Tag: "obesity"

Should People Who Cause Their Own Illnesses Pay for Their Own Health Care?

David Friedman weighs in:

I recently came across a news story about a British legislator who proposed that patients suffering from life style illnesses, medical problems mainly due to behavioral choices such as being overweight, ought to have to pay for their own medicines rather than having them provided for free by the National Health Service. It is a proposal that I expect will provoke strong responses both against and for…

[I]t is not clear just how the logic of endogenous disability can be dealt with in a governmental system such as the National Health Service. There is a serious problem of lack of bright lines. Many sufferers from type 2 diabetes, an example mentioned in the news story, may have it because they choose to be greatly overweight, but presumably not all. Similarly in other cases.

Okay, commenters. What do you think?

Nov 29, 2012 | 14 comments | by

Headlines I Wish I Hadn’t Seen

Obesity affects your sense of smell, your sleep, your sex life and even your resistance to cancer.

Doctors failed to diagnose 54% of patients over age 60 with high blood pressure and 67% of those ages 18-24.

6,125 proposed regulations and notifications posted in last 90 days — average 68 per day.

Nov 13, 2012 | 13 comments | by

Depression is Costly

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.

Health Affairs study. NPR story.

Nov 08, 2012 | 10 comments | by

Ineffective Diet and Weight Loss, and Other Links

Diet and weight loss did not prevent heart attacks and strokes in overweight and obese people with Type 2 diabetes.

Win the raffle, get in vitro.

Can eating fruits and vegetables make you happy?

Another pilot program failure: “Shared savings” doesn’t work.

Oct 24, 2012 | 12 comments | by

A Primitive Tribe Doesn’t Get Modern Diseases

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.

Oct 08, 2012 | 9 comments | by

Less Smoking vs. More Obesity: Is It a Wash?

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.

Sep 27, 2012 | 7 comments | by

Organic vs. Non-organic Food, and Other Links

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.

Sep 06, 2012 | 11 comments | by

Inactivity is Not the Source of Modern Obesity

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.

Aug 31, 2012 | 7 comments | by

Why You Get Ill

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.

Jul 27, 2012 | 9 comments | by

Your Body Has 100 Trillion Microbes

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.

Jun 29, 2012 | 7 comments | by
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