Friday, April 27, 2012

Davids Daily Dose - Friday April 24th

 
Had a buildup of "healthy living" related stories, so I thought these articles might be useful information for some of you.............no politics in this DDD.....
 
 
 
 
 
 
1/  If you are still buying supermarket eggs, read this story about the conditions the chickens live in and how unhealthy the eggs are......organics are a little more expensive but worth it.....

Note - this column might be a little disturbing if you are sensitive......

Supermarket eggs gleam with apparent cleanliness, and nothing might seem more wholesome than breaking one of them into a frying pan.
Think again.
The Humane Society of the United States plans to release on Thursday the results of an undercover investigation intoKreider Farms, a major factory farm that produces 4.5 million eggs each day for supermarkets like ShopRite.
I’ve reviewed footage and photos taken by the investigator, who says he worked for Kreider between January and March of this year. In an interview, he portrayed an operation that has little concern for cleanliness or the welfare of hens.
“It’s physically hard to breathe because of the ammonia” rising from manure pits below older barns, said the investigator, who would not allow his name to be used because that would prevent him from taking another undercover job in agriculture. He said that when workers needed to enter an older barn, they would first open doors and rev up exhaust fans, and then rush in to do their chores before the fumes became overwhelming.
Mice sometimes ran down egg conveyer belts, barns were thick with flies and manure in three barns tested positive for salmonella, he said. (Actually, salmonella isn’t as rare as you might think, turning up in 3 percent of egg factory farms tested by the Food and Drug Administration last year.)
In some cases, 11 hens were jammed into a cage about 2 feet by 2 feet. The Humane Society says that that is even more cramped than the egg industry’s own voluntary standards — which have been widely criticized as inadequate.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
2/  The rhetoric about health issues is toxic, with talk of "death panels" and anything good that the Affordable Care Act [Obamacare] has done for consumers, so this article by two Dartmouth doctors is excellent and timely.

I liked it because of their relentless logic and statistical analysis - their conclusion is that many tests routinely ordered by doctors are often wasteful and sometimes even dangerous.

Read this folks - and take charge of your health.......
 
This month, nine major medical specialty groups published a list of 45 tests and procedures that often have no clear benefit for patients and can cause harm — CT scans for simple headaches, for example, and X-rays for routine lower back pain. You don’t often hear calls from doctors for fewer tests and procedures.
And that’s too bad. Many of them have been oversold, their benefits exaggerated and their harms ignored.
Consider cancer screening. For decades, it has been nearly impossible to watch television, read popular magazines or ride public transportation without seeing advertisements urging regularmammograms, colonoscopies or P.S.A. blood tests. These messages have had a profound effect: the public is now extremely enthusiastic about the notion that we should routinely screen people without symptoms for cancer. In one national survey, most Americans said that cancer screening is almost always a good idea and that finding cancer early saves lives most of the time.
Certainly, the rationale behind screening seems obvious. The earlier cancers are diagnosed, the more often lives will be saved, right? With enough screening, we might even stop cancer.
If only. Finding cancer early isn’t enough. To reduce cancer deaths, treatment must work, yet it doesn’t always. Second, it must work better when started earlier. But for some cancers, later treatment works as well. (That’s why there is no big push for testicular cancer screening — it is usually curable at any stage.)
And some of the worst cancers aren’t detected by screening. They appear suddenly, between regular screenings, and are difficult to treat because they are so aggressive.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
3/  Stephen Colbert with an amusing take on what's in our food......6 minutes.......
 
Tuesday night on "The Colbert Report," Stephen Colbert tackled a slew of familiar topics to HuffPost Food.
First, he discussed the controversy over Starbucks using bug extract in its drinks. "I'm all for making vegetarians eat a bug, but now I'm eating a bug," he exclaims.
Colbert then moves onto the monstrosity that is hot dog stuffed crust pizza. "Forget meat lovers pizza, this is meat stalkers pizza, and they've hidden the body in the crawl space," he says. "I've always been a huge fan of unexpected hot dogs." Colbert was dismayed that this pizza was only available in the U.K. though -- he suggests reclaiming the food by cramming hot dogs "into every available weiner-shaper food area." That means cannolis, bananas, yogurt, and a hot dog that is stuffed with a pizza, which is stuffed with a hot dog, which is stuffed with a pizza...
Finally, Colbert brings up all the stuff that is fed to chickens, which includes caffeine to keep them awake and Prozac to curb their anxiety. "I couldn't be happier," says Colbert, "I assume because my chicken contains a fair amount of Prozac."
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
4/  A little bit of a technical article with a discussion of what reimbursement rates are based on, but totally consistent with our collective feeling the health insurance industry, which has been largely out of the news recently, is up to it's usual tricks - screwing it's customers.....
 
Despite a landmark settlement that was expected to increase coverage for out-of-network care, the nation’s largest health insurers have been switching to a new payment method that in most cases significantly increases the cost to the patient.
The settlement, reached in 2009, followed New York State’s accusation that the companies  manipulated data they used to price such care, shortchanging the nation’s patients by hundreds of millions of dollars.
The agreement required the companies to finance an objective database of doctors’ fees that patients and insurers nationally could rely on. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, then the attorney general, said it would increase reimbursements by as much as 28 percent.
It has not turned out that way. Though the settlement required the companies to underwrite the new database with $95 million, it did not obligate them to use it. So by the time the database was finally up and running last year, the same companies, across the country, were rapidly shifting to another calculation method, based on Medicare rates, that usually reduces reimbursement substantially.
“It’s deplorable,” said Chad Glaser, a sales manager for a seafood company near Buffalo, who learned that he was facing hundreds of dollars more in out-of-pocket costs for his son’s checkups with a specialist who had performed a lifesaving liver transplant. “I could get balance-billed hundreds of thousands of dollars, and I have no protection.”
Insurance companies defend the shift toward Medicare-based rates under the settlement, which allowed any clear, objective method of calculating reimbursement. They say that premiums would be even costlier if reimbursements were more generous, and that exorbitant doctors’ fees are largely to blame.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
5/  Often the best articles about health are the most personal - here Jane Brody, the health columnist for the Times details what happened to her elderly auntie......and this could so easily be your aunt....or mother.....or friend.......

One of the pitfalls of getting old is that the elderly end up on dozens of medications, each with side effects......
 
My 92-year-old aunt was a walking pharmacy, and a month ago it nearly killed her. The episode also cost the American medical system several hundred thousand dollars.
Overmedication of the elderly is an all too common problem, a public health crisis that compromises the well-being of growing numbers of older adults. Many take fistfuls of prescription and over-the-counter medications on a regular basis, risking serious and sometimes fatal side effects and drug interactions.
A series of research-based guidelines, recently updated and published in The Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, calls attention to specific medications most likely to have calamitous effects in the elderly. If adopted by practicing physicians and their patients, the guidelines should help to avert the kind of costly, debilitating disaster that befell my aunt.
A Crisis Among the Elderly
In early March, my aunt was hospitalized for an episode of extreme weakness, sleepiness and confusion. She was found to be taking a number of medications and supplements: Synthroid, for low thyroid hormone; Tenormin and Benicar, for high blood pressure; Lexapro, for depression; Namenda, for symptoms ofAlzheimer’s disease; Xanax, for nighttime anxiety attacks; Travatan eye drops, for glaucoma; a multivitamin; vitamin C;calcium with vitamin D; low-dose aspirin; a lutein supplement; and Colace, a stool softener.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
6/  Hospital pricing is crazy - read what happened to this gentleman who had an emergency appendectomy - and he had insurance.......

A fair number of people are getting quotes for discretionary treatments from hospitals in Canada, Costa Rica and Thailand, but you can't plan for emergencies.....

When Augie Hong awoke with severe abdominal pain nearly two years ago, he went to the hospital emergency room closest to his home in San Francisco. The diagnosis was acute appendicitis, and doctors removed his inflamed appendix.
Mr. Hong had health insurance, so he wasn’t too worried about paying. Then the bills started to arrive.
“That’s when I got nervous,” said Mr. Hong, 36, who has insurance through his job at an investment firm.
THE CONSUMER
Advice on money and health.
In all, Mr. Hong was charged $59,283, including $5,264 for the doctors. According to the Healthcare Blue Book, that amount is six times the fair price for anappendectomy in Northern California, which is $8,309 (including a four-day admission) for the hospital and an additional $1,325 for the doctor. Even after Mr. Hong’s insurer paid the hospital $31,409 and Mr. Hong paid the doctors $4,034, the bills kept coming.
A new study suggests that Mr. Hong’s experience is not unusual. Hospital charges are all over the map: according to the report published Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine, fees for a routine appendectomy in California can range from $1,500 to — in one extreme case — $182,955. Researchers found wide variations in charges even among appendectomy patients treated at the same hospital.
“We expected to see variations of two or three times the amount, but this is ridiculous,” said Dr. Renee Y. Hsia, the study’s lead author and an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. “There’s no rhyme or reason for how patients are charged or how hospitals come up with charges.
“There’s no other industry where you get charged 100 times the same amount, or 121 times, for the same product,” she said.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
7/  And of course here's the comic relief story........there is actually a restaurant in Las Vegas called the "Heart Attack Grill".....this story has a two minute video from a local news station......and have a look at the size of the woman who collapsed and was taken out on a stretcher......

Note their signature dish is the "Quad Bypass Burger", 10,000 calories......is this country great or what?
 
Not this again. A Las Vegas woman in her 40s collapsed at the Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas while dining on a double bypass burger, smoking cigarettes and drinking a margarita. She was found unconscious at the restaurant.
Two months ago, a customer at the same restaurant suffered a heart attack while eating a triple bypass burger. Incidentally, one year ago, the Heart Attack Grill's 575-pound, 29-year-old spokesman died.
This bout of unfortunate events has had little effect on the restaurant's business, in which people remain drawn to the monstrous burgers. The quadruple bypass burger clocks in around 10,000 calories -- Guinness World Records has crowned the burger the most caloric sandwich on Earth.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/24/heart-attack-grill-collapse_n_1448694.html
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

8/  TV to Watch

Some of you may have seen the "Frontline" two hour documentary "Money, Power and Wall Street" that aired  two nights ago [Tuesday] - I did, and it was excellent as a summary of what happened in the run up to the collapse of 08 - it had a fascinating discussion of derivatives and the role this innocuous sounding instrument played in the global disaster.....

But the final two hour show that will air this coming Tuesday [May 1st] sounds really, really good........and will discuss whether by failing to control the huge banks we have set up another collapse.....

Set your TIVOs.......
 
Frontline's new documentary about the financial crisis probably doesn't say much you didn't already know, at least if you've followed the story. But it's a story worth telling again anyway, because memories on Wall Street and in Washington are dangerously short.
.............................................
Again, stop me if you've heard this one before, but the banking industry, while getting bigger and more systemically important, managed to sell increasingly toxic, complicated derivatives in ballooning numbers to investors all over the world. And regulators willfully ignored warnings, from Harvard economist Martin Feldstein, then-Wells Fargo CEO Richard Kovacevich, Commodity Futures Trading Commission chief Brooksley Born and others who pop into the documentary for cameos, that the system was at risk of collapse.
And that's one of the big services the Frontline documentary does: It reminds us that, contrary to the slackjawed expressions of disbelief by regulators and Wall Street chieftains that they could not possiblyhave known this could all go horribly wrong, there were plenty of warnings along the way. Even in typically clueless Congress, then-Senator Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) warned in a 1999 speech that credit derivatives, "one day, with a thud, will wake everyone up."
Hopefully the last two hours of the Frontline series will focus on how little has really changed since Dorgan's warning. The banks, having been bailed out with no requirements that they change their ways, are bigger now than they ever have been. Derivatives are still under-regulated, and the banks are lobbying as hard as they can to keep them that way, while trying to roll back whatever other regulations they can spend money to defeat. And they seem to be winning.
As Columbia professor Joseph Stiglitz points out in the second part of the documentary, banks hate transparency in markets because the darkness is where they can make the easiest killing, as they did just ahead of the financial crisis. Wall Street, pushing against regulation as hard as it can, gives every sign that it is just waiting for the next opportunity to make another killing, putting the global economy at risk in the process.
 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-gongloff/post_3264_b_1449474.html
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Todays video - an old favourite - "At the Dentist" from the Carol Burnett show, with Harvey Korman and the wonderful Tim Conway......
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Todays medical joke
 
Joe has had severe headaches for all his adult life, after trying every pill on the market
he finally goes to the Doctor.

The doctor said, 'Joe, the good news is I can cure your headaches. The bad
news is that it will require castration.

You have a very rare condition, which causes your testicles to press on your
spine and the pressure creates one hell of a headache. The only way to
relieve the pressure is to remove the testicles.'

Joe was shocked and depressed. He wondered if he had anything to live for.
He had no choice but to go under the knife.

When he left the hospital, he
was without a headache for the first time in 20 years, but he felt like he
was missing an important part of himself. As he walked down the street, he
realized that he felt like a different person. He could make a new beginning
and live a new life.

He saw a men's clothing store and thought, 'That's what I need... A new
suit...'

He entered the shop and told the salesman, 'I'd like a new suit..'

The elderly tailor eye'd him briefly and said, 'Let's see... Size 44 long.'

Joe laughed, 'That's right, how did you know?'

'Been in the business 60 years!' the tailor said.

Joe tried on the suit it fit perfectly.

As Joe admired himself in the mirror, the salesman asked, 'How about a new
shirt?'

Joe thought for a moment and then said, 'Sure.'

The salesman eyed Joe and said, 'Let's see, 34 sleeves and 16-1/2 neck.'

Joe was surprised, 'That's right, how did you know?'

'Been in the business 60 years.'

Joe tried on the shirt and it fit perfectly.

Joe walked comfortably around the shop and the salesman asked, 'How about
some new underwear?'

Joe thought for a moment and said, 'Sure.'

The salesman said, 'Let's see... Size 36.

Joe laughed, 'Ah ha! I got you! I've worn a size 34 since I was 18 years
old.'

The salesman shook his head, 'You can't wear a size 34. A size 34 would
press your testicles up against the base of your spine and give you one hell
of a headache.'









Todays funeral joke

A man was leaving a convenience store with his morning coffee when he noticed a most unusual funeral procession approaching the nearby cemetery.

A black hearse was followed by a second black hearse about 50 feet behind the first one.

Behind the second hearse was a solitary man walking a dog on a leash.

Behind him, a short distance back, were about 200 men walking single file.

The man couldn't stand the curiosity. He respectfully approached the man walking the dog and said: “I am so sorry for your loss, and this may be a bad time to disturb you, but I've never seen a funeral like this. Whose funeral is it?”

“ My wife's.”

“What happened to her?”

“She yelled at me and my dog attacked and killed her.”

He inquired further, “But who is in the second hearse?”

The man answered, “My mother-in-law. She was trying to help my wife when the dog turned on her. She didn’t survive either.”

A very poignant and touching moment of brotherhood and silence passed between the two men.

“Can I borrow the dog?”

The man replied, “Get in line.”











Todays health warning joke


When you drink Vodka over ice, it can give you kidney failure,

When you drink Rum over ice, it can give you liver failure,

When you drink whiskey over ice, it can give you heart problems,

When you drink Gin over ice, it can give you brain problems.

Apparently, ice is really bad for you.

Warn all your friends....... 


Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)