Sunday, September 27, 2009

Health News: 5 Things You can Do to Stay Healthy

by Dr Elaina George, MD

Instead of waiting for the outcome of the healthcare debate to decide your fate, use some simple common sense strategies to take back the power to control your own health.

  1. Start exercising

An increase in activity of as little as 20 minutes 3 times a week can make a difference in your risk of heart disease,

diabetes and obesity. You don’t have to get fancy with a gym membership. Try taking the stairs at work instead of the

elevator, or park further from the entrance when you go to the market or mall.

2. Eat Smaller portions

You may not want to give up your junk food or fried food, but try to limit your portions. Instead of buying a six pack

of soda, buy a two liter bottle. You can better control the portions along with your intake of calories.

3. Drink more water

The average person should be drinking 1 ounce per kilogram of his/her weight in water per day. (1 lb = 2.2kg).

Studies have shown that people eat more when they are dehydrated because the signals in the body can confuse

hunger with thirst. If you are hungry, try drinking an 8-12 oz glass of water before you decide to eat that snack.

Click to read more.

Friday, September 25, 2009

Health News: First Swine Flu Vaccines Set to Arrive Oct 5

USA Today

U.S. health officials say the first swine flu vaccine should be in some doctors' offices as early as Oct. 5. Officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday the U.S. vaccine shipments will go directly to doctors, clinics and other providers designated by each state.

States are expected to begin ordering their share of the nation's H1N1 flu vaccine on Wednesday, said Paul Jarris, executive director of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. That day, the CDC brings its secure ordering site online.

Distribution will start with 6 million to 7 million doses of the nasal spray vaccine, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Thursday. Forty million doses of injectable vaccine are due to arrive soon after, with another 10 million to 20 million doses due weekly.

 

Click to read.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Political Scientists Break Down Healthcare Reform

Your Black World 

Listen up as Dr. Wilmer Leon speaks with Dr. Pearl Ford about President Obama’s Healthcare Reform Plan.  Click here to listen to the latest exciting episode!

Both are graduates of Howard University’s Political Science Program

Friday, September 18, 2009

Obama Says Race Doesn’t Matter in Healthcare Fight

from CNN, Your Black World 

President Barack Obama said Friday that angry criticisms about his health care agenda are driven by an intense debate over the proper role of government — and not by racism.

"Are there people out there who don't like me because of race? I'm sure there are," Obama told CNN. "That's not the overriding issue here."

The nation's first black president spoke about the issue of race during a battery of interviews on Friday. In a media blitz aimed at pounding home his health care message, he taped interviews with ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and Univision to be shown during the networks' Sunday morning talk shows.

Some excerpts aired during Friday night broadcasts.

Time and again, Obama was asked about whether the tenor of thehealth care debate turned nasty because of undercurrents in racism.Former President Jimmy Carter raised the point prominently this week when he said the vitriol was racially motivated.

Click to read.

Black Health News: The 6 Things You Need To Know Before You Take The Swine Flu Vaccine

by Dr. Elaina George, Your Black World 

Although the Swine flu virus has been identified in over 70 countries, it has not been as deadly as expected

  • The world wide number of swine flu cases currently is 209,500 with 2,185 deaths

The common flu is more deadly

  • In the US there have been 40,000 cases identified with 1,876 deaths. This is quite low when you compare the death rate to the typical flu virus which kills over 30,000 people per year.

Most cases of Swine flu have been mild

  • Most people have had mild self-limited symptoms that resolve without any medical intervention.

Click to Read.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Health News: Using a Tooth to Restore Vision?

image 

from the Black Doctors Blog

Doctors in Miami announced Wednesday that they had performed a vision-restoring surgery that used the 60-year-old patient's tooth.

The surgery, the first in the USA, was performed Labor Day weekend at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Afterward, patient Sharron Thornton was able to see for the first time in nine years. "Sharron was able to see 20/60 this morning. She was seeing only shadows a couple of weeks ago," says ophthalmologist and surgeon Victor Perez.

Thornton was blinded in 2000 by a reaction to a drug she was taking, which damaged her cornea. Perez likened Thornton's cornea to a dirty car windshield. He says her eye surface was too dry for a corneal implant, a standard treatment.

Click to read.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Health News: Should You Divorce just to pay Medical Bills? This Couple Did

image

News from The Huffington Post

For Mary McCurnin and husband Ron Bednar, money trouble has followed health trouble. In 2003, the couple declared bankruptcy after their insurance covered only 10 percent of treatment costs for her breast cancer and his intestinal bleeding. In 2004, McCurnin's breast cancer returned, and Bednar underwent open heart surgery.

Now, after repeatedly refinancing their house to pay medical bills and living expenses, they're broke. To improve their chances of growing old together, they've filed for divorce.

"It occurred to me that I could get my first husband's Social Security," said McCurnin. Her first husband, to whom she'd been married 20 years, died in 1989. When she turns 60 in November, McCurnin said she will be eligible for $1,200 in monthly survivor's benefits from the previous marriage. As the Social Security Administration told her, she can't have the survivor benefit if she's married to someone else.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/16/loving-couple-divorces-to_n_287094.html

Black Health News: What’s Wrong with Healthcare? Listen Up!

 

image

In this episode of Medicine on Call, Dr. Elaina George interviews Jason Rosenbaum from The Seminal, a healthcare publication.  What is wrong with healthcare?  What is the state of healthcare reform?  What are the goals for healthcare?

 

Click here to listen!

Monday, September 14, 2009

Black Health News: President’s Speech Doesn’t Boost Him in the Polls

image

President Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress last week didn't provide much of a boost to his job approval rating, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday shows. The nationwide survey pegs his approval at 54%, precisely where it was in two USA TODAY polls in August.

(A separate, daily poll by Gallup showed Obama's approval dipping as low as 50% last month.)

USA TODAY's Susan Page reports that 43% disapprove of the job he's doing, a tick up from the August polls and a new high in the 14 surveys we've taken since the inauguration in January.

That's not to say Rep. Joe Wilson, the South Carolina Republican who heckled the president during his speech, fares well. Two-thirds of those polled, 68%, say they oppose what the congressman did, and about one in four (23%) say they're "outraged" by it. (That group included 41% of Democrats and 8% of Republicans.)

 

Click to read.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Health News: Can Anti-depressants Create Serious Sexual Problems?

ORGASMS: Sarah

The rumble of a train on the tracks, the purr of a hairdryer, the rhythmic drone of a photo-copier are all enough to make her go oh oh oh, ahhhhh.

She had FIVE orgasms during our 40-minute interview. But I can't take the credit-it was just talking about her sex life that set her off.

Sarah, 24, suffers from Permanent Sexual Arousal Syndrome (PSAS), which increases blood flow to the sex organs.

She said: "Sometimes I have so much sex to try to calm myself down I get bored of it. And men I sleep with don't seem to make as much effort because I climax so easily."

As she chatted, Sarah became increasingly flustered.

"Sorry, you'll have to excuse me for a minute. I'll be with you in a sec," she mumbled before letting out a long sigh.

Sarah, from London, developed PSAS after being prescribed anti-depressants at 19.

 

Click to read.

Obama Says More Americans Uninsured than You Might Think

In an effort to cast health care reform as helpful to more Americans, President Obama on Saturday pounded home a new statistic: Nearly 50% of people under 65 have gone without coverage for at least one month over a decade.

"It can happen to anyone," Obama said in his weekly address. "In the United States of America, no one should have to worry that they'll go without health insurance -- not for one year, not for one month, not for one day. And once I sign my health reform plan into law -- they won't."

The new figure comes from a Treasury Department analysis of survey data collected by the University of Michigan. The data tracked health insurance coverage through phone interviews with some 17,000 individuals from 1997 to 2006.

Click to read.

Friday, September 11, 2009

What’s the Secret? Black Woman Dies at 115 Years Old

image

Although she liked her bacon crispy and her chicken fried, she never drank, smoked or fooled around, Gertrude Baines once said, describing a life that lasted an astonishing 115 years and earned her the title of oldest person on the planet.

It was a title Baines quietly relinquished Friday when she died in her sleep at Western Convalescent Hospital, her home since she gave up living alone at age 107 after breaking a hip.

She likely suffered a heart attack, said her longtime physician, Dr. Charles Witt, although an autopsy was scheduled to determine the exact cause of death.

"I saw her two days ago, and she was just doing fine," Witt told The Associated Press on Friday. "She was in excellent shape. She was mentally alert. She smiled frequently."

Click to read.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Your Health News: Male or Female?

Shock claims: Caster Semenya celebrates her 800m victory in Berlin last month amid an international row over whether she is a man or a woman

The world of athletics is reeling today after a claim that South African champion runner Caster Semenya is a hermaphrodite with no womb or ovaries.

A Sydney newspaper claims it has a world exclusive in revealing the very private information about the sex of the 18-year-old runner.

Quoting a source closely involved with the IAAF, the Sydney Daily Telegraph said Semenya had internal testes - male sexual organs which produce testosterone and which in turn produces muscle bulk, body hair and a deep voice.

Dr. Elaina George Speaks on Obama’s Speech

by Dr. Elaina George, YourBlackWorld.com

The suspense is over. For weeks we have been holding our collective breath to see if there would be real insurance reform. Now we know. President Obama’s speech this evening incorporated a lot of different ideas, but what was most striking was his statement that the public option was just one of the avenues that could be travelled to achieve an expansion of insurance coverage. Besides the demotion of the public option as an important tool to reign in the all powerful insurance companies, I noticed that there was no mention of universal health care. Wasn’t that the point of this whole exercise?

To be fair there are some good things. Under the President’s proposal there will be:

§ Coverage for pre-existing conditions

§ A cap on out-of-pocket expenses

§ People can no longer be dropped from insurance companies when they get sick

§ No further cap on what insurance companies will pay out

It is a good start, but it doesn’t go far enough.

Click to read.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Is there a shortage of Doctors?

Obama administration officials, alarmed at doctor shortages, are looking for ways to increase the supply of physicians to meet the needs of an aging population and millions of uninsured people who would gain coverage under legislation championed by the president.

The officials said they were particularly concerned about shortages of primary care providers who are the main source of health care for most Americans.

One proposal — to increase Medicarepayments to general practitioners, at the expense of high-paid specialists — has touched off a lobbying fight.

Family doctors and internists are pressing Congress for an increase in their Medicare payments. But medical specialists are lobbying against any change that would cut their reimbursements. Congress, the specialists say, should find additional money to pay for primary care and should not redistribute dollars among doctors — a difficult argument at a time of huge budget deficits.

Some of the proposed solutions, while advancing one of President Obama’s goals, could frustrate others. Increasing the supply of doctors, for example, would increase access to care but could make it more difficult to rein in costs.

Click to read.

Monday, September 7, 2009

Where are the Parasites in your food?

The parasitic life is all about finding niches in the ecosystem and exploiting them for all they're worth. And after billions of years mucking their way through blood vessels and intestines, you better believe they've gotten rather good at it. Untold billions are clamoring for a chance to get inside you -- and it just so happens that the best way to do that is to stow away in your next meal.

In this article, we're going to take a look at a few menu items with a high probability for parasites. By no means does this mean you're guaranteed a belly full of worms with each one! It's essential to stress that proper food storage, fresh ingredients and sanitary food preparation conditions vastly decrease the chances for food contamination.

 

Click to read.