April 2nd, 2010 by Nancy Brown, Ph.D. in Better Health Network, Health Tips, Humor
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People, people, people: If you don’t understand how birth control works, you shouldn’t be having sex. What happened to the old days when the boyfriend was expected to sit through the video and conversation about all the types of birth control during the appointment at Planned Parenthood?
A friend sent me a link to the funniest video of men (trying to) explain how birth control works — it’s worth viewing for the laughs. These are all adult men who have some serious misconceptions about how birth control works, but “lady business” as a euphemism for vagina may become part of my vocabulary!
It’s no wonder that the United States has some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections — our youth are ignorant about how to prevent them. Please talk to your teens about birth control.
Remember that the teens who know the most about sexuality tend to be the ones who don’t have sex. How’s that for motivation to talk to your teens?
Photo credit: nateOne
This post, Birth Control: How Men Think It Works, was originally published on
Healthine.com by Nancy Brown, Ph.D..
April 2nd, 2010 by DaveMunger in Better Health Network, Health Tips, Humor, Opinion, Research, True Stories
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I consider myself a relatively fit person. Of course, “relatively” is still relative. I try to watch what I eat. I usually exercise five days a week. Heck, I’ve even run a couple half-marathons. But the rest of my days are pretty much sedentary. I sit in a climate-controlled office staring at my computer screen. I make dinner in my highly-automated kitchen. After dinner I sit in the living room sipping wine and watching TV or talking to Greta. Then I go to bed and start the process over again.
That’s not a whole lot of activity for a creature that evolved for endurance. Over a 50 mile course, a race between a man and a horse can be quite competitive. Millions of people all over the world do hard manual labor day in and day out. But millions of others don’t set aside any time for exercise. In my half-marathons, I’ve finished in the top half of competitors, so compared to a lot of people, I must be doing something right. Right? Or do my sedentary days outweigh my occasional bursts of activity? I exercise an average of 4 hours per week. That’s less than 4 percent of my total waking time. Is that really enough to stay fit? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Daily Monthly*
April 2nd, 2010 by Happy Hospitalist in Better Health Network, Humor, Opinion
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As a hospitalist physician of seven years and taking care of dialysis patients, I’ve come to the conclusion that a dialysis survival gene exists. I talked with a nephrologist the other day about dialysis survival. Here’s what he said:
“If you take all dialysis comers, every year 25% of them will die.”
There is a broad range of dialysis survival. A 94-year-old with severe COPD, CHF, and dementia will not have the same survival statistics as a healthy 27-year-old with acute interstitial nephritis. The protoplasm from which you begin with often times determines the dialysis survival.
There are many factors that determine dialysis survival statistics. Some of them include, age, race, weight, and even the length of the dialysis treatments. But no where have I seen reported the association of dialysis survival with Happy’s presumed dialysis surivival gene. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Happy Hospitalist*
April 2nd, 2010 by DrRob in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Humor, Opinion
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Name: “21” (% to be cut from Medicare)
Protagonist: Dr. Rob and a cast of thousands of physicians (Kiefer Sutherland wouldn’t work for such small payment.)
Villain: Evil SGR (Sustainable Growth Rate) conspiracy to cut Medicare by 21% across the board.
Victim: The elderly population depending on Medicare for payment of their medical care.
Plot: A follow-up to the popular drama “Lost” where members of congress were stranded in Washington D.C. with the task of reforming healthcare without any contact or communication from doctors and patients. This new drama “21″ tells the tragic tale of an industry under siege and a population facing possible disaster.
Already stretched to the limit by the paltry reimbursement from Medicare for primary care office visits, Dr. Rob and his band of physicians is hit by the evil conspiracy of SGR, a secret society whose goal is to harm the elderly people in the country by driving away all people willing to give them care. The congress, tired out from haggling over the healthcare reform bill, allows evil SGR to exert its power in the name of “fiscal responsibility.” Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Musings of a Distractible Mind*
April 1st, 2010 by Nancy Brown, Ph.D. in Better Health Network, Health Tips, News, Opinion, Research
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Research from the University of Michigan suggests that say one in three middle school youth who regularly eat school lunches are obese or overweight. They are also more likely to have higher cholesterol levels than kids who bring lunches from home.
The study included 1,076 middle school students who completed questionnaires about what they ate and how much physical activity they got as well as how many screen hours they logged each day.
Compared with kids who ate school lunches, kids who brought lunches from home were:
– Less likely to be overweight or obese (25% vs 38%)
– Less likely to eat two or more servings of fatty meats like fried chicken or hot dogs daily (2% vs. 6%)
– Less likely to drink two or more sugary drinks a day (7% vs. 19%)
– More likely to eat at least two servings a day of fruit (49% vs. 33%)
– More likely to eat at least two servings a day of vegetables (50% vs. 40%)
– Had lower levels of LDL (the bad cholesterol) Read more »
This post, Kids Who Eat School Lunch Are Less Healthy In General, was originally published on
Healthine.com by Nancy Brown, Ph.D..
