June 8th, 2011 by PJSkerrett in Health Tips
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The crumbling Food Pyramid and its hip successor (MyPyramid) fell into oblivion yesterday, eroded by the stinging winds of science. Their replacement? A quartered plate called—wait for it—MyPlate that was designed to visually convey the elements of healthy eating to Americans of all ages.
The new icon consists of a white plate divided into four segments: green for vegetables, red for fruits, orange for grains, and purple for protein. Dairy has a prominent place, sitting where a glass of water should be. The hope is that the plate will nudge Americans away from meals dominated by meat and starch and towards meals made up mostly of plant-based foods.
The original Food Guide Pyramid debuted in 1992. It was built on shaky scientific ground. Over the next few years, research from around the world chipped away at the healthy eating message in the pyramid’s base (refined carbohydrates), the middle (meat and milk), and the tip (fats).
The Pyramid got an extreme makeover in 2005. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Harvard Health Blog*
June 8th, 2011 by DrWes in Health Policy
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We certainly have seen regulations upon regulations appear for health care over the past several years, and this letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal (1 June 2011) from the Commissioner of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Nancy A. Nord, should cause us all to pause:
As a commissioner at the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), I can attest that no such (regulatory reform) activity is happening at this agency. We certainly have not combed through our regulations to eliminate those that are “out-of-date, unnecessary, [or] excessively burdensome,” as he suggests is being done across the government. Instead, we are regulating at an unprecedented pace and have pretty much abandoned any efforts to weigh societal benefits from regulations with the costs imposed on the public.
In health care, we have seen an unprecedented rise in regulations for in-hospital MRSA screening while little data have been forthcoming about its patient benefits. Doctors are under increased administrative burdens to complete Pay for Performance questionnaires without any evidence of their benefit to patients. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*
June 8th, 2011 by Jessie Gruman, Ph.D. in Health Tips
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I have been musing about why, despite our fascination with gadgets and timesaving devices, so few of us use the apps and tools that have been developed to help us take care of ourselves.
The range of options is staggering – my iPhone coughed up 52 applications for medication reminders just now – but most of us don’t make use of the (often free) high-tech help available to us. There are hundreds of websites and portals to help us monitor our diets, physical activity and blood sugar, talk to our doctors by e-mail and understand our test results. Apps can help us watch for drug interactions, unravel our test results, adjust our hearing aids and track our symptoms. Devices can monitor whether our mom is moving around her house this morning or continuously monitor our vital signs.
Interesting ideas. Modest pickup.
In an essay published in the May issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine supplement “Cyberinfrastructure for Consumer Health,” I make some observations about why this may be so, Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Prepared Patient Forum: What It Takes Blog*
June 8th, 2011 by Peggy Polaneczky, M.D. in Health Tips
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NPR is running a typical media hype story on oocyte preservation (egg freezing), featuring the standard happy family photo with their “miracle” baby born after thawing and fertilizing a cryopreserved egg.
It’s a heartwarming story and a pretty photo, but far from a complete picture of what women need to know about this still experimental fertility preserving procedure. Nowhere does the article tell women the actual success rates of occyte cryo-preservation.
So before you run out to freeze your eggs, know this – the chance of having a pregnancy after egg freezing is less than a 50/50 shot – at most about 39%, according to the latest data. That’s about the same odds you’d have if you just wait till 40 to try to get pregnant on your own. In addition, while somewhere between 1 and 2 thousand infants have been born using the technology, we do not yet have data on their long term outcomes. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Blog That Ate Manhattan*
June 7th, 2011 by Felasfa Wodajo, M.D. in Health Policy, News
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In a nod to the reality of rapid physician adoption of tablets and smartphones, the CIO of the VA system recently stated that the VA must find a way to accommodate iPads at a conference on federal information technology.
According to Baker, the fact is that 100,000 residents rotate through the VA each year and “they’re all carrying mobile devices”. In order for them to do their jobs, they want to be able to access resources on the internet.
In an article published at nextgov.com, CIO Roger Baker said:
I’ve told my folks I don’t want to say ‘no’ to those devices anymore…I want to know how I say yes.
The key, according to Baker, is security. While the iPad can be secured, proper protocols need to be developed. Otherwise, the device can be likened to a “huge unencrypted USB stick with no pin”. In order to facilitate development of security protocols, a pilot program has been launched giving out iPads to select employees in situations where security is looser. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at iMedicalApps*
