Free Healthcare with No Responsibility? No Surprise.

Dear Sirs:

During my last night’s shift in the ER, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient with a shiny new gold tooth, multiple elaborate tattoos, a very expensive brand of tennis shoes and a new cellular telephone equipped with her favorite R&B; tune for a ring tone.

Glancing over the chart, one could not help noticing her payer status: Medicaid.

She smokes more than one costly pack of cigarettes every day and, somehow, still has money to buy beer. And our President expects me to pay for this woman’s health care?

Our nation’s health care crisis is not a shortage of quality hospitals, doctors or nurses. It is a crisis of culture – a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend money on vices while refusing to take care of one’s self or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance.

A culture that thinks I can do whatever I want to because someone else will always take care of me.

Doctor Roger Starner Jones is a seventh generation Mississippian and his extracurricular interests are golf, hunting, fishing and college football. He specializes in emergency medicine at The University of Mississippi medical Center.
This Letter to the Editor, written by Doctor Jones about health care in America, is from the August 29th edition of Jackson, Mississippi’s newspaper, the Clarion Ledger.

Pepsi Removing Sugary Drinks from Schools...Keep Going!

This move by Pepsi or any future deal by that other evil drink corporation only eliminates one small place where children can continue to increase the obesity percentage. Parents who don't think second about how many bottles little Timmy & Susie gulps down everyday will still fill up their lunch-box/book-bag when the schools are vacated from Pepsi's stockpile of carbonated sugar syrup.
Next move: Parents get graphically educated on what this stuff does to your child's body over time. Step in and make changes for you first then your family. See the current worldwide percentages for obesity by country...Guess who is at the top!

Read more:
- Is Pepsi's Removal of Sodas from Schools Just a Publicity Stunt?
- Soda Makers Claim War on Sugary Drinks in Schools Is Won

Affecting Your Healthcare:
Extra weight increases the risk of diabetes, heart disease, some types of cancer and other health problems. Americans who are obese cost the country an estimated $147 billion in weight-related medical bills in 2008...
Overall, about 31.7% of kids are obese or overweight, compared with 29% in 1999... - from USAToday.com

Brown Fat Revelations? ...Excercise Still Works

Brown Fat Revelations May Lead to New Weight Loss Drugs - another article to prove that more & more people are just looking the easy way out of attempting to be healthy(and thanks for your part in contributing to higher & higher health insurance cost). Sure, there are unlimited things still to learn in science, but at least start with a baby step by taking a walk outside.

--article by Popular Mechanics

Piano Stairs for Your Health

Choose the healthier alternative to the escalator

H1N1 Flu Tracker Update

The recent post concerning the flu tracker has been moved due to high traffic volume. It has now been moved to http://flutracker.rhizalabs.com/ to bare the internet traffic. It also has more detail on each confirmed case. If the site doesn't load, try it again later. Apparently the new site is getting visited just as hard as the last outbreak map.

Track Swine Flu Using Google Maps

Since yesterday's total of outbreaks was only at two and now that total is growing everyday, keeping up with where it's moving to is pretty important. Hundreds of victims have died, mostly in Mexico, but since it is spreading fast it is very important to protect yourself and to monitor your own health. Use the link here to track the outbreaks on Google Maps.

Map Key:
• Pink markers are suspect
• Purple markers are confirmed
• Deaths lack a dot in marker
• Yellow markers are negative

Food Portion Sizes Study

[ABC Note]Last year I posted an article on today's food portions compared to past portions...here is some more in depth information on why most Americans are blind into what they are eating:

Researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill analyzed three government surveys taken over two decades and reviewed answers to the average portion size consumed for specific foods, such as snacks, desserts and soft drinks. They also looked at whether the eating was done at home or out.

"Between 1977 and 1996, food portion sizes increased both inside and outside the home for all categories except pizza," Samara Joy Nielsen and Barry M. Popkin write in the Journal of the American Medical Association. According to the study, Americans are eating per portion, on average:

* 93 more calories from salty snacks, such as potato chips, pretzels and popcorn.
* 49 more calories from soft drinks.
* 97 more calories from hamburgers.
* 68 more calories from French fries.
* 133 more calories from Mexican food, such as burritos, tacos, enchiladas.

"The most surprising result is the large portion-size increases for food consumed at home - a shift that indicates marked changes in eating behavior in general," the researchers reported.

Americans' waistlines are keeping up with the portion increase trend. Nearly 60 percent of the country is overweight, with the numbers growing, said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Clearly the problem is that Americans are eating too much food," Popkin said. "The shifts in where we are eating, as well as the types of food and how much, are critical."

Food Portion Sizes - Distortion
Nutrition experts said the study confirmed what many thought: Americans aren't aware of how much they're eating.

"We're getting so used to eating out and used to (restaurants') portion sizes," said Lisa Drayer, a registered dietitian and director of nutrition services with Dietwatch.com. "We're getting a distorted view of what portion sizes are. We're not likely to make a distinction between restaurant sizes and real sizes when going home."

Food Portion Sizes - Effects of Supersizing
"An extra 10 calories per day translates to one pound gained per year," Drayer explained. "So you can see how all of these calorie increases combined can translate to weight gain over the long-term." The most important thing, according to Drayer, is to be able to eyeball portion sizes and know how much you are really eating. They key is to relate portion sizes to every day objects.

For example, the USDA food pyramid recommends an average American consume 5-7 servings of vegetables. But just what is a serving? Drayer says if you remember that a fruit serving looks like a tennis ball, you can get a better idea of what you're putting away at the table.

According to a 2002 American Dietetic Association survey, Americans tend to overestimate the recommended serving sizes for many foods. Fewer than half of the respondents accurately estimated the recommended serving sizes of pasta, meat or vegetables.

Food Portion Sizes - Supersizing Restaurant
Also, watch out for the "more is better" mentality, especially at fast food restaurants.

"We're often encouraged to buy larger-sized portions and 'value meals' because they provide a better value for our money," Drayer says. "But while these oversized portions may be good for our wallets, they are not necessarily good for our waistlines or our health."

Portion Control
What are other ways to avoid portion distortion? Here are some other tips to slim down portions at home, according to Drayer and the American Dietetic Association:

* Beware of unconscious eating. "This is where we're not aware of how much food we're putting in our mouths," Drayer said. "We snack more, we're eating by ourselves, in front of the TV or talking on the phone."
* Use smaller plates. You won't be tempted to fill up all the space of a big platter with extra food you don't need.
* Serve yourself what you would normally dish out, but then cut everything in half and save the rest for lunch the next day.
* "Kill the plate," or make whatever is left on the plate unavailable to nibble on, whether it's a napkin across the food, or, in an extreme move, pouring salt over the leftovers.

[ABC Note] Check out the book above, Mindless Eating, for reasons on why we eat like we do. It should clear our thoughts on food and change our eating habits.

The Stunning Consequences of Not Getting Enough Sleep

Nothing feels worse than hearing your alarm clock ring in the morning when your body is screaming for a few extra hours of rest. Given the opportunity, who wouldn’t get more sleep? If I had a choice between a year of unlimited Easter candy and a year of unlimited sleep, I’d say “Bye-bye Cadbury” and “Hello, bed!”

Many people don’t get as much sleep as they should. Since the invention of the light bulb, people sleep about 500 hours per year less than they used to. Whether we’re kept awake by our partner’s snoring or we stay up too late watching TV, we wake up tired, groggy, and cranky. No wonder the coffee industry does so well. Unfortunately, sleep deprivation has some side effects and they can’t all be remedied with a little extra caffeine.

This Is Your Brain on Sleep

While the mechanism of sleep isn’t fully understood yet, doctors and scientists do know that it’s one of our body’s most important processes. Studies show that sleep is important for cellular renewal, helping to replace muscle tissue and dead cells throughout the body. Studies have also shown that sleep is a key time for the brain to process and archive information, including memories. Deep, restorative REM sleep, the kind associated with dreaming, seems to stimulate regions of the brain used in learning.

Every night without adequate rest is like adding to a sleep debt—eventually it will have to be repaid. Even after one sleepless night, we can feel the first effects of sleep deprivation—irritability, memory loss, and drowsiness. Continued sleep deprivation can result in trouble concentrating, blurry vision, impaired judgment, and even more severe mental effects. After just a few days without any sleep, people can begin to experience hallucinations, mania, and nausea. Luckily, if you repay your sleep debt right away, those effects vanish immediately.

Short-Term Side Effects

Sleep deprivation doesn’t just cause mental deficits; our physical abilities are diminished too. Studies have demonstrated that not sleeping can reduce glucose metabolism by as much as 40 percent. We use stored glucose for energy and sleep deprivation can interfere with how the body stores and processes it. Sleep-deprived athletes also experience high levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, as well as lower levels of human growth hormone, which is important for muscle repair. The immune system is also thought to be maintained while asleep; people who don’t get enough sleep tend to be more susceptible to infections and have slower healing times.

Sleep deprivation also has an effect on how the brain stores information. A study at the University of Pennsylvania showed that mice who were taught a task and allowed to sleep afterward remembered what they had learned better than mice that didn’t sleep. Among school-aged children, those who get even one less hour of sleep than their peers have shown to perform more poorly on tests of memory and attention.

Some of the effects of short-term sleep deprivation can be very similar to the effects of being drunk. In 2000, researchers in New Zealand and Australia found that people who drive after being awake for seventeen to nineteen hours performed worse on tests than people with a blood alcohol level of 0.05 percent, almost the legal limit for drunk driving. In fact, the U.S. Department of Transportation reports that as many as 100,000 sleep-related auto accidents occur every year.

One study found that sleep-deprived medical interns working on the night shift were twice as likely to misinterpret patients’ test results. There is even evidence that sleep deprivation may have played a part in some major disasters, including the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Long-Term Consequences

It’s easy to erase the short-term effects of sleep deprivation—get more sleep. However, when people don’t sleep well for weeks, months, or even years, it can have cumulative effects on their health. Sleep has shown to be important in regulating blood sugar levels and people who don’t sleep can become increasingly resistant to insulin. Long-term insulin resistance puts extra burdens on the pancreas to produce more, and eventually can result in type 2 diabetes.

Recent studies have also linked chronic sleep deprivation to obesity. Sleep has an important effect on the hormones ghrelin and leptin, which control hunger and appetite. When we don’t sleep, these hormones can go out of balance, causing us to eat more than we need. Heart disease, high blood pressure, and depression are other diseases that can result from long-term sleep deprivation.

Get Forty Winks … At Least

It’s common to feel a bit tired in the morning, but how do you know if you’re truly sleep-deprived? Sleep experts say that if you feel groggy or tired during the day, feel the urge to nap, or if you fall asleep within five minutes of lying down, you could possibly be sleep-deprived. Another symptom of severe sleep debt is the occurrence of “micro-sleeps,” short bursts of sleep that can happen without a person even realizing it.

Although most people think they need to sleep for eight hours a night, the amount actually varies from person to person; some are fine with five, others would do better with ten. If you feel like you need more sleep, simple lifestyle changes can help you get more. Missing a few hours of sleep on occasion isn’t the end of the world, because it’s easy to make up the sleep with no lasting side effects. Many people are psychologically adjusted to constantly feeling tired, and in the short-term, their bodies may be able to adjust too. But the long-term consequences of sleep deprivation should be enough to convince anyone to hit the sack.

British Columbia Man Paralyzed after Flu Shot

A New Westminster man is raising a warning flag after he contracted a rare and debilitating condition linked to the flu shot that left him paralyzed for almost five months. Every fall, health care workers across Canada distribute 10 million influenza vaccinations, and for the vast majority of people, the flu shot causes no major problems.

Within two weeks of getting his annual flu shot in 2007, however, Richard Ryan, 44, went from being happy and healthy to being in excruciating pain. At first, Ryan thought he had injured his back, and he checked into the local hospital emergency room, he told CBC News on Wednesday.

But Ryan was also suffering some numbness, and when a neurologist tested his reflexes, he found Ryan had none, he said. "The doctor asked me what was going on in my life. And as soon as I said I was feeling ill after getting a flu shot, he said, 'Stop right there, I know what you have,'" Ryan said.

The neurologist diagnosed Ryan with Guillain-Barré syndrome, an autoimmune disease that attacks the nervous system. According to the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, the chance of developing that particular disease from a flu shot is one in a million.

But as Ryan learned the consequences can be severe. By the time the emergency room exam was over, he was unable to get up. He spent the next 10 weeks recovering in hospital, including three weeks in intensive care, barely able to breathe or eat for himself. "My face was paralyzed. I had no feeling inside my mouth. I couldn't feel my tongue. My left eye wouldn't close so it had to be taped shut to sleep," he said.

The illness progressed into a lifelong condition known as chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP), and a year later he remains heavily medicated, unable to work, and has memory problems. Although the disease is in remission, he is not expected to make a full recovery, and the chronic condition could return at any point in the future.
Worth the risk?

Now Ryan say he is concerned that public health officials are promoting the flu vaccine while most people are not fully aware of the risks. However, Dr. Danuta Skowronski, an epidemiologist at the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, says the benefits of the flu vaccine still outweigh the risks for the vast majority of people.

"Nothing is completely risk-free," she told CBC News. "It is always a matter of weighing the benefits and the risks." Medical information provided with flu shots does mention the one-in-a-million chance of getting Guillain-Barré syndrome.

But it is especially important for people with heart and lung problems, the elderly and the chronically ill, to get the influenza vaccine because it could save their lives, Skowronski said. "Influenza itself can be life threatening, and it's those groups that we want to make sure are not put off from receiving influenza vaccine unnecessarily," said Skowronski.

There are more than 2000 flu-related deaths in Canada every year. Seniors, people with weak immune systems and some children are at highest risk. More common possible side-effects of vaccinations can include fever, muscle pain and weakness.

For his part, Ryan maintains that he's a good example of the fact that the benefits of the vaccination don't always outweigh the risks. "I think if people knew how serious the illness is, they would think twice about the flu shot," he said.

Oh by the way, I just got my shot this morning. Slight chance of risk...take the risk already!

Shocking Smokers

This is some news from the UK(Mail Online UK). I rather like the idea and wish the United States would also do away with the lame surgeon general's warning and put something truly scary for some real convincing. Read on:
Shocking pictures of throat cancer and rotting teeth are to appear on cigarette packets from today to illustrate the health risks of smoking. Among the other images smokers will see are rotting lungs, a corpse in a morgue and a body cut open during surgery. The photos will appear on the back of packets accompanied by a written health warning.

New figures showed written warnings had motivated more than 90,000 smokers to call the NHS Smoking Helpline, the Department of Health said. However, smoking is still the biggest killer in England where it causes the premature death of more than 87,000 people each year.The photos are expected to be more effective than text, and research suggested that warnings should be changed periodically to maintain their effectiveness, the DoH said.

Canada was the first country to introduce picture warnings in 2001. Research a year later found 31 per cent of ex-smokers said the images had motivated them to quit the habit while 27 per cent said they had helped them to remain non-smokers, according to the DoH. Graphic images are now used on tobacco products sold in Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, New Zealand, Singapore, Venezuela, Thailand and Uruguay.

The smokers' lobby group Forest criticized the new warnings as 'unnecessarily intrusive' and 'gratuitously offensive'. Forest director Simon Clark said: 'We support measures that educate people about the health risks of smoking, but these pictures are designed not just to educate but to shock and coerce people to give up a legal product.

Stop Paying: 15 Free Services

With rising prices for services or for the need to save money, here are some helpful resources to cut back at monthly costs. Everyone needs to spend less, period.
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Free Television
Cut that cable bill and use Hulu.com for your movie and television viewing pleasure. Hulu offers full episodes of your favorite current and classic TV shows, full-length movies and thousands of clips– all for free!

Free College Fund
Upromise offers a great way to beef up Junior’s college fund without costing you a penny. Upromise puts a percentage of the money you spend on every day purchases into a special 529 Plan. It’s completely free.

Free Kids Meals
Want to go out to eat at a restaurant that doesn’t charge you for your little one’s meal? Simply plug in your zip code at KidsMealDeals.com and you’ll get a list of nearby eateries offering free food for youngsters.

Free Invoicing
Here’s a tip for small business owners. Check out BillingBoss.com for an easy (and completely free) way to create, send and track invoices.

Free Business Cards
Snag lots of free stuff at VistaPrint.com. We’re talking business cards, address labels, sticky notes and much more for free.

Free Computer Software
If you need software for word processing, spreadsheets, graphics, and presentations, check out OpenOffice.org. It’s a completely free download for anybody.

Free Directory Assistance
Need a number? Rather than tacking on more to your phone bill, try 1-800-Free-411. Get the digits you desire without spending a dime. You may have to listen to a short advertisement but, hey, it’s free.

Free Photo Processing
At Snapfish.com you won’t pay for prints– at least not right away. The first 50 are completely free when you register on the site. After that they're $.09 each.

Free Recipes
Rather than pay for a cookbook, find free recipes on the Internet with sites like Epicurious.com and AllRecipes.com.

Free Landscaping
Need to spruce up your garden? Order some free trees at FreeTreesandPlants.com . It’s a non-profit charity that utilizes the help of disabled employees to process orders.

Free Credit Report
Once a year you are allowed free access to your credit report. Check out AnnualCreditReport.com to check your credit and stop identity theft.

Free Diet Help
Can’t afford a personal trainer or a dietician to help you stay healthy? Try visiting SparkPeople.com for free meal plans, fitness tracking and exercise demos. You can also download a free printable tape measure to measure your success.

Free DVD Rentals
Rather than subscribing to a movie rental service or visiting your neighborhood video store every Friday night, try visiting your local library. Their selection of DVD’s might surprise you, but it won’t come as a surprise that it’s completely free. After all, it is the library.

Free Music
Save money on your music fix by trying out free online streaming radio. Sites like Pandora.com and Free Napster let you decide exactly what you want to listen to. Hear the latest hits or your old favorites for free.

Free Lodging
Hotel stays can cost big bucks, but thanks to CouchSurfing.com you can find a couch to crash on in just about every city for free.

Why Soft Drinks Contribute to Obesity - Pt2

Sugars in solid versus liquid form - does it matter?

To answer this question, 15 men and women were recruited for a short cross-over trial designed to compare the effects of equicaloric liquid and solid carbohydrate sweeteners on food intake. All participants were in their twenties and in the healthy weight range.

The trial consisted of two four-week interventions, separated by a four-week washout period and cross-over. Once a week during the two trial phases the participants presented themselves to the investigators to be weighed and supplied with weekly rations of their daily 450 kcal sweeteners. The solid load consisted of sucrose-sweetened jelly beans, and the liquid load of HFCS-sweetened soda.The
participants were free to decide when to take their daily loads, and when and what to eat. Calorie intake was estimated from self-assessments of food consumption.

Analysis of the food questionnaires indicated that during their solid phase the subjects fully compensated for the energy content of their preload; the total calorie intake from food plus test sweetener was equal to the pre-trial food energy intake. This was not the case, however, during their liquid trial phase, where food intake remained unchanged, i.e. the sweetened drink added to the total calories.

While conclusions based on self-reporting of food eaten are always questionable, these were within-subject comparisons, i.e. the same bias was likely present in their estimate of food intake after liquid and after solid preloading. Furthermore, the estimated energy intakes were consistent with measured changes in body weight. The participants experienced significant weight gains during the liquid trial phase, but not during the solid trial phase, consistent with an excess energy intake in the liquid phase.

It appears therefore that caloric sweeteners contribute to weight gain if consumed in drinks, but not in solid food.

Fructose and glucose affect appetite and food intake differently

Two hormones, insulin and leptin, act as satiety signals in the brain and thus are critical to energy homeostasis. Both insulin and leptin circulate in the blood at levels proportional to body fat content, and enter the central nervous system in proportion to their plasma levels. Low hormone levels increase appetite, and high levels act to reduce energy intake.

Insulin levels rise in response to blood glucose. Insulin-mediated entry of glucose into adipocytes (fat cells) in turn causes the release of leptin. In other words, both insulin and leptin levels react to glucose concentrations. Fructose, on the other hand, does not trigger insulin release. This in turn means that fructose doesn′t affect leptin levels either. Since it increases neither insulin nor leptin levels, fructose consumption does not generate the same satiety signals as glucose. The result is overeating and weight gain.

Summary

To summarize, the rise in obesity rates with increasing HFCS consumption was no coincidence. The increased popularity of soft drinks and HFCS-sweetened convenience foods led to a rapid increase in fructose consumption. It was this excessive fructose intake that fuelled the rapid weight gain, since fructose does not generate the same satiety signals as glucose. It is likely that sweetened drinks are worse than sweet solid foods, and that sucrose has the same effect as high fructose corn syrup.

Most studies of the effects of calorically sweetened liquids on appetite and weight gain looked at soft drinks. However, fruit juices and drinks also contain added sweeteners, typically HFCS, i.e. they pose the same obesity risk. Switching to noncalorically sweetened soft drinks isn′t the answer either, since artificial sweeteners like aspartame come with problems of their own.

Of course fruit also contains fructose ("fruit sugar"), but this obviously doesn′t mean that one should stop eating fruit. It doesn′t contain nearly as much fructose as sweetened drinks and it is a valuable source of phytonutrients and fiber, whereas soft drinks provide little more than empty calories.

Clearly, one of the best things we can do for our health is to stop drinking soft drinks. -- from naturalnews.com

Why Soft Drinks Contribute to Obesity - Pt1

The introduction of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in the seventies coincided with a marked rise in obesity in the U.S., leading to speculations that there might be a causal connection between HFCS consumption and weight gain. This seemed all the more plausible since HFCS consumption grew much faster than any other food intake.

On the other hand, obesity rates also increased in Europe and other parts of the world where sucrose (table sugar) remained the major caloric sweetener. This seemed to argue against a connection between HFCS and weight gain, particularly since the fructose/glucose ratios of high fructose corn syrup and sucrose are quite similar.

What sucrose and high fructose corn syrup have in common, and what distinguishes them from dietary carbohydrates such as starch, is their fructose content. Fructose contributes the same amount of energy as glucose, but it doesn′t trigger the same satiety signals. The sharp rise in the consumption of soft drinks and processed foods sweetened with HFCS and sucrose led to a dramatic increase in fructose intake, a source of energy that goes essentially unnoticed.

What is high fructose corn syrup?

High fructose corn syrup is made from corn starch, a glucose polymer. First, enzymatic starch breakdown yields corn syrup which is essentially free glucose. The glucose is then further converted to fructose. After various purification steps, a mixture of 90% fructose and 10% glucose (HFCS-90) is obtained. HFCS-90 is mixed with appropriate amounts of corn syrup to make either HFCS-55 or HFCS-42, mixtures with 55% and 42% fructose, respectively. HFCS-55 is mainly used for soft drinks, whereas HFCS-42 is primarily used to sweeten baked goods.

Not only are sucrose and high fructose corn syrup similar in their fructose/glucose ratios, but soft drinks are acidic enough to hydrolyze sucrose. An analysis of sucrose-sweetened soft drinks showed that ten days after manufacture only 50% of the sucrose was still intact. After three months 90% of the sucrose was hydrolyzed, i.e. even sucrose-sweetened soft drinks contain mostly free fructose and glucose.

HFCS has largely replaced sucrose in commercial foods in North America. It is cheaper than sucrose, partly because of import tariffs on sucrose and agricultural subsidies to corn producers.

HFCS versus sucrose in drinks - is there a difference?

37 men and women in their twenties and in the healthy weight range were recruited to compare the effects of soft drinks sweetened with sucrose and HFCS on subsequent food intake At mid-morning the participants were given one of six preloads: 215 kcal from sodas sweetened with sucrose, HFCS-42, or HFCS-55, 215 kcal from 1% milk, 4 kcal from aspartame-sweetened diet soda, or no drink at all. Later all subjects were given the same lunch and they were free to eat as much as they wanted. Leftover food was weighed, giving the investigators an accurate measure of energy intake. Averaged over six lunches, the following total calorie intakes (in kcal) from preload plus lunch were found: HFCS-42 1193, HFCS-55 1182, sucrose 1170, 1% milk 1129, aspartame 1011, and no drink 1008.

Clearly, there was no significant difference between the sodas sweetened with sucrose and those with HFCS. In addition, the subjects drinking caloric preloads clearly took in more total calories than those drinking the low-cal soda or nothing at all. In other words, those who had caloric drinks before lunch did not reduce their food intake sufficiently to compensate for the preload. -- from naturalnews.com