Sports

New York Jets football coach Rex Ryan underwent a lap-band weight loss surgery at NYU Medical Center on March 13th according to a Jets spokesman Bruce Speight. The consequences of living life morbidly obese are obvious, but does the surgery work?

Olympic equestrian and dressage rider Courtney King-Dye has been severely injured while schooling a young horse. Equestrian injuries are quite common, occurring about once for every 2040 hours of riding.

Former New England Patriots fullback Mosi Tatupu has died in Hawaii. He had hypertension, although the direct cause of his death is not reported.

Tatupu was of American Samoan descent. American Samoans have high rates of obesity and hypertension. Was he a prisoner of his genes?

Dunking a basketball is not as easy as the professionals make it look. So it was pleasure to see the three-time NBA slam dunk champion, 5-feet-9-inch Nate Robinson, win the event on Saturday night.

Athletes behaving badly are in the news again: Darryl Strawberry is coming out with a tell-all book detailing his sex-and-drugs stories from his time with the Mets; Alex Rodriguez is in the doghouse for having used anabolic steroids sometime between 2001 and 2003...

Texas Tech Coach Mike Leach was suspended this month and terminated for cause after allegedly isolating wide receiver Adam James in a dark electrical closet after he would not play with a concussion.

Sammy Sosa attributes his lighter skin tone to the effects of UV light and skin cream. Mt. Sinai Dermatology section chief Dr. Bobby Buka sheds light on how the skin becomes hyperpigmented and how it can be lightened.

Kareem Abdul Jabbar is a spokesperson for the Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML) medication Imatinib Mesylate. But we're not convinced that the medication works.

Twleve Cleveland Browns players missed practice on Wednesday due to flu-like symptoms, according to Coach Eric Mangini. Practice for the remaining players was cut back by reducing repetitions, increasing time for rest. Mangini cited HIPPA privacy regulations from preventing him from discussing the health conditions of individual players.

Over $53 million dollars is wasted paying salaries of the injured reserve list of players on the Mets. Why are these injuries happening in the first place? Well conditioned, muscular men swinging bats and running a few bases should wind up in an easy chair at the end of the day, not at a hospital. A friend of mine commented that it probably has to do something with their lack of stretching before the games. Probably not the case.

Rafael Nadal has withdrawn from this year’s Wimbledon tournament due to “jumper’s knee,” also called patellar tendinitis, a degenerative disease of the extensor mechanism of the knee. Does this foretell an end to his tennis career? We sure hope not.

We've noticed New York Yankee slugger Alex Rodgriguez stepping out with actress Kate Hudson, and couldn't help wondering whether he subscribed to the notion, like football player Brian Bosworth, that intercourse before a game threatens game performance. Turns out it doesn't matter.

Could it be that Roger Clemens is so dumb that he doesn’t realize that a stepfather isn’t a blood relative? He used the history of heart disease suffered by his stepfather as proof that he would never use steroids because of the risk of heart disease. Roger’s stepdad died when he was only eight years old. That means any sort of shared lifestyle or environmental impact on their hearts was minimal. Maybe the next time Roger crafts his performance enhancing drug excuse, he'll do his homework.

Former Boston Red Sox and now Los Angeles Dodgers baseball slugger Manny Ramirez tested positive for the banned performance enhancing substance HCG. A baseball source told SI.com that Ramirez was not aware he was given the substance or that he may have had a medical reason for taking it. Oh, really? Hard to believe considering that HCG is a hormone closely linked to pregnancy.

Atlanta Braves All-Star catcher Brian McCann was taken out of the lineup last weekend because he was complaining of blurry vision in his left eye. McCann had laser eye surgery, or LASIK, in 2007. The question is: is his blurry vision from dryness, which is common after LASIK, or is it because he has had a regression in his prescription and needs additional laser?

William “The Refrigerator” Perry, the 350 pound football defenseman-turned-running back was hospitalized for complications related to Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS). The good news is that most people with GBS recover to full or near-full function.

The Seattle Mariners star right field baseball player Ichiro Suzuki was placed on the 15 day disabled list yesterday due to fatigue from a bleeding ulcer. Patients who bleed excessively can have anemia, or low blood, and this can cause fatigue. The Associated Press comments that a stomach ulcer is a “relatively rare condition for an athlete.” This may not actually be true.

The seemingly invincible Lance Armstrong, 37, broke his collarbone while cycling in a race in Northern Spain on March 23, 2009. If you are superstitious, you may wish to tell a cyclist before a race not 'to break a leg' but instead, to 'break a collarbone'; collarbone fractures are common among cyclists. Mr. Armstrong has reportedly agreed to surgical repair, according to ABC News. Some types of clavicular fractures can lead to suboptimal outcomes if managed without surgery, according to Kim and colleague, especially those that are displaced.

The Weekly News of the World, a British tabloid, reported on February 2, 2009, that Olympic Gold-Medalist Michael Phelps, was observed using a Bong during a house party at the University of South Carolina in November, 2008.