The Obesity Paradox: While overweight people are more prone to heart failure, patients with heart failure have lower mortality rates if they are obese.
MIT scientists are trying to enable Type I diabetes patients to test their blood sugar levels with light. It beats using a needle.
Here is something that a lot of people may not agree with or may find surprising. Despite the many adverse effects associated with alcohol, the consumption of which is included as a risk factor in several diseases, a study has indicated that absolute abstinence from alcohol is not exactly better for a persons health.
A feature on ABC News shares the controversial conclusions of a study conducted by researchers from the University of Texas, Austin. Researchers followed a group of middle-aged test subjects into old age and determined that more subjects who abstained from alcohol died within twenty years of the start of the study, when compared with those who drank moderately and even heavily.
We previously reported on Larry Kotlikoffs assessment. The first issue of a new publication by Morgan Stanley called Sovereign Subjects is captioned Ask Not Whether Governments Will Default, but How. Here is Richard Posners comment at his blog:
Morgan Stanleys report estimates that the ratio of current U.S. public debt to realistically realizable tax revenues is 3.58 to 1, which is the highest by a large margin of the countries in the reports list; only Greece comes close (3.12 to 1) Americas net worth is negative, and this negative net worth is eight times larger than our GDP. This means that the net present value of the governments liabilities, minus assets, is approximately $120 trillion At [some] point the bondholders, and holders of other contractual rights against the government, have to start worrying about the prospects for outright default or default through inflation. These are possibilities in our future, just as in the future of Greece.
When Paris Hilton got caught for having 0.8 grams of cocaine in her handbag at Las Vegas, she tried to tell officers that it was just gum. The controversial celebrity now claims that despite the handbag containing her identification, credit cards, cash, and a prescription inhaler, the cocaine was probably placed by someone who wanted to set her up. She says that there might be a group of people who conspired to put her in a very compromising situation.
It could be a setup, Hilton allegedly told pals. Everyone knows how against cocaine I am. She adds that the whole mess could have been avoided if the authorities werent so star struck and then blew the whole thing out of proportion.”
Should you write health care or healthcare?
Why is it called CMS instead of CMMS?
If God is capitalized, should his reference be His or his? (Or her?)
Michael L. Millenson has answers at The Health Care Blog.
The results of a study conducted by a team of Canadian researchers provide a scientific basis for the benefits that smoking cannabis may bring to people suffering from chronic pain, as shared in a feature on WebMD. The research was published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
Henry McQuay, an emeritus fellow at Balliol College at the Oxford University in England, wrote a commentary that accompanied the study, and indicated that the new study adds to the trickle of evidence that cannabis may help some of the patients who are struggling [with pain] at present.
This is Bryan Caplan, writing at Econlog:
If someone gives another person $100, almost all economists agree that the recipient is better offIf someone gives another person the gift of life, however, Ive noticed that many economists suddenly become agnostic. $100? Definitely an improvement. Being alive? Meh.
A post on CancerConnect.com shares the observance of National Prostate Cancer Awareness Month in September.
Prostate cancer, as shared in the post, is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in men, as well as one of the leading causes of cancer death among men. The observance of Prostate Cancer Awareness Month serves as a way to bring focus to the disease, and will hopefully lead to an increase in public understanding about prostate cancer.
This report is better than the EBRI report (reviewed here). It includes a literature review of 31 other studies, including most of the vendor reports I have used in the past. Oddly, this review also excludes the American Academy of Actuaries study. Then it digs deeper into the experience of two large employers, one public and one private, that adopted Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA) programs in 2003.
It compares the experience of the populations that chose the HRA with those that stayed in a PPO plan. It finds that the HRA choosers had substantially lower utilization in the two years before the HRA became available. But it also found that health care utilization started low for the HRA group, and got even lower after the switch.
Breastfeeding has long been regarded as the best source of nourishment for infants. Beyond just providing babies with the nutrition that they need, however, breastfeeding is also a way for new moms to become healthier as well, according to a study shared on Time.com.
A study led by Dr. Eleanor Bimla Schwarz at the University of Pittsburgh concluded that women who do not breastfeed are twice as likely to develop type 2 diabetes as moms who do. While the statistical evidence reveals a significant gap, the reason behind this gap is still unclear.