot run $90.)

"Kids seem to shuffle around in them," she pointed out. They make that irritating foot-dragging sound called the "UGG shuffle" by the Urban Dictionary.

Skin infections like athlete’s foot and dermatitis also can be a problem with UGGs, Archer adds, since bare feet can really sweat in the fur. She urges devotees to wear socks and spray the liner with an anti-fungal spray once a month. 

After being fitted with custom padding to support her arches, Morris is back in her UGGs -- pain free. (If you try drugstore arch supports, Archer suggests placing them underneath the boot's sheepskin inserts.)

Although UGGs bring patients to her practice, Archer owns three pairs of the boots herself (but adds arch supports to them) and two pair of slippers.

With New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady signed on to become the brand's new spokesperson, only time will tell whether more guys will wear UGGs and if they'll be hurting their feet. 

Find The Body Odd on Twitter and Facebook.

Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.

Wondering why your fat cat boss seems so clueless about why you don’t want to work extra shifts during the holidays? It could be because he can’t understand the dour looks you keep throwing his way.

Upper-class people are less adept at reading other people's emotions than their lower-class counterparts, according to a new study published in the journal Psychological Science.

Frank Franklin Ii / AP file

Donald Trump and other upper-class types don't know -- or care -- what you're feeling.

“We found that people from a lower-class background – in terms of occupation, status, education and income level – performed better in terms of emotional intelligence, the ability to read the emotions that others are feeling,” says Michael Kraus, co-author of the study and a postdoctoral student in psychology at the University of California, San Francisco.

In other words, if you’re looking for a little empathy, you’re more likely to get it from a poor person than a rich one (just ask Bob Cratchit).

In a series of studies, more than 300 upper- and lower-class people were asked the interpret the emotions of people in photos and of strangers during mock job interviews.

In both cases, those with more education, money and self-defined social status weren’t nearly as adept at figuring out if a person was angry, happy, anxious or upset as their lower class colleagues.

Kraus says that's likely because people from lower-economic backgrounds may have to rely on others for help.           

“You turn to people, it’s an adaptive strategy,” he says. “You develop this sort of heightened independence with other individuals as a way to deal with not having enough individual resources.”

Upper-class people, on the other hand, don’t need to ask for help that often.

“One of the negative side effects of that is that they’re less concerned and less perceptive of other people’s needs and wishes. They show a deficit in empathic accuracy.”

Does this mean rich people have more a tendency to be, well, insensitive jerks?

“I wouldn’t say that upper-class people are being jerky, but they’re less aware of other people’s emotions,” says Kraus. “If a person is upset, they don’t see it. Similarly, if a person is happy and excited, they may not react to that either.”

Kraus admits the results he and his colleagues came up with “scare us a little bit” but says the effects aren’t permanent. In fact, in another experiment they conducted, upper-class people became much better at reading emotions once they were asked to imagine themselves on the other end of the economic, educational or social spectrum.

In other words, much like Ebenezer Scrooge, even your fat cat boss may one day see the light.

Find The Body Odd on Twitter and Facebook.

Want more weird health news? Find The Body Odd on Facebook.