30 posts
Can Cholesterol Drugs Undo Exercise Benefits? – NYTimes.com:
An important new study suggests that statins, the cholesterol-lowering medications that are the most prescribed drugs in the world, may block some of the fitness benefits of exercise, one of the surest ways to improve health.
Well these stories appear from time to time, either saying it’s good or bad for you. What’s an addict to do?
“Coffee isn’t just warm and energizing, it may also be extremely good for you. In recent years, scientists have studied the effects of coffee on various aspects of health and their results have been nothing short of amazing.” (from Lifehacker)
There’s something about this Gruve product that bugs me:
“The Gruve Solution is a new, completely revolutionary approach to weight management that incorporates the landmark discovery of N.E.A.T. (Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis) which is all the calories one burns while doing normal (non-exercise) daily activity. Scientific research over 10 years found that increasing the N.E.A.T in daily life results in sustainable weight loss and a dramatic improvement in overall health. In other words, increasing daily N.E.A.T. activity is more effective at achieving sustainable weight loss and control than short term intense exercise!”
All the sup...
From the New York Times, an article by Nick Kristof, describing a real-life story of a friend of his and health care.
Whenever I hear, “We have the best health care in the world”, I think of stories like this. It is a travesty that in a wealthy country like the USA, there are 48 million Americans uninsured. Some 27,000 Americans between the ages of 25 and 65 die prematurely every year because they don’t have health insurance. From the article:
“Let’s just stipulate up front that Scott blew it. Other people are so...
You know the old joke that today they say something is good for you, tomorrow it’s bad, and the day after it’s good again? Recently there was a lot of press that sitting 3 hours a day could take years off your lifespan. “Sitting for More Than Three Hours a Day Cuts Life Expectancy”, so said the Wall Street Journal:
“Sitting down for more than three hours a day can shave a person’s life expectancy by two years, even if he or she is physically active and refrains from dangerous habits like smoking, according to a study to be published on Tuesday in the online journal BMJ Open.” (from ...
Do you believe that you require 8 hours of sleep to be rested and effective. Well, in this really interesting article in the BBC News it seems like that pattern might not really be the most natural.Some experiments conducted came up with some interesting findings:
In the early 1990s, psychiatrist Thomas Wehr conducted an experiment in which a group of people were plunged into darkness for 14 hours every day for a month.
“It took some time for their sleep to regulate but by the fourth week the subjects settled into a very distinct sleeping pattern. They slept first for four hours, then woke for one or two hours before falling into a second fou...
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUaInS6HIGo&w=560&h=315]
I am going to share my secret technology for losing weight. It’s a mental exercise that really works. It is inspired by the neuro-economics concept of “anchoring“. Here’s how it works:
Every morning you step on your scale, right? I do. Well let’s say my weight yesterday was 171lbs. Let’s say my goal weight is 165lbs. Before stepping on the scale, I think “165” and visualize seeing “165” on the read out. Then I step on the scale. I
see, let’s say, 170.5lbs. I am not surprised, but part of my subconscious is disappointed and I am re-motivated to keep working on it. My focus and motivation is pumped up. It works! (...
From the New York Times, How Exercise Benefits the Brain:
“For some time, scientists have believed that BDNF helps explain why mental functioning appears to improve with exercise. However, they havenât fully understood which parts of the brain are affected or how those effects influence thinking. The Irish study suggests that the increases in BDNF prompted by exercise may play a particular role in improving memory and recall.” (from NYT)
From Science Daily: Couch Potatoes Beware: Too Much Time Spent Watching TV Is Harmful to Heart Health.
“Data show that compared to people who spend less than two hours each day on screen-based entertainment like watching TV, using the computer or playing video games, those who devote more than four hours to these activities are more than twice as likely to have a major cardiac event that involves hospitalization, death or both.” (from Couch Potatoes Beware: Too Much Time Spent Watching TV Is Harmful to Heart Health
Another old-wives-tail bunked. (opposite of de-bunked?) “At the end of the study period, the group that regularly gargled had a nearly 40 percent decrease in upper respiratory tract infectionscompared with the control group, and when they did get sick, “gargling tended to attenuate bronchial symptoms,” the researchers wrote.” (from New York Times)
I stopped posting thoughts about the mess that all of congress has made of health care reform. There are daily articles in the news to confirm the dysfunction in government today. Here are key quotes two from today which again hit home. I recommend that you read both articles in full:Health Care Letdown in the New York Times and The Spirit of Sympathy in The New York Times ...
An article from Canadian Healthcare Technology notes that US Healthcare wastes up to $800 billion a year. I don’t disbelieve this article but it doesn’t make me not want to start with healthreform now that it seems possible that it might happen this year, warts and all. One might even say that that it shows how from the perspective of the Canadian health system, the US system ‘has problems.’ The Massachusetts experience as covered in the press here is that the majority of the public like it; that it was consciously designed originally to try to tackle universal coverage and get to cost containment in future revs; oddly enough I have also heard some s...
Yeah, I just received the renewal paperwork for health insurance, and it’s up. This is with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, with whom I have been having a fine experience. I am happy with the service, and the responsiveness. But from 2009 to 2010, my bill is up 15%. Wow.
Technorati Tags: healthinsurance, costs, bluecross
Sure, one isolated story doesn’t prove anything, but then our health care debate often seems to be carried on the basis of isolated stories, so here’s an article about the British Health Care system that I came across this morning. From that article: ...
This is from his blog: “When our third child was diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome almost two years ago all I can say is that my heart was aching. A child that I had raised to that point like his siblings, I couldn’t understand how he could be so different. I was in the doctors office when I heard the words ” On the spectrum of Autism” Aspergers.” (from 38 Pitches)
Breaking news from CNN: “Apple CEO Steve Jobs takes leave until end of June; Jobs says health issues “more complex than I originally thought.”
In case you didn’t see this, it’s kind of interesting if you follow Apple and our pal Steve Jobs: ““I have been losing weight throughout 2008. The reason has been a mystery to me and my doctors,” Jobs, who turns 54 in February, said today in a statement. “After further testing, my doctors think they have found the cause — a hormone imbalance that has been ‘robbing’ me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy.” (from Bloomberg News)
Read the rest of the article about Steve Jobs Health. It’s basically commentary. The key is the paragraph above.
Suddenly when you learn about something once, you start seeing it everywhere… “Dr. Paul Grabb, a pediatric brain surgeon, said he was surprised when he discovered a small foot growing inside the brain of 3-day-old Sam Esquibel. “The foot literally popped out of the brain,” Grabb told TheDenverChannel Wednesday.” (from Colorado Doctor Finds Foot in Newborn’s Brain)
This is another example of a Teratoma which I wrote about recently. This story is even weirder.
The secret Howard Stern in me wants to make a joke about this along the lines of “even worse than putting your foot in your MOUTH!” But I would never say that. It would be in such bad taste.
Here’s a truly weird article, which a sticks in my mind a week after reading it: “Clark had seen teratomas. They were common in the reproductive tract, often found accidentally in the course of an operation or on a scan done for some other reason.
These strange cysts have been a source of fascination since their discovery in the 19th century because, although smooth and normal-appearing on the outside, on the inside they often contain hair and teeth and other tissues not normally seen in the reproductive system.
The name “teratoma” is derived from the Greek word for “monster,” because of their creepy contents. These cysts rarely cause trouble and are usually removed only if they get too large or cause pain. This cyst was the size of a peach pit. Could a small growth do all this?” (from Brain Drain)
This is a dramatic and well told story of one patient’s patient search for a kidney donor. Also notable is that the donor turns out to be a pretty well known blogospherian, Virginia Postrel. And that she, as far as I can tell, has not really talked about this touching and generous act herself.
Have you had this debate? Does cold weather cause people to catch colds more easily or not? Well here’s an interesting article that says there is ‘scientific’ proof that flu infections do in fact spread more during cold winter months: “Researchers in New York believe they have solved one of the great mysteries of the flu: Why does the infection spread primarily in the winter months? The answer, they say, has to do with the virus itself. It is more stable and stays in the air longer when air is cold and dry, the exact conditions for much of the flu season.” (from New York Times)...
Reading this article about The Casualties Of the NFL, in Men’s Journal the other week really colors my view of the NFL and football. Here’s a bit of it to give you a taste: “…But the men on the field who generate those billions are real; they bleed; they break; their brains cloud. The nature of their injuries, particularly the mind-dimming concussion, has dominated the off-the-field news of late. Post-mortem exams of Andre Waters (suicide at 44), Terry Long (suicide at 45), Justin Strzelczyk (car crash at 36), Mike Webster (heart attack at 50) — showed staggering brain damage in men so young and affirmed that football is...
Check out this post from WSJ.com: Health Blog: Contrary to the earlier paper’s assumptions, Dr. Godar et al. found that children aren’t outdoors more than adults: “Surprisingly, it is adults over the age of 40, i.e. 41–59 and 60+ years, especially men, who get the highest UV doses.” They added that a rise in incidence of skin cancer “may have occurred because adults assumed that they no longer had to worry about getting too much UV exposure because they were told that most of the damage was done before 19 years of age.
(from: A Summer Myth Debunked)
A friend of mine has been experiencing debilitating back pain for a year now. He’s seen pain specialists, surgeons and so on, and so far the only treatment has been pain medications, strong ones. He is desperate. He recently came across an advertisement for treatment with a device called the DRX 9000. I’ve been reading about this treatment on the web and find positive reports apparently concentrated on a few sites, and then sporadic reports of shady dealings, FBI investigations and so on.
Here are some links and quotes I was able to find. Do you know anything about this one way or another? Please comment or email me!
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Check out this post from Boing Boing: ** David Pescovitz**: Physicians are now removing appendixes by entering the body through the mouth. The procedure, called Natural Orifice Translumenal Endosurgery (NOTES) involves the insertion of tools down the throat and through an incision in the stomach lining. Once the appendix is cut loose, it’s pulled out of the mouth. Apparently, there are other variations of the technique, including gall bladder removal through an incision made in the vagina. One big benefit is that these surgeries don’t leave any visible scar. Advocates say NO...
I don’t know, maybe it’s because he’s a mini celebrity but I found the continuing story of Scott Adam’s voice problems just gripping. Check out this post from The Dilbert Blog:
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If you’veheard of Dilbert, then you may have heard about the author Scott Adams. And of course everyone has heard of Dilbert.
His blog is almost always funny and sometimes really interesting to the point of touching. In a recent post, Scott Adams reveals that he suffers from something I never ever heard of before. Check out this post where Scott Adams writes in the The Dilbert Blog:
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Our friend Dave Weinberger shares: “I had my first colonoscopy today. They didn’t find anything, except a piece of fruitcake I ate in 1978. But I figured if Katie Couric can show her colon on national TV to encourage people to get checked, then I should too.”
The only surprise is that this is his first colonoscopy. David, what took you so long? (I guess my second surprise is that he didn’t link to Wikipedia’s definition of Colonoscopy.)
Technorati Tags: medical
Amusingly, several posts on the wonders of Tylenol. Here’s when we really run out of things to write about…
Still, it’s an opening for a little tidbit that I’ve had floating around my head, because, I too, am a Tylenol fan (actually not Tylenol itself but its generic version – Acetaminophen - available in various pharmacy store brands.)
So, Tylenol fans, did you know that Tylenol overdose is a serious problem, and can actually cause ...