NEW YORK (AP) – Imagine rolling into your doctor’s office with three martinis under your belt, armed with questions that under more sober circumstances might never be posed.

Why are you hungry an hour after eating Chinese food?

Why does sweat stink?

What causes “shrinkage”?

The typical doctor might be shaken, not stirred, by such queries.

Not, however, Billy Goldberg, M.D., a Manhattan-based emergency room physician.

With the assistance of satirist Mark Leyner, the good doctor co-created the summer’s most unlikely best-seller, “Why Do Men Have Nipples?”

Their 217-page effort sailed up The New York Times best-seller list, enjoying the heady company of “The South Beach Diet.”

Its initial Aug. 2 printing of 15,000 copies sold out after the authors’ appearance two days later on the “Today” show; the book is now in its 12th printing, with nearly 500,000 copies available.

The Q&A compendium, priced at $12.95, also was cited as one of People magazine’s “Buzz Books.” Publishers Weekly deemed it “the only bona fide surprise hit of the summer.”

The authors are amused and excited by all the attention.

“This wasn’t calculated,” says Leyner, speaking via conference call with Goldberg. “We didn’t sit down and think, “In three weeks, we can sell 500,000 copies.’ But Billy’s original idea was a stroke of genius.”

According to Goldberg, the idea coalesced over 10 years of fielding strange questions from assorted patients. Initially, he scribbled them on pieces of paper. Later, they were transferred to a Palm Pilot.

Eventually, they were turned into this book.

“The title actually captures the premise very well,” Goldberg says. “It’s titillating – oh, that sounds like a bad pun – but engaging. A little racy, but not over the top.”

Leyner quickly agrees.

“The title,” he says, “is such an invitation to have a good time and learn about things. It’s easily digestible.”

More than 160 questions are posed and answered, ranging from the mundane to the insane. The answers, occasionally enhanced by anecdotes from the authors, are medically accurate.

So the reason Chinese food isn’t filling? Blame it on the carbohydrate-laden rice and noodles, which cause the blood sugar level to rise and plummet, resulting in hunger.

The smell of sweat? The result of perspiration mixing with naturally occurring bacteria on the skin surface.

And shrinkage? The work of cold air, cold water, fear, anger or anxiety can reduce the size of the male genitalia.

Leyner is a humorist and author (“Et Tu, Babe”), and he’s written for The New Yorker, Time magazine and GQ. In Goldberg, he found a kindred spirit with a medical degree – a match made in publishing heaven.

“I think it’s important that there’s actually a name for eye gunk – mucopolysaccharide,” Leyner says. “Let’s share that information. But without striking a tone of lordly authority.”

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On the net:

Leyner and Goldberg: http://www.drbillyandleyner.com

AP-ES-09-01-05 1820EDT