Background: Watching television and using a computer are increasingly common sedentary behaviors. Whether or not prolonged screen time increases the risk for mortality remains uncertain. Study conclusions: In the present study, screen time did not significantly predict mortality from all-causes and diseases of the circulatory system. Source: BMC Public Health HT: Aaron CarrollIn addition to its fee increase for visits, which will vary by market, WellPoint will offer primary-care doctors payments for services such as developing treatment plans for patients with chronic diseases. It says physicians will get a chance to make even more if they help pare the overall cost of patients’ care: a bonus amounting [...]This is from three studies in the latest issue of Health Affairs: If nothing is done, the surge in new cases of diabetes could add an estimated $512 billion to nation’s annual health care spending by the year 2021. Instituting a national program of community-level lifestyle interventions to prevent type 2 diabetes … within twenty-five [...]The President’s 2012 economic policy agenda emphasizes four policy challenges: The loss of American manufacturing employment; America’s dependence on oil; America’s sub-par (my phrase) education and training; and Increasing income inequality. What’s missing is below the fold. The President barely mentions the greatest long-term (and, increasingly, short-term) economic policy challenge we face, the size and [...]This is from an Institute of Medicine report via Austin Frakt: Indeed, the evidence base on the effectiveness of most health services is sparse. [...] Well-designed, well-conducted studies of the effectiveness of most health care services are the exception, and the available research evidence falls far short of answering many questions that are important to [...]Why get married? Wedded couples experience few advantages in psychological well-being and social ties, according to a new study at Cornell University. Why you end up paying taxes that are imposed on other people: a very good primer. HT to David Henderson. Study: No obesity link to junk food in schools. It gets worse: School-based [...]“The ideal of an ‘American way of life’ is fading as the working class falls further away from institutions like marriage and religion and the upper class becomes more isolated,” writes Charles Murray in The Wall Street Journal. He defines the “white upper middle class” as people age 30-49 with at least a college education [...]
Thanks to my readers, The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg: Accutane, the truth that had to told, is now #1 rated in several nonfiction categories, including the medical categories of research and medical ethics, as well as for The human sex ratio is always slightly male-biased, but in the natural state it rarely goes above 105 male births per 100 female ones… In China’s last mini-census in 2005, the ration was nearly 120 to 100 and in some districts over 150. That this is caused by sex-selective abortion…is proved by a ratio of [...]Tens of millions of men have marred life chances because schools are bad at educating boys, because they are not enmeshed in the long-term relationships that instill good habits and because insecure men do stupid and self-destructive things. Over the past 40 years, women’s wages have risen sharply but, as Michael Greenstone and Adam Looney [...]
[theGuardian] Hopes of controlling malaria in Africa could be wrecked by criminals who are circulating counterfeit and substandard drugs, threatening millions of lives, scientists are warning.
They are calling for public health authorities to take urgent action to preserve the efficacy of the anti-malarials now being used in the worst-hit areas ...