Trying
to Lose Weight? Sleep More, Get Dog Associated Press
Experts have this unconventional advice for dieters: Don't scrimp on
sleep and think about getting a dog. A very large study has found a surprisingly
strong link between the amount of shut-eye people get and their risk
of becoming obese. Researchers also found that dog owners who dieted
alongside their pets did slightly better than their dog-less counterparts.
1,800
Calories, 4 Miles Keep the Weight Off USA Today
People who have lost weight and manage to keep it off limit their daily
calories to about 1,800 and walk about 4 miles a day, according to a
new study.
U.S.
Launches Giant Study on Children Reuters
U.S. government researchers launched the biggest-ever study of children
on Tuesday, saying they will track 100,000 children from birth through
age 21 to see what makes kids sick.
New
Drug May Be Better Than Aspirin for Diabetics ReutersHealth
A drug called picotamide appears to be a more effective blood-thinner
than aspirin for people with diabetes, according to an Italian study.
Previous research has suggested that aspirin may not work as well for
diabetics in preventing vascular events, such as heart attacks or stroke,
as it does for other people.
Study
Links Smog Increases to Urban U.S. Deaths Reuters
Increases in air pollution caused by cars, power plants and industry
can be directly linked to higher death rates in U.S. cities, a study
said on Tuesday. Reducing such ozone pollution by about 35 percent on
any given day could save about 4,000 lives a year across the country,
researchers at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
said.
Heart
Scanner Stirs New Hope and a Debate New York Times
What if doctors had a new way to diagnose heart disease that took only
seconds and provided pictures so clear it showed every clogged artery,
so detailed that it was like holding a living heart in your hand? In
fact, that new way exists and is coming into use in scattered areas of
the country, and there is wide agreement that it will revolutionize cardiology. … Even
so, there is hardly wide agreement over whether this new technique, known
as multidetector CT scans of the heart, is entirely a good thing.
Pulled
Down By Our Own Bootstraps Washington Post (opinion)
When President Bush touts his tax cuts, health spending accounts and
Social Security reform, he frames it in terms of giving you control over
your own money and destiny, which resonates with the notions of individualism
and self-reliance that Americans so admire. . .
GoodBehavior!
November
2004
Home Depot Health Care
Jessie
C. Gruman,
Ph.D.
President, Center for the
Advancement of Health
As
the
price
for
getting
conservative
lawmakers
to “socialize” Medicare
to
cover
the
cost
of
prescription
drugs
for
seniors,
the
Bush
administration
agreed
last
year
to
the
creation
of
medical
IRAs.
Known
as
Health
Savings
Accounts,
they
allow
individual
workers
to
set
aside
their
own
money
to
spend
as
they
choose
on
health
care
or
to
roll
over
the
money,
with
interest,
until
they
need
it.
The
catch
is
that
workers
have
to
enroll
in
an
insurance
plan
with
a
high
deductible,
covering
them
for
only
the
most
serious
illnesses.
Leaving
aside
the
financial
and
political
ramifications
of
setting
up
an
insurance
plan
that
will
benefit
largely
the
young
and
the
healthy,
the
question
I
think
is
important
is
how
people
will
know
how
to
spend
this
tax-free
money
wisely.
Some
ideologues
sniff
that
the
people
are
always
the
best
judge
of
what
to
do
with
their
own
money,
but
that
presupposes
a
system
where
price,
quality
and
value
of
a
product
are
transparent.
Health
Savings
Accounts
only
exacerbate
a
problem
of
growing
concern
under
any
payment
system — how
to
make
the
right
selection
from
a
cornucopia
of
confusing
choices.
In
a
more
perfect
world,
everyone
would
have
access
to
the
same
information,
have
the
same
health
literacy
skills
and
have
a
range
of
competitively
priced
products
and
services
to
choose
from. Full
Essay>>
CFAH
In The News
Provo (UT)
September 23, 2004
Healthy
living influenced by more than genetics, will power By Jessie C. Gruman
When Bill
Clinton went from ex-commander-in-chief to chief in-patient,
the media first placed the blame for his heart disease on his
life-long love affair with fast food.
After a
couple days and some admonitions from scientists, coverage
revisited the old debate -- genes vs. behavior; which is the
more important determinant of health?
When the
human genome was unveiled in 2000, every malady seemed at first
to be genetics-based, in the way that to a hammer everything
looks like a nail. But it turns out only about 3 percent of
disease is caused by a single faulty gene.
Craig Venter,
the genome pioneer, said at the time, "I believe all of
our behaviors, all of our sizes and functions, clearly have
a genetic component but genes only explain a part of any process."
Thus, illness
and longevity depend on the interplay between what we were
born with and what we have done since then. Because we can't
choose our parents, we cannot control our genes. But we can
control our behavior.
What is
behavior? It is what we choose to eat, drink and breathe and
how we exercise, manage stress and adhere to medical advice
based on the best available evidence.
It sounds
so easy, because individual choices and willpower are relatively
inexpensive commodities. But even the simplest preventive behaviors
can run up against the barriers of cost, time and environment. Full
Article>>
Improving
Health: Is Biomedicine Up To The Task? The Institute of Medicine
Workshop on Steps to Address the Full Continuum of Health Research:
Creating the Infrastructure to Facilitate Interagency Health Research
and Health Outcome Communication
May 2004
