Does The Greatest Olympian Of All Time Eat Healthy?

Does The Greatest Olympian Of All Time Eat Healthy? in General Healthcare

As you might have heard, swimmer Michael Phelps became the greatest Olympic athlete of all time last night. He won his eleventh gold medal in a relay race and now has more gold medals than other Olympian in world history.

Now Phelps is three gold medals away from beating fellow swimmer Mark Spitz’s record of seven in one Olympic Games.

So does world’s greatest Olympian eat healthy?

According to the New York Post, Phelps eats three fried-egg sandwiches with cheese, tomatoes, fried onions, lettuce, and mayonnaise, two cups of coffee, a five-egg omelet, a bowl of grits, three slices of French toast with powdered sugar, and three chocolate chip pancakes.

And that’s just his breakfast.

For lunch and dinner, Phelps consumes a total of two pounds of pasta, one whole pizza, two ham and cheese sandwiches, and over 1,000 calories worth of energy drinks.

Depending on the report you read, the Phelps’ daily calorie count is anywhere from 6,000 calories to 12,000 calories a day — three to six times more calories than an average person should eat per day. You would have to eat more than 22 Big Macs in a day to eat 12,000 calories.

But he needs all those calories for the energy to break world records and beat the best swimmers in the world with shocking ease.

Phelps’ diet isn’t too healthy for normal folks like us, but it’s pretty interesting to see how much a full-time athlete like him needs to eat.

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Health Care Costs Slow For The Sixth Straight Year

Health Care Costs Slow For The Sixth Straight Year in General Healthcare

A new survey of around 70 health insurance companies in the U.S. found that health care costs are increasing at a slower rate again.

The survey, conducted by Aon Consulting Worldwide, found that costs are expected to go up an average of 10.6 percent this year, reported the Associated Press.

That’s only 0.3 percent slower than last year, but a significant drop since 2002, when costs were expected to increase by 16 percent, wrote the AP article.

Aon largely attributes the six-year slowdown to efforts employers have done to cut back on health care costs — such as employee wellness programs.

The positive to these results is that health care costs are slowing. But only a 0.3 percent improvement from last year could mean the trend might not last long.

“It is encouraging that the growth in health care costs is going down, but there is still more work to be done,” said Robert Zirkelbach from America’s Health Insurance Plans.

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Walgreens Expands Discount Prescription Drug Program

Walgreens Expands Discount Prescription Drug Program in General Healthcare

Lately, major retail stores have been quite involved in health care.

It was big news when retailers such as Wal-Mart and Walgreens opened in-store health clinics and began offering programs offering low-cost generic prescription drugs.

It was almost bigger news that the in-store clinics and drug programs were doing well.

Now retail stores are in competition for customers, trying to one-up each other for better drug coverage, better prices, and longer medication supplies.

In the latest development of what we’ll call the “Retail Store Health Care Race,” Walgreens is now offering 90-day supplies of over 400 generic prescription drugs for $12.

To get the discount, customers have to enroll in the store’s Prescription Drug Savings Club for $20 a year for one person and $35 a year for families.

The Drug Savings Club is available for anyone who does not already have prescription drug coverage through Medicaid or Medicare.

The drugs covered by the expanded program treat asthma, diabetes, high-blood pressure, and high cholesterol, reported the Chicago Tribune.

We’ll see which retailer makes the next move in the Retail Store Health Care Race.

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Minnesota Governor Lays Out Health Care Goals

Minnesota Governor Lays Out Health Care Goals in General Healthcare

Now that Minnesota has been crowned this year’s top health care system in the nation, they’re trying to keep up their reputation.

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty recently announced a health care plan that will implement electronic medical records statewide by 2011, reported the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

Governor Pawlenty’s plan to move to electronic records starts with 50,000 state employees, who could have access to the system as soon as next year.

“We need to give them the tools so they can make good decisions. This would be a significant breakthrough in the way we maintain information in this state,” said Governor Pawlenty.

State employees will also get health reimbursement accounts to help pay for out-of-pocket medical expenses with tax-free savings.

Governor Pawlenty has already created a number of health care initiatives including prescription drug price shopping, ordering medicine from Canadian pharmacies, and nursing home report cards.

These efforts could be key reasons Minnesota ranks so high on their delivery of health care to residents.

Sounds like Minnesota and Governor Pawlenty want to keep that number one rank.

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New York City Restaurants Post Calorie Counts

New York City Restaurants Post Calorie Counts in General Healthcare

After a few months of legal battles, New York City can now enforce a rule that requires chain restaurants to post calorie counts on menus.

The city’s Board of Health approved the calorie count law in January and it went into effect in May, but only now can the city impose a $2,000 fine for food vendors that don’t comply.

McDonald’s and Burger King were among the first to post a calorie posting for food items last week, reported USA Today.

Other chains have already been posting calorie counts for a few months now, including Starbucks, Wendy’s, and Dunkin Donuts.

But some restaurants are hoping the law won’t stick. Many are ignoring the rule or posting the calorie information in hard-to-read places. A lawsuit is currently pending against the city, the USA Today article wrote.

Smaller chains have also complained that analyzing the number of calories on their foods is costly and likely inaccurate.

It’s understandable the headache posting the amount of calories might be for some restaurants, but keeping consumers informed is a worthy cause.

“We want to help people make an informed decision at the time of purchasing. Obviously, we have an epidemic of obesity across the nation, and New York City is no different,” said Cathy Nonas, who is the director of the health department’s physical activity and nutrition program.

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Leading Electronic Prescribing Companies Merge

Leading Electronic Prescribing Companies Merge in General Healthcare

Today, only a very small number of doctors use electronic health records and prescribe drugs electronically.

But just about everyone in the health care industry sees the potential of going electronic.

The most recent move toward an electronic health care system is in the pharmaceutical industry, where two of the biggest electronic prescribing companies merged.

SureScripts and RxHub were originally separate companies that had different roles in electronic prescribing — SureScripts sends prescriptions electronically to pharmacies, RxHub sends and retrieves insurance information about the coverage of a drug.

RxHub also electronically sends patients’ prescriptions to mail-order pharmacies to be filled.

The services of both SureScripts and RxHub are supported by prescribing software in a doctors’ office, which must be certified by both companies, reported the Washington Post.

Doctors don’t have to pay for the electronic services. But they do have to buy e-prescribing software themselves.

Now with the two companies together, they can help streamline the whole process.

Many advocates of e-prescriptions argue it can cut costs, reduce medical and clerical errors, and improve the overall quality of health care.

“As we move to this paperless process, we improve efficiency, safety, and quality,“ said Rick Ratliff, the chief executive at SureScripts.

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No Trans Fats In New York City

No Trans Fats In New York City in General Healthcare

Starting July 1, 2008, no food vendors — including restaurants, bakeries, delis, and food chains — inside New York’s city limits will be allowed to cook with trans fats.

It’s the final phase of the trans fat ban in New York City, and when in effect, violators will face up to $2,000 in fines, reported The New York Times.

(There is an exception, though: Partially hydrogenated oils, which contain small amounts of trans fats, can be used in when there’s less than half a gram per serving.)

For the most part, the transition away from trans fats for New York restaurateurs and bakers has been pretty easy.

But still, there are some who argue foods don’t taste up to par without trans fatty ingredients.

To combat this problem, New York City health officials created a “Trans Fat Help Center” to assist chefs and food makers to make the switch away from trans fats, wrote the NY Times article.

The Help Center provides information on how to re-create recipes for foods such as chocolate chip cookies and pie crusts using real butter rather than trans fat oils and shortenings.

It’s good news trans fats are on the outs, but a big controversy is whether replacing trans fatty oils with butter is really any better.

Trans fats are artificially made, raise your bad cholesterol, and lower your good cholesterol — but butter has high amounts of saturated fat. So it’s important to also avoid saturated fats.

“It’s not a matter of which is better or which is worse. The American Heart Association is concerned with both types of fats,” said former AHA president, Dr. Robert H. Eckel.

And we all should be concerned, too.

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Electronic Health Records Improve Care Quality, But With an Expensive Price Tag

Electronic Health Records Improve Care Quality, But With an Expensive Price Tag in General Healthcare

This week, the New England Journal of Medicine published a national survey of 2,758 physicians asking them about electronic medical records.

The survey, partly funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, found that very few doctors were using a complete electronic system, reported USA Today.

Only 4 percent of doctors used a system that not only helped store a patient’s medical records electronically, but also had safety features to reduce medical errors such as alerting doctors of possible negative drug interactions.

Thirteen percent had a basic electronic system with no safety measures, and 42 percent are planning on making the move eventually, wrote the article.

So what’s the hold up? Cost.

According the USA Today article, making the move to an electronic system can cost a doctor upwards of $40,000 per year — and sometimes more once the cost of tech support is included.

With those high costs, it’s no wonder doctors are slow to make the switch to an electronic medical records system.

But it’s not like doctors don’t think electronic records are good idea.

And now doctors can see very strong evidence that an electronic system has a huge positive impact on health care quality, thanks to the government-sponsored study.

“Certainly, the idea of electronic records is terrific. But if we don’t see patients, we don’t get paid. The economics of it just seem so daunting,” said a New Jersey doctor in an interview with The New York Times.

Unfortunately, the high price tag means slow movement.

“We are [still] a long way from universal adoption,” said Karen Bell, from the Office of Health IT Adoption.

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Pennsylvania Bans Smoking… With Exceptions

Pennsylvania Bans Smoking… With Exceptions in General Healthcare

Late last week, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell signed a bill that will ban smoking in most public places.

It’s a move that Governor Rendell declared as a very important step to improving the state's health, reported the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

And as we’ve covered before, banning smoking in public places does have real evidence that it improves public health.

But the smoking ban in Pennsylvania is getting mixed reactions.

Some say it will hurt business, while others argue the smoking ban is taking rights away from citizens.

State and city officials are also wary of the ban because it hasn’t been decided how the new law will be enforced. And with the ban set to start in 90 days, it’s surprising those details haven’t yet been ironed out.

“[W]e’re going to have to wait to hear from the state to get all the details on how to go about [enforcing the law]. We have no definite information now,” said a spokesperson for a Pennsylvania county Health Department.

While the law bans smoking in most public places, including bars, restaurants, and workplaces, there are a handful of exceptions.

The ban won’t apply to bingo halls, nursing homes, and private clubs.

Critics say the law shouldn’t have these exceptions, arguing it doesn’t protect a worker’s right to a smoke-free workplace, wrote the Tribune-Review Article.

“It’s like saying that 80 percent of West Virginia coal mine workers have to wear safety equipment and the other 20 percent don’t,” said Pennsylvania Restaurant Association President, Kevin Joyce.

Still, some point out, a lenient smoking ban is better than nothing.

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Kaiser Permanente To Test Microsoft’s Health Vault

Kaiser Permanente To Test Microsoft’s Health Vault in General Healthcare

Many in the health care industry see making the switch to electronic health records as a key part of reducing costs and streamlining the system.

There are some institutions that use electronic records, but the patients themselves have no control over the information — and the electronic information cannot be transferred.

Technology giants Microsoft and Google have set out to change that, by creating an online tool to store personal health information.

Both companies have released their tools to the public, and are conducting pilot programs to test their effectiveness.

Recently Microsoft teamed up with Kaiser Permanente, a non-profit health insurance company based in California, to see how the insurer’s employees like Microsoft’s Health Vault.

The pilot program will include Kaiser’s 156,000 employees and run until November, reported The New York Times.

After the “testing period” has ended, and if Health Vault is well-received, Kaiser will offer the tool to their policyholders.

Most experts agree that privacy is the biggest concern with these online health records. The Times article wrote Kaiser was impressed with Microsoft’s technology for securing and protecting the records.

We hope these security measures are airtight.

“This is a big step for us, and our first partnership with a consumer health record supplier,” said Kaiser Vice President for Online Services, Anna-Lisa Silvestre.

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The Health Benefits Of Red Wine

The Health Benefits Of Red Wine in General Healthcare

Red wine contains a large amount of a chemical known as resveratrol, which research has linked to improving the health of mice.

When mice were given a certain dose of resveratrol, their health showed signs of improvement — even if they ate fatty and unhealthy diets.

As The New York Times writes:

“[R]esveratrol could turn plain vanilla, couch-potato mice into champion athletes, making them run twice as far on a treadmill before collapsing.”

The problem was the dose was more than any human could consume by just drinking red wine. In earlier studies, the amount of resveratrol given to mice could only be matched by drinking over 100 bottles of red wine a day, reported Times.

But new research by the University of Wisconsin found that much less resveratrol was needed to have the same health benefits.

The point of the Times article was that resveratrol may activate a protein called sirtuins. These proteins when “activated” may slow aging — and could be used to treat degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and cancer.

Whether or not red wine reverses aging is still far from being confirmed, but are there other health benefits of red wine?

We mentioned resveratrol above, so what is it?

Resveratrol is a polyphenol and has antioxidant properties. More specifically, resveratrol is a nonflavonoid polyphenol, which is similar to the flavonoid polyphenol found in chocolate. There are also some polyphenols other than resveratrol in red wine.

Resveratrol is more abundant in red wine because skin is left on in the making of red wine. The skin is removed in white wine.

Antioxidants protect living cells and may help prevent cancer, blood vessel damage, blood clots, and reduce cholesterol.

But the American Heart Association reminds us drinking an excess of alcohol can lead to many different kinds of health problems, and of course, alcoholism.

While red wine may have some nice health benefits, be sure to consume only in moderation.

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Web Browser For Autistic Children

Web Browser For Autistic Children in General Healthcare

Autism is a very complex developmental disability. And it affects more than one in 150 children in the U.S., according to the Autism Society of America.

Children who have autism may have trouble with social interaction and communication, and at different degrees of severity, explains the Autism Society.

In particular, some autistic children find it hard to use a computer and surfing the Internet.

John LeSieur from Saint Remi, Quebec, noticed that his grandson with autism has difficulty browsing the web — frustrated by the number of options, amount of content, and advertisements.

So he developed a web browser that makes surfing the net easier for autistic children by blocking adult content, ads, and other unnecessary clutter.

LeSieur’s program, named the Zac Browser after his grandson, uses large icons for users to click and only brings up certain websites and emphasizes education material, reported the Boston Globe and the Associated Press.

The Zac Browser even disables unnecessary keys on the keyboard and the mouse’s right-click button to simplify a computer’s functionality.

The AP article pointed out that autism affects every child differently, and this web browser won’t be useful for all children.

But the Zac Browser seems to have a warm welcome.

It can be downloaded for free at http://www.zacbrowser.com.

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The Fittest Cities in America

The Fittest Cities in America in General Healthcare

The American College of Sports Medicine recently ranked the 16 most populous metropolitan cities in the U.S. according to how fit their residents were.

They released the finalized list yesterday, reported USA Today.

Health and fitness experts rated each city based on a number of different factors — such as the percentage of residents who have health insurance and have access to health care.

The ranking system is called the American Fitness Index, wrote the article.

Cities also earned positive points for a high percentage of citizens who exercise regularly, stay at a healthy weight, don’t smoke, and eat fruits and vegetables.

The fittest big city in America? San Francisco.

Here’s the entire list:

San Francisco
Seattle
Boston
Washington, D.C.
Atlanta
Philadelphia
Chicago
Dallas/Fort Worth
New York City
Miami/Fort Lauderdale
Phoenix
Indianapolis
Houston
Los Angeles
Riverside, California
Detroit

“Our hope is the cities on the bottom of the list will try to replicate some of the things that cities on the top of the list are doing,” said Walt Thompson, an exercise and physiology professor. He also leads the panel who ranked each city’s overall health.

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Fries Now Trans Fat-Free At McDonald’s

Fries Now Trans Fat-Free At McDonald’s in General Healthcare

In keeping up with the trans fat trends around the country, fast food giant McDonald’s recently announce that their French fries are free of the artery-clogging trans fats.

Jim Skinner, the CEO of McDonald’s, made the announcement in Oakbrook, Illinois that all restaurants in the United States and Canada have made the switch to trans-fat free oils.

In fact, said Skinner, most restaurants have already made the transition to healthier oils a while ago, reported Reuters and USA Today.

“For a few months now, customers in our U.S. restaurants have been enjoying our fried food items, including french fries, hash browns, chicken and filet of fish, as well as our biscuits, with zero grams of trans fat per labeled serving,“ said Skinner.

Their next step, explained Skinner, is to take trans fats out of their pies and cookies.

According the article, McDonald’s was wary of taking trans fats out of their fries because they thought it would negatively affect taste. But they’ve taken some heat for not making the oil swap.

While McDonald’s move will help get rid of harmful trans fats in many diets, remember that their meals are hardly health foods. Burgers and fries still have saturated fats, which consumed excessively can lead to some serious health problems.

Trans fat is starting to wane in McDonald’s restaurants around the globe, as well — including in Europe, parts of Asia Latin America, and Africa.

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Childhood Obesity: Schools Try Adding Healthier Foods To Menus

Childhood Obesity: Schools Try Adding Healthier Foods To Menus in General Healthcare

Obesity is now a health condition that is considered by most experts and physicians to be an epidemic. Being overweight doesn’t just hurt your health — it can drastically lower your chances of getting health insurance.

Over the past couple decades, the number of overweight and obese Americans has more than tripled. Today, 64 percent of American adults are obese or overweight, according to the Obesity Society.

The number of obese children has doubled, reported the Washington Post in a series on the topic.

For many, obesity starts at a young age.

Obesity during childhood is particularly troubling because it has been shown to be much more harmful for developing children. It can affect just about everything from their metabolism to their self-esteem.

“Being excessively heavy could distort [the] natural process of growth and development in ways that irreversibly affect the biological pathways,“ said David S. Ludwig, of Boston’s Children’s Hospital.

That includes more serious conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and even cancer, according to the Mayo Clinic and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The CDC also found that both boys’ and girls’ average weights are up 11 pounds as of 2002 compared to 1963.

Acting U.S. Surgeon General Steven Galson called childhood obesity a “national catastrophe,” reported the Post.

So what’s causing the childhood obesity epidemic? One easy culprit to identify is unhealthy food choices in schools. To combat the problem in the cafeteria, some schools are limiting the amount of unhealthy choices and replacing or adding healthier options — such as salads, fruits, and low-fat yogurt.

“If it were only a cupcake once a month, if it were only the snacks at after-care… It’s just that it all adds up to so much junk food, which then adds up to childhood obesity,” explained Margo Wootan, who is the nutrition policy director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Many school cafeterias are getting rid of deep-fryers or switching to healthier, trans-fat free oils. Soda and pop vending machines are also on the chopping block — being replaced by machines with healthier options such as water, 100 percent fruit juices, and skim milk.

Some even blame children’s parents for making unhealthy choices.

“It’s not just schools. We all need to be active players in this game in order to win,” said Penny McConnell, the food services director for Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia.

But not everyone agrees that unhealthy foods should be taken out of schools, wrote the Post. Critics argue that school boards and lawmakers shouldn’t decide what foods people can have, it should be up to them.

Still, there’s no doubt childhood obesity is a serious problem.

“This is a wave that is just moving through the population,” said CDC director William H. Dietz.

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