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The Healthy Flap: May 24, 2013

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These are my healthy news health headlines for May 24, 2013:

  • Children of married parents less likely to be obese
    “Children living in households where the parents are married are less likely to be obese, according to new research from Rice University and the University of Houston.”Childhood obesity is a significant public health issue in our country, with nearly one-third of all U.S. children ages 2-17 overweight or obese,” said Rachel Kimbro, study co-author, associate professor of sociology at Rice and director of Rice’s Kinder Institute Urban Health Program. “Despite this, very little research has been conducted to explore the impact of family structure on this epidemic.””
  • Stress may be causing your cravings
    “What do drug addicts, serial dieters and children from troubled homes have in common?

More than you might think.

Stress can play a pernicious role in triggering a vicious cycle that leaves these groups overwhelmed by uncontrollable impulses and           distracted by negative feelings — all of which may, in turn, spark subsequent cycles of relapse, bingeing and failure.

Through a career that spans almost three decades, Rajita Sinha, psychologist and head of the Yale Stress Center, has sought to understand the processes underlying these stress cycles in hopes they may one day be prevented.”

  • New California health insurance rates unveiled
    “Amid anxiety over rising costs from the federal healthcare law, California received better-than-expected insurance rates for a new state-run marketplace, but many consumers still won’t be spared from sharply higher premiums.Three years after President Obama’s landmark law was passed, the state unveiled the first details Thursday on what many Californians can expect to pay for coverage from 13 health plans offering policies in the state’s exchange, in which as many as 5 million people will shop for coverage next year.Developments in California are being watched carefully around the country as an important indicator of whether the healthcare law can deliver on its promise to expand health coverage at an affordable price. Many Republicans, insurance executives and other critics of the law have been warning that consumers are in for a shock next year when insurance companies raise rates to comply with the law’s many new requirements.”
  • Heartburn Tied to Throat Cancer
    “Frequent heartburn increases the risk for throat cancer, a new study has found, and over-the-counter antacids may provide protection.Researchers studied heartburn incidence and medication use in 631 patients with squamous cell cancers of the throat and vocal cords who were not heavy smokers or drinkers, matching them with 1,234 healthy controls. The study was published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.After controlling for age, sex, race, smoking, alcohol consumption, HPV 16 infection, education and body mass index, they found that people who had reported a history of frequent heartburn were 78 percent more likely to have cancer than those who did not. Those with frequent heartburn who took antacids reduced their risk for cancer by 41 percent, compared with those whose heartburn was untreated.”
  • Novo obesity drug could launch in U.S. end 2014
    “Danish drug maker Novo Nordisk said it could launch obesity treatment liraglutide in the United States by the end of next year and rejected some analysts’ doubts over the medicine’s commercial potential.
    The world’s biggest insulin producer is hoping the treatment for severe obesity will help to at least partly offset the delay to its next generation insulin treatment Tresiba after U.S. regulators asked for more tests.Novo said on Thursday a final stage clinical trial showed patients treated with 3 mg of liraglutide – which is already on sale as a treatment for type-2 diabetes under the brand name Victoza – had an average 8 percent weight loss.But some analysts on Friday questioned whether the results were strong enough to secure the drug’s success.

    “The modest efficacy supports our hypothesis that the drug is unlikely to be a significant commercial success,” Deutsche Bank analysts said, adding they were also concerned by the high price of the injectable drug.”

  • CDC Warns Of Spread Of Deadly Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria -An antibiotic-resistant family of bacteria continues to spread throughout the U.S. health care system and is now prompting warnings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.The bacteria, Carbapenem-Resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), kill up to half of the patients who get the bloodstream infections from the disease. The disease has evolved a resistance to carbapenems, also called last-resort antibiotics.In addition, the CRE bacteria can reportedly transfer its resistance to other bacteria within its family. The transfer of resistance can create additional life-threatening infections for patients in hospitals, longer-term health care facilities, and possibly otherwise healthy people, according to the CDC.
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Fighting the Flu With Social Media

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Google Flu Activity Chart

From Google Flu Tracker

Why not use social media to fight influenza?

The flu season has arrived — and it’s weeks early.

In one week, 16 states and New York City reported high levels of the flu. By the following week, that number was up to 29.

Each day for the past week, more than 500 New Yorkers have descended on emergency rooms with flu symptoms, according to a city website.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in high flu states 70 percent to 80 percent of the coughs you hear around you right now stem from the flu.

Each cough, sneeze or even conversation puts the virus into the air — and potentially into your lungs.

The virus goes everywhere — onto railings and the salt shakers in the diner; on the keys of the ATM; and on every door anyone touches.

The flu virus can survive two to eight hours on hard surfaces such as metal and plastic — touch it and you can spread it to your nose and mouth from your hand.

Now, there are ways to track the influenza outbreak using Google and Facebook.

But, what should YOU do to protect yourself?

  1. Get vaccinated against flu – it’s your best defense.
  2. Cover your cough, wash hands often.
  3. Take antiviral drugs if your doctor recommends them.

The influenza map this January is not very favorable no matter where you are in the United States, so please consider vaccination, if you have not already done so. Having been hospitalized with the influenza virus a few years ago, I can attest that it is a very nasty disease.

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The Healthy Flap: December 29, 2012

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These are my links for December 29th:

  • 52 ways to leave your blubber – This is the year you will resolve to ditch the diets, the “all or nothing” mentality and the “no-pain, no-gain” fitness goals. This is the year you will resolve to use common sense to eat less junk food, move more — and have fun doing it.Remember what it was like when you were a kid and you thought nothing of playing tag for hours on end? That spirit still lives. You just need to wake it up. Maybe with a high-energy hula hoop workout or Shaun T’s “Hip Hop Abs,” done in the privacy of your own home. Or by walking your dog while listening to a Dan Brown thriller. Instead of embarking on yet another diet, why not try to lose roughly 1 pound a week by creating a modest 500-calorie deficit each day. That’s easily accomplished by slashing about 250 calories from your diet (the equivalent of five Oreos) and burning about 250 calories through exercise, such as a brisk two-to-three-mile walk. You can do that easy.
  • Hope for hearing: Cochlear implants – Cochlear implants are electronic hearing devices for people with profound deafness or severe hearing loss who get no benefit from a hearing aid. There is an external part that is worn behind the ear with a microphone that picks up sounds from the environment, a speech processor and a transmitter that gets signals from the processor and turns them into electric impulses. It is attached to a receiver and electrode system which is surgically implanted into the inner ear. It’s typically done as an outpatient procedure.An implant does not restore normal hearing and is very different from a hearing aid. Hearing aids amplify sound so that damaged ears can hear them. Implants bypass the damage and directly stimulate the auditory nerve which then sends the signals to the brain.
  • Medicare Cuts Loom Large as ‘Cliff’ Nears – It’s looking less and less likely that Congress and the White House will strike a deal to keep the country from falling over the “fiscal cliff” next week, so physicians are preparing for a 28.5 percent cut in Medicare payments that will take effect on Jan. 1.That figure includes a 26.5 percent cut under Medicare’s sustainable growth rate (SGR) reimbursement formula and a 2 percent cut mandated by the Budget Control Act, the piece of legislation that outlined the tax increases and spending cuts that define the fiscal cliff.
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Is Running Better than Lifting Weights to Lose Weight?

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Runners at 2012 Las Vegas Marathon

Runners on “The Strip” during the 2012 Las Vegas Marathon

The answer is YES, according to a new study.

People who want to lose weight are better off running than lifting weights — or even than doing both, researchers at Duke University say.

The researchers compared people who did aerobic exercise — running, swimming, walking, for instance — with those who did resistance training such as weightlifting and with people who did both kinds of exercise. Those who got up and moved burned the most fat, they said in the Dec. 15 Journal of Applied Physiology.

“Given that approximately two-thirds of adults in the United States are overweight due to excess body fat, we want to offer clear, evidence-based exercise recommendations that will truly help people lose weight and body fat,” Leslie H. Willis, an exercise physiologist at Duke Medicine and the study’s lead author, said in a statement.

I can attest to the findings, since I have lost considerable amounts of body weight while walking and running.

I still have more to lose, but my health and energy have improved.

So, if in doubt, walk and then run!

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