Here's To Good Health In 2006!
The new year is a good time for women to focus on their health.
Dr. Mallika Marshall provides The Early Show viewers with a list of five of the most important tests women should put on their to-do list in 2006.
"Many, many women — and men — make New Year's resolutions to quit smoking or lose weight," she said, "and these are great goals for 2006. But you should also take a look at your overall health and make a resolution to get good health care, too."
Here are her suggestions:
Mammograms: According to the American Cancer Society, women in their 20s and 30s should have a breast exam in the doctor's office every three years; women over 40, every year. And most women over 40 should have an annual mammogram as well.
PAP Smear (for cervical cancer): The American Cancer Society suggests that all women should have a PAP smear within three years of having their first sexual intercourse, but no later than age 21 and every one to two years after that. At age 30, women who are at low risk, who have had three normal PAP smears in a row, can be screened every three years. Women at higher risk, such as those with multiple sexual partners, smokers, women with HIV, should continue to be screened every year.
Colonoscopy: Colorectal cancer is the third leading cause of cancer death in the United States, so screening is very important for both men and women. In general women over 50, with no family history of the disease, should get a colonoscopy every 10 years or a sigmoidoscopy every five years, along with tests to look for blood in the stool. Women with a family history of colon cancer or other risk factors should begin screening with a colonoscopy by age 40.
Skin cancer screening: Skin cancer is the most common cancer in the U.S. As far as screening goes, you should have your doctor examine your skin from head to toe every few years if you're under 40, and every year if you're over 40. If you have a lot of freckles or moles or are fair-skinned, you may need to be screened more often. And if you have any suspicious moles you're concerned about, have them checked out right away.
Blood pressure check: People who have high blood pressure often don't exhibit any symptoms. But over time if left untreated, high blood pressure can lead to serious complications including heart attacks, strokes and kidney failure. And the good news is that in most cases, determining if you have high blood pressure doesn't require extensive or invasive testing. So make sure you get it checked at least once a year and more often if you have a history of high blood pressure in your family.
Article published by the The Early Show: Health Watch, December 23, 2005
Almost Half Of Large Employers Will Extend CDHP
While many large employers were cautious about adopting consumer-driven health plans this year, 45% will offer them as an option in 2006, Fidelity Investments finds.
Although contribution levels varied, 85% of surveyed employers offering a CDHP said they would provide funding to offset employee costs through a health savings account or health reimbursement arrangement, Fidelity finds.
The median funding for HSAs per year is $500 for single coverage and $1,000 for family coverage. For HRAs, the median funding is $750 per year for single coverage and $2,000 for family coverage.
Employers projected considerably lower costs for CDHP family coverage, compared with more traditional health plan offerings, next year. The average CDHP is expected to cost $875 per month, compared with $936 per month for other health plans.
However, cost savings for single-coverage CDHPs is expected to be less, with average costs projected at $302 per month, versus $319 per month for other health plans.
"While lower contribution rates may provide good incentive for employees to consider CDHPs, employers should carefully monitor their plan's performance to ensure it is achieving its intended benefits," advises Marc Hallee, senior vice president at Fidelity Human Resource Services. Fidelity surveyed 86 employers with more than 2,000 employees and analyzed health insurance enrollments of more than 700,000 employees.
Article published by Connect News, November 2005.
Could Tea Help Fight Ovarian Cancer?
Swedish researchers have found tantalizing but far from conclusive evidence that drinking a couple of cups of tea every day might help reduce the risk of developing ovarian cancer.
The study involved 61,057 Swedish women who answered a questionnaire about their diets and then were tracked for an average of 15 years through 2004. During that time, 301 women developed ovarian cancer.
Those who reported drinking two or more cups of tea a day were 46 percent less likely to develop the disease than women who drank no tea. Drinking fewer than two cups also appeared to help, but not as much.
The researchers did not break out the results by tea types, but most of the tea drinkers consumed black tea. Both black tea and green tea contain polyphenols—substances thought to block cell damage that can lead to cancer.
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Associated Press.
Pharmaceutical Cost Increases May Be Slowing
There may be a smidgen of good news for companies that worry about the skyrocketing costs of prescription drugs: Relentless growth rates may be losing steam.
Projected pharmacy-related cost increases for 2006 are in the neighborhood of 11.8 percent--still a double-digit growth rate that significantly outpaces the Consumer Price Index, but a far cry from the record levels of 18.3 percent that rocked the U.S. just three years ago.
One way employers are trying to rein in costs is by amending their lists of covered drugs. This process often entails substituting label drugs with generics, which tend to be less expensive.
Furthermore, employers are strategically identifying drugs that do not treat medical conditions per se but are widely considered to be lifestyle enhancers, such as Viagra, and changing their status.
Some companies are reducing their financial burden by asking employees who want to use these drugs to increase their share of co-payments. In some cases, employers are deciding to exclude lifestyle drugs from the list of covered medicines altogether.
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Pharmaceutical.
Higher blood pressure means lower brain health
Brain catastrophes such as strokes or dementia are well-known consequences of high blood pressure in older people. Now research points to more insidious, stealthier problems: a hard time coming up with the right word and difficulties with short-term memory. Sure, these frustrations often are part of normal aging. But it turns out they're a lot worse in people whose blood pressure is out of control.
Those whose blood pressure exceeded 140/90 (the cutoff for hypertension) for at least three years performed worse on tests of memory and verbal ability than did men with lower pressure.
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U.S. News.
Overweight Children Are More At Risk For Broken Bones And Joint Problems
Children who are overweight face more than future health problems. They appear to have broken bones and joint problems more often during childhood than do kids of normal weight, research suggests.
"A lot of people think that if you're an overweight kid...that later on in life you're going to run into having heart disease or type 2 diabetes," said Susan Yanovski, director of the obesity and eating disorders program at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. "But kids and adults who are overweight are already having problems with their mobility, fractures, and joint pain."
A study led by her husband, obesity researcher Jack Yanovski, found that children and teens who were overweight were far more likely to have had a fracture than were their ideal-weight peers. They also had more bone and hip joint abnormalities, which can lead to permanent deformities.
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Associated Press.
Disease Management Alive, Thriving: Two-thirds Of Employers To Offer Disability Disease Management
While consumer-directed health plans get all the press, many employers today offer disease management benefits, and a significant additional portion is eyeing this benefit for future offerings.
According to the Employee Benefit News/Forrester Research 2005 Benefits Strategy and Technology Study, 45% of all employers currently offer disease management benefits and another 22% intend to offer this benefit by 2006.
Disease management is most popular among large employers, with 61% of companies with more than 1,000 employees offering these specialty services to their staff. But smaller organizations also are embracing these programs; the survey shows that 56% of employers with 250 to 1,000 employees and 32% of those with fewer than 250 employees offer disease management to their workers.
Most employers measure hard costs when determining the effectiveness of a disease management program. High on the list of indicators measured are prescription cost trends, with 51% of employers measuring generic versus brand drug utilization and 48% measuring better formulary compliance.. Less frequently tracked indicators, such as lower rates of absenteeism, faster return to work, and better health outcomes, are harder to directly associate with cost savings.
As disease management continues to evolve, employers will expect a robust measurement of effectiveness, in addition to a better cost-benefit analysis, which has been thus far elusive or incomplete at best.
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Benefit News
A Pooch A Day Keeps The Pounds Away
Exercise is tough, particularly if you want to keep at it regularly. Even something as simple and effective as a daily walk often gets derailed by bad weather, work, or—let's face it—plain old laziness.
But walking a dog can knock off as much as 14 pounds in a year, two studies have found. And once in the exercise habit, these dog walkers have gone on to join gyms, modify their diets, and make other changes to help them lead healthier lives.
"We're desperately looking for treatments to combat our obesity epidemic. For exercise, one of the most important things I know about is 'buddying up,' " says Robert Kushner, medical director of the Wellness Institute at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. "We have gym buddies, make dates to walk with our wives, and that keeps us motivated." Basically, you have a sense of responsibility to meet the other person, not to skip out, he says.
So a few years ago he started wondering about dogs as exercise companions and started a trial to see if hounds could reduce pounds. "When you buddy up with your dog, you have even more responsibility than you have with a person," Kushner says. "The dog depends on you."
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Fitness.
Still Searching For Equilibrium In The Work-Life Balancing Act
Benefits like the flexibility to see a child's soccer game or leave work in time to get to a night class play a vital role in job satisfaction, workers say. Those saying that include an increasing number of men.
And employers continue to offer more flexibility and add policies and programs that support a balance between work and living, like child-care assistance, tuition reimbursement and paid leave for new fathers as well as mothers. The reasoning goes that a happy worker is healthier and more productive, saving the company money on health care and turnover costs.
Still, many Americans heed a conflicting implicit set of rules that say that dedicated workers hungry for success will put in long hours and sacrifice personal commitments for professional ones.
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New York Times.
Eat Fat to Burn Fat
According to Jesse Cannone, a personal trainer and author of the best-selling fitness ebook, Burn Fat FAST, Americans have been eating low fat (some no fat) diets and the funny thing is we have gotten progressively fatter and less healthy.
Who ever said low fat diets were healthy, and more importantly, why does eating less fat mean you’ll be less fat?
Where to start??? Well, I’ve done some research on this and have found very little science to back up the claims that eating less fat will keep you trim. I have also found many examples that totally dismiss this idea.
For example, the French eat significantly more fat than we do here in the US while there obesity AND disease and illness rates are quite a bit lower.
Another example is the Alaskan Eskimos. They consume as much as 70% of their calories from fat (whale blubber and fish) and they have one of the lowest rates of heart disease in the world – until they come to the US and eat like us!
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Health.
Vegetable Juice: Here's What You Need To Know When Buying Your Veggies In A Bottle
Trying to get your daily five servings of vegetables but not always succeeding?
Then consider turning the cap on a bottle of vegetable juice. If leafy greens or cruciferous munchies are eluding you, vegetable juice can be a quick, easy way to get anti-disease antioxidants such as lycopene and lutein into your body. The more lycopene you consume (it's the stuff that gives tomatoes and other fruits the red color), the greater your chances of reducing the likelihood of heart disease and cancer.
How do you pick the healthiest juices on the shelf?
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Better Nutrition.
