October 31st, 2010 by RyanDuBosar in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Health Tips, News, Research
Tags: ACP Internist, American College Of Physicians, Blood Sugar Control, Candy, Community Health, Diabetic Medicine, Food and Nutrition, Glycemic Control, Halloween, HDL Cholesterol, Health Commissioner, High Polyphenol Chocolate, High-Fat Foods, Insulin Resistance, Media Message, Medical Advertising, New York City, Nutritional Issues, Obesity, Overweight, Public Awareness, Public Health, Ryan DuBosar, Sugar Consumption, Sugary Soft Drinks, Type 2 Diabetes, Weight Gain, Weight Management
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New York City’s war on sugary soft drinks had to balance evidence-based medicine with a short, simple message that would go viral in the community. Going viral won, according to e-mails of internal discussions between the city’s health commissioner, his staff, and the ad agency that crafted the campaign. The statement that soda would cause a person to gain 10 pounds a year is contingent upon many factors, argued the staff, but the desire to produce a media message with impact overruled the details. One nutritionist called the campaign “deliciously disgusting.”
Chocolate may moderate HDL cholesterol in type 2 diabetics, according to the November issue of Diabetic Medicine. High polyphenol chocolate increased HDL cholesterol in diabetics without affecting weight, insulin resistance or glycemic control. Researchers enrolled 12 type 2 diabetics in a randomized, placebo-controlled double-blind crossover study to 45 g chocolate with or without a high polyphenol content for eight weeks and then crossed over after a four-week washout period. HDL cholesterol increased with high polyphenol chocolate (1.16+/-0.08 vs. 1.26+/-0.08 mmol/l, P=0.05) with a decrease in the total cholesterol: HDL ratio (4.4+/-0.4 vs. 4.1+/-0.4 mmol/l, P=0.04). No changes were seen with the low polyphenol chocolate.
With Halloween, sugar will be on everyone’s mind (and in everyone’s stomachs). To find out how many calories and how much fat that pile of Halloween candy totals, try this interactive module. (New York Times, Diabetic Medicine, ABC Chanel 7 News-Denver)
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
October 30th, 2010 by GarySchwitzer in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion, Quackery Exposed, Research
Tags: AAAnswers, Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm, Aneurysm Screenings, Blue Light Special, CardioBrief, Gary Schwitzer, HealthNewsReview.org, Kmart, Larry Husten, Medtronic, Public Health, Screening, Screening Tests
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Kmart, Medtronic, and a bunch of specialty medical groups are sponsoring a campaign called “Find the AAAnswers” — the “AAA” standing for abdominal aortic aneurysm.
It’s clever marketing for Kmart’s pharmacy business, since the screenings are being offered throughout the Fall at more than 900 Kmart pharmacies. And it’s not bad business for the specialty medical groups, either, as Larry Husten wrote on his Cardiobrief blog:
…the expenses of the program and the coalition are entirely underwritten by Medtronic, which sells abdominal stent grafts used to repair AAAs, and the members of the coalition include organizations like the Peripheral Vascular Surgical Society, the Society for Vascular Surgery, and the Society for Vascular Ultrasound, whose members may derive a significant portion of their income from performing AAA repairs and screening.
Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*
October 30th, 2010 by Lucy Hornstein, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Tips, Opinion, Research, True Stories
Tags: Biological Aging, Dr. Lucy Hornstein, Getting Older, Good Sleep Habits, Healthy Aging, Medical Residency, Medical Residents, Medical School, Musings of a Dinosaur, puberty, Signs of Aging, Teen Health, Young Adults
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I heard a 23-year-old woman complain: “I must be getting old when 11:00 at night is late.” It got me thinking.
It turns out that the explanation for why teens are natural night owls has recently been elucidated. They can’t help it — they just don’t get tired until way later in the evening. Then, of course, their bodies want to stay asleep well into the next morning in order to feel sufficiently rested. Since most of them are stuck with the artificial structure of school hours, they’re screwed — and condemned to suffer constant fatigue from cumulative sleep deprivation. Old news.
Then I started wondering about the back end of this phenomenon. Even though our American “youth culture” attributes great coolness to late-night happenings, since this pubertal sleep shift is biological, there must come a point at which their pineal glands go back to releasing melatonin at a more reasonable hour. Does 10 years sound about right? I remember not being nearly as enamored of the “all-nighter” by the time medical school rolled around, as opposed to college, where staying up all night was a regular occurrence. Certainly by residency (ages 26 to 30), it was a killer. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Musings of a Dinosaur*
October 29th, 2010 by Berci in Better Health Network, Research
Tags: Ed Bennett, Hospital Blogs, Hospitals and Social Media, Hospitals On Facebook, Hospitals On LinkedIn, Hospitals On Twitter, Hospitals On YouTube, Science Roll, Social Media in Healthcare, U.S. Hospitals
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Ed Bennett has been managed a huge and comprehensive list of U.S. hospitals using social media. In the newest update, Hospital accounts on LinkedIn are now also tracked in addition to Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and blogs.
Current stats:
871 hospitals total
- 421 YouTube channels
- 679 Facebook pages
- 648 Twitter accounts
- 417 LinkedIn accounts
- 94 blogs
You can also browse by state. The number of hospitals using each account is below:
*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*
October 29th, 2010 by RyanDuBosar in Better Health Network, News, Research
Tags: ACP Internist, American College Of Physicians, CDC, Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, Family Medicine, MSNBC, My Health News Daily, Obstetrics And Gynecology, Pediatrics, Public Health, Reproductive Health, Ryan DuBosar, Sexual Health, Teen Birth Rates, Teen Health, teen pregnancy
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Teen pregnancy rates have declined, but likely bottomed out, according to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Teen births dropped by a third between 1990 to 2005, but rose again in 2006 and 2007. The latest figures for 2008 show a decline of 2.4 percent, to 41.5 pregnancies per 1,000 teenagers. Experts told My Health News Daily/MSNBC the dropping rates have bottomed out, and that new strategies are needed to deglamorize teen pregnancy.
Teen birth rates were consistently highest in states across the South and Southwest, and lowest in the Northeast and upper Midwest. In 2008, state-specific teenage birth rates varied widely, from less than 25.0 per 1,000 15-19 year olds (Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont), to more than 60.0 per 1,000 (Arkansas, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas). Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
