How biking can save $3.8 BILLION per year in avoided mortality and health care costs!

Here's an interesting article reported by Scope blog:

"Convincing Americans to ride their bikes instead of driving when traveling short distances during the warmest six months of the year could yield significant health and economic benefits, according to findings published today in Environmental Health Perspectives.


In the study, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison examined the largest 11 metropolitan areas in the upper Midwest and calculated the effects on air pollution and health costs if short car trips, five miles or less round-trip, were replaced with bicycle trips. According to a university release:

The biggest health benefit was due to replacing half of the short trips with bicycle trips during the warmest six months of the year, saving about $3.8 billion per year from avoided mortality and reduced health care costs for conditions like obesity and heart disease.

[Additionally, the] report calculated that these measures would save an estimated $7 billion, including 1,100 lives each year from improved air quality and increased physical fitness.

Researchers say they hope the study serves as motivation for city planners to make communities more bike friendly and invest in separate paths or lanes for cyclists, storage racks and public transit."

Laughter has similar health benefits to aerobic exercise and statin use!!!!

How cool is this!  From the Scope blog at Stanford University:

How laughter, anger may influence heart health


Lia Steakley on August 29th, 2011 1 Comment

Anger and the inability to manage stress can harm your heart, while laughter can be an effective stress-reliever and improve cardiovascular function, according to a pair of studies presented yesterday at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) meeting.

In the first study, Italian researchers recruited 228 survivors of an acute myocardial infarction, 200 of whom were men, conducted psychological evaluations of individuals and followed them for 10 years to evaluate how negative emotions such as anger, depression and anxiety might affect prognosis in cardiology. During this time, researchers recorded 51 cardiac events. According to an ESC release:

To understand which factors were able to predict these events the authors used a statistical analysis known as the Cox model. Examining factors such as the age of patient, gender, psychological variables, clinical data (traditional risk factors, peak cardiac necrosis enzymes, left ventricular wall motion score index and heart rate variability), the results show that the only factors able to predict cardiac events in patients are the Anger and Stress-related disturbances, with a relative risk of 2.30 and 1.90 respectively. Patients who had reported a high score on the Anger scale had a higher risk of experiencing a new event, 2.30 times superior in comparison with those who had reported a low score on the same scale.

These study results were particularly interesting in light of additional findings presented at the ESC meeting by University of Maryland researcher Michael Miller, MD, who has been exploring the role of laughter and humor in reducing the risk of heart disease for the past decade.

Miller’s early work suggested mental stress caused blood vessels to constrict so he decided to examine if positive emotions, such as laughter, had the opposite effect. In his latest study, participants were instructed to watch either a comedy or intense drama and were monitored for carotid artery activity during the films. According to an ESC release:

When study volunteers watched the stressful movie, their blood vessel lining developed a potentially unhealthy response called vasoconstriction, reducing blood flow. This finding confirms previous studies, which suggested there was a link between mental stress and the narrowing of blood vessels. However, after watching the funny movie, the blood vessel lining expanded.

Overall, more than 300 measurements were made with a 30-50% difference in blood vessel diameter between the laughter (blood vessel expansion) and mental stress (blood vessel constriction) phases. “The magnitude of change we saw in the endothelium after laughing was consistent and similar to the benefit we might see with aerobic exercise or statin use” says Dr. Miller.

Can practicing yoga help women suffering from Fibromyalgia?

Good news!  A new study published in the Journal of Pain Research suggests it can!  Thanks to the Scope blog for passing along the following news:

Women suffering from fibromyalgia may find some welcome relief in yoga. A new study from York University in Toronto shows that practicing yoga boosts levels of the stress hormone cortisol, helping ease some of the symptoms, which include pain, fatigue, muscle stiffness and depression. Low cortisol has been tied to fibromyalgia, and this study is the first to look at the effect of yoga on levels of this hormone.



For the study, which appears in the Journal of Pain Research, the researchers followed a group of women who practiced 75 minutes of hatha yoga twice a week. After eight weeks, saliva samples revealed elevated levels of cortisol. Women also reported significant reductions in both physical and psychological symptoms. Kathryn Curtis, the study’s lead author, explains more in a release:


“We saw their levels of mindfulness increase – they were better able to detach from their psychological experience of pain,” Curtis says. Mindfulness is a form of active mental awareness rooted in Buddhist traditions; it is achieved by paying total attention to the present moment with a non-judgmental awareness of inner and outer experiences.


“Yoga promotes this concept – that we are not our bodies, our experiences, or our pain. This is extremely useful in the management of pain,” she says. “Moreover, our findings strongly suggest that psychological changes in turn affect our experience of physical pain.”

What if it's not the kinds of foods we're eating?

Although it has been my rant for the last couple years, here is some research support for the idea Americans are getting fatter not because of the foods we're eating ("healthy" vs. "unhealthy") but  that we're just eating too much.  Too much, as in, too many meals and snacks:

"According to a new study, the biggest single contributor to the sharp rise in calorie intake has been the number of snacks and meals people eat per day. Over the past 30-odd years, the study found, Americans have gone from consuming 3.8 snacks and meals per day to 4.9, on average — a 29% increase.


The average portion size has increased, too, but only by about 12%. And, surprisingly, the average number of calories per 1-gram serving of food (known as “energy density”) actually declined slightly over that period, which suggests that calorie-rich food has played a relatively minor role in our expanding waistlines."

credit to Stanford Scope

We're not victims -- we need to get to work!

“Individual behavior is highly modifiable-and is responsible for the lion’s share of health status and associated costs. An individual’s lifestyle choices-smoking, nutrition, weight, exercise and stress management-are responsible for approximately 40% of one’s health status and 87.5% of healthcare claim costs. Clearly an opportunity exists to reduce healthcare spending by motivating healthier behaviors and lifestyle choices.” (S.A. Schroeder in the NE Journal of Medicine and the IPFW Study of 2006).

An old gout medicine + a new patent = HUGE price increase of an old drug

Jay Parkinson brought this to my attention:

Colchine has been used to treat gout for decades. Gout is a relatively common painful kind of arthritis. Colchicine has been around so long that nobody had ever bothered to patent it. It was a few pennies a pill and very effective. In steps URL Pharmaceuticals. They realized it didn’t have a patent so they quickly did some studies to determine its effectiveness. Of course the studies showed that it was safe and effective. They took their studies to the FDA who quickly approved “their” colchicine. URL then had exclusive rights to sell colchicine as a branded drug at over $5 a pill. And then they successfully sued the companies who had been making colchicine as a generic for years. They’ve won the cases. And now people who depended on colchicine for their daily lives must pay $5 a pill instead of 5 cents.


Now a few members of Congress want answers.

Too late. What URL Pharmaceuticals did was just business right? That’s the American medical industry…

Drug use

Here's a neat post about how different drugs cause different amounts of harm among the following categories:

• Mortality
• Damage
• Dependence
• Impairment of mental functioning
• Loss of tangibles
• Loss of relationships
• Injuries to others
• Crime increase
• Environmental degradation
• Family breakdowns
• International turmoil
• Economic cost
• Loss of community cohesion and reputation

 Think you know which drug scores as the most destructive?  Click here to find out!

Better Dibetes Type II control

With diabetes (especially Type 2) running rampant in our population, here is something that might help us control our sugar levels.

We all know exercise is a great way to help the body control our blood sugar but a recent study reported Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise reports that creatine supplementation for those who are exercising works better at improving A1C levels than does exercise alone!

Interesting, a relatively easy fix and worth talking to your doc about!!

Should we need to be told we should limit our articificial food coloring intake?

I would think that just makes good sense!  But...if you'd like more information on the debate, click here to link to the NY Times article on some of the studies linking artificial food colorings to ADHA.

The average cost of a sick day in the US -- anyone have any guesses??

According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the average cost, in lost productivity, of a sick day is:

$348!!

Our National recovery just might depend on the US getting healthier and staying healthier!  It just costs too much to be sick!

Yet another benefit of exercise for men!!

 A new study of men with prostate cancer finds that physical activity is associated with a lower risk of overall mortality and of death due to prostate cancer.

Are you going to embrace or ignore the science???

.......The most recent headlines have raised concerns that diet sodas boost stroke risk. Diet and regular sodas have both been linked to obesity, kidney damage, and certain cancers. Regular soft drinks have been linked to elevated blood pressure.

Managing Diabetes without insulin?

A researcher at Children's Hospital in Boston is experimenting with a protein in the liver that, when artificially simulated, controls blood glucose levels without the use of insulin.  Research is providing an interesting potential option in the management of diabetes!  Click here for more information.

Future Trends in Healthcare?

Check out this super thought provoking map depicting trends shaping our health care workforce 2010-2020. (if the graphic doesn't pop up, click the download PDF to view the map and scroll to page 2)

Does this map change your expectations for the future?

Bullying statistics

A 2010 study by the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center (MARC) showed that 80 percent of girls and 53 percent of boys reported some type of bullying during high school.

Are you kidding me???  Are you talking to your kids about their experiences of bullying?

For more resources and information on bullying, click here.

Your Brain on Meditation....

I've heard lots of people talk about how good meditation is for us -- and sure, it seems logical.  But for those science-minded skeptics amoung us, a new research article will highlight some of the physical changes that happen in the brains of meditators.

The researchers report that those who meditated for about 30 minutes a day for eight weeks had measurable changes in gray-matter density in parts of the brain associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress.

A more highly functioning brain?  Who doesn't need that??

Just another reason for me to love my iphone!!!

Ever been blown away by just how smart your smart phone is?  I am! (and slightly scared too)

Here is some research that indicated our phones might provide just what is needed to make prosthetic limbs work better!  Super, duper cool.

A Kanasas State University Professor goes on the "Twinkie" Diet

Ok -- there is a LOT of confusion out there about "healthy" eating, healthy weight and portion control.  Think you have it all figured out???  You may need to think again!  Click here to read how this university professor ate Twinkies, Little Debbie snack cakes, Doritos, and the like and LOST WEIGHT, reduced his cholesterol, reduced his triglycerides and became healthier by current health standard.

This is definitely food for thought!

Halloween Candy Spending facts

According to the National Retail Federation, the average American will spend $66.28 on Halloween this year. Second only to costumes, candy eats up the largest chunk of this budget with American families spending an average of $22 each Halloween on confections.

OH MY GOODNESS!!  Who knew???

Green tea affecting iron absorption?

We all try to eat healthy -- increase our antioxidants -- do all the things we should to maintain and improve out health.  What happens when too much of one good thing interferes with another?

Research has recently reported at study looking into what happens when participants ate grape seed extract and epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) found in green tea.

The take home:  these compounds may block iron absorption.  Interested in learning more?  Click here.