Health

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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Obesity

Boulder Colorado Again Leads in Lower Obesity Rate

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Gallup est Oesity Chart

According to the latest Gallup Poll.

For the third consecutive year, residents of the Boulder, Colo., metro area are the least likely to be obese, at 12.5% in 2012. Residents of McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Texas, continue to be the most likely to be obese, at 38.5%. Adult obesity rates are higher than 15% in all but two of the 189 metro areas that Gallup and Healthways surveyed in 2012.

Here is the chart for the worst areas for obesity.

Gallup Worst Obesity ChartObesity continues to be a problem in the United States and follows demographic trends.

Nationwide, 26.2% of Americans aged 18 and older were obese in 2012, unchanged from 26.1% in 2011. Of the 189 reportable metro areas surveyed in 2012, 102 had obesity rates lower than the national average. Nineteen of the 25 most populous metro areas surveyed boasted obesity rates lower than the national average. Smaller metro areas were more likely to have above-average obesity rates, consistent with past reporting.

In the 11 metro areas with the highest obesity rates, the average annual wages are lower than in the 10 areas with the lowest obesity rates, reflecting the link between obesity and poverty. The average annual wage in the 11 areas with the highest obesity rates is $38,550, this compares with an average annual income of $47,783 for the 10 areas with the lowest obesity rates. Additionally, residents in the most obese areas, on average, earn $7,240 below the national mean wage of $45,790, while residents of the least obese areas average $1,993 more annually than the national mean wage.

Residents in the areas with the highest obesity rates are also 7.9 percentage points less likely than are those in the areas where obesity is lowest to have enough money to be able to buy food at all times. They are also 6.5 points less likely to have enough money for healthcare and medicine.

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The Healthy Flap: March 4, 2013

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Journaling Key to Weight LossCharmaine Jackson lost half her body weight

These are my healthy news health headlines for February 21st through March 4th:

  • Journaling helps woman lose half her body weight
    Charmaine Jackson can tell you what she ate on any date for the past five years.She can tell you how much she exercised, what kind of mood she was in, how much water she drank — even if she watched television while mindlessly munching away.

    All she has to do is flip through the pages of her 14 journals.

    The reason she began her daily record keeping was simple — she wanted to lose weight and keep it off.

    It may sound extreme, but it paid off. Since she began keeping journals, Jackson is half the person she used to be — going from 260 to 130 pounds.

    “(Journaling has) really helped me get an idea of what my behaviors are, what my patterns are, how I can make change for myself for good,” she said. “You wouldn’t see it unless you look at it over time and you really get a chance to see this worked and why.”

  • Exercise, less sitting time, linked to better sleep
    Insomniacs looking for a good night’s sleep may want to hit the treadmill, take a walk or play a game of golf or tennis because a new report released on Monday shows exercise promotes good sleep and the more vigorous the workout the better.Just 10 minutes of exercise a day could make a difference in the duration and quality of sleep, the survey by the non-profit National Sleep Foundation showed.

    “We found that exercise and great sleep go together, hand in hand,” Max Hirshkowitz, a sleep researcher and the chair of the poll task force, said in an interview.

  • Doctors report first cure of HIV in a child -For the first time, doctors are reporting that they have cured a child of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.The landmark finding will help scientists better understand the nature of HIV, doctors say, and could potentially help countless HIV-positive babies in developing countries.

    “I’m sort of holding my breath that this child’s virus doesn’t come back in the future,” says Hannah Gay, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, who treated the child, a 2½-year-old Mississippi girl. “I’m certainly very hopeful that it will produce studies that will show us a way to cure other babies in the future.”

  • What Housework Has to Do With Waistlines
    One reason so many American women are overweight may be that we are vacuuming and doing laundry less often, according to a new study that, while scrupulously even-handed, is likely to stir controversy and emotions.The study, published this month in PLoS One, is a follow-up to an influential 2011 report which used data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to determine that, during the past 50 years, most American workers began sitting down on the job. Physical activity at work, such as walking or lifting, almost vanished, according to the data, with workers now spending most of their time seated before a computer or talking on the phone. Consequently, the authors found, the average American worker was burning almost 150 fewer calories daily at work than his or her employed parents had, a change that had materially contributed to the rise in obesity during the same time frame, especially among men, the authors concluded.
  • Doctor Groups Issue List of Overused Medical Tests
    In an effort to change entrenched medical practices, 17 major medical specialty groups recommended on Thursday that doctors greatly reduce their use of 90 widely used but largely unnecessary tests and treatments.This list of “don’ts” builds on 45 recommendations made last April, under a broad initiative by the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation, in partnership with the magazine Consumer Reports.

    “As you look through the lists, a lot of these were mea culpas,” said Dr. Eric Topol, chief academic officer of Scripps Health, a health care provider in San Diego. Dr. Topol was not involved in creating the new recommendations. “The literature had supported these recommendations, but until now they were not sanctioned as no-no’s by the professional groups,” he said.

    Some of the recommendations reinforce existing guidelines, but others aggressively go after procedures that have little evidence of benefit and may cause harm, yet are still practiced on a daily basis.

    For example, the American Society of Echocardiography recommended against using echocardiograms before or during surgery for patients with no history or symptoms of heart disease; doctors routinely perform this test. The Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging urged physicians not to perform routine annual stress testing using a nuclear heart scan after coronary artery surgery. This is also a routine test, and it exposes the patient to radiation equivalent to 2,000 chest X-rays.

  • Smoking cessation in old age: Less heart attacks and strokes within five years
    Professor Hermann Brenner and colleagues analyzed the data of 8.807 individuals aged between 50 and 74 years using data of Saarland citizens. “We were able to show that the risk of smokers for cardiovascular diseases is more than twice that of non-smokers. However, former smokers are affected at almost the same low rate as people of the same age who never smoked,” says Brenner. “Moreover, smokers are affected at a significantly younger age than individuals who have never smoked or have stopped smoking.”
  • Study disputes long-term medical savings from bariatric surgery
    In the span of 15 years, the number of bariatric surgeries performed in the United States has grown more than 16-fold to roughly 220,000 per year, gaining cachet as a near-panacea for obesity.Despite the daunting price tag, mounting research has boosted hopes that the stomach-stapling operations could reduce the nation’s healthcare bill by weaning patients off the costly drugs and frequent doctor visits that come with chronic obesity-related diseases like diabetes and arthritis.

    But a new study has found that the surgery does not reduce patients’ medical costs over the six years after they are wheeled out of the operating room.

  • The Benefits of Exercising Outdoors
    While the allure of the gym – climate-controlled, convenient and predictable – is obvious, especially in winter, emerging science suggests there are benefits to exercising outdoors that can’t be replicated on a treadmill, a recumbent bicycle or a track.You stride differently when running outdoors, for one thing. Generally, studies find, people flex their ankles more when they run outside. They also, at least occasionally, run downhill, a movement that isn’t easily done on a treadmill and that stresses muscles differently than running on flat or uphill terrain. Outdoor exercise tends, too, to be more strenuous than the indoor version. In studies comparing the exertion of running on a treadmill and the exertion of running outside, treadmill runners expended less energy to cover the same distance as those striding across the ground outside, primarily because indoor exercisers face no wind resistance or changes in terrain, no matter how subtle.

    The same dynamic has been shown to apply to cycling, where wind drag can result in much greater energy demands during 25 miles of outdoor cycling than the same distance on a stationary bike. That means if you have limited time and want to burn as many calories as possible, you should hit the road instead of the gym.

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Obesity

Gallup Poll: 2012 Obesity Rate Stable in America

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Gallup Poll on obesity

 

According to the latest Gallup Poll

Americans were as likely to be obese in 2012 as they were in 2011. But the 26.2% who were obese in 2012 remains slightly higher than the 25.5% recorded in 2008. Another 36.1% of Americans were overweight in 2012 and about as many were a normal weight — 35.9%.

The 2012 data comprise more than 350,000 surveys of American adults. The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index uses respondents’ self-reports of their height and weight to calculate body mass index (BMI) scores. Individual BMI values of 30 or above are classified as “obese,” 25 to 29.9 are “overweight,” 18.5 to 24.9 are “normal weight,” and 18.4 or less are “underweight.”

The World Health Organization further classifies BMIs of 30.00 or higher into one of three classes of obesity:

Obese class I = 30.00 to 34.99
Obese class II = 35.00 to 39.99
Obese class III = 40.00 or higher

Those with BMIs of 40 or higher — obese class III — are often considered “morbidly obese.” Based on self-reports of height and weight, 3.6% of American adults were “morbidly obese” in 2012. This is on par with 3.4% in 2011 and 3.5% in 2009 and 2010.

Here is a Gallup chart on obesity and demographic groups:

Gallup chart on obesity and demographicsThe bottom line is that there is much to do for better health.

Obesity is a preventable condition and with better education, Americans will be able to live longer and healthy.

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Health

Poll Watch: Obesity and Chronic Diseases Stable Across the United States in 2011

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According to the latest Gallup Poll.

Colorado had the lowest adult obesity rate in the nation in 2011, as it did last year, and is the only state where fewer than 20% of adults are obese. West Virginia holds onto the negative distinction of being the state with the highest obesity rate; 35.3% of residents living there are obese, the highest for any state that Gallup and Healthways have found since 2008.

The national obesity rate declined slightly to 26.1% in 2011, from 26.6% in 2010. Across states, obesity rates remained statistically unchanged from 2010 to 2011 in all but two — New Jersey and Kentucky — where they declined. This marks a positive change from the recent past. Obesity had inched up in 2009 and 2010 compared with 2008 nationwide and in some states.

These data, collected as part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, are based on respondents’ self-reports of their height and weight, which are used to calculate Body Mass Index (BMI) scores. Americans who have a BMI of 30 or higher are classified as obese.

The obesity rate continues high, but at least it did not increase this past year. Is the word getting out about the problem?

Here is a chart about the best and worst states:



High Blood Pressure, Diabetes Rates Also Hold Steady Across States

It is interesting that the states in the South and the Midwest lag the other states and have higher rates of obesity and chronic diseases. They also have the higher rates of smoking.

There needs to be more awareness and education about the needs to eat right, exercise regularly and not smoke – for a more healthy and productive life.

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