An Unnecessary Antibiotic Treatment

Many Doctors Are Prescribing Placebo Antibiotic Treatments

Many people go to the doctor when they come down with a particularly nasty bug. Many of these same people are prescribed antibiotic treatment for the ailment all well. What is unknown however is how many people who receive these antibiotic treatments are actually receiving antibiotics. Apparently placebo usage in this area is ramping up. Can anyone say "the high cost of health care?"

Placebo Usage in Medicine

"Placebos have been used in medicine since ancient times, and remain both clinically relevant and philosophically interesting," says Rachel Sherman, a fourth year medical student at the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Medicine. As placebos have become a stalwart of clinical trials and have been shown to offer some of the same benefits of actual medicine it has become increasingly clear that in some situations the use of placebos in treatment of patients is appropriate however a recent survey of a group of Chicago internists show that the line between appropriate and inappropriate treatment is wearing thin.

Because of this it is becoming much more important to challenge your doctor to describe what he or she is actually prescribing you rather than to just blindly follow. Antibiotic treatment which are just sugar pills are an unnecessary expense.

In a recent study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, 45 percent of physicians reported using placebos in clinical practice. Some doctors are giving patients sugar pills, and others are going so far as to recommend antibiotics for a virus.

A growing number of doctors believe there is a strong connection between the mind and body. 96 percent of the doctors surveyed said they think placebos have therapeutic benefits. But because antibiotic resistance is a growing national health problem, it’s important not to take antibiotics unnecessarily.

Antibiotic Treatment Versus Placebo: You Choose What’s Best

What’s important to remember is that there are many positive benefits to using placebos but their use is not appropriate in all cases. Antibiotics will never cure a virus and as a result they will simply incrementally worsen antibiotic resistance (a topic I've only slightly covered in the past).

If your doctor tells you you have a virus and then prescribes an antibiotic it is important to make sure it’s actually necessary. You don’t necessarily need to know if you’re getting a placebo but you should know that you’re being treated.

A Placebo Antibiotic Treatment for a Cat?

An interesting story: My cat came down with a respiratory infection not too long ago and the vet prescribed both an antiviral and an antibiotic. When I got home I researched the antibiotic treatment that had been prescribed prescribed and found it to be nothing more than a nutritional food supplement akin to Airborne meant to help boost the immune system.

Now, this is not exactly the same thing as treating humans with placebos but it does illustrate that your doctor will often not adequately describe what is being prescribed if you don’t press him to do so. Had I pressed the vet to describe the meds and the theory behind the prescription I might have opted to simply drop the nutritional supplements which were completely unnecessary. Seriously for a cat is there even such things as a placebo?

Is This Pill Really Necessary?

Best Life offers one simple and effective piece of advice on this topic. They say to "beware of catch-all doctor phrases such as ‘This may help and won’t hurt’ and ask your doctor if the pill or antibiotic being prescribed is really necessary." At the very least you might avoid taking a needless antibiotic treatment and save a few dollars at the same time.

Source
Best Life, Apr. 2008
Journal of General Internal Medicine, Jan. 2008
Medical News Today - http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/93044.php

Flu Vaccination of Hospital Workers and the Swine Flu (H1N1)

A couple days ago I finally got my seasonal flu shot. A say finally because my wife has had her’s since late August, it seems like I’ve waited around for the longest time. Because she’s spending upwards of 12 hours in the hospital every day of the week right now she is at high risk for carrying the flu back home and thus I’m at high risk for picking it up through her. I don’t know about you but I would rather not contract influenza if I can avoid it; it's no fun.

Flu Vaccination of Hospital Workers

Last night I was lounging around the house with her and we were discussing my sore left shoulder, the shoulder where I got my flu vaccination shot, when she informed me that she was not required to get the vaccine as a healthcare professional, she was merely encouraged to do so. This completely amazed me. She even told me that many of the same doctors and nurses who are supposed to encourage their patients to get these vaccines are often apprehensive about getting them themselves. Unbelievable.

It turns out that there doesn’t seem to be any significant reasoning behind this. It’s not that everyone is unsure whether the shots are safe; it seems as if people just don’t want to take the time to get vaccinated. If it’s like this in the hospitals I can’t imagine what it’s like for the general public.

We talked a little more and she told me that many of the nurses didn’t even realize that they could be carriers of the flu even if they weren’t suffering from symptoms and that the vaccine not only protects them but also their loved one’s at home. After all, if you can’t carry the bug then you can’t infect your family at home.

Flu Season Is Here

OK, so this is not that big of a deal with the seasonal flu; it probably should be for hospital workers but this is how it’s been for years I guess. What concerns me however is the fact that H1N1 has been around since March slowly working it’s way through the population even during the summer months. Now that flu season is starting up the bug will have its opportunity to do the greatest damage.

I’m not a sensationalist, I’m just a realist. Flu season is in the winter for a reason. The bug simply transmits easier in cold temperatures. This and the fact that school is in session can make for quick spreading throughout a community. I feel that simple preventative tactics should always be followed and getting vaccinated should be a priority. It’s cheap, effective, and preventative in nature; why not get it.

Will People Get The Swine Flue Vaccine?

If people are so apprehensive and lazy about getting the seasonal flu vaccine then what’s that say for the upcoming H1N1 flu vaccine that has yet to get to the general population. Here in our area the vaccine hasn’t even been offered to hospital workers yet; will they muster up the motivation to take it? Will the population take it? I’m sure it’ll be more expensive so my guess is less people will get the swine flu vaccination than the normal flu vaccination.

I want to encourage you to get your shot now and the H1N1 shot if you are high risk. There is a blog I recently came across that is all about the H1N1 swine flu. It’s got a lot of information on it and I hope you’ll check it out. Despite my plea here in this post, the vaccine is not a passion of mine so you probably won’t read too many posts from me on this so if this topic resonates with you I’m sure you’ll enjoy following the linked blog.

Thanks for reading; and I’ll check back in with normal posting probably by the first of the week. I’ve decided to relax my posting schedule a bit due to other commitments; I hope you’ll understand.

Centenarian News: Medicine (Right Now) Is Out of Whack with Lifestyle

I wanted to share a solid article on the prospects of the growing population of centenarians and super-centenarians. Currently these groups of people are growing leaps and bound faster than all other demographic groups and while this is occurring many fear ending up in such a state.

A large swath of the population, however, view living into one’s hundreds as a life sentence to a living vegetative state, however evidence suggests that the rate of exceptional assistance required by people in the greater-than-100 crowd is not much different than it is for the typically old aged crowd of 85-99 years of age. This suggests that if you are healthy enough to make it to 100 you are probably well enough to be alright on your own more than one might initially think.

Some excerpts from an article published in The Age:

Most evidence [of growing longevity for those aged under 85] suggests postponement of limitations and disabilities [as the reason for increasing life expectancy], despite an [overall] increase in chronic diseases and conditions…This is at least partly accounted for by early diagnosis, improved treatment, and amelioration of prevalent diseases so that they are less disabling.

However, for people aged over 85 the situation is less clear. There is widespread concern that exceptional longevity from medical advances comes with “huge personal and societal costs.”

Some students of ageing [say] the fourth age [the ''oldest old''] will generally be characterized by vulnerability, with little identity, psychological autonomy and personal control. An increasing number of individuals [will reach] their 10th and 11th decades in frail states of health, with many existing in a vegetative state. However, a study of US super-centenarians aged 110-119 found that about 40 percent needed little assistance or were independent, suggesting that super-centenarians are not more disabled than are people aged 92 years.

I find this article to offer a good mix of information and encourage you to read it all the way through. It’s not too long.

My Thoughts
We are currently in an awkward stage in the human condition. Much like a young teen goes through an awkward stage between childhood and adulthood our older population is experiencing the same thing. Right now medicine is able to keep people alive much longer than in decades past but the lifestyles of our oldest people has always been based on a mortality schedule that was much shorter. Bodies break down as directed but new medicine keeps them alive anyway. This results in the “huge personal and societal costs” as mentioned above.

What is not spelled out in the article, but yet I believe firmly, is that younger generations of people today… especially the youngest, are being bred in this age of new (extreme) medicine and their lifestyles are going to be ever more increasingly supportive of the exceptional longevity now possible. As these healthier bodies age they will be more on par with medical possabilities and thus those extreme years between 85 and 110 won’t feel or look quite as extreme.

I’ve said it before; investing in your body with the foods you eat and the lifestyle choices you make will pay off big time as you get older. Medicine can keep you going for a long time; it’s up to you however to prepare for this longevity so that you can continue enjoying life until the very end.

Source
The Age, October 3, 2009

The Best Supplements For Your Specific Needs

Last night I came home from work and my wife greeted me lovingly at the door. She then proceeded to scare the crap out of me by showing me what she got after having her annual checkup with the doctor. She excitedly reaches into a small brown paper pharmacy bag and pulls out a big bottle and hands it to me and give me a second to peer at the label and decipher what exactly it was I was looking at.

Prenatal Vitamins! What? – I say.

She then laughs and says that her doctor had the talk with her about our plans for children and whether we want them or are planning on having them. My wife apprehensive at first decides honesty is the best policy and says yes, we have talked about it and yes we have decided that we will likely have kids in the next few years sometime but no, we are not actively trying to have kids yet. She is after all on birth control.

The doctor however tells her that prenatal vitamins are increasingly more beneficial the older a women gets and are most beneficial if the woman has been on them for 6-12 months before conception. Now my wife isn’t exactly old by any means; she’s still closer to 25 then 30 but amazingly these days medical advice considers the upper 20’s are the cusp of advanced birthing age. According to her doctor if we were to accidently get pregnant over the next year she could conceivably give birth at an advanced age and thus prenatal vitamins would be a good precaution to be taking even though she is on birth control. Crazy, I thought but I guess it makes sense. The vitamins are merely insurance that the pill fails and we get pregnant ahead of our plans…and it is insurance that she is well nourished to support a healthy pregnancy in the event that her body has trouble birthing at an “advanced age”. Anyway, the vitamins are essentially a conventional multivitamin with just a bit more folate and iron. She already takes a daily multivitamin so it’s not really going to change anything. Seems like a good idea to me.

This got me thinking though about other forms of supplementation for specific personal circumstances. They make multivitamins specifically designed for almost all genres of people: children, elderly, women, men, etc., etc., etc. But what about less obvious circumstances and more specific supplements as opposed to a jack of all traits multivitamin?

Best Life Magazine, June '07, published the following table (emphasis and comments added) on just this and I thought it was interesting and thought it could possibly be helpful for a number of people so I thought I would share it. If any of the following describes you then maybe you should consider the following supplementation or simply try to include more of these vitamins, etc. into your every day diet in the foods you eat.

• If You Are Obese: Vitamin D gets caught up in fat tissue and doesn’t circulate, which means you might need more to compensate. - Or you can simply eat more foods rich in Vitamin D or try pairing your food correctly to increase the body’s bioavailability of Vitamin D.
• If You Are A Distance Runner: Because you burn so much fuel, there is rapid elimination of Vitamin C, an important nutrient for runners because it helps repair muscle and prevent muscle breakdown. [But] don’t take more than 500mg a day. - Again, vitamin C is an easy supplement to take and it’s also to increase through the food you eat through fruits and greens.
• History of Alzheimer’s: Plant sterols and stanols reduce cholesterol, which has been found to accelerate the formation of the plaques that are associated with dementia. - I’ve written about this form of supplementation before. Fortified OJ in the morning (a nice source of plant sterols) is a nice way to combat Alzheimer's before it starts if you want to stay away from the health and vitamin store.
• If You Have High Blood Pressure: Coenzyme Q10 improves blood flow and should be considered even by healthy men who have a family history of high blood pressure.
• If You Do Strength Training: L-carnitine helps shuttle fatty acids within mitochondria, the part of the cell that produces energy and build muscle.
• If You Are A Recovering Alcoholic: B complex vitamins (B1, B2, B6, B12, and folic acid) are the first to become deficient in alcoholics. - This set of vitamins is also helpful for muscle recovery and athletic performance.
• If You Are At Risk For A Heart Attack: Niacin increases good cholesterol and reduces heart-disease risk better than most drugs. - If you are deficient in this you might want to consider supplementing in addition to taking your medications while working at getting into shape through regular exercise.
• If You Are Recovering From A Heart Attack: One gram of omega-3 daily reduces the risk of sudden cardiac death. This has recently become an American Heart Association standard treatment. - In addition to supplementing make sure your eat more omega-3’s in your diet through fish, oils, and greens.
• Family History of Early Vision Loss: Lutein protects the eyes from damage.
• If You Are A Smoker: Vitamin E is rapidly depleted by smoking and continues to be deficient for up to five years after quitting.
• If You Suffer From ED: Red yeast rice extract is a natural form of statin that can increase blood flow. - It might also help with lowering LDL cholesterol levels as well.

As always, don’t over supplement as this is bad for you too. Make sure you consult your doctor to determine if supplementation is right for you and your specific situation.

American's Eat Way Too Much Sugar

The American Heart Association just released new recommendations on sugar consumption. This information is hardly news to those of us who care about healthy dietary habits but a solid endorsement from the AHA to cut back is always nice.

According the AHA American's consume approximately 22 teaspoons of sugar on average every day and should only be consuming 6-9 depending on gender. This equates to a reduction of 150-250 calories per day if American's were to simply lower their sugar intake. I have previously noted that a simple reduction in calories can lower systemic inflammation and that the best diet is simply eating less of everything. I have even noted that increases in sugar consumption is linked to some degree with Alzheimer's Disease. I think it's general knowledge that high calorie diets lead to obesity so I find this finding to be fairly straight forward, unbelievably, however, the sugar industry has denied the claims as illustrated in the following video segment from NBC Nightly News (air date: 8/25/09).

NBC Nightly News on Sugar

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

It's funny, the argument that excessive sugar is not bad for you reminds me of claims from cigarette companies from decades past stating that nicotine was not addictive and that cigarettes were perfectly healthy... when of course we all know that they are the single most unhealthy thing you can do to your body. After all smoking is one of the leading causes of heart disease and I suspect that eating too much sugar is close behind due to its effects of causing obesity and diabetes.

For those that wish to peruse the official study as published in the journal Circulation (8/24/09), please enjoy.

Four Simple Ways To Save Billions on Healthcare

I was listening to American Public Media’s early edition of Marketplace today on the radio and found the following segment on healthcare reform to be a nice breath of fresh air. David Frum’s segment titled Four Simple Steps to Healthcare Reform highlighted a few simple ways that Americans could collectively save billions of dollars and add healthy years to our lives. These techniques are not new to me or you hopefully but it is nice to hear them coming from a widely followed media source:

An excerpt:

"How much does health care matter, really? The numbers suggest that for most of us individual behaviors matter more than anything doctors do.  The U.S. spends 60 percent more of national income on health care than the other advanced countries. Yet American life expectancy ranks below Italy's and Portugal's.  Let me suggest four simple actions to extend and improve American life and save hundreds of billions of dollars."

Read the transcript here for the full story and the four simple ideas (about a one minute read) or give the 3-min segment a listen below. Note: If viewing from RSS you might have to click through to view the audio.

Four Simple Ways To Save Billions on Healthcare

Teaching Our Children Moderation

Teaching our kids moderation might be the long-term key to lasting control of healthcare costs and healthcare reform. As an illustration just take good look at these sobering childhood obesity facts.  Reigning in the overarching problems of "western diseases" such as obesity, cancers, diabetes, heart disease, etc. is effectually dependent upon educating society of the dangers of eating for pleasure and/or for sociability. Food is a means to health and yet we treat it as a means to happiness.

I know the following video can debunk that last statement because the kids are given two marshmallows but you can choose to view the following video a little differently. The marshmallow experiment is meant to show the value of teaching self-discipline. The results of this experiment with the kids in this video show a remarkable predictor of the kid's ability to adjust to society, be successful, and have self-discipline. Though the video focuses to some extent on financial literacy and delayed gratification it also demonstrates the importance of learning moderation.

Yes, yes, I know the kids who can hold out get twice the sweet treat but if you extend the illustration to real adult life you can see that people who are able to moderate and delay gratification can see the importance of bypassing the occasional food that is not good for you. They can see that they should work out a little more often so that they can reap the rewards in the future.

If anything the video of these kids is hysterical, adorable, and incredibly entertaining so if you choose to not take any lessons from it at least enjoy it from an entertainment stand point.

Have a great weekend! I won't be posting again until Monday but I do have a nice guest post lined up for tomorrow. I hope you'll check it out. I also wanted to point out that I was featured in the most recent edition of the Healthwonk Review hosted at the Health Business Blog. If you want a solid dose of healthcare related posts I encourage you to check it out. There are many great entries.

The Marshmallow Experiment

The Daily Show on "The Death Panel"

Yet again, here is look on healthcare and it's inevitable reform, however this comical perspective is provided by none other than Jon Stewart and The Daily Show. The bit is quite funny and obviously pokes fun at the ultra-conservative movement calling Obama's healthcare proposal a death panel. Considering the fact that I find myself slightly conservative but siding with Obama on this one I feel I'm able to laugh with no strings attached to any side of this debate. The sketch however, I cast vote for Aasif's conclusions, "whatever scares the public most". Love it! Enjoy!

The Misconceptions of Healthcare Reform

Man, there are a lot of misconceptions flying around out there on the healthcare reform propositions. People are getting so worked up over the details that haven't even been reconciled by our lawmakers. This video from the Wall Street Journal shows just some of the many rumors and misrepresentations out there on the proposed bills.

If you've been reading this blog for the cast couple weeks you will likely know part of my opinion already. We need to do something about the high cost of healthcare and often the things that will make the most difference will be the toughest to swallow. Let's just be civilized about the discussion for goodness sake.

The Misconceptions of Healthcare Reform

WSJ 8/13/2009

Video via Reuters

The 'Skinny' On Obesity

CNBC's Erin Burnett just aired a segment on Street Signs today that illustrated exactly what I was getting at in my post last night on the healthcare costs of the obese. In the segment her guest is Dr. Delos Cosgrove, the President and CEO of the Cleveland Clinic.

If you haven't read the post my basic premise was that obesity is a major factor that adds billions of dollars of burden on our nations healthcare and insurance system. I argue that incentives need to be put in place to get people to live healthier lives and disincentives must be put in place to push people in to not living destructive lives. The costs must be spread so that healthy people do not subsidize the poor lifestyle choices of the obese. And for reference purposes obesity is officially described as being a BMI of 30 or greater... give or take depending on body type.

The segment on street signs deals with these very issues and is well worth four and a half minutes of your time.

The 'Skinny' on Obesity

Healthcare Costs Of The Obese

My wife was reading the most recent issue of Time Magazine (Aug. 10) the other day and she showed me a blurb in the issue that broke down the costs of health care broken down not by age or disease but by the patients level of obesity. I found it fascinating and equally maddening. Time sourced the following facts from a report that was recently published in the Journal Health Affairs.

The short article pointed out the following facts:

• Obese people make up approximately a quarter of the US population
• Obese people spend $1,400 more per year on medical care than normal weight people
• Medicare spends $600 more for obese patients each year
• Medicaid spends $230 more per years for obese patients prescription drugs
• Annual costs associated with obesity are now estimated at $147 billion
• Healthcare costs associated with obesity are rising 9 percent per year

What strikes me is nobody seems to care about these numbers. We all kind of shrug them off; maybe we gripe modestly, but then we move on with life. Politicians debate how to fix the system; they try to figure out why we spend so much on healthcare and how we could spend less. They don’t however take the problem head on.

Until we start spending less on marginal life extension and start focusing on the obesity epidemic in America healthcare costs will continue to rise. You want to know how to live a longer life? Stop prolonging the life of the unhealthy with expesive treatments and start encorgaing and teaching people to stay healthy in the first place.

$147 billion dollars of spending are directly due to obesity, of our economy that represents 1 percent of the entire GDP for the nation. Currently as our nation is in recession that means GDP is falling and yet healthcare costs continue to rise. Even in the best of times GDP is only increasing at a rate of 2-3 percent. That means at these best of times rates that in 11 years obesity related healthcare spending will equal 2 percent of GDP, and in 18 years it will be 3 percent.

At some point something has to change. In my humble opinion we need to make drastic incentives for people to live healthier lives and conversely discourage obesity through progressively difficult to swallow measures. The simple fact that my health insurance costs the same for me as it does for my smoking, overweight coworker is insane. Drivers pay less if they're deemed to be in a safer demographic, it should be no different for healthy people and health insurance.

I feel it is wrong for healthy people and the American taxpayer to subsidize the unhealthy and lazy lifestyles that so many people follow. I’m not saying all obese people are unhealthy. I know there are exceptions to the norms. Some obese people have natural disadvantages such as genetics but most do not and many are simply not interested in changing lifestyles. They mooch the system and run up the cost for everybody. It should be their choice to live how they want but we should not have to pay for it; they should.

I’m just sayin’.

UPDATE 8/13/09: You might also be interested in viewing this video, The Skinny on Obesity, which aired on CNBC 8/10/09.

High Cost Of Health Care: What Is The Root of the Problem?

KevinMD just posted some very interesting thoughts on the costs of health care in America. Sourcing two recent articles on health care costs, one in Slate and the other in the NY Times, the issue of where our costs are going comes into question.

Everybody's Sick

The first of the two general trends discussed in these articles, and by Kevin, revolves around the concept of diagnosing anything and everybody with something, and then with that diagnosis, the treatment of it. This can readily be seen in the vast amount of "new" diseases that people have today compared to decades past. Many of the diseases weren’t ever diagnosed, known about, or treated in the past. Because everybody has something then more treatment is necessary, which over all raises costs for the whole system.

Cost's Of Keeping People Alive

The second idea circulating and brought up near the end of the Slate article was the cost of health care on the elderly versus on the youthful. The question is posed that maybe we spend too much on the old and dying, which increases health care costs for everyone. According to the article it costs us four and half times as much money to extend the life of an elderly person for one year than it does to extend the life of a young person for one year. Kevin poses that no matter what changes, if any, are made to our nation’s health care system the costs will keep rising until politicians address the disparity between extending life of young people versus the elderly.

The thought process is quite controversial I know, but I seem to agree with Kevin. If there is no limit to what we will spend to extend life a little longer then it doesn’t matter if we have private health care insurance, single-payer public coverage, or we just pay out of our cash and savings. No matter the system that last year of life will be more expensive for the elderly and will prop the costs of the entire system up. At some point the costs are not worth it.

Emphasis On Prevention

Obviously I am interested in extending life for myself, my family, and my readers but I feel that there are more appropriate ways to do this, namely through disease prevention, good nutrition, and physical activity. I’m currently reading (read) the book “The Blue Zones” (click through for my published book review), which delves into the world’s populations who live exceedingly long lives on average compared to American’s standards and ironically many of the people interviewed for the book did not have access to the care that we have today. Nor do the populations try to squeeze every last year out of their elderly through various expensive treatment programs.

There is no reason that we must do what we currently do. Prevention should be made first priority and then end of life care must be addressed either by individuals or public programs despite the political fire-storm that this dialogue might very well spawn.

Please, if you have time read the articles linked to above and weigh in with your thoughts in the comments… and if you haven’t checked out KevinMD’s blog you would be doing yourself a favor to do so now. It’s a marvelous daily read.

The Most Important Question To Ask Before Surgery

According to researchers at the University of Michigan who studied the case files of 460,738 patients who underwent eight types of surgical procedures, the most important question you can ask your surgeon is how many times he or she has actually performed the procedure.

Experience Counts - Not Age

The statistics found within the case files, which were published in the Annals of Surgery, indicate that a surgeon's case load of procedures is a better predictor of surgical skills than his or her age is... which seems to make a lot of sense to me. They noted that surgeons over 60 years of age who had high case loads had the same low patient mortality rates as high case load doctors in their forties. Conversely both age groups had similar mortality rates that were higher when the doctors in question had lower case load histories.

Now my opinion on this is that this is probably an obvious deduction that just about anyone could make, however, I would assume that many people probably never think to ask this question either out of a desire to show respect to the surgeon or out of the simple fact that they didn't know to ask. I personally don't have any upcoming surgeries but I'm sure I would rather have someone cut into me knowing that he or she had dome it many times before. Just something to think about.

Your Opinion

Is this a question you would ask of your surgeon? Leave your comments below and thanks for reading!

Source
Annals Of Surgery, Sept. 2006
Photo Credit

Health Related: Showering Some Link Love

Recently some of my work has been published in a few carnivals, the Total Mind and Body Fitness Carnival over at FitBuff, the Carnival of Struggling Bumbling Newbies at SuccessPart2, and the Boomers and Seniors – News You Can Use carnival at Ageless Sages. I wanted first and foremost to thank the hosts of these carnivals for their work and for including my entries into these carnivals. You can read my inclusions if you haven’t already:

• Poor Sleep Habits Can Lead to Insulin Resistance
• Think Positive & Fight Depression, and
• Iced Green Tea For A Longer Life

In addition to my work I wanted as usual to highlight a few articles from these carnivals that I found particularly interesting and suggest to my readers take a look at them as well

• From Total Mind and Body Fitness I stumbled upon this post from FitJerk on Energy Bars & Protein Bars. In this post the author tries to dissect the various forms of bars based upon what their “purpose” is. Once you identify your purpose fro eating a bar then he gives guidance on what to look for to ensure you are eating something worthwhile rather than just a glorified candy bar. Check it out.



• From the Bumbling Newbies Carnival I found this post from Personal Web Guide on Food, Stress, and Anxiety. This was a very well written essay on how our food choices and diet affect our mood and mental health. It has been clearly shown that good attitudes, moods, and low stress levels have an over all positive affect on health and longevity and thus I appreciate this post which reminds us that our diet has a lot to do with our stress levels. I invite you to check this article out.



• Lastly from Ageless Sages’ Boomers and Seniors carnival, SandwichINK posted on the importance of Grab Bars in the Prevention of Falls. This is an important topic for those of us who are elderly or care for elderly family members or friends as most deaths by falls occur in our oldest generation. I’ve recently posted on the overall causes for death in the US and accidents (primarily falls) come it at number five on the list! In the future I plan on highlighting this issue in yet to be written posts but for now I’d encourage you to read this SandwichINK’s post as a primer for my series on accidents.

Links to Noteworthy Health Blogs and Posts

pic by End of Level Boss
It's time to spread some love and recognition!

Health Blogs and Posts

Holiday Honey's entry into the Total Mind and Body Fitness Carnival this week was on The Importance of a Good Night's Sleep. She highlighted a point that I made a while back on sleep patterns and length of life. I pointed out that optimal sleep patterns should be followed to acheive your full potential length of life. Holiday Honey argued that a good night's sleep is the esiest and first thing you can do to start improving your health and body. It was a nice brief article that provided some valuable context to what I've already written on the subject.

Another blog a ran into in this week's carnival was Christina's post over on Salad Sticks. She wrote about the life changing benefits of water in that it not only provides a cheap alternative to other drinks, low (zero) calorie content, and assistance in remaining hydrated and energized but she also included a well developed list of the many additional benefits including research findings linking increased water drinking with a lowering association of heart attack risk. Seeing as though I haven't devoted much of any attention to water on my site I felt this read was well worth the time to link to. I hope you'll check out Christina's post.

In addition to this carnival I have been featured in a few others as of late which I haven't taken the time to point out. I’d like to give honorable mention to some of the other notable sites and posts I have read over the last couple weeks and will try to do so in future posts.

A Welcome and Invitation

For those new to How To Live A Longer Life I thank you for reading this far and hope that you’ll become a repeat visitor to the site. I typically try to offer my readers with approximately 10-12 posts a week which generally revolve around health, longevity, and disease prevention topics which are based upon scientific research and clinical findings. A lot of my writing is my opinion based on clinical facts; I hope you’ll appreciate that about me and my style. I’d encourage you to subscribe to my feed and share this site with your social network of choice. There’s an easy link in the footer of this and every post.

25 Health Care Policy Resource Blogs

Medicine 3.0 by Nursing Assistant Guides just posted a very thorough listing of 25 of the top health care policy blogs active today. They all are run by reputable authors and are routinely updated with relevant and accurate information. I'm not familiar with them all but will likely spend some time in the near future getting to know some of the new one to me.

Medicine 3.0 writes:

"Are you concerned about health care policies and reform? You can learn more about the direction that health care policies are taking through the blogs listed below. We discovered writers who were doctors, attorneys, journalists and politicians who all lend their perspectives to the volatile and ethical issues surrounding health care reform."

Click through to see their listing of resources: Top 25 Health care Policy Blogs. One blog that particularly interests me is the Health Wonk Review: "If you want a wide variety of health policy blog writing, head to this site. Health Wonk Review is a biweekly compendium of the best of the health policy blogs", writes Medicine 3.0.

Let me know if you know of any other resources in the comments.