Mahjong Causes Epilepsy
This is likely the oddest scientific claim I have EVER heard… and that’s all I have to say about that. Read all about it below:
A study by doctors in Hong Kong has concluded that epilepsy can be induced by the Chinese tile game of mahjong.
The findings, publish in the Hong Kong Medical Journal, were based on 23 cases of people who had suffered mahjong-induced seizures.
The report’s four authors, from Hong Kong’s Queen Mary Hospital, said the best prevention – and cure – was to avoid playing mahjong.
The study led the doctors to define Mahjong Epilepsy as a unique syndrome.
Epileptic seizures can be provoked by a wide variety of triggers, but one cause increasingly evident to researchers, is the playing – or even watching – of mahjong.
This Chinese tile game, by four players round a table, can involve gambling and quickly becomes compulsive
Demanding
Intensely social, sometimes played in crowded mahjong parlours, the game involves the rapid movement of tiles in marathon sessions.
The doctors conclude that the syndrome affects far more men than women, of an average age of 54, and can hit sufferers anywhere between one to 11 hours into a mahjong game.
They say the attacks were not just caused by sleep deprivation or gambling stress.
Mahjong is cognitively demanding, drawing on memory, fast calculations, concentration, reasoning and sequencing.
The distinctive design of mahjong tiles, and the sound of the tiles crashing onto the table, may contribute.
The propensity of Chinese people to play mahjong also deserves further study, the doctors say.
What is certain though, is that the only sure way to avoid Mahjong Epilepsy, is to avoid mahjong, which for many people is easier said than done.
source Tags: dumb news, mahjong, epilepsy, china, compulsive gambling
2 Comments
[...] Mahjong Causes Epilepsy [...]
It probably isn’t the game. Deep mental investment in a location where there is movement in peripheral vision will cause Subliminal Distraction exposure.
SD was discovered when it caused mental breaks for office workers. The cubicle solved that problem by 1968.
Other activities also have SD exposure. Qi Gong users have similar mental events when they perform too many group sessions in a compact time frame.
Players that have these episodes might have other exposure that adds to the total to cause the apparent seizure.
Unaware that this phenomenon exists doctors blame the activity that triggered the event not the true cause.
The same thing happens in the United states when video game players cause mass school shootings. No one looks for SD exposure as that cause either. The Virginia Tech shooter created SD exposure when he used the suite common room to study while roommates walked by ignoring him.