HealthyConcerns.com

When Worlds Collide: Reality TV and Health Care Issues

Awesome interview on Diabetes Mine with American idol runner-up Crystal Bowersox about her Type 1 diabetes (which I didn't even know she had):

http://www.diabetesmine.com/2010/09/crystal-bowersox-her-first-interview-on-diabetes.html

According to new study: Exercise does not prevent weight gain

Depressing study showing that exercise does not prevent weight gain for middle-aged women...unless they're already at a healthy weight. Le sigh.

http://getbetterhealth.com/physical-activity-for-weight-loss-not-for-most-middle-aged-women/2010.06.26#more-22553

Of course as with any study, it raises as many questions as it answers. And since only the abstract is available at no cost on the JAMA site, I'm not sure if the answers are available or not.

Like: Isn't weight loss still (mostly) a mathematical equation? Is the fact that exercise did not prevent weight gain indicative that women who exercised were eating more to fuel their energy to exercise? Or is it disproving the whole generally accepted notion that weight loss is all about calories in vs. calories out.

Inquiring minds want to know, but might be too lazy to find out. Since, you know, there's now no motivation not to be lazy, right?

What? Is that not how I'm supposed to interpret this study? :)

Robert Reich on the filibuster, reconciliation and health care reform

So, did you watch the Health Care Summit last week?

And if so, do you have much hope that that a single Republican will really work with the majority party to make something happen?

If your answer to the second question is "no" (and regrettably, that's my answer too), then you may find yourself vigorously nodding your head when you read this Robert Reich post on the HuffPo:
It's Time to Enact Health Care Reform With 51 Senate Votes.

I've always liked Reich, and I think he's sadly pretty spot-on here.

How about you?

Jamie Oliver at TED
I actually don't think Jamie is saying something revolutionary or new in his TedTalk this year...all about teaching children about real foods in order to save our lives...BUT:

1. He has a passion that is, hopefully, infectious
2. He's actually gone out and done something about it in a community in our unhealthiest state, West Virginia. And it seems replicatable.

Check out his 20 minute talk:

Wow, I finally feel like the Jetsons are here: Artificial pancreas in the works

Thanks to Amy Tenderich from Diabetes Mine for doing a thorough job reporting on the recently announced partnership between the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) and a J&J company that makes insulin pumps and the like. Their goal? To create an artificial pancreas for Diabetes patients that can be ready for market within something like four years!

It's fascinating to read the details. 

It's not that this pancreas will create insulin...there will still be a need to have some kind of patch/pump system to provide the insulin, but the "pancreas" would monitor levels and dispense in an automated fashion.

Read the whole post, so much information.

It may not be a hovercraft, but it feels like the future to me!

Two quick links about health care reform

Was relatively surprised to see Kevin MD state that, in the end, he would vote for the health care reform bill before the Senate. [Note, the post was written on 12/21, and it didn't pass until 12/24, so I'm not exactly clear on what changes may have been made between the 21st and 24th, and if that would impact his opinion. Only surprised because Kevin strikes me as a basically conservative guy. His post is long, thoughtful, takes a look at both sides and brings some different perspectives to the table. Like how about this one: 

And, as I wrote earlier this year in the USA Today, medical malpracticeneeds to be reformed for the patient’s sake, not the doctors’.

Of course, he's getting mostly slammed in his comments. By people who'd rather be condescending and dismissive than actually address points with data or citations of any kind. 

Read his post. And read the comments too, so you can know what the latest talking points are on the side of the divide.

And my second link is another example of all hat no cattle, or whatever that phrase is.

In the post Warning: Graphic Health Politics, GetBetterHealth examines a graph originally published on the National Geographic blog. Some are using the graph to draw the conclusion that countries with public health or universal care or single-payer get more bang for their health care buck than we do. And the author of the post disagrees that this conclusion can be drawn.

It's a really interesting post, yes, and certainly brings up some outliers. Or exceptions to the rule. And then questions whether there are more outliers than not. More exceptions than rules.

But I kind of wish he'd offer some answers...or draw some alternative conclusions. 

What DOES the graph tell us? That's my question, and it goes unanswered for now.

University backs down, but I just can't stand not commenting

So a few weeks ago, via BlogHer, I learned of an historically black college, Lincoln University, that was introducing a new and shocking graduation requirement: If a student is tested and has a BMI over 30, they'll need to take a course on health/fitness to graduate.

BlogHer's post listed numerous rational questions that had come up on the online version of the school's on student newspaper, the Lincolnian:

• Why is the university focusing solely on BMI and physical education, when its cafeteria could be offering better-quality, fresher, organic food to its students?
• Does the university really want to lose bright, motivated students and prospective students who happen to have a BMI of 30 or higher?
• Why only target those who are declared obese based on the BMI, which is already a controversial way of measuring health?
• Why make high-BMI students pay for an extra credit hour, when students with a lower BMI do not have to do so?
• Why is the college not offering the same intervention to students with eating disorders like anorexia or bulimia?
• Is the college opening itself up to discrimination suits?

Amy Tuteur's post on Kevin MD is a scathing look at the policy, and asks several other rational questions:

• Why not have a class on substance abuse for binge drinkers, or on sexual health for those carrying STDs? Both of which cause a lot of immediate health issues...and not only for the student themselves, but for others they may encounter?
• And what, exactly, does obesity have to do with the kind of education colleges are purportedly offering to their students?

Personally, I had some other questions:

• If we grant that health is important enough to be a required class in college, why not have *everyone* required to take it. Surely plenty of people who are skinny in college hit about 35 and realize they can't indulge like they used to. Certainly nutrition and exercise are valuable subjects for all students?
• How about smokers? I mean if we're targeting behaviors that are unhealthy to students and those around them, isn't that an obvious one?
• What makes it OK to think a fat person is less deserving of or entitled to *academic advancement*? Because statistically they might be unhealthier. How big a leap is it to compare such ridiculous thinking to racist or sexist barriers to educational opportunity that used to be thrown up?

It's all kind of moot, because the University themselves realized that being accused of discrimination was not a position they wanted to be in, given their history and target student body.

But Ms. Tuteur agrees with something I blogged long ago: It's still OK to be anti-fat...the last socially acceptable "ism" around.

I went to the White House, and it was all because of health care

Mid-last year, we learned that Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to President Obama, would be attending BlogHer '09 for a brief amount of time. She was hoping to meet bloggers with health care stories to tell because the health care reform debate was really heating up. 

She had such a meeting with about 20 bloggers. Some of them blogged about ongoing health issues, like diabetes and cancer, every day...it was part of what their blogs were all about. Some of them weren't really health bloggers at all, but had a story to tell...about the time they were denied coverage, or the time their coverage was dropped, about the time they lost nearly everything because of health care costs.

Ever since that meeting at BlogHer '09 we have been working on a way to bring more information about women who blog and their passionate interest in all things political - even if many of them would never self-identify as political bloggers - to both sides of the aisle.

First we launched a joint community journalism initiative with the Sunlight Foundation and OpenCongress.org to hold conference calls between Congresspeople from both sides of the aisle and women who blog...again, women from both sides of the aisle. We held seven such conference calls. The archive of every call (including both written and audio transcripts) can be found here. You can hear what such folks as Speaker Pelosi (D-CA), Senator Gillibrand (D-NY) and Representative Rodgers (R-WA) have to say in response to direct questions from women who blog. 

Yesterday, BlogHer Political Director Erin Kotecki Vest and I did make that trek to Washington DC and presented the following data on women and social media to, first, Republican staffers on Capitol Hill, and then to Ms. Jarrett and other members of the team at the White House. Erin tells the story here, while I added a bit of color commentary here.

It all started with a conversation about Health. And that conversation is far from over...

BlogHer Goes to Washington

View more documents from ElisaCamahortPage.

Quick Link: Fitting in Fitness this Holiday Season

BlogHer HQ has just moved to a new location, one with a fitness room available to all building tenants at no charge. I've even brought a bag with workout clothes to the office, where it waits patiently in my file cabinet drawer. But I have yet to take the plunge back in to exercising.

Not that I was a great exerciser before, but a few months ago my one reliable walking-buddy broke her foot, which led to surgery, so even that one commitment went out the window. And I didn't replace it with anything else.

Oh sure, a few weeks ago I put fresh batteries in the Wii Fit, so I could get back on track there, but I haven't done it yet.

So, I'm hoping to get a little inspiration from BlogHer's Crabby McSlacker, as she tackles all the common excuses in "Too Busy for Fitness This Holiday Season?"

My personal challenge: I'm traveling at least 3 days of each of the next three weeks. That means cross-country flights, hotel rooms, struggling to find vegan food (although luckily I'm hitting major urban centers, which are typically more veg-friendly.)

It would be so much easier to say I'll wait until my last frequent flier mile is logged for 2009, somewhere around December 17th.

But Crabby McSlacker will have none of it.

What are your tactics for fitting in exercise during this busy, stressful time of year?

What my doctor thinks about health care reform

Had my annual exam last week. I've had the same gynecologist for about 6 years now, and every year we have a very enjoyable conversation, even as she's poking and prodding me.

This time, as is not too unexpected, we discussed health care reform.

My doctor is frustrated. She actively avoids the news and reading or hearing about how it's going.

You see, she works for Kaiser, which is the nation's largest non-profit health plan. According to her, she has it great. According to her, she makes medical decisions based only on what makes sense for her patient, and she can't imagine being in a for-profit situation (especially in private practice) where you had to worry about whether your treatment plan will make you enough money.

It's not that Kaiser doesn't make revenues, they have huge revenues. They charge premiums and co-pays like any other health plan. But they don't have a fiduciary duty to make money for shareholders who have no vested interest in the health of their patients...who, in fact, have an interest in actions that occasionally sacrifice their patients' health in order to maximize profit.

I recently have been on a kick of saying that we should return to the not-so-distant pass when there weren't for-profit health insurance companies, with their bureaucrats making the calls on whether you can be covered for various procedures.

My doctor validated that fairly gut-based line of thinking this week.