From the 5 February Arizona State University press release
ASU students find income, education affect calorie menu use
Fast food restaurants around the country are starting to look a little different. Step up to the counter and you may notice calorie counts listed next to food items on the menu. Which customers notice and use that information to make healthier choices depends on their income and education level.
A newly published research study conducted by graduate students Jessie Green and Alan Brown under the guidance of Punam Ohri-Vachaspati, a nutrition researcher at the School of Nutrition and Health Promotion at Arizona State University, examined whether noticing and using calorie menu labels was associated with demographic characteristics of customers at a national fast food chain currently posting calorie counts. They found that approximately 60 percent of participants noticed the calorie menu labels but only 16 percent reported using the labels to determine food and beverage choices.
Green and her co-authors found that customers with higher incomes were twice as likely to notice the calorie labels and three times more likely to use them.
The study, published today in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, is the first of its kind specifically designed to examine the likelihood of customers noticing and using calorie menu labels in fast food restaurants in a mixed income and racially diverse sample of adults.
“Studies show consumers and nutritionists alike have trouble estimating the calorie and nutrient content of a restaurant meal,” Ohri-Vachaspati said. “Because fast food is a popular choice among Americans, we wanted to see how effective menu labeling was and if it helped customers make healthier choices. What we found, however, was that while the majority of customers noticed the labels, a very small percentage reported using them to influence their purchasing decisions, and customers with lower income and lower education levels reported using menu labels to a much lesser extent.”
In the United States, fast food is the second-largest source of total energy in the diets of children and adolescents. Studies have found frequently eating out at fast food restaurants is associated with greater weight gain and obesity, leading to a plethora of chronic health issues.
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February 6, 2015
Posted by Janice Flahiff |
Nutrition | Arizona State University, calorie counts, calorie listings, fast food chain, fast food restaurants, restaurant meals, restaurant menus |
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From the 5 February 2015 University of Leeds press release
Researchers have cracked a code that governs infections by a major group of viruses including the common cold and polio.
Until now, scientists had not noticed the code, which had been hidden in plain sight in the sequence of the ribonucleic acid (RNA) that makes up this type of viral genome.
But a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) Early Edition by a group from the University of Leeds and University of York unlocks its meaning and demonstrates that jamming the code can disrupt virus assembly. Stopping a virus assembling can stop it functioning and therefore prevent disease.
Professor Peter Stockley, Professor of Biological Chemistry in the University of Leeds’Faculty of Biological Sciences, who led the study, said: “If you think of this as molecular warfare, these are the encrypted signals that allow a virus to deploy itself effectively.
“Now, for this whole class of viruses, we have found the ‘Enigma machine’—the coding system that was hiding these signals from us. We have shown that not only can we read these messages but we can jam them and stop the virus’ deployment.”
Single-stranded RNA viruses are the simplest type of virus and were probably one of the earliest to evolve. However, they are still among the most potent and damaging of infectious pathogens.
Rhinovirus (which causes the common cold) accounts for more infections every year than all other infectious agents put together (about 1 billion cases), while emergent infections such as chikungunya and tick-borne encephalitis are from the same ancient family.
Other single-stranded RNA viruses include the hepatitis C virus, HIV and the winter vomiting bug norovirus.
This breakthrough was the result of three stages of research:
- In 2012, researchers at the University of Leeds published the first observations at a single-molecule level of how the core of a single-stranded RNA virus packs itself into its outer shell—a remarkable process because the core must first be correctly folded to fit into the protective viral protein coat. The viruses solve this fiendish problem in milliseconds. The next challenge for researchers was to find out how the viruses did this.
- University of York mathematicians Dr Eric Dykeman and Professor Reidun Twarock, working with the Leeds group, then devised mathematical algorithms to crack the code governing the process and built computer-based models of the coding system.
- In this latest study, the two groups have unlocked the code. The group used single-molecule fluorescence spectroscopy to watch the codes being used by the satellite tobacco necrosis virus, a single stranded RNA plant virus.
Read the entire article here
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February 6, 2015
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Medical and Health Research News | Common cold, Enigma machine, norovirus, RNA, RNA virus, the common cold, University of Leeds, University of York |
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From the 5 February 2015 post By JACK COCHRAN, MD and CHARLES KENNEY at The Health Care Blog
Technology occupies an unusual place in health care. Some people say that electronic health records are clumsy barriers between patients and their doctors. Others suggest that technology is a kind of secret sauce.
In many places physicians and other clinicians are stymied by awkward technology. In other organizations — Kaiser Permanente included — electronic health records enable some of the finest individual and population health care ever.
This humorous equation speaks volumes about technology and health care:
NT + OO = COO
New technology + old organization = Costly old organization. In other words, technology doesn’t change an organization. Change is about leadership and culture. It is about thinking in new ways and asking new questions.
For example, rather than ask how many patients can you see, let’s ask how many patients’ problems can you solve?
Instead of asking how can we convince patients to get required prevention, let’s ask how can we create systems that significantly increase the likelihood that patients get required prevention?
Instead of asking how often should a physician see a patient to optimally monitor a condition, let’s ask what is the best way to optimally monitor a condition?
When we begin asking these kinds of questions, we see technology as a tool — not a solution by itself, but as a powerful tool we can use to deliver better individual and population care. Technology, like data, is only useful when it enables clinicians and teams to work effectively to provide the highest quality care for patients.
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Read the entire post here
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February 6, 2015
Posted by Janice Flahiff |
health care | electronic health records, Health care, health technology, technology and health care |
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From the Perspective article by Douglas B. Jacobs, Sc.B., and Benjamin D. Sommers, M.D., Ph.D.at the 5 Feburary edition of the New England Journal of Medicine
Eliminating discrimination on the basis of preexisting conditions is one of the central features of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Before the legislation was passed, insurers in the nongroup market regularly charged high premiums to people with chronic conditions or denied them coverage entirely. To address these problems, the ACA instituted age-adjusted community rating for premiums and mandated that plans insure all comers. In combination with premium subsidies and the Medicaid expansion, these policies have resulted in insurance coverage for an estimated 10 million previously uninsured people in 2014.1
There is evidence, however, that insurers are resorting to other tactics to dissuade high-cost patients from enrolling. A formal complaint submitted to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in May 2014 contended that Florida insurers offering plans through the new federal marketplace (exchange) had structured their drug formularies to discourage people with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection from selecting their plans. These insurers categorized all HIV drugs, including generics, in the tier with the highest cost sharing.2
Insurers have historically used tiered formularies to encourage enrollees to select generic or preferred brand-name drugs instead of higher-cost alternatives. But if plans place all HIV drugs in the highest cost-sharing tier, enrollees with HIV will incur high costs regardless of which drugs they take. This effect suggests that the goal of this approach — which we call “adverse tiering” — is not to influence enrollees’ drug utilization but rather to deter certain people from enrolling in the first place.
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We found evidence of adverse tiering in 12 of the 48 plans — 7 of the 24 plans in the states with insurers listed in the HHS complaint and 5 of the 24 plans in the other six states (see theSupplementary Appendix for sample formularies). The differences in out-of-pocket HIV drug costs between adverse-tiering plans (ATPs) and other plans were stark (seegraph
Average HIV-Related Costs for Adverse-Tiering Plans (ATPs) versus Other Plans.). ATP enrollees had an average annual cost per drug of more than triple that of enrollees in non-ATPs ($4,892 vs. $1,615), with a nearly $2,000 difference even for generic drugs. Fifty percent of ATPs had a drug-specific deductible, as compared with only 19% of other plans. Even after factoring in the lower premiums in ATPs and the ACA’s cap on out-of-pocket spending, we estimate that a person with HIV would pay more than $3,000 for treatment annually in an ATP than in another plan.
Our findings suggest that many insurers may be using benefit design to dissuade sicker people from choosing their plans. A recent analysis of insurance coverage for several other high-cost chronic conditions such as mental illness, cancer, diabetes, and rheumatoid arthritis showed similar evidence of adverse tiering, with 52% of marketplace plans requiring at least 30% coinsurance for all covered drugs in at least one class.3 Thus, this phenomenon is apparently not limited to just a few plans or conditions.
Adverse tiering is problematic for two reasons. First, it puts substantial and potentially unexpected financial strain on people with chronic conditions. These enrollees may select an ATP for its lower premium, only to end up paying extremely high out-of-pocket drug costs. These costs may be difficult to anticipate, since calculating them would require knowing an insurer’s negotiated drug prices — information that is not publicly available for most plans.
Second, these tiering practices will most likely lead to adverse selection over time, with sicker people clustering in plans that don’t use adverse tiering for their medical conditions.
Read the entire Perspective here
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February 6, 2015
Posted by Janice Flahiff |
Consumer Health, Public Health | ACA, chronic conditions, drug tiers, Health insurance, health insurers, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, prescription drug costs |
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Pew, Other Groups Identify Potential Measures to Address Drug Shortages.
From the 5 February 2015 report
Pew and other health care organizations released a report on February 5, 2015 exploring measures that should be considered to address the ongoing issue of drug shortages in the United States, which impacts lifesaving medicines including antibiotics, chemotherapy, and cardiovascular drugs. The report summarizes manufacturing, regulatory, and economic issues related to drug shortages, as well as potential solutions identified at a 2014 Summit attended by 22 stakeholder groups, including health care professionals, non-profit organizations, industry, public interest, and government agencies.
The report explores the potential manufacturing, economic, and regulatory causes of drug shortages, and considers several possible solutions that merit further exploration, including:
- Improving quality systems in pharmaceutical manufacturing to better prevent production problems that can lead to shortages by encouraging companies to foster a corporate quality culture, and use FDA’s set of quality metrics to support early collaboration between manufacturers and the agency.
- Identifying regulatory efficiencies, such as synchronizing reviews by regulators in different countries to shorten the overall time for full approvals for facility upgrades.
- Allowing for commercialization of trial batches of drugs that meet quality specifications to help mitigate losses during the approval process for upgrades to plants or production lines.
- Incentivizing manufacturer investments in capacity and reliability by increasing contractual penalties for failing to supply a product, and also allowing price increases.
- Supporting the market through better guarantees of demand by committing to the purchase of specified volumes of drugs vulnerable to shortage, either by a group purchasing organization or through a government program.
- Establishing limited and/or shared exclusivity agreements to incentivize companies to produce needed drugs where there are no active producers.
- Standardizing commonly used doses and concentrations in unit-of-use packaging to reduce waste and avoid contamination.
The 2014 Drug Shortages Summit was organized by the American Hospital Association, the American Society of Anesthesiologists®, the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, and The Pew Charitable Trusts. Previous summits were held in 2010 and 2013.
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February 6, 2015
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Reminds me of high school biology (1971). We took samples in the building, including drinking fountains, shower area, cafeteria, and restrooms. Were we ever grossed out!
On another note, am wondering how many folks have strong enough immune systems so these bacteria don’t take hold.
From the 5 February article at the Rockefeller University
Forget the five-million plus commuters and untold number of rats – many of the living things crowded into the New York City subway system are too small to see. An interest in the more menacing among these microbes led high school student Anya Dunaif, a participant in Rockefeller’s Summer Science Research Program, to spend her vacation swabbing benches and turn styles beneath the city. Among her findings: bacteria impervious to two major antibiotics.
The samples she collected and cultured in five stations are a component of a city-scale environmental DNA sampling effort led by Chris Mason, an assistant professor at Weill Cornell Medical College with support from Rockefeller’s Science Outreach program, as well as from numerous local, national and international collaborators. This project, called Pathomap, seeks to profile the city’s microbial community, or microbiome, while also capturing DNA from other organisms. All of this genetic evidence could potentially be used to assess biological threats, including those to human health. The project’s initial results are described in a paper published Wednesday (February 4) inCell Systems.
With help from fellow high school student researcher Nell Kirchberger, Dunaif collected the bacteria on swabs and tested to see if they would grow in Petri dishes containing three commonly used antibiotics. Bacteria from five of the 18 swabs she tested grew in spite of the presence of either ampicillin or kanamycin, and in one case, both. None of the cultured bacteria appeared resistant to the third antibiotic, chloramphenicol.
Antibiotic resistance – the ability of disease-causing bacteria to withstand compounds used to kill them off – can make a once treatable infection more serious, even life threatening. A natural consequence of evolution, and the widespread use and misuse of antibiotics, resistance is increasing worldwide.
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February 6, 2015
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environmental health | Antibiotic resistance, Bubonic plague, cultured bacteria, drinking fountains, drug resistant bacteria, New York City, New York subways |
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From Deloitte Review 16 WRITTEN BY Sheryl Coughlin, Jeff Wordham & Ben Jonash, 26 February 2015
The intersection between rising consumerism and a growing retail orientation in the health care sector presents challenges, some unprecedented, for existing players. We explore three shifts that health industry players should respond to, and that can set the scene for greater consumer involvement.
Could it ever be that easy in health care?
The cost of health care is high and rising. For the past 10 years, health care costs have exceeded US economic growth by an average 2.5 percent annually. The anticipated average annual growth rate of health care costs is 5.7 percent per year through 2023, well above gross domestic product (GDP), average wages, and productivity gains.1 Improving economic conditions, the impact of the ACA’s insurance coverage expansions, and an aging population are expected to drive health care expenditure growth.2 Average annual growth of out-of-pocket health care expenditure is projected to rise to 5.5 percent by 2023 from 3.2 percent in 2013.3
The health care system in the United States is edging toward a recalibration. Existing business models are being challenged to find and deliver new sources of value and to develop innovative approaches to make health care less complicated, and to improve outcomes:
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Health care is moving toward value, not volume, as a central organizing principle. That impacts how patients are cared for, how physicians and hospitals are paid, and how life sciences companies approach the market.
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Those paying the bills—employers, government, health plans, and increasingly, individuals—are looking for better value and better outcomes.
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Entrepreneurs, retail organizations, and communications and technology companies see opportunity in the large and growing health care market. Taking advantage of developing trends, they are slipping across the industry’s increasingly permeable boundaries.
Read the entire review here
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February 6, 2015
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health care | Health care, health care access, health care affordability, health care costs, health care market |
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From the 30 October 2014 Institute of Medicine Report
Young adulthood—ages approximately 18 to 26—is a critical period of development with long-lasting implications for a person’s economic security, health, and well-being.
Recognizing the need for a special focus on young adulthood, the Health Resources and Services Administration and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the Department of Health and Human Services, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, and the Department of Defense commissioned the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and National Research Council (NRC) to convene a committee of experts to review what is known about the health, safety, and well-being of young adults and to offer recommendations for policy and research.
The resulting report, Investing in the Health and Well-Being of Young Adults, offers federal, state, and local policy makers and program leaders, as well as employers, nonprofit organizations, and other community partners’ guidance in developing and enhancing policies and programs to improve young adults’ health, safety, and well-being. In addition, the report suggests priorities for research to inform policies and programs for young adults.
Related report –> 2014 Consumer Health Mindset (Aon Hewitt,)
Excerpt from Full Text Reports
From press release:
A new analysis from Aon Hewitt, the global talent, retirement and health solutions business of Aon plc (NYSE:AON) finds that Millennials put a lower priority on medical care than other generations. However, they are the most likely to want employers to play an active role in supporting their overall health and wellbeing.
The analysis is based on data from the 2014 Consumer Health Mindset report, a joint survey of more than 2,700 U.S. employees and their dependents conducted by Aon Hewitt, the National Business Group on Health and The Futures Company. Aon Hewitt analyzed the perspectives, behaviors and attitudes of employees from different generations towards health and wellness.
According to the analysis, Millennials are the least likely to participate in activities focused on prevention and maintaining or improving physical health compared to other generations. About half (54 percent) have had a physical in the last 12 months, compared to 60 percent of Generation X and 73 percent of Baby Boomers. In addition, just 39 percent say preventive care is one of the most important things to do to stay healthy, compared to 49 percent of Generation X and 69 percent of Baby Boomers.
Millennials are also less likely to participate in a healthy eating/weight management programs (21 percent), compared to Generation X (23 percent) and Baby Boomers (28 percent). Interestingly, they are the most likely generation to engaging in regular exercise (63 percent), compared to 52 percent of Generation X and 49 percent of Baby Boomers.
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February 6, 2015
Posted by Janice Flahiff |
Consumer Health, Public Health | Better Health, health policies, health programs, Health Resources and Services Administration, National Research Council, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, workplace policies, workplace programs, young adult health, young adulthood, young adults |
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From the 2 February 2015 post at the Health Care Blog by By ALEXANDRA DRANE
The literature is clear – when life goes wrong, health goes wrong. Case in point – it’s now estimated that workplace stress alone is causing additional expenditures of between $125 to $190 billion a year – representing 5 to 8 percent of national spending on health care…and even more importantly – 120,000 deaths a year.
There are growing examples of individuals and organizations that get this stuff – and that are fielding solutions to help. Companies like Health Leads (meeting us on the lowest rung of Maslow’s Hierarchy and getting us access to heat, water, safety…), and Iora Health (meeting us squarely where we are and getting us support for our caregiver stress, our divorce, our substance issue…). I recently got to be part of the latest Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Pioneering Ideas Podcast (link below) and in the process learned how broadly this idea is spreading…Dr. Paul Tang of linkAges from Palo Alto Medical Foundation(a project RWJF supports) talks about stress, and its effects – especially on seniors – and what we can do about it. Harvard economist/MacArthur Genius Grant winner Sendhil Mullainathan shares ideas for transforming health and healthcare in a world where ‘attentional real estate’ – given the messy realities of life – is scarce. We double dog dare you to listen here:
As an industry with a mantra to heal, this is ground zero. We need to expand our definition of health to include life – and take this on not just as our obligation, but as our opportunity to address the fundamental drivers of health. And let’s not stop there. Let’s practice radical empathy with each other, and with ourselves. Let’s do it in the privacy of our homes, and let’s bring that raw authenticity with us to our work. Whatever you do to start acknowledging that health is life – start it now… maybe just by closing your eyes and inhaling a big fat breath of fresh air while reminding yourself, ‘I am not alone in this crazy world, because we all feel alone and on some level we are all crazy – but only in the very best of well-intentioned ways.’
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February 6, 2015
Posted by Janice Flahiff |
Consumer Health, Public Health, Workplace Health | health, stress, workplace health |
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From the 5 February 2015 UCLA press release
Courtesy of Dr. Eileen LudersAreas of the brain affected by aging (in red) are fewer and less widespread in people who meditate, bottom row, than in people who don’t meditate.
Since 1970, life expectancy around the world has risen dramatically, with people living more than 10 years longer. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that starting when people are in their mid-to-late-20s, the brain begins to wither — its volume and weight begin to decrease. As this occurs, the brain can begin to lose some of its functional abilities.
So although people might be living longer, the years they gain often come with increased risks for mental illness and neurodegenerative disease. Fortunately, a new study shows meditation could be one way to minimize those risks.
Building on their earlier work that suggested people who meditate have less age-related atrophy in the brain’s white matter, a new study by UCLA researchers found that meditation appeared to help preserve the brain’s gray matter, the tissue that contains neurons
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The researchers cautioned that they cannot draw a direct, causal connection between meditation and preserving gray matter in the brain. Too many other factors may come into play, including lifestyle choices, personality traits, and genetic brain differences.
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February 6, 2015
Posted by Janice Flahiff |
Medical and Health Research News | Alzheimer's disease, Grey matter, Los Angeles, Meditation, Neurodegeneration, Parkinson's disease, University of California |
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From the 22 January 2015 Pew Center post
More Partisan Opinions of the EPA, CIA
The public continues to express positive views of many agencies of the federal government, even though overall trust in government is near historic lows. Large majorities express favorable views of such government agencies as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), NASA and the Defense Department.
In fact, favorable opinions surpass unfavorable views for seven of eight government agencies tested – the IRS is the lone exception. In a survey last February, however, just 24% said they could trust the government in Washington always or most of time. (See this interactive for more on trust in government.)
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More at http://www.people-press.org/2015/01/22/most-view-the-cdc-favorably-vas-image-slips/2/, including tables on NSA, IRS, and VA; views based on party affiliation and Tea Party Republicans
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February 6, 2015
Posted by Janice Flahiff |
Uncategorized | CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, federal government, government agencies, opinion polls, opinion surveys, Pew Research Center |
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From the 2 February 2015 Boise University press release
While health-conscious individuals understand the benefits of eating fresh fruits and veggies, they may not be aware of the amount of pesticides they could be ingesting along with their vitamin C and fiber. A new study published in the Feb. 5 edition of Environmental Health Perspectives is among the first to predict a person’s pesticide exposure based on information about their usual diet.
The study was led by Cynthia Curl, an assistant professor in Boise State University’s School of Allied Health Sciences. She recently joined Boise State from the University of Washington.
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While Curl’s study is not the first to link organic produce with reduced pesticide exposure, the method she used may have significant implications for future research. By combining self-reported information on typical food consumption with USDA measurements, researchers will be able to conduct research on the relationship between dietary pesticide exposure and health outcomes in bigger populations, without needing to measure urinary metabolites.
“If we can predict pesticide exposure using dietary questionnaire data, then we may be able to understand the potential health effects of dietary exposure to pesticides without having to collect biological samples from people,” Curl said. “That will allow research on organic food to be both less expensive and less invasive.”
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February 6, 2015
Posted by Janice Flahiff |
Consumer Health, Medical and Health Research News, Nutrition | Organic Foods, pesticide exposure, pesticides |
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Health and Medical News and Resources 