Happy 4th of July…
Enjoy your barbeque…
But please don’t eat one of these: Krispy Kreme Bacon Cheeseburgers – (h/t KevinMD) or enter a hotdog eating contest.
Need help with losing weight? Join my weight loss group!
Need some brain food? Check out Dr. Rich’s wonderful Independence Day medical blog round up.This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
Ken Thorpe, Ph.D., is the Executive Director of the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease, and is admired and respected by many of the “movers and shakers” in Washington. The outpouring of appreciation for his work was quite evident during the recent half day-conference entitled, “Fighting Chronic Disease: The Missing Link In Health Reform.” I had the chance to speak with Ken to get his thoughts on chronic disease and health reform.
Dr. Val: What are the most important things that the general public needs to know about chronic disease?
Dr. Thorpe: Two things. First of all, they need to know whether or not they have a chronic disease. For example, about a third of diabetics in the country don’t know they have diabetes. So Americans need to be screened appropriately for potential chronic diseases like cancer and diabetes.
Second, if you do have a chronic disease, there are simple ways to manage it. Management needs to be coordinated through a primary care physician. Basic things like blood pressure and blood sugar need to be monitored on a regular basis. Diet and exercise are also a critical compenent of chronic disease management. The good news is that most chronic illnesses are manageable, but patients need to be actively engaged in their health. Medication compliance and consistent lifestyle modification under the care of a PCP is the way to go.
Dr. Val: What should people know about the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease?
Dr. Thorpe: We want to get patients (or “consumers”) involved as a voice for healthcare reform. Patients are the key to making our healthcare system simpler, less-expensive, and less administratively complex. We believe that health reform is possible. We must not become frustrated with our inability to fix everything today, but if we start with the right set of issues and really work collaboratively to solve them, we really can make life better for patients and physicians.
The patient community should go to our website and learn the facts about chronic disease and help to educate their local politicians and community leaders about it. I would encourage them to spearhead community-based interventions to promote weight loss and prevent obesity. We just released a book about “best practices” for achieving healthy behavior modifications. It is full of local program ideas to help prevent chronic disease – and it’s all based on initiatives that have a proven track record of success. Our best practices book is an ideal guide to community-based interventions that can make a difference.
Dr. Val: You say that we need a different delivery model to treat chronic disease. Can you explain that?
Dr. Thorpe: Chronic disease management requires a team-based model. Nurses, social workers, and mental health providers should work with patients at home. We need a more proactive model where we engage patients in managing their disease so that we can prevent unnecessary flare ups. For example, with diabetes, if you don’t control your blood sugars on a daily basis, you’re far more likely to go on to require a limb amputation. Our current delivery system does not allow this type of management – interacting with nurses at home, for example – because nobody pays for it. So we need a different payment model and a different delivery model.
Dr. Val: Do you think that online health websites can make a difference?
Dr. Thorpe: I think that online programs should engage people in education – so that they can understand the connection between weight, diet, exercise, smoking, and chronic illness. Only 15% of the population understands the gravity of these issues and how it affects the cost of their health insurance.
Online sites that allow people to track their progress (and chart how they’re managing their disease) may also help people to become more actively engaged in their healthcare.
Dr. Val: How can we encourage people to adopt healthy behaviors?
Dr. Thorpe: Incentives always work. We have to give better tools to people who want to change their behaviors. We have to make it easier for them to manage their health at their places of work. For example, some employers conduct health risk appraisals with their employees and then put together care plans and even have a nurse practitioner available at the work place to check on progress. That way the employees don’t have to take time off work to see the physician after hours.
We can also make a difference in schools – we need consumer advocates to continue to demand healthier school lunch programs and increased physical activity for kids. Consumer advocacy at the community level is critical to our success in the prevention and management of chronic disease.
This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
Dr. Val: Dr. Carmona, I recently met you at the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease conference in Washington, D.C., and now you’re here with the STOP Obesity Alliance. You are certainly one busy guy. What are you doing with your life these days?
Dr. Carmona: My life is certainly very full and very fulfilling. After completing my four-year term as surgeon general, many good people in the private sector offered me opportunities to continue my life’s work. All of my endeavors are geared toward improving the public’s health —that is, the health, safety and security of a person, a population, a nation —and sometimes even globally through partners that we work with.
As I surveyed the various opportunities to engage in public health service, I wanted to choose initiatives that gave me the biggest bang for my buck. In other words, I wanted to support programs that would have maximal impact in improving the lives of Americans. The chronic disease burden caused by a preventable condition —obesity — seemed like a really logical place to start.
We have to figure out how to reverse obesity in more than 9 million children, and we need to help the two out of three adults who are overweight or obese. Obesity has a huge impact on diseases across the board —asthma, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancers and a whole host of chronic diseases. Obesity either causes or is a comorbid [simultaneous and independent] factor in each of these.
In addition to my involvement in the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease and in the STOP Obesity Alliance, I am involved in the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, where I chair the Childhood Influenza Immunization Coalition — which endeavors to ensure that our children get their full complement of vaccines.
In a country where we spend more on health care than any other nation in the world, our metrics put us somewhere between 25th and 40th in terms of life expectancy, childhood vaccinations, maternal child mortality and things like that. We have to step back and ask: “Where are we missing the boat here?” I think part of the answer is that many of our children don’t complete their immunization series. In Arizona just recently, we had a measles outbreak. That shouldn’t happen in this country.
When I was a child, every mom worried about her son or daughter getting polio. We don’t have to worry about that any more because of vaccines. In a global economy where people move freely across geopolitical borders, vaccination has never been more important —both here in the U.S. and internationally.
Dr. Val: Tell me a little bit about what you’re doing at Canyon Ranch. People may have some misperceptions about the population that Canyon Ranch exists to serve (i.e., wealthy spa-goers). But I know there’s a lot more to it than that.
Dr. Carmona: I’m the vice chairman and CEO of Canyon Ranch [resorts in Arizona, Massachusetts and Florida], and I am always looking for opportunities for the organization to contribute to health policy issues. Our goal is to help the people who come to us to find a path to optimal health and wellness through prevention strategies based on a true integration of the mind, body and spirit.
The Canyon Ranch Institute is the nonprofit arm of our organization that takes our best practices at Canyon Ranch and translates them to underserved populations around the country. So we serve the upper echelons of society, but we also have a strong social responsibility to “give back” to underserved communities and to help eliminate health disparities. Through the institute, we partner with [for example] the Urban Health Plan in the South Bronx [in New York City] — which is in one of the poorest congressional districts in the United States. We’ve committed to helping some of the poorest Hispanic people in America because they struggle with disproportionate disease burden as a group.
Essentially, we’re building a Canyon Ranch Institute Life Enhancement Program in a federally qualified community health center to change the health metrics of that population. And we’re going to focus on disease prevention and an integrative approach to health and wellness. We’re going to measure our impact scientifically. We do everything in peer partnership in a way that honors the culture of the community, and we respect what they’re already doing to serve their population. With everything we do, we plan and act as consultants to the local community leaders. In this case, we took the local community physician and other health leaders and brought them to Canyon Ranch on a scholarship program. We trained them and then sent them back to the Bronx with a small team of staff to help them put together a life enhancement program. And now, we’re building a curriculum with them.
Dr. David Satcher and I are discussing a new initiative in Atlanta, perhaps through his institute — the Satcher Health Leadership Institute. We also have a partnership with the Lance Armstrong Foundation, in which we’ve come together with other surgeons general to bring forth a collective call to action on cancer prevention and survivorship — which we’ll announce this summer here at the National Press Club. This is the first initiative to include all the past surgeons general, so it’s really exciting.
We’re doing many innovative and entrepreneurial things that we can initiate quickly with a lot of smart and willing people. You can move a little more nimbly in the private sector than you can in the federal government, so it’s a joy to be able to pull all these people together to address the unmet needs of various populations at all levels of society.
Dr. Val: How do you incorporate the “mind, body, and spirit” approach to health without getting too far afield from science?
Dr. Carmona: At Canyon Ranch and the Canyon Ranch Institute, we believe that achieving optimal wellness involves taking an integrative and holistic approach to the many dimensions of health and well-being —enhancing the physical, mental, emotional, social, spiritual and environmental aspects. We’re also helping to translate this integrative approach to underserved communities through the Canyon Ranch Institute.
I have a small group of integrative health doctors and other health professionals who meet on a regular basis at Canyon Ranch. Their job is to read their scientific literature and meet periodically with me to present the new and emerging science in health and wellness. Then we review the science together and ask ourselves if there’s anything applicable that we could use as a product to improve the health of those we serve at Canyon Ranch or through the Canyon Ranch Institute’s nonprofit efforts.
So, for example, we’ve been taking a close look at the brain fitness movement in order to see what we could apply to older adults. When you and I went to medical school, we were taught that when you hit 60 or 70, you couldn’t really learn anything new and you need to be put out to pasture. The fact of the matter is that the science is now very clear that not only can you learn, but you can grow your knowledge and ability in many areas — even when you’re into your 90s and 100s. So at Canyon Ranch, we combine physical fitness with brain fitness, and we have holistic programs to develop cognitive skills through nutrition and mind exercises to increase intellectual capacity.
We have also been investigating whether or not touch can be healing. I believe it’s a gray area — some of it may be hocus-pocus, but some may also have scientific merit. So we’re working with Gary Schwartz, Ph.D., an expert in energy medicine, to take a closer look at this and to conduct some trials to see what works. I know this is pushing the envelope, but it’s not implausible that the comfort and stress reduction one experiences from gentle touch might improve immunity.
I recognize that holistic medicine is a very dynamic and challenging field to be in, but we vet everything and make sure that we have some scientific validity before we move forward with anything as a product. We try to stay open-minded as we study these so-called complementary and alternative medicine practices to see what works. And if we find a benefit, we incorporate it. If not, we reject it and move on.
Dr. Val: And do you practice what you preach? How are you taking care of yourself?
Dr. Carmona: I get about an hour to an hour and 15 minutes of exercise five to six times a week. I even have staff meetings while working out at the gym sometimes. I’ll say: “I have 24 hours a day, and you guys get 23. But I need one for exercise. If it’s so important that you need to see me during that hour, then you have to work out with me. We can swim or walk, and you can debrief me while we’re doing that.” Sometimes they’ll take me up on it, but not always. Last night we didn’t finish our business dinner until 11 pm. Everybody went to bed, but I went to the gym.
I do a lot of cross-training. I don’t run that much anymore because my knees are getting sore. I use elliptical machines and the StairMaster. I swim, and then I do a weight training circuit every other day.
Just keep moving. I think that’s the important thing.
Dr. Val: And what do you do nutritionally?
Dr. Carmona: I’m careful about what I eat. I eat a little bit of beef, but not much. I do eat a lot of chicken. I have fish allergies so, unfortunately, I can’t eat seafood. I eat a lot of whole grains, nuts and fruits, and I control my portions. My typical breakfast is oatmeal, fruit and a glass of skim milk. For lunch, I have a sandwich and some salad, and then I have a full but portion-controlled dinner. I allow myself some vices. I used to joke with my staff all the time about not being able to pass a Baskin-Robbins without stopping in to get a vanilla ice-cream cone.
Dr. Val: Baskin-Robbins has 31 flavors … and you pick vanilla?
Dr. Carmona: That’s right. I told them they’re wasting their time on the other 30. There’s only one flavor that I need: vanilla. Every once in a while, I’m really risqué and I’ll try French vanilla.This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
I attended the STOP Obesity Alliance press conference on May 22, 2008, in Washington, D.C. During the conference a new strategy to reduce obesity rates was announced — which provides employers with an obesity management benefit for their employees. I asked Carl Graziano, the vice president of communications for DMAA: The Care Continuum Alliance, to explain what this new benefit is and how it works. (DMAA was formerly known as the Disease Management Association of America.)
Dr. Val: How does the DMAA “prototype obesity benefit” work?
Graziano: The prototype is just that — a suggested approach based on the best available evidence on effective obesity interventions. While we provide a template for possible covered services and suggested pricing, it will be up to individual end users to tailor this benefit to their particular budgets, corporate cultures and values. Generally, we recommend three tiers of coverage, starting with enhanced primary care services, nutritional counseling and pharmaceuticals. A second tier would add treatment by an obesity specialist, and a third level would provide coverage for bariatric surgery and associated supporting services. Plan participants could be subject to an additional premium and co-payments for these services, as with other “riders,” such as vision and dental benefits.
Dr. Val: Which employers are planning to offer this benefit?
Graziano: We’re pleased to have the support of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which will consider our benefit approach as it develops coverage for its members. We expect that as experience with the benefit design and awareness grows, other employers will tailor it to their specific needs. As the STOP Obesity Alliance survey shows, while most employers believe in the appropriateness of obesity-related services, less than half say their companies devote enough attention to the problem of obesity. We believe this reflects a lack of guidance on how to provide obesity benefits, and that’s why we developed our suggested approach.
Dr. Val: What can people do to make sure that their employer offers this benefit or something similar?
Graziano: Because this benefit prototype will be freely available from and promoted by DMAA, we expect growing awareness of it among benefits managers over the next year — both through their own efforts to stay current on benefit design trends and recommendations from employees and others.
Dr. Val: How do we know that this program works? What outcomes have you demonstrated so far?
Graziano: Designing a formal approach to obesity benefits is largely uncharted territory, which is precisely the reason why DMAA saw a need to initiate research in this area. That said, our benefit design is strongly rooted in the best available evidence that interventions deliver high-value, positive outcomes. We are breaking new ground here, but we believe the benefit’s value-based approach offers the best chance of positive clinical and financial outcomes in a real-world setting.
Dr. Val: What’s the most important aspect that the public should know about the DMAA obesity benefit?
Graziano: It’s important that the public understand that personal behavior — eating healthfully, exercising and making other lifestyle changes — is essential to the success of any overweight or obesity intervention. While our benefit approach may ultimately contribute to new and expanded care options for the overweight and obese — a change that’s much needed in the face of a growing obesity epidemic — the commitment of plan participants to these interventions will play a large part in reversing the overweight and obesity trend.This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
This is day 2 of the Woman Challenge, and I’m supposed to take at least 10,000 steps a day for 8 weeks. So I got myself a pedometer and marveled at how sedentary I am. Then I dragged myself upstairs to a small stuffy white room (where my building has a treadmill and elliptical machine) and decided to make up the rest of my steps for the day (about 8000!) So I was jogging along, huffing and puffing, eyes fixed on a door jam, and at the 30 minute mark I checked my pedometer. I was at 3000 steps only. Now, my math isn’t that great, but I think I can do more than 1000 steps in 30 minutes of jogging.
On closer inspection, my pedometer had ceased counting. Argh! I started shaking it and I realized that there must be some sort of ball bearing inside, trapped like some helpless pinball in the recesses of the little metal box in which it lives.
So my question is this: does anyone know how to keep a pedometer functioning properly? Do I need to find a way to make more movement in the Y-plane when I’m jogging? Should I bob around or do the “funny walk” to keep the little thing from going into pinball “tilt” mode?
Maybe hubby was right – I need to find a sport that I’m good at.
Hrmph.This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.
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