Taking Control of Your Healthcare

The CDC and WHO recommend that adults get 30 minutes of exercise five days a week to stay physically fit. Since many people don’t exercise that much, researchers at the National Institutes of Health in Taiwan conducted a study to determine whether less exercise was still helpful. They asked over 400,000 Taiwanese adults how much [...]

The prevalence of obesity in United States children has reached epidemic proportions. The most recent national estimates suggest that the prevalence of at-risk-for-overweight continues to remain alarmingly high, with no signs of decreasing. Currently, 31.0% of children 6 to 11 years of age are estimated to be at-risk-for-overweight or obesity, and 16.0% are estimated to be overweight. [...]

In a surprise shift, the United States Protective Services Task Force (Task Force) which traditionally makes scientifically-based recommendations for preventing or treating specific diseases,  recommended exercise and vitamin D supplements to prevent falls in the elderly. This is a timely recommendation because Medicare will soon cover annual health risk assessment visits and customized prevention plans. So, now these [...]

Our health as a nation is predicated on more than our access to the healthcare system. Indeed, as I have blogged here many times before, the greatest contribution to our miserable health in this country are our behaviors, which in large part are preventable. For example, cigarette smoking and obesity cause nearly 1 million deaths a [...]

There is a raging ongoing debate on healthcare reform that is beginning at the grassroots level with healthcare community discussions initiated by the Obama/Biden transition team. We all agree something must be done; the cost of healthcare is continuously rising while the care provided is falling. The U.S. has the most expensive healthcare system in [...]