What is an egg donor’s SAT worth? About $2,350 per hundred points.
For every person in the world with HIV there are three people in China with diabetes. Hat tip to Marginal Revolution.
ObamaCare will increase Medicaid doctor fees to Medicare levels for only two years (2013 and 2014), and then drop them back about 50%. (Anybody believe this will ever happen?)
Humans evolved strong tastes for fats and sweets, tastes that conferred a reproductive advantage in the days when starvation was common. But these tastes can be a burden when we’re confronted with such supernormal stimuli as the 400-calorie Frappuccino at Starbucks. An evolutionary adaptation that once promised survival is more likely nowadays to produce Type 2 diabetes.
Full (not always favorable) review by Daniel Akst of Supernormal Stimuli.
When we say “I’m looking forward,” guess which direction we tend to lean.
More than one in five (22.7%) nonelderly Americans is in a “high deductible” health plan.
I have argued before that, but for third-party payers, a market for chronic care would have developed long ago. What do entrepreneurs do in every other market? They find people with unmet needs and figure out low-cost ways of solving their problems. Yet with a large and growing number of uninsured and a growing number of people with high-deductible insurance, markets for chronic care may develop anyway.
In several cities, Walgreens is offering pharmacist consultation to diabetics. (The service is free now, but there may be charges later; and, in any event, Walgreens is selling them drugs.) If it works, the program may expand to asthma, high cholesterol and obesity.
Dr. Williams’s studies have shown that exceeding the federally recommended exercise guidelines can reduce the risk of stroke, heart attack, glaucoma, diabetes and other diseases by as much as 70% above the benefits of merely meeting the guidelines. “There is no gene or drug discovery that comes close” to the effects of more and more-vigorous exercise, says Dr. Williams, a staff scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley Calif.
Full report on the controversial claim that more-vigorous exercise is better.
Studies show exercise:
More on the possible hidden benefits of exercise.
Secret to successful dieting: Every other day, eat nothing.
Does posting calories reduce calorie consumption? Two studies say no and the third is inconclusive.
Fighting obesity may take a village: In France, it’s called Epode.
Drug companies are covering the patient copays on brand name drugs. Insurance companies don’t like it.
Does a positive mental attitude reduce the risk of heart attack? Apparently, yes.
As reported by the Washington Post:
Using data from long-standing clinical trials, researchers projected the cost of caring for people with Type 2 diabetes as they progress from diagnosis to various complications and death. Enrolling federally-insured patients in a simple but aggressive program to control the disease would cost the government $1,024 per person per year — money that largely would be recovered after 25 years through lower spending on dialysis, kidney transplants, amputations and other forms of treatment, the study found.
However, except for the youngest diabetics, the additional services would add to overall health spending, not decrease it, the study shows.
As though it weren't bad enough that chronic stress has been shown to raise blood pressure, stiffen arteries, suppress the immune system, heighten the risk of diabetes, depression and Alzheimer's disease and make one a very undesirable dinner companion, now researchers have discovered that the sensation of being highly stressed can rewire the brain in ways that promote its sinister persistence.
