Two-thirds of American adults are too fat

Two-thirds of American adults are too fat, and a major overhaul of US policies -- from schools to restaurants to urban planning -- is needed to stem the epidemic, medical experts said Tuesday. In a hefty, 400-plus page report, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) called for urgent action to reverse national obesity trends that are costing the US $190.2 billion a year in illness-related costs.

Peppered with terms like "synergies," "empower" and "systems approach," the report called for a renewed focus on schools as the place where eating habits take hold for life, noting that 17 percent of US children are obese, a figure that has tripled in 30 years. Offering lunches packed with veggies and whole grains and limiting access to sugar-sweetened drinks were among the recommendations for kids age six to 18.

"Action must occur at all levels -- individual, family, community, and the broader society."

Why Do So Many Doctors Regret Their Job Choice?

In an online questionnaire of 24,000 doctors representing 25 specialties,only 54%, said they would choose medicine again as a career, down from 69% in 2011. Just 41% would choose the same specialty again. Only a quarter of doctors said they would choose the same practice setting, compared with 50% a year ago. Why such frustration and discontent among physicians? The Medscape survey cites declining incomes, excessive paperwork, and vast uncertainty about changes dictated by the Affordable Care Act.

Especially for patients over 65, doctors must fill out multiple layers of insurance forms. A single elderly patient can have Medicare, and then secondary and tertiary insurance coverage, all of which require separate forms.

The Medscape survey also describes how hospitals are buying up private practices both in primary care and other specialties. This makes some doctors feel less independent and discouraged, says Howard Forman, a professor at the Yale School of Management who researches diagnostic radiology, health policy and healthcare leadership. “The transformation of the field from independence and professionalism to being commoditized and feeling like you’re just another worker is disheartening to some,” he says.

Medicina: a profissão do passado, do presente e do futuro

The new federal health-care law has raised the stakes for hospitals and schools already scrambling to train more doctors. Experts warn there won't be enough doctors to treat the millions of people newly insured under the law. At current graduation and training rates, the nation could face a shortage of as many as 150,000 doctors in the next 15 years, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. That shortfall is predicted despite a push by teaching hospitals and medical schools to boost the number of U.S. doctors, which now totals about 954,000. The greatest demand will be for primary-care physicians. These general practitioners, internists, family physicians and pediatricians will have a larger role under the new law, coordinating care for each patient. The U.S. has 352,908 primary-care doctors now, and the college association estimates that 45,000 more will be needed by 2020. But the number of medical-school students entering family medicine fell more than a quarter between 2002 and 2007.

A insustentabilidade dos sistemas de saúde públicos

O tema é quente em Portugal, nos EUA ou em Espanha: El PSOE defiende sin fisuras la sanidad pública y es partidario de reformas para adaptarla al siglo XXI frente a la amenaza que ve que representa la derecha.

Há alguns sistemas de saúde públicos que se mantém viáveis e com alguma sustentabilidade, como o sistema alemão, o francês e de alguns países do norte da Europa. Mas, só são sustentáveis, porque há uma conjugação de esforços público-privados, e um férreo rigor, que faz desses países uma amostra de que é possível manter à tona sistemas de saúde públicos. Os EUA tentaram com o ObamaCare criar uma rede assistencial pública de acesso generalizado. Não foi até agora implementado. Aliás, o sistema de saúde dos EUA é o pior dos exemplos, uma vez que a sociedade americana gasta quase 20% em saúde. Valores incomportáveis para qualquer sociedade.

O idealismo é positivo, mas levado ao extremo, leva à insanidade e a inevitáveis rupturas.

Crazy Americans

Total national health spending grew by 4 percent in 2009, the slowest rate of increase in 50 years, as people lost their jobs, lost health insurance and deferred medical care, the federal government reported on Wednesday. Still, health care accounted for a larger share of a smaller economy — a record 17.6 percent of the total economic output in 2009, the report said. The economy contracted while health spending continued to grow. The nation spent $2.5 trillion on health care in 2009, for an average of $8,086 a person, and the recession had a profound influence.

The number of visits to doctors’ offices apparently declined. Many hospitals reported fewer admissions, as patients put off medical procedures. Spending on dental services declined slightly. Many hospitals and other health care providers reduced their capital investments. Spending on doctors’ services in 2009 increased at the slowest pace since 1996, according to the new federal study, being published in the journal Health Affairs.

Taxa de natalidade dos "teens": EUA

The U.S. teen birth rate in 2009 fell to its lowest point in almost 70 years of record-keeping a decline that stunned experts who believe it's partly due to the recession. The birth rate for teenagers fell to 39 births per 1,000 girls, ages 15 through 19, according to a government report released Tuesday. It was a 6 percent decline from the previous year, and the lowest since health officials started tracking the rate in 1940.

Overall, about 4.1 million babies were born in 2009, down almost 3 percent from 2008. It's the second consecutive drop in births, which had been on the rise since 2000. The trend may continue: A preliminary count of U.S. births through the first six months of this year suggests a continuing drop, CDC officials said. A decline in immigration to the United States, blamed on the weak job market, is another factor cited for the lower birth rate. A large proportion of immigrants are Hispanic, and Hispanics accounted for nearly 1 in 4 births in 2009. The birth rate among Hispanic teens is the highest of any ethnic group with 70 births per 1,000 girls in 2009. However, that rate, too, was down from the previous year.

Food-borne illnesses make 1 in 6 Americans ill each year

Food-borne illnesses: how prevalent are they? Roughly 48 million Americans – or 1 in 6 – get sick and about 3,000 die from some type of food-borne illness each year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. Reports published Wednesday in Emerging Infectious Diseases also provide a picture of which pathogens cause the most illnesses. Salmonella tops the list for hospitalizations and deaths.

1 in 5 gay, bisexual men in U.S. cities has HIV

Nearly one in five gay and bisexual men in 21 major U.S. cities are infected with HIV, and nearly half of them do not know it, U.S. health officials said on Thursday.

Young men, and especially young black men, are least likely to know if they are infected with HIV, according to a study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The study found that 28 percent of gay black men infected with HIV, compared with 18 percent of Hispanic men and 16 percent of white men. Black men in the study were also least likely to be aware of their infection, with 59 percent unaware of their infection compared with 46 percent of Hispanic men and 26 percent of white men. Age also plays a role. Among 18 to 29-year-old men, 63 percent did not know they were infected with HIV, compared with 37 percent of men aged 30 and older, the team reported in the CDC's weekly report on death and disease. "This alarming new data provides further evidence that prevention efforts for gay men have not been adequate to meet the growing epidemic and should be dramatically scaled up," said Carl Schmid of the nonprofit AIDS Institute.

Os Americanos estão loucos

Fonte: aqui.

U.S. birth rate fell in 2008

The U.S. birth rate fell 2 percent in 2008. Here are some facts about births in the United States from the NCHS, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: 4,251,095 babies were born in the United States in 2008, down nearly 2 percent from the 2007 peak of 4.317 million; the general fertility rate, which measures births among women aged 15 to 44, declined in 2008 to 68.7 per 1,000; The crude birth rate, which refers to births in the total population, was 14 per 1,000, 2 percent lower than the rate in 2007.

ObamaCare II

As Mr. Obama finished signing the bill, the first hand he shook was that of Marcelas Owens, an 11-year-old who has helped Democrats put a human face on the health care debate by talking about the death of his mother.

Mr. Obama is now speaking. “Today after all the votes are tallied, health insurance reform becomes law.”

Post Scriptum: The passage of the health care law shows that the US empire is declining because it illustrates the fact that people expect the state to take care of them. In their expansionary phase, empires force people to go out, seek risks and fend for themselves, Murrin said, reminding of the dismantling of the British empire after the war, when the National Health Service, which ensures universal health coverage in Britain, was created.

Economy sends plastic surgery down 17%

Last year’s economic slowdown caused a 17 percent drop in plastic surgeries, according to a survey by the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. Demand for non-invasive procedures such as Botox injections remained fairly steady, dropping less than 1 percent. For both types of procedures combined, the overall decline was 2 percent. For the second year in a row, the No. 1 surgical treatment was breast augmentation, with an estimated 312,000 procedures last year, followed by liposuction, at 284,000. As has been the case for years, those operations were far outpaced in frequency by Botox injections — an estimated 2.55 million last year.

Post Scriptum: só assim se compreende que a despesa com a saúde nos EUA esteja cada vez mais próxima dos 20% do PIB!

A explosão da diabetes

A diabetes é uma doença difícil. A diabetes implica uma perda de qualidade de vida significativa. A diabetes tem tendência a aumentar, atendendo à má alimentação que as pessoas têm nos dias de hoje.

Vejamos este estudo da situação previsível nos EUA:

• The number of Americans with diabetes may almost double in 25 years, and the annual cost of treating them may triple to $336 billion, according to a study published today in the journal Diabetes Care.
• Without new programs to assure that people get health care to manage their condition, 44.1 million people in the U.S. will have diabetes by 2034, from 23.7 million today.
• The number of diabetics on Medicare, the government plan for the elderly, will reach 14.1 million from 6.5 million today.
• Diabetes drugs were the fourth-best selling medications in 2008, with $27.3 billion in global sales, according to IMS Health.
• “To do nothing is going to be extremely expensive,” O’Grady said in a Nov. 24 telephone interview. “It’s going to mean millions of Americans continuing to get this disease and a lot of heartache.”.
• The analysis by O’Grady and his colleagues included the impact of aging and obesity rates as well as the natural progression of the disease over time to come up with estimates on numbers and costs. They found diabetes treatment estimates of $113 billion this year would increase to $336 billion by 2033.

Este estudo é importante. Este estudo deveria ser feito em Portugal.

Apenas e só um aspecto lateral, mas de relevo: Copenhagen-based Novo Nordisk A/S, the world’s biggest maker of insulin, funded the study. The company sold $6.1 billion of insulin products in 2008.

Quando fazer uma mamografia?

For many women, getting a mammogram is already one of life's more stressful experiences. Now, women in their 40s have the added anxiety of trying to figure out if they should even be getting one at all.

A government task force said Monday that most women don't need mammograms in their 40s and should get one every two years starting at 50 - a stunning reversal and a break with the American Cancer Society's long-standing position. What's more, the panel said breast self-exams do no good, and women shouldn't be taught to do them.

For most of the past two decades, the American Cancer Society has been recommending annual mammograms beginning at 40, and it reiterated that position on Monday. "This is one screening test I recommend unequivocally, and would recommend to any woman 40 and over," the society's chief medical officer, Dr. Otis Brawley, said in a statement.

Getting enough sleep?

Fonte: aqui.

Obesidade nos EUA

Fonte: aqui.

In 31 states, more than one in four adults are obese, says a new report from the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Health economists once made the harsh financial calculation that the obese would save money by dying sooner. But more recent research instead suggests that better treatments are keeping them alive nearly as long — but they're much sicker for longer, requiring such costly interventions as knee replacements and diabetes care and dialysis. Medicare spends anywhere from $1,400 to $6,000 more annually on health care for an obese senior than for the non-obese.

O maior desafio de Obama

O Presidente Obama tem uma capacidade de comunicação única. O Presidente Obama está perante o maior desafio dos EUA, desde a II Grande Guerra: tentar travar o declínio evidente dos EUA.

Uma das fontes de declínio Americano é sem dúvida, a imensa despesa em saúde e um consumismo elevadíssimo. Obama prometeu criar, se fosse Presidente, a chamada "global healthcare coverage". Vai ser tudo, menos fácil.

Vejamos alguns detalhes desta "quadratura do círculo" de Obama:

• A Associação de Médicos dos Estados Unidos da América terminou hoje a reunião anual, em Chicago, sem definir uma posição sobre a reforma de saúde que o presidente Barack Obama pretende instalar. Os delegados da Associação, a maior do país com 250 mil membros, acordaram hoje apoiar alternativas ao actual sistema de saúde através de uma reforma mas não referiram nenhuma opção concreta.
• A opinião da Associação de Médicos é fundamental para o êxito ou fracasso da iniciativa de Obama, que pretende iniciar a reforma de saúde ainda este ano e que está a recolher apoios junto da indústria e dos críticos tanto republicanos como democráticos.
• A Associação, que rejeitou recentemente um plano público que concorria com as seguradoras privadas, comprometeu-se apresentar uma reforma de saúde que garanta a todos os norte-americanos uma cobertura dos serviços sanitários acessível e de qualidade.
• "A situação é insustentável para as famílias, as empresas e o governo. Os EUA gastam....quase 50 por cento a mais por pessoa do que o segundo país com maior despesa na saúde (...) Mesmo assim, temos cada vez mais cidadãos sem seguro, a qualidade do serviço tem-se deteriorado a população não está mais saudável", afirmou Obama.
• Obama pretende reduzir as despesas de saúde e alargar a cobertura dos cuidados médicos a 46 milhões de norte-americanos que continuam excluídos (cerca de 15 por cento da população).

Lembramo-nos logo daquele filme "Os Deuses devem estar loucos". E porquê? Porque, se Obama conseguir fazer esta reforma, ficará na História dos EUA ao lado de Roosevelt, Reagan ou Lincoln. De outra forma, vai ficar muito mal visto!

Aguardemos.

Ofertas a desempregados

O tempo que corre é parco em emprego. Tenta-se, através de paliativos, criar algum conforto aos desempregados. Não será o caso disto: The world's biggest drugmaker said Thursday it will give away the medicines for up to a year to Americans who lost jobs since Jan. 1 and have been on the Pfizer drug for three months or more. The 70-plus drugs covered in the program include several diabetes drugs and some of Pfizer's top money makers, from cholesterol fighter Lipitor and painkiller Celebrex to fibromyalgia treatment Lyrica and Viagra for impotence.

Maravilhas da ciência

Legenda: antes da tentativa de homicídio.

Legenda: depois da cirurgia.

Five years ago, a shotgun blast left a ghastly hole where the middle of her face had been. Five months ago, she received a new face from a dead woman. Connie Culp stepped forward Tuesday to show off the results of the nation's first face transplant, and her new look was a far cry from the puckered, noseless sight that made children run away in horror.

EUA: viver sem cuidados de saúde

Fonte: aqui.