February 6th, 2011 by DrWes in Better Health Network, Opinion
Tags: AHA, American Heart Association, American Heart Month, Cardiology, Cardiovascular Disease Risk, Cardiovascular Healthcare, Cardiovascular Research, Dr. Wes Fisher, February, Healthcare Public Relations, Heart Care, Heart Disease, Heart Health, Heart-Marketing Month, Irresponsible Medical Marketing, Medical PR, National Heart Month, National Wear Red Day, Public Awareness, Women's Heart Attack Risk
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Heart disease and February: What relationship could be more cozy? From the scary risks of shoveling snow (yep, you could die, so be sure to lift a little at a time), Mercedes-sponsored red dress parades and government-sponsored National Wear Red Day®, to tips for identifying heart attacks in women (men, you need a different month I guess), February has all the important stories to improve your awareness. Such a polite term “awareness.”
But I wonder, now that the Internet is upon us and people are seeing their insurance rates and co-pays skyrocket, if maybe we’re shooting ourselves in the foot with all this heart-month marketing hype. People are sick and tired of testing “just to be sure.” It’s starting to directly cost them a fortune, and people are frustrated at having to pay a fortune for healthcare, let alone heart care.
I know, I know — I should be at the forefront of working with patients to stomp out heart disease. And goodness, people DO need to be attuned to diet, exercise, and weight loss. But the reality is, if we’re giving you the 10 latest tips on how to detect a heart attack, we’re probably a bit too late.
That’s the problem with all these press releases: While there’s a need to raise “awareness” of heart health, there’s also a very real need for people to take us — heart disease professionals — seriously to help cut costs in healthcare here. The last thing our healthcare system needs is more frivolous testing. Yet this is exactly what all this marketing does for our healthcare system — and it helps those with the largest PR budgets most of all. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*
February 6th, 2011 by RyanDuBosar in Better Health Network, Research
Tags: ACP Internist, American College Of Physicians, Blood Pressure, Cardiac Mortality, Cardiovascular Risk, Clinical Cardiology, Epidemiology, Football Fans, Green Bay Packers, Heart Attack, Heart Rate, Heart Stress, Obesity, Pittsburgh Steelers, Ryan DuBosar, Sports and Heart Health, Sports and Stress, Sports and Your Health, Sports Fans and Cardiovascular Health, Sports-Related Health Conditions, Stress and Anxiety, Super Bowl 2011, Super Bowl and Health, Super Bowl Diet, Super Bowl Food, Super Bowl XLV
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Sports fans may literally live and die on their team’s victories, according to researchers who examined cardiac mortality rates after the home team won and lost the Super Bowl.
Total and cardiac mortality rates in Los Angeles County increased after the football team’s 1980 Super Bowl loss but overall mortality fell after the 1984 the team’s Super Bowl win, researchers concluded from a review of death certificates reported in Clinical Cardiology.
First, authors gave a clinical review. Stress causes a cardiac cascade. The sympathetic nervous system increases and releases catecholamines. This triggers a rise in heart rate and blood pressure, and ventricular contractility increases oxygen demand, causing blood the sheer against and fracture atherosclerotic plaque, the authors explained. Stimulation of alpha receptors in the vasculature further constrict coronary vessels, increasing oxygen demand while limiting oxygen supply to the heart.
Next, they gave a sporting review. Los Angeles has played twice in the Super Bowl, the first time losing to the Pittsburgh Steelers (who play in this Sunday’s Super Bowl, incidentally) in 1980. The Los Angeles Rams, as they were known then, were a long-time hometown team and played the game in nearby Pasadena, Calif. “This game was high intensity,” wrote the authors, “with seven lead changes before Los Angeles lost a fourth-quarter lead and the game.”
Later, a new football franchise arrived in town, the Los Angeles Raiders. In 1984 the Los Angeles Raiders traveled to Tampa, Fla. to beat the Washington Redskins in a more mundane affair.
Now, the review of findings. Researchers combed death certificates based on age, race and sex to compare mortality rates for Super Bowl-related days with non-Super Bowl days and created regression models predicting daily death rates per 100,000. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
February 4th, 2011 by AnnMacDonald in Better Health Network, Health Tips
Tags: 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, Ann MacDonald, Brain Tricks, CalorieKing, Eat Less, Eat More Slowly, Food and Nutrition, Harvard Health Blog, Harvard Health Publications, Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, Healthy Diet, Healthy Eating, Journal of the American Dietetic Association, Portion Control, Portion Inflation, Self-Control, Weight Control, Weight Management
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When I was growing up, my parents had a simple rule when it came to food: “Finish everything on your plate.” We had to sit at the table until we did.
They meant well. They wanted us to understand that food should not go to waste. The problem with this advice — and I’m sure I’m not the only American who grew up with it — is that we learned early on to eat everything put in front of us when we sat down to meals. Then the size of the plates grew — and so did the amount of food we consumed.
It’s called portion inflation. Take a look at the illustration at left. It’s based on an analysis published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association which found that typical restaurant portion sizes today are two to eight times as large as those in 1955. Back then, people who consumed a typical American meal (a hamburger, French fries, and a soda) had only one portion size to pick from. Today we can choose from multiple portion sizes: reasonable, big, bigger, and ridiculous (as I’ve come to think of the sizes listed in that last column).
Portion size matters. The bigger the portion, the more calories you can consume. An example using a table of calorie information available online in the nutrition section at McDonald’s: By choosing the largest size in each category, you’ll end up consuming nearly triple the number of calories in a meal as you would if you chose the smallest portions.
| Food |
Smallest size/calories |
Largest size/calories |
| Hamburger |
3.5 oz/250 calories |
11.1 oz/750 calories |
| French fries |
2.5 oz/230 calories |
5.4 oz/500 calories |
| Coca Cola |
12 oz/110 calories |
32 oz/310 calories |
| Total calories |
590 calories |
1,560 calories |
Partly as a result of portion inflation, we’re eating more. Dietary surveys indicate that, on a per capita basis, Americans consumed 200 calories more per day in the 1990s than they did in the 1970s. That may not sound like a lot, but over time extra calories translate into extra pounds. Some experts calculate that people who add 150 calories a day to their diets, without increasing physical activity to burn those calories off, will gain as many as 15 pounds in a year. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Harvard Health Blog*
February 4th, 2011 by Glenn Laffel, M.D., Ph.D. in Better Health Network, Research
Tags: AAM, Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, American Beverage Institute, Automotive Coalition for Traffic Safety and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, BAC, Blood Alcohol Level, Car Starter Button, Consumer Dissatisfaction, Dr. Glenn Laffel, Driver Safety, Drunk Driver Sensing Device For Cars, Drunk Driving, Drunk Driving Deaths, Infrared Technology, Killed By Drunk Driving, Motor Vehicle Safety Technology, Pizaazz, Public Opposition, Public Safety, Robert Strassburger, Sarah Longwell, Solid-State Electronics, Touch-Sensitive Sensors on Car Key Fobs, Washington Post
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Drunk driving continues to be a serious problem. In 2009 for example, alcohol was a factor in more than 10,000 highway deaths. The same year, a stunning 10 percent of respondents to a survey of U.S. adults said they had operated an automobile while drunk during the previous year. Nearly 6 percent said they had done it more than once.
So how would you feel about a car that can instantly detect whether a driver is drunk and prevent that person from starting the car? You better make up your mind quickly, because scientists are close to perfecting this technology.
“We’re five to seven years away from being able to integrate this into cars,” Robert Strassburger, the VP for safety at the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers (AAM) told the Washington Post. The AAM, an automotive trade group, is on the development team for the new technology which is being spearheaded by the Automotive Coalition for Traffic Safety and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The anticipated sensing device will look nothing like the breathalyzer machines currently used by police in the field. Instead it will be comprised of tiny, passive, touch-sensitive sensors that are permanently affixed to a key fob or a starter button. The sensors can determine blood alcohol levels in seconds. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Pizaazz*
February 3rd, 2011 by GarySchwitzer in Better Health Network, Opinion
Tags: Child Safety, Children's Health, Empty Cradles, Gary Schwitzer, Global Crisis, Global Health, HealthNewsReview.org, Infant Care, Infant Mortality, Infant Safety, Marty Kaiser, Maternal-Child Health, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Pediatrics, Premature Death, Protecting Children, Public Health, Sudden Infant Death, U.S. Infant Mortality Rate
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I have gushed praise for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for a long time. (Disclosure: I cut my teeth in journalism as a Journal Company employee way back in 1973. No ties since 1976.) As a mid-market newspaper facing all of the same hurdles as other newspapers, it consistently demonstrates tenacity and creativity in tackling vital healthcare issues in this country. The latest: A project called “Empty Cradles: Confronting Our Infant Mortality Crisis.”
While there is a great health/medicine/science team in place at the Journal Sentinel, I believe that much of the credit goes to the top — to editor Marty Kaiser, who clearly understands that healthcare issues are among the most important his paper can report on in serving public needs. Kaiser writes:
“The Journal Sentinel today takes on an issue we have too long ignored — the death of children before their first birthday. Infant mortality is a crisis not just of public health, but of ethics and morality. The rate at which infants die in our city is unacceptable. In 2011 we will examine the problem and point to solutions.”
The project is off to a great start, taking a global picture and focusing it locally. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*
