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Research Shows A Higher Risk Of Cardiovascular Disease In Childless Men

Photo by Tracy DuBosar

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*

More Employers Are Dropping Healthcare Insurance Coverage

McKinsey Quarterly has reported its survey concluding there will be a radical restructuring of employer-sponsored health benefits (ESI) as a result of President Obama’s following the 2010 passage of the Affordable Care Act.

Healthcare insurance rates have already skyrocketed as a result of anticipating the conditions of Obama care. President Obama has been powerless to do anything about the increases.

Thirty percent (30%) of companies providing ESI to their employees will drop healthcare insurance coverage once Obama care takes effect in 2014.

The survey included 1300 employers providing ESI across industries, geographies, and employer sizes. Other surveys have found that as we get closer to 2014, President Obama’s Healthcare Reform Act will provoke a much greater number of employers to drop employer sponsored healthcare insurance.

The penalty for not providing healthcare insurance coverage is much cheaper than providing healthcare coverage.

McKinsey’s survey suggests that when more employers become aware of the new economic and social incentives embedded in Obamacare the percentage of employers dropping ESI will Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Repairing the Healthcare System*

Results Of ShrinkRap Blog’s Survey On Attitudes Towards Psychiatry

Aloha from the American Psychiatric Association’s Annual Meeting in Honolulu! The weather is gorgeous here and it’s been a great meeting. Yesterday, I heard Archbishop Desmond Tutu speak, and today, I listened to “Conversations” with Lorraine Bracco–also known as Dr. Melfi from The Sopranos. The beach is nice, too, and Clink has been scuba diving. Should I tell you she just learned to swim this past winter? She is amazing!

In a few hours, we will be giving our workshop, The Accessible Psychiatry Project: The Public Face of Psychiatry in New Media. We are telling the audience that the survey we did was not validated, was not statistically analyzed, and is not real science. Mostly, it was about how cool it is that we can even do this at all (ask questions, interact with readers, have an impact). I thought I’d share the survey results with everyone here. If you took the survey, thank you, again.

702 responses Summary See complete responses Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Shrink Rap*

Would You Prefer Longevity Or A Perfect Figure?

I’ve spent some time thinking about this survey.   I couldn’t find any better information on the survey than the press release from the University of the West of England (UWE).  Perhaps in the future it will be published in a journal for better review.

The  survey was apparently done by the  new eating disorder charity The Succeed Foundation in partnership with the University of the West of England (UWE).  The editor’s notes indicate 320 women (ages 18 – 65 years, average age 24.49)  studying at 20 British universities completed The Succeed Foundation Body Image Survey in March 2011.

Notably, the survey found that 30% of women would trade at least one year of their life to achieve their ideal body weight and shape. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Suture for a Living*

Do Satisfied Patients Mean Good Medical Care?

A version of this op-ed was published on March 15, 2010 in USA Today:

If you recently saw a doctor, you might subsequently receive a survey in the mail asking whether your physician was friendly, spent enough time with you, or showed the appropriate level of concern for your medical issues.

Read the rest of article here: Op-ed: Patient satisfaction doesn’t mean the best medical care

*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*

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I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

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I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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