September 30th, 2011 by RyanDuBosar in Research
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Married men who have no children have a 17% higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease after the age of 50 than men with two or more children. But whether that’s because of a physical cause, a sociological effect or self-selection (sick people may choose not to have kids) isn’t known.
To determine if the number of kids predicts cardiovascular death, researchers used data from the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study of nearly 135,000 men ages 50 to 71 without prior cardiovascular disease who were followed-up for an average of 10 years. That study mailed 3.5 million questionnaires from 1995 through 1996 to AARP members living in California, Florida, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Louisiana or in Atlanta or Detroit. Nearly 586,000 people returned the questionnaire, which underwent follow-up surveys in 1996-1997 and 2004-2006. Results appeared online Sept. 26 in the journal Human reproduction.
Almost all (92%) men had Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
September 27th, 2011 by Edwin Leap, M.D. in Health Policy, Opinion
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I recently saw a teenage boy with headaches. His father, wringing his hands, said that the headaches had been present for two years; but that the child had never been evaluated for them. No imaging, no neurologist. No insurance, of course.
A family friend, another child, had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. The family of my patient was terrified. Where to turn? They were, reasonably, concerned about cost.
Contrast that with the woman I saw on state assistance. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at edwinleap.com*
September 8th, 2011 by Edwin Leap, M.D. in Opinion
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I think a lot about the slow, certain dissolution of medicine as we know it. Mental health issues crowd emergency departments, as few mental health clinics are available. Psychiatrists are in short supply. Drug abuse overwhelms the medical system, with either patients seeking pills or patients families hoping to get them off of pills.
Persons with little interest in their own health continue to smoke and drink, use Meth and eat poorly. Disability claims are skyrocketing as younger and younger individuals confabulate their misery in hopes of attaining a check, paid for by someone else.
The poor, with genuine medical problems, have increasing difficulty finding care as jobs, and insurance, fade away. Politicians, eager to be re-elected, eager to be loved, promise Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at edwinleap.com*
September 7th, 2011 by AliKhanMD in Health Policy
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The events of 9/11 will forever be engrained in our memories. The attacks on the twin towers, Pentagon, and the anthrax attacks which followed were unimaginable at the time. Ten years after these tragic events, what’s changed?
We now know that terrorist threats are ever present and that our nation must be in a constant state of vigilance in order to protect our communities. We’ve come a long way since 2001 in bolstering our nation’s ability to prepare for and respond to catastrophic events whether natural, accidental, or intentional. We are also learning more and more every day that the resources we need for the big disasters are much the same as the ones we use for everyday public health activities.
Check out my list of top 5 accomplishments in the years after the 2001 attacks: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Public Health Matters Blog*
September 5th, 2011 by RyanDuBosar in Research
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Eating a lot of chocolate was associated with a 37% reduction in cardiovascular disease and a 29% reduction in stroke compared eating less, researchers reported. But, people are trending toward record obesity by the year 2030, which is a cardiometabolic risk in its own right.
Willie Wonka’s factory wasn’t the only risky place for those with a sweet tooth.
In the first study, to evaluate the association of chocolate with the risk of developing cardiometabolic disorders, researchers performed a meta-analysis of randomized trials, six cohort and one cross-sectional, which reported the association between chocolate and the risk of cardiovascular disease (coronary heart disease and stroke), diabetes, and metabolic syndrome for about 114,000 people.
Because the studies reported chocolate consumption differently, researchers Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
