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Nearsightedness Increasing

near-sightedAccording to a recent report, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of people who are considered nearsighted.

Researchers tapped into a wide-ranging health survey to rate vision in the population in the early 1970s and roughly 30 years later. They compared eyesight information for more than 4,400 people tested in 1971 and 1972 with data from another set of 8,300 people tested from 1999 to 2004.

This broad survey showed that 25 percent of those examined in the early 1970s were deemed to be nearsighted, compared with 42 percent examined three decades later, the researchers report in the December Archives of Ophthalmology. That’s an increase of 66 percent.

This may not seem too important to a generation that rarely looks beyond the iPhone in their hand.

Dispensed as
link | Prescribed on December 15, 2009

Buy Green, Be Evil?

Buying green and local products is one of those things that makes you a better person, right? Right?

Um, maybe not.

There’s also the risk that these lifestyle choices will make us complacent, sapping the drive to call senators and chain ourselves to coal plants. Tweaking your shopping list, the argument goes, is at best woefully insufficient and maybe even counterproductive.

But new research by Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong at the University of Toronto levels an even graver charge: that virtuous shopping can actually lead to immoral behavior. In their study (described in a paper now in press at Psychological Science), subjects who made simulated eco-friendly purchases ended up less likely to exhibit altruism in a laboratory game and more likely to cheat and steal.

Dispensed as
link | Prescribed on December 8, 2009

How Safe is Your Drinking Water?

According to an analysis by the New York Times, millions of Americans are drinking water that (at least at times) is contaminated.

More than 20 percent of the nation’s water treatment systems have violated key provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act over the last five years, according to a New York Times analysis of federal data…

Studies indicate that drinking water contaminants are linked to millions of instances of illness within the United States each year.

In some instances, drinking water violations were one-time events, and probably posed little risk. But for hundreds of other systems, illegal contamination persisted for years, records show.

How many illnesses have been caused by this dirty water? No one knows for sure.

But scientific research indicates that as many as 19 million Americans may become ill each year due to just the parasites, viruses and bacteria in drinking water. Certain types of cancer — such as breast and prostate cancer — have risen over the past 30 years, and research indicates they are likely tied to pollutants like those found in drinking water.

Incredibly disturbing story. Looks like newspapers are still good for something, eh?

Dispensed as
link | Prescribed on December 7, 2009

Turn Your Head and Cough at This List

Over at Davenetics, we feature a compelling list of the 10 Things You Didn’t Know Were in the Health Bill (and aren’t). Enjoy.

Dispensed as
link | Prescribed on December 3, 2009

Drug Makers Pay Generics to Delay

Don’t be surprised if it becomes more and more difficult to find generic versions of prescription drugs. Drug manufacturers have a new trick up their sleeves known as Pay to Delay. The generic drug maker gets paid off to delay offering their version of the medicine.

Over the last few years, drug-makers have embraced a startlingly simple tactic for fending off competition from generic brands: paying them off. In a nutshell, the company that holds the patent on a profitable drug strikes a deal with the maker of the cheaper generic brand: you hold off on marketing your generic for several years, and in return, we'll give you a share of our profits on the drug.

When it comes to affordable health care, remember who is friend and who is foe.

Dispensed as
link | Prescribed on December 3, 2009

Celebrity Diets You Can Try in the Privacy of Your Own Comparatively Sad World

If you want sound advice when it comes to dieting, I think you know who to turn to: Celebrities. They are skinnier that you, they are more famous than you and (with the help of the little photoshopping) they have a much healthier glow. So what are the latest celebrity diet fads? Take you pick among the following, or pick from one of my alternative strategies.

The Baby Food Diet: Yes, people actually buy those little jars of baby food and eat them as an adult meal.

The Alternative: Try the Baby Behavior Diet. Prepare a large, well balanced meal. Spit some of it out. Throw the rest on the floor. Have a fit. Do whatever it takes to convince someone to turn on the goddamn TV.

The Cookie Diet: Just eat “four to seven protein-based cookies a day, which amounts to about 500 to 600 calories, with a meal of lean protein and vegetables adding another 300 calories.”

The Alternative: Try the Cookie Monster Diet. Eat whatever you want including salt and pepper shakers, napkins, cookies, cakes, typewriters, etc. Never gain weight. Never age.

The Apple Cider Vinegar Diet: Though there is plenty of scientific data to the contrary, some people believe that vinegar cuts through fat and suppresses your appetite. So take a shot before each meal.

The Alternative: Try the Bobbing for Apples Diet. It’s a great aerobic workout and most people collapse in exhaustion after about half an apple.

The Lunchbox Diet: You eat your normal breakfast and dinner, but instead of lunch, you graze all afternoon from a “standard-size lunch box filled with 60 percent vegetables, 30 percent protein, and 10 percent fat (low-fat dressing, cheese, or peanut butter).”

The Alernative: Just eat the friggin lunchbox. It’s the quickest way to abs of steel (or at least aluminum).

The Raw Food Diet: Lots of nuts, fruits and veggies, none of which can be heated above 116 degrees.

The Alternative: The more extreme “raw food in death valley where it’s 120 degrees in the shade diet.” (Also known as the Yom Kippur diet.)

The Air Diet: Yes, scientists have found that if manufacturers simply pumped more air into their foods, we’d all lose weight.

The Alternative: The Hot Air Diet. Just enthusiastically expound on the benefits of any of the above. You’ll burn calories and no one will ever take you out to lunch again.

Dispensed as
link | Prescribed on November 19, 2009

Spray to Delay

A second study has shown that a medicated spray can delay premature ejaculation.

PSD502 — which combines the drugs lidocaine and prilocaine — is sprayed on the head of the penis before intercourse.

The study of men in Canada, Poland and the United States found that those treated with the spray five minutes before intercourse were able to delay ejaculation up to five times longer than those who used a placebo. In addition, men who used the spray and their partners reported improved sexual satisfaction.

Two studies seem like more than enough to me, but I guess this is one product they don’t want to release too early.

(I know that was sad, but it’s my blog and I can’t be stopped.)

Dispensed as
link | Prescribed on November 19, 2009

This Just In: Movie Popcorn Bad

Every few years, the media likes to inform us that those giant, greasy, buttery “tubs” of popcorn aren’t all that good for you. Well, here’s an update. Those giant, greasy, buttery “tubs” of popcorn still aren’t all that good for you.

A large tub of popcorn at Regal Cinemas, for example, holds 20 cups of popcorn and has 1,200 calories, 980 milligrams of sodium and 60 grams of saturated fat. Adding just a tablespoon of butter adds 130 calories. And do not forget that it comes with free refills.

It is interesting that different theater chains have popcorn tubs that vary wildly in terms of the amount of fat.

Home air-popped corn has way fewer calories and no saturated fat. Pretty sure the same is true for small chunks of cardboard.

Dispensed as
link | Prescribed on November 19, 2009

Running from Anxiety: It Works

Researchers have known that exercise can stimulate the growth of new brain cells (interesting that most of us still need more of a sales pitch than that). What they’ve now learned is that these new brain cells may be more “calm” and better able to deal with anxiety-inducing situations.

In the experiment, preliminary results of which were presented last month at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Chicago, scientists allowed one group of rats to run. Another set of rodents was not allowed to exercise. Then all of the rats swam in cold water, which they don’t like to do. Afterward, the scientists examined the animals’ brains. They found that the stress of the swimming activated neurons in all of the brains. (The researchers could tell which neurons were activated because the cells expressed specific genes in response to the stress.) But the youngest brain cells in the running rats, the cells that the scientists assumed were created by running, were less likely to express the genes. They generally remained quiet. The “cells born from running,” the researchers concluded, appeared to have been “specifically buffered from exposure to a stressful experience.” The rats had created, through running, a brain that seemed biochemically, molecularly, calm.

These running and ice-water dunked rats must occasionally look over at their counterparts that got selected to do the marijuana research and just think, WTF.

Dispensed as , ,
link | Prescribed on November 19, 2009

Some Mammogram Facts

I’ve been reading a bunch of the responses to the new mammogram guidelines. I found this good list of takes on both sides and the key basic facts you should know. Here’s a look at the first three of sixteen items.

1) When it comes to routine mammograms, we’re talking about screening people with NO symptoms. Any breast lump, pain, discharge, dimpling, or rash needs a thorough evaluation - that’s a completely different topic.

2) We’re talking about screening people with average risks - NOT anyone with genetic, family, or other history that puts them at increased risk - also a completely different topic.

3) Mammograms save lives. That’s a proven and re-proven fact. They’re far from perfect, but here are the numbers, by age group: “For ages 40-49, the analysis of the results by the USPSTF showed a 15% reduction in breast cancer mortality, which was similar to the risk reduction for women aged 50-59 while the risk reduction was 32% for women aged 60-69.”

Dispensed as
link | Prescribed on November 18, 2009

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