Category: Health

Diet

American Obesity More than Doubles Between Ages 18 and 30

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According to the latest Gallup Poll.

A leading cause of certain chronic conditions — obesity — surges in Americans’ 20s, more than doubling between the ages of 18 and 30. It peaks at about age 50 and remains prevalent among Americans in their 60s and early 70s before tapering off.

The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index determines obesity on the basis of respondents’ self-reported height and weight, using traditional Body Mass Index (BMI) scoring. Across 2009 and 2010, an average 27% of Americans were obese, defined as having a BMI of 30 or higher.

Whether the decline in obesity later in life mostly reflects the higher mortality rate of obese people as they age or significant weight loss among seniors is not clear.

Younger Americans must make conscious lifestyle decisions to reduce their weight or they are setting themselves up or increasing rates of weight and diet-related chronic medical conditions later in their lives.

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Diet

Poll Watch: Thousand Oaks, California is One of the 10 Least Obese Metro Areas in U.S.

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Good News for Thousand Oaks and I certainly am trying to do my part but am unfortunately still obese. But, gosh I am trying to lose the extra weight, eat right and exercise regularly.

More than 20% of Americans were obese in 174 of the 188 U.S. metropolitan areas that Gallup and Healthways surveyed in 2010. In the most obese of these metro areas — Evansville, Ind.-Ky. — 37.8% of residents were obese, compared with 12.9% in the least obese place — Boulder, Colo.

Nationwide, 26.6% of American adults were obese in 2010, unchanged from 2009, but higher than 25.5% in 2008. The average obesity rate in the 10 most obese metro areas surveyed in 2010 was 34.1%, compared with 17.4% in the 10 least obese metro areas.

Gallup tracks U.S. obesity levels as part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, using Americans’ self-reported height and weight to calculate Body Mass Index (BMI) scores. BMI scores of 30 or higher are considered obese.

The 2010 metro area findings are extracted from Gallup’s 2010 Daily tracking data set of more than 200,000 U.S. adults, aged 18 and older. Gallup categorizes U.S. metro areas according to the U.S. Office of Management and Budget’s definitions for Metropolitan Statistical Areas, and reports on all MSAs for which there are a minimum of 300 interviews available.

There is quite a bit of good information at the Gallup site, including Gallup’s U.S. City Wellbeing Tracking interactive. Check it out.

But, what is the bottom line of this information?

Good health habits have a clear connection to low disease rates and to higher wellbeing in general. Boulder, the least obese metro area of those surveyed in 2010, also has the highest overall wellbeing score in the United States. In Boulder, 65.2% of residents say they exercise for at least 30 minutes three or more days per week, more than in any other metro area. Exercise and healthy eating, in addition to helping maintain a healthy weight and prevent certain chronic diseases, have important emotional benefits.

The consequences of high obesity rates for cities come in many forms: higher healthcare costs, lower workplace productivity, and unhappier residents. For cities where more than 3 in 10 residents are obese, these problems are even more pronounced and are even more likely to continue from one generation to the next.

Government and business leaders at the city level are in a unique position to tackle the obesity problem. They are the most familiar with their community’s strengths and weaknesses and can use their knowledge to create policies and programs to target efforts to help reduce obesity in their area.

And, indeed if we all wish to lead happier, more productive and healthier lives, we must all do our part.

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Dissolvable Tobacco

Dissolvable Tobacco Products May Increase Oral Health Disease

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Why, of course, they would, but now there is a study.

A new study has suggested that the new genre of ‘dissolvable tobacco’ products – pop-into-the-mouth replacements for cigarettes – has the potential to cause mouth diseases as well as other problems.

John V. Goodpaster of the Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis and colleagues analysed the complex ingredients in the products and found that it contained mainly nicotine, along with finely-ground tobacco and a variety of flavouring ingredients, sweeteners and binders.

According to them, the first dissolvable tobacco products in pellet, stick and strip forms went on sale in 2009 in test markets in Indianapolis, Ind., Columbus, Ohio, and Portland, Ore.

These products are advertised as smoke and spit-free, but nicotine is a toxic substance linked to the development of oral cancers and gum disease, said Goodpaster.

Health officials are concerned about whether the products, which dissolve inside the mouth near the lips and gums, are in fact a safer alternative to cigarette smoking.

The researchers, however, said there are possibilities that the nicotine in these products may accidentally poison children.

“The packaging and design of the dissolvables may also appeal to children, and some dissolvables, such as Orbs, may be mistaken for candy,” said Goodpaster.

Other ingredients in dissolvables have the potential to increase the risk of tooth decay and one, coumarin, has been banned as a flavouring agent in food because of its link to a risk of liver damage.

“The results presented here are the first to reveal the complexity of dissolvable tobacco products and may be used to assess potential health effects,” said Goodpaster.

The findings are published in ACS’s Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Let’s look as to what the ingredients of these products are.

The Camel Orbs contain finely grained tobacco mixed with “additives such as water, flavorants, binders, colorants, pH adjusters, buffering agents, fillers, disintegration aids, humectants, antioxidants, oral care ingredients, preservatives, additives derived from herbal or botanical sources, and mixtures thereof.”[5] The Camel Orbs come in two styles, Mellow and Fresh. Each pellet contains 1 milligram of nicotine, dissolving in the mouth in 10–15 minutes.[3] The Camel Sticks product is a twisted stick the size of a toothpick
that lasts in the mouth about 20–30 minutes, and contains 3.1 milligrams of nicotine. The Camel Sticks are for insertion between the upper lip and gum, and come in one style, Mellow. The Camel Strips contain 0.6 milligrams of nicotine per strip and come in one style, Fresh.[3] The Camel Strips last 2–3 minutes on the tongue, administering nicotine through thin film drug delivery technology as used in Listerine PocketPacks breath freshening strips. A specific ingredient list naming all additives has not been made public
for any of the Camel Dissolvables brands.

Isn’t it obvious that the tobacco companies who for decades pushed their highly addictive nicotine delivery products (cigarettes, cigars and chewable tobacco) are looking for another delivery method since smoking is difficult with second hand smoke laws and spittng is difficult most of the time?

Please folks – just say no to these products – for your health’s sake.

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Health

Poll Watch: Full Time Good Jobs with an Employer Linked to Higher Wellbeing

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According to the latest Gallup Poll:

Gallup’s global surveys reveal that people with “good jobs,” those who are employed full time for an employer, tend to have the highest wellbeing of those in the workforce. They are more likely to be “thriving” than those who are self-employed, employed part time looking for full-time work, or unemployed.

Worldwide, individuals employed full time for an employer tend to report the highest evaluative wellbeing, with 29% thriving. Those employed part time and those who are unemployed do not fall far behind. Self-employed respondents report the lowest evaluative wellbeing, with 14% thriving.

This is noteworthy in dentistry in that most dentists are self-employed in America.

In advanced economies, self-employed folks continue to lag behind in wellbeing.

I can only surmise that although self-employed business owners have their own fate, so to speak, in their own hands, that the stress of it all, leads to lower wellbeing. But, this is of course, in developed countries.

Quality of life issues and the type of employment you have are intertwined. As worldwide business eventually ramps up after the global recession, it is a consideration that must be made.

One of the most important factors contributing to an individual’s wellbeing is his or her employment status. Globally, the difference in wellbeing between those who have good jobs and those who are self-employed is significant. In terms of one’s wellbeing, the worst job in the world is to be self-employed in a developing country. At 12% thriving, the self-employed in the developing world have the lowest wellbeing of any group. Many of the world’s poor are forced into growing or making things to sell on a street corner, working for themselves out of desperation. The picture is different in the developed world, where the self-employed are more likely to be entrepreneurs out of opportunity.

Traditional employment metrics do not always capture the complete jobs situation. Traditional unemployment does not include part-time workers who are looking for full-time work or individuals who are working for themselves in subsistence jobs. In the developing world, self-employed individuals may not only fail to make meaningful contributions to the formal economy, but also their jobs are not positively affecting their wellbeing. Gallup research reveals that full-time employment for an employer highly correlates with GDP per capita. Being employed full time for an employer is therefore a much better gauge of good jobs than unemployment, which has no statistical relationship to GDP per capita on a global basis.

As global leaders continue to make jobs their No. 1 priority, they need to use better metrics to assess whether they are actually creating good jobs. Good jobs not only have a significant impact on a country’s gross domestic product, but they also are fundamental to a country’s gross national wellbeing.

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Health

SoundBite DENTAL Hearing Aid Receives European Regulatory Certification

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The SoundBite Dental Hearing Aid System

This is certainly an interesting system for the hearing impaired and a cochlear hearing aid without the implant.

Sonitus Medical (San Mateo, CA), having received FDA clearance in January for its SoundBite hearing aid, is now following up with European approval. The dental insert works similar to a cochlear implant, receiving an audio signal from a transmitter in the ear and in turn resonating the cochlea, but via the teeth.

The press release for the European certification is here.

SoundBite hearing system is the world’s first and only non-surgical and removable hearing solution designed to imperceptibly transmit sound via the teeth to help people who are essentially deaf in one ear regain their spatial hearing ability and rejoin the conversation of life. It employs a well-established principle called bone conduction to deliver clear, high quality sound to the inner ear. Nearly invisible when worn, the SoundBite system consists of an easy to insert and remove ITM (in-the-mouth) hearing device—which is custom made to fit around either the upper left or right back teeth—and a small microphone unit worn behind the ear. No modifications to the teeth are required. This system currently has FDA 510(k) clearance and CE Mark certification to treat single sided deafness. Intended future indications include conductive and mixed hearing loss.

Sonitus Medical’s website is here.

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