Superstitious knick knacks clutter your cupboard? Your fingers may be why… so if you know this, you can avoid needing payday loans to fuel such an intuitive compulsion. (Photo: wikipedia.org)

When you believe in things
That you don’t understand,
Then you suffer,
Superstition ain’t the way

- Stevie Wonder, “Superstition”

Psychologists have sought answers for some time as to why people believe in superstitious things and paranormal phenomenon. According to University of Helsinki psychologists Kia Aarnio and Marjaana Lindeman in an article entitled “The Origin of Superstition, Magical Thinking and Paranormal Beliefs: An Integrative Model,” “explanations have ranged from personality traits, psychological motivation, and flawed cognition, to emotional instability, demographics, and social influences.” That’s an awfully broad net to cast, but I’d tend to place the most stock in the social influences aspect. However, from the same pseudo-science (funded by payday loans rather than academic grants?) that brought you the digit ratio theory that supposedly enables you to tell if someone will be predisposed toward homosexual orientation based upon how long their index and ring fingers are in relation to each other comes… something rather disappointing.

Superstition is in the Fingers and Hormones?

According to author Martin Voracek, whether or not someone will be predisposed to believe in the fantastic and the paranormal may be determined before they even hear their first ghost story. It may be set in the womb, relegating those with increased intuitive thinking and decreased analytical thinking into following in Fox Mulder’s footsteps.

Stereotypically, Women Show the Intuitive Trait

Is this a disguised way for the old-boy scientific community to throw age-old “weaker sex” put-down around? Or is this based on solid scientific ground? Voracek is convinced that “there are biologically based, prenatally programmed influences on paranormal and superstitious beliefs.” It just so happens that one of the same indicators for superstition – that digit ratio thing – also connects to the homosexuality theory.  Voracek bases his findings on a survey of 1,118 Austrians, both men and women, who ranged from 17 to 72 years old.

Surveyed for Belief

Voracek questioned subjects regarding their position on all sorts of supernatural beliefs and phenomenon. Then data was collected on weight and length at birth, current age, education level and current height and weight. Inevitably, the digit ratio check came into play as well. While certain hormones do affect growth and proportions, it’s hardly a universal determinant. According to Discovery, “Men tend to have ring fingers that are slightly longer than their index fingers. In women, these fingers are usually about the same length, or the index digit is slightly longer.”

What Hormone are We Talking About?

For the sake or argument, let’s see. Oh, it appears that androgen exposure is involved. If the traditionally female sex hormones are more dominant, then I suppose you will chase Bigfoot the rest of your life. Just accept it, grow a mullet and live out of an RV.

What Voracek believes he’s found tends to follow conclusions Aarnio and Lindeman tended to arrive at:

Shorter feminized digit ratios in women also correlated with a greater likelihood of superstitious beliefs, as did a woman’s lighter weight at birth. For both sexes, shorter body length at birth was associated with later beliefs in superstitions and the paranormal.

Jock Scientists Taunting Nerd Scientists?

What is this, really? It sounds to me like yet another way to attempt to marginalize a minority group. If men or women have the wrong length of finger and want to do something about it, perhaps their innate belief in telekinesis can be used to create a psychic knife (a la Sylar in “Heroes”) and trim the digits down to size. Seriously, though, you should never actually try to do something like that. You’d injure yourself severely and find out that payday loans are in your future to help take care of the hospital bills. Of course if you believe in or actually are clairvoyant, you already knew that.

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Is the Manny Ramirez PED test saga becoming stranger, or is it making more sense? That depends upon who you ask in the blogosphere. What we do know is that Manny Ramirez has made the following statement via the Baseball Players Union: “Recently, I saw a physician for a personal health issue. He gave me a medication, not a steroid, which he thought was OK to give me.”

That substance is human chorionic gonadotropin, or simply gonadotropin for short. Or HCG if you want it even shorter, which tends to happen when you use what Manny may just have been using before the HCG. This is medication payday loans and cash advance loans won’t buy for the average consumer.

Why would he use gonadotropin?

I’ll give you a pair… of reasons. You see, steroids tend to shut down the body’s ability to produce testosterone. One of the reasons a person in Manny Ramirez’s position (prostrate and begging for people to forget about this) might use gonadotropin is to come off a steroid cycle. Part of this includes counteracting the breast growth that accompanies steroid use. According to the “Baseball Medic” at MLB Rumors (and he’s a real doctor, so this is weighty… ride it out):

HCG is what is tested for in the blood or urine from a women when pregnancy is suspected. The hormone is released by a the trophoblast (early fertilized egg) and rises to maintain the pregnancy during the first trimester until adequate amounts are secreted by the placenta.

Human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) and a recombinant formulation, called choriogonadotropin alfa (r-hCG), is a gonad-stimulating polypeptide hormone normally secreted by the placenta during pregnancy. The non-recombinant products are obtained from the urine of pregnant women. Recombinant-hCG is produced via recombinant DNA techniques in Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cells. The pharmacological actions of hCG and of r-hCG are similar and resemble those of luteinizing hormone (LH); hCG is generally used as a substitute for LH. HCG has been used to treat cryptorchidism (undescended testicle) or hypogonadotropic hypogonadism in males, sometimes in combination with menotropins or follitropin. Interestingly, hCG was introduced for the treatment of cryptorchidism in 1931, and remained the only hormonal agent available to treat the condition until the 1970’s, when gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) analogs also became a treatment option. Human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) is used in controlled ovarian hyperstimulation protocols for infertility in females. Intralesional hCG has been utilized for the treatment of Kaposi’s sarcoma, but further clinical trials are required to prove efficacy. Human chorionic gonadotropin is banned from use in competitive sport; some male athletes have used hCG to stimulate testosterone production or to prevent testicular atrophy resulting from the abuse of anabolic steroids and androgens. Urine-derived hCG was first approved by the FDA in 1939, and received subsequent approval for additional indications in 1973. Ovidrel®, the first recombinant hCG (r-hCG), received FDA approval for female infertility to induce final follicular maturation on September 20, 2000. Ovidrel® pre-filled syringes received FDA approval in October 2003; manufacturing of Ovidrel® vials has ceased.

The mechanism of action of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) depends upon the purpose for which it is being used, the sex of the patient, and the level of maturity of the patient to whom it is administered.

Oh, we’ll talk about maturity!

Manny Ramirez is a beacon of maturity. You know your league tests for a wide array of performance-enhancing drugs, but you forget to remind your “doctor” of this. You’re being paid many millions to play baseball, but you forgot that man breast-reducing HCG might point toward… steroid use!  This leads me to the second reason Manny Ramirez could possibly be using gonadotropin. You see, human chorionic gonadotropin can also be used by itself, because it does indeed increase testosterone production. The accompanying muscle growth can put some extra feet on a fly ball and extra home runs in the seats – can’t it, Manny? It’s so effective at doing so that sluggers like Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi and other BALCO clients used it, according to ESPN reports.

The man wants to be a baby daddy, then

Not exactly. We’ve been over this. This is science! The Baseball Medic continues:

In adult and adolescent men with hypogonadotropic hypogonadism, hCG acts like LH and stimulates testosterone production in the Leydig cells and spermatogenesis in the seminiferous tubules. Stimulation of androgen production by hCG causes development of secondary sex characteristics in males (e.g., deepening of voice, facial hair, etc.). Human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) also stimulates the Leydig cells to produce estrogens; increased estrogen levels may produce gynecomastia in some males. Once hCG is initiated, it takes at least 70-80 days for germ cells to reach the spermatozoal stage. Response to treatment is also noted by the development of masculine features and the normalization of serum testosterone levels. Induction of testicular growth and increased sperm volumes may help to restore fertility in these men after many months to years of treatment, which is then sometimes combined with the use of either menotropins or follitropin.

Maybe he does… a daddy who hits 500-foot jacks, that is!

First trimester results (it even changes skin color!)

I hope this fertility treatment is worth the $7.5 million Manny Ramirez is going to lose while suspended. But the Baseball Medic poses one final idea: “The only source of this agent being found in a male’s urine is a hormone producing germ cell tumor (e.g., testicular cancer).” Thus, it could be that Manny is ill and is in vital need of a testicular ultrasound. Manny Ramirez, as a man, I urge you – seek help. The brotherhood of masculinity looks after its own. I don’t want you to die.

Oh, before you go to the doc for that ultrasound, could I watch you take batting practice? But wait until I can pick up my payday loans and cash advance loans… the hot dogs are expensive…

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