Something to think about while you're biting into that yellowfin tuna roll tonight: Jeremy Piven's sketchy doctor claims the mercury poisoning that supposedly caused him to bail out of Speed-the-Plow (and escape New York altogether) was caused by eating too much sushi. His doctor didn't explain where all this mercury-laden sushi came from, but we'll go ahead and assume he isn't planning to pin the blame on Nobu considering he was banned from all of Nobu Matsuhisa's restaurants last year. [Us]

It's become an integral part of modern life: You experience a random physical symptom—a headache, say, or a muscle twitch, or a rash—and whereas in those prelapsarian days before the internet, it might have preoccupied you briefly then disappeared before you'd even gotten around to calling a doctor, now a quick Google search will diagnose it as the first sign of a devastating, and terminal, disease. Cyberchondria is epidemical, a new study reveals, which is not surprising given that web searches tend to offer the impression that rare, fatal illnesses are afflicting people like colds and flus.

Ex-mayor David Dinkins is currently listed in critical condition after undergoing heart surgery this afternoon at New York Hospital to replace a damaged heart valve. But he's expected to make a full recovery and hopes to "get back on the tennis courts" in the near future. [Newsday]

As if it wasn't annoying enough that you have hang your head in shame every time a cold sore appears on your lip: According to a new study, the herpes simplex virus is a possible cause of Alzheimer's, too. But at least Katie Holmes will one day have a great excuse for forgetting about those years she spent as Mrs. Tom Cruise. [NYDN]

We're all used to having a phone provide every conceivable service, so naturally we've been wondering when it would start warning us we were about to get sick, too. The day has arrived! Well, kind of: A new program from cold-cure makers Zicam, currently on the T-Mobile G1 and coming to the iPhone, announces what percentage of people in any zip code have respiratory illnesses, and the symptoms they're suffering from. So on those days when you just sense it's a bad idea to leave the house and mix with other humans, your phone will not just be your companion, but your trusty enabler.

Wow, whatever happened to piercing your own ear with an old needle and cork and contracting septicemia? Today's teenage girls aren't even content with run-of-the-mill razor-slashing: They are cutting their skin and embedding things inside their bodies. A group of radiologists performed a study on ten girls ages 15 to 18 and removed 52 foreign objects, including metal needles, metal staples, metal paperclips, glass, wood, plastic, graphite pencil lead, crayon, and stone. Among eleven other things, one girl had "an unfolded metal paperclip more than six inches in length" removed from her. (We're guessing her high school doesn't have a metal detector.) We sincerely hope the girls in the study can now break this strange habit and focus their obsession, like normal, healthy adolescents, on undead creatures who suck young human blood.

One doesn't think of New Yorkers as particularly gullible or naive, but when it comes to food, we're totally clueless and assume that anything labeled low-fat is automatically low-calorie—at least according to marketing guru Pierre Chandon, who's turned his attention to discovering why Americans, despite being so rich and well-informed, are still such fatties. The Times took his questionnaires out into the field and discovered that "health halos"—ideas about which foods are virtuous based on health campaigns and restaurant advertising—meant that even the know-it-alls in Park Slope embarrassed themselves when it came to guessing calorie content.

If you thought your persistent lack of joie de vivre was due to the fact that you hate your job, are addicted to one or several substances, or your parents didn't love you enough, you'll be relieved to hear everything is probably your bra's fault. (If you're a woman, that is, otherwise, still one/all of the above apply.) Not that there can be many women left in the Western world unaware that they're wearing the wrong size bra, but just in case, a journalist has followed in the footsteps of many before her to visit a lingerie store, where needless to say she's scolded by a motherly saleslady with a tape measure who informs her—of course!—that she's a 32E, not a 36C. And a good thing too, as there's so much more than perkiness and cleavage depth at stake here.

You would think that a 24-hour medical clinic in the middle of Manhattan would be full of people all the time, but at the new, round-the-clock facility in Chelsea operated by Beth Israel, only four patients showed up between 10pm and 6am the night a New York Times reporter was there. At least you know that the next time you're awake at 4 in the morning wondering whether that thing on your leg is a malignant melanoma, a flesh-eating virus, or a mosquito bite, you can find out without subjecting yourself to hours in the ER. [NYT]

Is it the stress of the upcoming election? Earlier today Dick Cheney was rushed to the hospital after he experienced atrial fibrillation or an abnormal heartbeat. Now Nancy Reagan is in the hospital with a broken pelvis. John McCain? Still healthy, as far as we know.