Researchers from Emory University…found that depressed workers — which make up about 11% of the total workforce — spent $2,184 on health care on average, which is about 48% more than their non-depressed colleagues.
People with high blood sugar had medical expenses that were almost one-third higher, as did people with high blood pressure. Obesity was associated with 27 percent more spending.
Research on the [indigenous Tsimane of northern Bolivia] led to the finding in 2009 that cardiovascular disease is probably an ill of modern societies. Studies of the group also provided the most conclusive data supporting the idea that high levels of physical activity drastically reduce the risk of diabetes, obesity and hypertension.
There have been 42 studies with results published, and at least 33 more are under way. “This is the most productive research site in anthropology today,” Ray Hames, an anthropologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said.
Jean Friedman-Rudovsky in the NYT.
We find that both changes in smoking and in obesity are expected to have large effects on mortality. For males, the reductions in smoking have larger effects than the rise in obesity throughout the projection period. By 2040, male life expectancy at age 40 is expected to have gained 0.92 years from the combined effects. Among women, however, the two sets of effects largely offset one another throughout the projection period, with a small gain of 0.26 years expected by 2040.
Source: NBER paper.
Study: Organic food no healthier than non-organic.
Kevin Drum likes ObamaCare because it will allow him to retire early. That’s good for him, but why is it good for the rest of us who will have to subsidize his choice?
Fat, but OK: There is a subset of obese people who are metabolically healthy.
My colleagues and I recently measured daily energy expenditure among the Hadza people of Tanzania, one of the few remaining populations of traditional hunter-gatherers.
We found that despite all this physical activity, the number of calories that the Hadza burned per day was indistinguishable from that of typical adults in Europe and the United States. We ran a number of statistical tests, accounting for body mass, lean body mass, age, sex and fat mass, and still found no difference in daily energy expenditure between the Hadza and their Western counterparts.
See more of Herman Pontzer’s findings in the NYT.
What do heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, stroke and cancer have in common? Scientists have linked each of these to a condition known as chronic inflammation, and they are studying how high-fat foods and excess body weight may increase the risk for fatal disorders.
More from Laura Landro.
They are collectively known as the microbiome.
For a century, doctors have waged war against bacteria, using antibiotics as their weapons. No one wants to abandon antibiotics outright. But by nurturing the invisible ecosystem in and on our bodies, doctors may be able to find other ways to fight infectious diseases, and with less harmful side effects. Tending the microbiome may also help in the treatment of disorders that may not seem to have anything to do with bacteria, including obesity and diabetes. This new approach to health is known as medical ecology. Rather than conducting indiscriminate slaughter, Dr. Segre and like-minded scientists want to be microbial wildlife managers.
See full Carl Zimmer article in the New York Times.
Most people don’t buy food from the stores that are nearest to them says a new study. And where they do shop, their choice of foods tends to be driven by price. As Sarah Kliff summarizes:
The patrons of the lower-priced grocery store (like Safeway) tended to have a higher rate of obesity than those who shopped at the higher-priced grocery stores in the study (think Whole Foods). That relationship held true after adjusting for variables like education and income. It makes Drewnowski think that “choice of primary food source was driven by price.”
