Category Archives: Health

Health, loco

You are where you eat (locavore)

DSC09713

DSC09714There’s still time to go to one or more of the many growers’ markets around Albuquerque (and elsewhere). This morning, we went to the one in the 1200 block of Central, across from Presbyterian (which sponsors this one) and just east of I-25. There were about a dozen vendors. We bought two pounds of roasted green chiles grown in Lemitar (tasty though not as hot as advertised). We also heard the braeburn apples will be in next week.

This particular market will be there each Tuesday, 7am to noon, until the last Tuesday in October (10/30).

See http://farmersmarketsnm.org/ for locations and times.

Health

Which State’s Residents Live the Longest?

It’s a pretty small range between 80 and 74. Regardless of statistics: Life is short and then you die. LIVE while you can.

Which State’s Residents Live the Longest?

The top five states with the longest life expectancy at birth in 1999-2001 were:

  1. Hawaii – 80.2 years
  2. Minnesota – 79.3 years
  3. North Dakota – 79.1 years
  4. Connecticut – 78.9 years
  5. Utah – 78.9 years

The bottom five states (excluding the District of Columbia) with the shortest life expectancy at birth were:

46.  Kentucky – 75.2 years
47.  South Carolina – 75 years
48.  Alabama – 74.8 years
49.  Louisiana – 74.3 years
50.  Mississippi – 73.9 years

The full life expectancy tables by state are available at the CDC’s web site. …

Overall, women had a higher life expectancy in all states and the District of Columbia. The average difference between female and male life expectancy ranged from nine years in the District of Columbia to 3.7 years in Wyoming.

Which State’s Residents Live the Longest?

Election, Health, other voices

Health Insurance Is Justice for All, by Merri Rudd

ABQJournal Online » Health Insurance Is Justice for All

By Merri Rudd / Former Bernalillo County probate judge on Mon, Jul 2, 2012

Are you hoping to retire before you’re eligible for Medicare? Planning a career switch or move to self-employment? Being laid off from a job with a group insurance plan? Working at a job without health insurance benefits? You’re healthy, so buying individual health insurance will be easy, right? Wrong!

I recently applied for individual health insurance because my COBRA benefits from my 10 years as Bernalillo County’s probate judge, a term-limited position, expire soon. Both Lovelace and Presbyterian declined to sell me health insurance.

Presbyterian, my current provider, and Lovelace referred me to the high-risk pool, which charges a premium between $540 and $679 per month, up to triple the cost of an individual health plan. I am stunned that this is my only option for insurance coverage, given my overall good health.

Picture this: a non-smoking 57-year-old woman who is 5 feet, 6 inches tall, weighs 128 pounds, has never used illegal drugs, eats a low-fat diet, takes no daily prescription medicines, walks three to five miles daily, attends yoga classes weekly, hikes, and dances. Sounds pretty healthy, doesn’t it?

My only medical issue is high cholesterol, which is genetic. Low triglycerides, high good cholesterol, and no evidence of blockage or inflammation greatly reduce my risk of future health problems. As I also disclosed on my insurance application, my car was rear-ended in 2009 and I had a back injury, which fully resolved without surgery or prescription medicine. I have had no back complaints since late 2010.

Both companies cited “history of back injury” (despite resolution) in denying me coverage. Presbyterian added “height/weight guidelines,” whatever that means, and high cholesterol. Neither application asked about exercise or diet. If a healthy person like me is ineligible for individual health insurance, there are millions of less-healthy folks who cannot qualify either.

This is not a new problem. President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed a type of universal health care. In his plan, private insurance companies that extended benefits to uninsured Americans would be reimbursed by the federal government for excessive losses. Congress rejected his plan. Despite repeated efforts by elected officials to safeguard the health of Americans, almost 60 years later more Americans than ever have no health insurance.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of people without health insurance coverage rose to 49.9 million in 2010. Many people, who live from paycheck to paycheck but have incomes higher than poverty level, simply cannot afford health insurance after paying for rent, food and utilities. Others like me may be willing buyers of insurance, but unable to find a willing seller. In his book “The Healing of America,” T.R. Reid reports that 22,000 Americans die annually from lack of access to health care.

The federal Affordable Care Act, upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, will require people to either purchase basic health insurance or pay a tax. But starting January 1, 2014, insurance companies will also be required to accept all insurance applicants, regardless of their health status and pre-existing conditions. In 2014 healthy people like me, as well as cancer survivors and others, should be able to purchase health insurance without a penalty for gender or pre-existing conditions.

According to Reid, private insurance companies that are required to cover everyone in other countries have continued to operate profitably, due in part to the large influx of new members paying premiums and cost controls on services.

As a healthy person who has been denied health insurance, I know that our country has serious problems to resolve. If members of every political party can cease their posturing in the health care debate and focus instead on supporting affordable health insurance for all Americans, we can compel this country to change its inexcusable position as the only developed nation in the world without access to health care for all its citizens. Is that too much to ask?

Election, Health

US health care ranks 37th in the world

Makes you proud, don’t it. mjh

Eugene Robinson: The Supreme Court, helping to heal the nation – The Washington Post

The World Health Organization gives the U.S. health system an overall ranking of 37th in the world, far below other Western democracies. The CIA World Factbook — hardly the work of a bunch of left-leaning one-worlders — reports that life expectancy in the United States is not just lower than in other industrialized countries but also lower than in Jordan and Bosnia.Infant mortality in this country, according to the CIA, exceeds that of Slovenia and Cuba. It is possible to quibble with these figures but not to ignore them. We should be ashamed of ourselves.

Eugene Robinson: The Supreme Court, helping to heal the nation – The Washington Post

Election, Health

Here are some Health Care Reform changes you already benefit from

Republicans were for it until Obama joined them. Then it became unacceptable. Next time you vote, remember that every single Republican will work to completely undo the good parts of health care reform. mjh

Supreme Court Upholds Health Reform Law

What are some changes that have already taken place because of the law?

About 3.1 million young adults gained health insurance through a provision that allows them to stay on their parents’ policies until age 26. In addition, nearly 62,000 Americans with pre-existing health conditions, who would otherwise be uninsurable, gained coverage through the government’s Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plans (PCIPs). Those enrolled will be able to stay in the program until it expires in 2014. At that time, they’ll be eligible to buy health insurance through state-based insurance marketplaces scheduled to be up and running by fall 2013.

Other consumer protections already in effect include:

  • The right to appeal an insurer’s decision
  • Preventive care with no co-pay
  • Guaranteed insurance coverage for children under the age of 19 with pre-existing conditions
  • Drug discounts for people on Medicare
  • No more lifetime limits on health insurance spending
  • Review of suspected unreasonable insurance rate increases
  • The requirement that insurance companies spend at least 80% of the money they collect on medical expenses (this 80/20 rule so far means 12.8 million Americans will participate in $1.1 billion in rebates from insurance companies this summer, according to the HHS)
What does this ruling mean for small businesses?

So far, an estimated 4.4 million small businesses that provide employee health insurance are eligible for a 35% tax credit to offset the cost of insurance premiums (as of mid-May 2011, only about 228,000 small business owners claimed the credit).

To qualify, a business must employ fewer than 25 employees and the average company salary must be less than $50,000. Businesses must also pay at least half of workers’ health insurance costs.

These tax credits will remain in effect, and will increase to 50% starting in 2014.

Companies with more than 50 employees will be required to provide workers’ insurance or pay a fine.

Supreme Court Upholds Health Reform Law

Health

Think before you eat. We are an on-going experiment for corporate profit.

Since largely eliminating wheat from my diet 6 months ago, my appetite has changed for the better, as has how I experience hunger: less dread, less distress. mjh

Mind games, man boobs, and muffin tops | Wheat Belly Blog

Posted on June 17, 2012 by Dr. Davis 

Wheat Belly is, first and foremost, about the changes introduced into modern wheat by the work of geneticists during the 1960s and 1970s, the same kind of research that led to the creation of Agent Orange, DDT, and other “better health through chemistry” types of efforts. The failure of agricultural geneticists and agribusiness to ask questions about the suitability of a genetically unique crop means they unleashed a foodstuff on a public . . . with no understanding of its effects on humans who consume it. This unquestioned acceptance of chemistry and genetics was the modus operandi during the mid-20th century. …

Among the changes introduced into wheat by geneticists:

  • Enrichment in the glia-alpha-9 genetic sequence that provokes celiac disease. Nearly absent from the wheat of 1950, nearly all modern semi-dwarf wheat contains this genetic sequence. Is it any wonder why the incidence of celiac disease has quadrupled?
  • Gliadin is a more powerful opiate–The changes introduced into the gliadin gene/protein make it a more potent opiate. While the digestive byproducts of gliadin bind to the opiate receptors of the brain, they lack the pain-relieving and euphoric effects of heroin and morphine, but “only” provoke addictive eating behavior and appetite stimulation. People who consume wheat consume, on average, 440 more calories per day, 365 days per year.
  • Changes in the lectin unique to wheat, wheat germ agglutinin, that is responsible for 1) direct intestinal damamge, and 2) a Trojan horse effect of helping foreign substances gain entry into the bloodstream. This is likely at least part of the reason why wheat-eaters experience more lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, polymyositis, type 1 diabetes in children, worse ulcerative colitis and Crohns, more Hashimoto’s thyroiditis: Foreign proteins gain entry to the various organs of the body and result in “autoinflammation.” Changes in wheat lectin may have also led to more effective blocking of the hormone of satiety, leptin.
  • Changes in alpha amylase inhibitors–These are the most common sources of wheat allergies, e.g., wheat allergy in kids.

Eliminating wheat is about undoing all these effects, effects that have broad implications for human health across an astounding number of health conditions.

Mind games, man boobs, and muffin tops | Wheat Belly Blog