Last week the American Heart Association (AHA) and the American College of Cardiologists (ACC) published new guidelines in the diagnosis and treatment of high blood pressure.
What are the new numbers and what do they mean?
Many people will be surprised to find out they now have “elevated” high blood pressure, which could be a reading as low as 120/70, or Stage 1 hypertension at … read on
Fear-mongering and clickbaitWhile sipping a glass of wine with dinner last night, my ears perked up when I heard a teaser for NBC Nightly News: “New report links even light alcohol intake with increased risk of cancer.”
Oh, boy, I thought. Here we go again.
I don’t like network news because of this kind of lousy health reporting (I just wanted to see local election returns). Again and again, … read on
Soon we’ll be finding out how much our health insurance will cost next year. Premiums are set to rise by double digits across the country.
Related post: Premium increases for 2018. Ouch
While uncertainty about the future of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is partly responsible, insurance companies put the biggest blame on the skyrocketing cost of prescription drugs.
Why are prescription … read on
Carbs vs fats in the news…againA few weeks ago, a study was published that resulted in a lot of dramatic headlines, such as “Your Low-Fat Diet Could Kill You!”
The media always make a big deal out of these nutritional studies because they know we need to eat, we like to eat, and we’re already confused about what we should eat. Or not eat.
Headlines that the one above … read on
I read a recent article that New York’s attorney general has ordered some drugs stores (Target, Walgreen’s, GNC and Wal-Mart) to stop selling their store-brand supplements because of quality concerns: Herbal Supplements Without Herbs.
Using DNA analysis, several products were examined in a university study:
… read onAmong the popular products examined were ginkgo biloba, St. John’s wort and ginseng pills. Four out of five of the products tested did not
I was happy to see the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) report that the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine does not increase risky sexual behavior in adolescent girls.
HPV, or the human papilloma virus, is a sexually-transmitted disease that can lead to cervical cancer. In some instances, it can also cause anal cancer or mouth cancer, in men as well as women.
Take time to read Elizabeth Rosenthal’s latest installment of her “Paying Till it Hurts” series in The New York Times: Insured, but not Covered.
If you are like many Americans struggling with high-deductible, narrow-network health plans, you might relate to the families she writes about.
… read onThe Affordable Care Act has ushered in an era of complex new health insurance products featuring legions of out-of-pocket coinsurance fees, high deductibles and
News stories like this make me crazy: Disneyland measles outbreak grows, sparks concern. Or this from my local newspaper: Measles makes it to Seattle from Disneyland.
“At least 17 people have been infected in the outbreak, which occurred among people who visited Disneyland or Disney California Adventure Park in Orange County, Calif….It’s likely that a person who was contagious visited the theme park during that period and spread … read on
US News & World Report published another one of their ubiquitous “Best of” lists this week. This one focused on diets. January, after all, is the month of diet resolutions 😉
For the fifth year in a row the winner was the DASH diet.
DASH stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (or High blood pressure). It was a study implemented in the … read on
I read a disturbing article in MedPage Today—Metformin: A Great Lakes Disaster?
Metformin is one of the most common drugs used to treat Type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes, which is mostly a lifestyle disease (obesity), is epidemic in the United States. Seventy million prescriptions for metformin were dispensed in 2013. That year the cost of treating type 2 diabetes, just for the drugs, was $23 billion.
But … read on