HealthyConcerns.com

Pay your dental bills, or else...

Just a medical nightmare story to start you day, what could be better?

Apparently a dentist in germany got a little sick of waiting for a delinquent patient to pay up for some bridgework. So. He broke into her house, tied her up, pried open her mouth and removed the bridgework he had put in.

I kid you not.

Of course, let's al take note that this all really started because her health insurer refused the claim.

Wow, dentists gone wild, indeed. (Hat tip: Kevin MD)

Revolution Health over and out after <2 years?

Revolution Health was a big sponsor at BlogHer '07 in Chicago, less than 18 months ago. They had Steve Case, former chairman of AOL, at the helm, driven by personal passion stoked by personal experience in the world of health care. They had at least one really smart blogger/doctor in the person of Dr. Val Jones. They clearly had money. And they seemed to have a mission that went beyond just becoming WebMD lite. They did seem to want to be a truly Web 2.0-embracing agent of change in the health care world online.

Apparently, it's nice to want things, but it doesn't mean you'll last.

And John from e-patients.net shares his insights from working at Web 1.0 failed med-start-up drkoop.com to theorize about why. In a way it's simple: the vast majority of such start-ups fail...statistically, this was likely to happen. I think most of us expected a better outcome based on the pedigree behind the venture, but perhaps that pedigree contributed to a sense of hubris...over-reaching, over-commitment, over-promising? And a little less freedom to focus on organic, sustainable growth.

"Organic, sustainable"? Sounds like something I should be writing about on my green blog, but sometimes it applies to business too.

Bring on the Disruption!

Hat tip to The Health Care Blog for pointing me to a new blog that I will being tracking with interest: Disruptive Women in Health Care. I admit I mostly like the blog title and what it signifies, and we'll have to see if the content lives up to the name, right?

If nothing else they do seem dedicated to regularly updating the content, there are numerous posts, even though they haven't been operating very long.

Consider me subscribed and waiting to have my mind blown...no pressure.

Should I be surprised?

Apparently a very small study published by the The Lancet Oncology showed that "comprehensive lifestyle changes", including a vegan diet, daily exercise and meditation, "increase the body’s ability to fight premature aging, cancer, heart disease, and other chronic diseases."

Honestly, who can be surprised that a vegan diet, daily exercise and meditation would have that kind of positive effect? What I'm really curious about, though, is whether they will be able to allocate the responsibility for the positive results to these various lifestyle changes. I doubt this small study did it, but I'd love to see a study where different groups did various combinations of these lifestyle changes, and see how the results differ. Oh, and can we take into account their starting genetic factors and starting vital stats too?

Still, never anything wrong with continuing to bolster the argument for a healthy, cruelty-free and zen lifestyle :)

Source PCRM

Should I be worried?

I just checked into a hotel here is Las Vegas, where you definitely need A/C, even in mid-September.

The A/C is dutifully turning on and off, and every time it starts blasting air I smell mustiness. This is not pristine filtered air being forced all over my room, no, it's kind of, well, musty.

Clearly a quick Google search reveals that smelly air conditioning is a pretty common problem. The question is: is this harmful enough I should be asking to move rooms? Is there any chance the A/C would smell any better in any other room? (Probably not, is my guess.)

48 hours in Vegas, much of it to be spent outside the room at the convention center. I think i'll let it go, but it's definitely a discomforting feeling to be worried about mold in my hotel room.

What would you do?

Ideas for Women interviews Dr. Val Jones

Revolution Health has had and is having their ups and downs, as just about any Web 2.0 start-up does, but one of their ups is always Dr. Val Jones from their blog The Voice of Reason. She spoke at BlogHer in '07 and we've interviewed her there, but Trisha over at Ideas for Women has an up-to-the-minute interview with Dr. Val. She doesn't mince words, and she doesn't pussyfoot around some of the issues women face in this world.

It's a good read.

Three health links to close out Labor Day

Three links struck me today while browsing the Health folder in my feed reader, so I thought I'd share:

1. Let the Mind Help Tame an Irritable Bowel [NY Times]

I'm probably one of the half that isn't seeking medical help as described in this statement from the article: "Up to 15 percent of the population is affected, though only half seek medical help." I have no doubt that stress has an incredible affect on what upsets my stomach and what doesn't. But I could be happy as a clam and still be unable to process certain foods very well.

Many years ago I did one of those elimination diets where you eliminate all possible reaction-causing foods from your diet for a couple of weeks and then add them back one at a time. I went two weeks with nary a stomach issue, and so I stayed on the 100% elimination part of the diet for a week longer than I was supposed to. But the diet was sooo restrictive that by the time I finally took myself off of it, I was adding back foods willy-nilly, thus destroying the point of the effort to begin with.

I should try that again. And do it right. And yes, I should probably try to figure out some regular stress-relieving thing to do too.

2. Addiction Doesn’t Discriminate? Wrong [NY Times]

I actually don't get this essayist's point. She wants to dispel what she calls a myth that anyone can be an addict, but I have no idea why. She says: : "The idea that addiction doesn’t discriminate may be a useful story line for the public — if we are all under threat then we all should urge our politicians to support more research and treatment for addiction. There are good reasons to campaign for those things, but not on the basis of a comforting fiction."

OK, then what is your problem, exactly?

I honestly don't get what she wants a reader to walk away with. Do you?

3. Older fathers linked with bipolar [BBC]

I just found this article fascinating because I'm so used to reading about all the risk factors associated with the mother's age. That is all.