Some medical hazards of/re pizza

Pizza is dangerous. Pizza is beneficial. If you hold either of these opinions, published research agrees with you, especially research in England and Italy.

Two British studies highlight, darkly, some dangers that accompany pizza that’s served too speedily or too heartily. One, a monograph in the journal Traffic Injury Prevention, explains that, whatever the good or bad of eating pizza may be, delivering the pies can put you on a collision course with unhappiness.

Dr Chris McLean and his colleague J Bernard at Mayday University Hospital in Croydon say they were inspired by a 1992 report in the journal Injury by Dr MG Dorrell of Edgware General Hospital in north London. Dorrell “described a series of six patients who sustained bony injuries in road traffic accidents during the course of their employment as pizza delivery personnel”. Subsequently, the Pizza and Pasta Association, acting in concert with the government…

So begins this week’s Improbable Research column in The Guardian.