The Affordable Care Act (official name of health reforms in United States) has some good and bad news, as with any other reform. It is important for every Americans to know important features of health reforms, which Obama administration has implemented, for proper planning of their health care needs.

Americans have to buy health insurance or pay penalty:

Currently approximately 60% Americans have health insurance. But from 2014 every American has to have health insurance or pay penalty, with exceptions of low income individuals who are eligible for “medicaids”, “medicare” and other public funded healthcare programs. Individuals may have to pay approximately $5,000 per year and families may have to pay $15,000 per year on health insurance premium.

Government will provide subsidized policies (to reduce premiums) to individuals with income range of $15,000 to $43,000 per year and families with income of up to $90,000, (e.g. for a family of four subsidized health insurance plans will cost between $1,300 per year up to $8,400 per year).

How much penalty an individual and family has to pay for not having health insurance?

The penalty for individuals not having health insurance is $95 dollars or 1% of income, whichever is greater. But from 2016 the penalty will be $695 dollars or 2.5 percent of income, whichever is greater. But as a family the penalty may be as high as $2,085 or 2.5 percent of family income by 2016.

What is the best part of the health reform?

The best part of health reforms (opinion of the writer) is that, insurers won’t be able to deny health insurance to applicants based on any ground, for example an earlier diagnosis of cancer (e.g. breast cancer), which insurers are doing frequently at the moment. Currently many insurers do not insure an individual if he/she is suffering from serious and chronic illness, which they will not be able to deny due to health reforms. At present insurers frequently rescrubbed policies (discontinue policy before it closes) due to diagnosis of serious disease such as cancer, which they will not be able to do so. Insurers will also not able to drop policy holders (health insurance), unless there is a clear case of fraud such as failure to disclose a preexisting cancer, or make false claims.

NB: The above information is for US citizens only,
Buy Books on Healthcare Reforms.

Image: Getideaka / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Related posts:

Important Points to Remember While Buying Health Insurance

Why you should have Health Insurance?

Are you planning to buy Health Insurance?

Five Reasons to Shop Around for Health Insurance

Health Insurance In UK

Emergency Loans in Health Care

How to get Affordable Health Insurance?

Health Insurance for Visitors

Non Health Reasons for Quitting Smoking

Few Important Aspects About ORS

Catherine Jones/iStockphoto.com

What's on your list?

When the New Year's parties end, a lot of us are left with some tough promises to keep.

This year, I'll lose weight. Smoking? History! And, of course, I'll start working out, too. Really, I mean it this time.

So with the day for fresh starts looming, we resolved to ask Americans about their New Year's resolutions, past and future, in the latest NPR-Thomson Reuters Health Poll.

First, if you're thinking about committing to improving your health in 2012, you'll have plenty of company. A little over half of the people we surveyed said they'll resolve to exercise more. More than a third will resolve to lose weight. And 13 percent say they'll commit to either quitting smoking or reducing how much they smoke.

Some people have had a lot of practice with their vows to do better. A little more than a third of people have resolved to lose weight at least once in the past five years. Among those who have promised themselves they'd shed a few pounds, 38 percent made that resolution five years in a row.

How much did people want to lose? Almost half of people with dieting in mind wanted to drop 10 to 29 pounds. About 21 percent wanted to shed between 30 and 49 pounds.

Making a resolution is the easy part. How well do people actually do? Overall, 57 percent of respondents who wanted to lose weight in the past told us they'd reached their goal.

Quitting smoking is more challenging. Among people who had vowed to quit smoking at least once in the past five years, only 36 percent said they had succeeded.

The telephone poll of more than 3,000 adults across the country was conducted during the first half of December. The margin for error is plus or minus 1.8 percentage points. Click here to read the questions and complete results. You can find the previous polls here, or by clicking on the NPR-Thomson Reuters Health Poll tag below.

Now, we have to admit that we wondered how accurate people's reports of success on their goals might be. The folks at Practice Fusion, a supplier of electronic medical record systems for doctors' offices, gave us another way of looking at things.

The company combed through a sample of real-world data from doctors' records, including the weights of more than 21,000 patients measured in 2010 and again in 2011. "There's a lot of people who are losing some weight," Jake Marcus, a data scientist at Practice Fusion, tells Shots. Overall, about 46 percent of people lost some weight. On average, it was about 7 pounds from one year to the next.

Now the Practice Fusion data are from people who saw their doctors regularly, and we don't know how that lines up with respondents to our poll. After looking at our poll's findings and his own company's data, Marcus says you might not reach your ambitious New Year's health goal, but it's still worth a try. You may lose a little weight, which is better than none at all.

The Affordable Care Act (official name of health reforms in United States) has some good and bad news, as with any other reform. It is important for every Americans to know important features of health reforms, which Obama administration has implemented, for proper planning of their health care needs.

Americans have to buy health insurance or pay penalty:

Currently approximately 60% Americans have health insurance. But from 2014 every American has to have health insurance or pay penalty, with exceptions of low income individuals who are eligible for “medicaids”, “medicare” and other public funded healthcare programs. Individuals may have to pay approximately $5,000 per year and families may have to pay $15,000 per year on health insurance premium.

Government will provide subsidized policies (to reduce premiums) to individuals with income range of $15,000 to $43,000 per year and families with income of up to $90,000, (e.g. for a family of four subsidized health insurance plans will cost between $1,300 per year up to $8,400 per year).

How much penalty an individual and family has to pay for not having health insurance?

The penalty for individuals not having health insurance is $95 dollars or 1% of income, whichever is greater. But from 2016 the penalty will be $695 dollars or 2.5 percent of income, whichever is greater. But as a family the penalty may be as high as $2,085 or 2.5 percent of family income by 2016.

What is the best part of the health reform?

The best part of health reforms (opinion of the writer) is that, insurers won’t be able to deny health insurance to applicants based on any ground, for example an earlier diagnosis of cancer (e.g. breast cancer), which insurers are doing frequently at the moment. Currently many insurers do not insure an individual if he/she is suffering from serious and chronic illness, which they will not be able to deny due to health reforms. At present insurers frequently rescrubbed policies (discontinue policy before it closes) due to diagnosis of serious disease such as cancer, which they will not be able to do so. Insurers will also not able to drop policy holders (health insurance), unless there is a clear case of fraud such as failure to disclose a preexisting cancer, or make false claims.

NB: The above information is for US citizens only,
Buy Books on Healthcare Reforms.

Image: Getideaka / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Related posts:

Important Points to Remember While Buying Health Insurance

Why you should have Health Insurance?

Are you planning to buy Health Insurance?

Five Reasons to Shop Around for Health Insurance

Health Insurance In UK

Emergency Loans in Health Care

How to get Affordable Health Insurance?

Health Insurance for Visitors

Non Health Reasons for Quitting Smoking

Few Important Aspects About ORS

Enlarge iStockphoto.com

Tablets are easy to find at the local coffee shop but are still scarce at hospitals.

iStockphoto.com

Tablets are easy to find at the local coffee shop but are still scarce at hospitals.

Hospitals are often eager to embrace the latest medical technology, but the road to deploying tablet computers has been a little bumpy.

iPads have been available since April 2010, but less than 1 percent of hospitals have fully functional tablet systems, according to Jonathan Mack. He's director of clinical research and development at the West Wireless Health Institute, a San Diego-based nonprofit focused on lowering the cost of health care through new technology.

"We're really lagging behind in the U.S. in using electronic medical records on mobile devices like iPads," Mack says.

The federal government is giving hospitals financial incentives to implement electronic medical records, but the most popular systems don't yet make apps that allow doctors to use the records on a tablet the way they would on a desktop or laptop. To use a mobile device effectively requires a complete redesign of the way information is presented, Mack says.

 

And that would require hospitals to "cough up a lot more money," he says. "When you look at a health system that has bought into an EMR, they're not ready to turn the boat around and start over."

But some clinicians at UC San Diego Health System have been using the iPad since it first came out. Kate Franko, a physician assistant who is part of the hospital's transplant team, has been one of the pioneers.

On a brisk day in December, Franko stood by the bedside of patient Jose Reyna, a 24-year-old student who had received a new kidney just days earlier after three years of dialysis.

Franko scrolled through Reyna's medical records on her iPad 2, checking his vitals and medical notes. She also pulled up a graph of his blood test results over the past week to help him see how his new kidney was doing. A chest X-ray displayed on the iPad showed a build-up of fluid in his lungs. "You can see it's a little white in these corners. It's what we call patchy," she told him.

For Reyna, who is a tech guy with a smartphone sitting by his bedside, the in-hospital iPad was a very cool experience. He says the hospital in Desert Hot Springs, where he's from, still uses pen and paper.

The iPad "lets me know how I'm doing from the first time I got here," Reyna says.

But there are also several important downsides that so far have kept UC San Diego from deploying more of the devices. Right now, their electronic record system has a read-only app for the iPad, meaning it can't be used for entering all new information.

To get around the problem, clinicians log on through another program called Citrix. But because the product is built on a Windows platform and meant for a desktop, it can be clunky on an iPad and difficult to navigate. There are concerns about patient privacy, and spotty wireless coverage at the hospital also means doctors are logged off frequently as they move around.

In addition, the iPad doesn't fit in the pocket of a standard white lab coat. Franko bought a messenger bag that she uses to carry the device, but it's not all that convenient.

Franko also worries the extra technology causes clinicians to be distracted. "It's hard when you have an iPad in your hands, sometimes there are moments when you want to check your email and possibly update your Facebook, and it does take willpower to not be distracted," she explains.

It's still unclear whether tablets actually make medical care more efficient. In the meantime, even pioneers like Franko are hedging their bets. In addition to her iPad and two iPhones, she also carries a good old-fashioned pager, just in case.

Permanent cessation of menstrual bleeding in women is called menopause, which is due to loss of function of ovarian follicles. Consecutive 12 months amenorrhea (absence of menstruation is called amenorrhea) should be present to diagnose menopause. Normally menopause occurs in between 45 and 55 years of age. In the United States the average age of menopause is 51 years. Women who smoke, menopause can appear two years ahead of normal time.

Peri-menopause is the term used to refer the period preceding menopause. During peri-menopause the menstrual cycle becomes irregular along with waning of fertility. The period of peri-menopause lasts for two to eight years with an average of four years. During peri-menopause, menstruation should be absent for at least a year to call that menopause has begun. The period after menopause is called post menopause and during this period a woman may suffer typical health problems.

Diagnosis of menopause:

Women after 40 years of age with irregular menstrual bleeding can be diagnosed as peri menopause and during this period the irregularity of menstruation increases, e.g. amenorrhea may be become more frequent. Once peri-menopause sets in, continuous absence of menstrual bleeding for successive 12 months is called menopause. Essentially menopause is diagnosed clinically and no test is done or required for diagnosis of menopause.

Transition from peri-menopause to menopause:

The transition from peri-menopause to menopause may be a problem for women taking oral contraceptive hormone therapy to alleviate symptoms of peri-menopause. It may be difficult to determine whether to switch over to hormone replacement therapy (HRT) or not and if yes, when and how. Hence this should be individualized. The doses of estrogen and progestogen in HRT are lower than oral contraceptives and can not prevent pregnancy. Those willing to use barrier method of contraception should do so and advised to do so. During use of barrier method, if natural menstrual bleeding occurs oral contraceptives should be resumed. This should be repeated every year till permanent cessation of menstrual bleeding or menopause.

Image: Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Related posts:

What is Amenorrhea?

Natural Remedies for Menopause

What are the causes of Secondary Amenorrhea?

Causes of Primary Amenorrhea

Treatment of Amenorrhea

The Lesser known Contraceptive pill Centchroman

Know about Ovarian Cysts

Should You Use Centchroman as Contraceptive?

How Amenorrhea is diagnosed?

Diagnosis of Pregnancy

Enlarge Scott Olson/Getty Images

A Transportation Security Administration volunteer demonstrates a full-body scanner at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport in March 2010.

Scott Olson/Getty Images

A Transportation Security Administration volunteer demonstrates a full-body scanner at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport in March 2010.

If you're heading for the airport humming I'll Be Home For Christmas, all of us at Shots hope your trip goes without a hitch.

With all the comings and goings of the holiday season on our minds, we recently asked Americans a few questions and air travel and health.

And the latest NPR-Thomson Reuters Health Poll finds that when it comes to flying, the vast majority of American don't have a care about health once they're in the air. Only 8 percent said they had any health worries about traveling by plane; 92 percent don't think twice.

 

What's the biggest personal risk from being airborne? Twenty-one percent cited the ultimate health risk: a crash. Sixteen percent said it was catching a cold or the flu. About 7 percent said it was anxiety.

Only 5 percent said developing a blood clot, which has been recognized as a problem for sedentary travelers on long-haul flights.

We wondered if anyone thought flying had ever led them to become ill, and 11 percent said they thought it had.

Now what about the security screening that goes on before the plane takes off? More than 1 in 5 respondents (23 percent) said they would refuse to be examined in one of the whole-body scanners now in many airports. A third of people under 35 said they would decline the scans.

About 23 percent of poll respondents said they were concerned about radiation exposure from the scans. Invasion of privacy bothered 17 percent, and 13 percent object to the scans because they consider them to be an unreasonable search.

The risk from radiation exposure from the security checks is scant, said Dr. Ray Fabius, chief medical officer for the health care unit of Thomson Reuters. "The much more serious health concerns associated with flying are exposure to communicable illnesses and blood clots during long air excursions," he said. "By avoiding traveling when sick and exercising in your seat, these risks can be minimized."

The telephone poll of more than 3,000 adults across the country was conducted during the first half of November. The margin for error is plus or minus 1.8 percentage points. Click here to read the questions and complete results. You can find the previous polls here, or by clicking on the NPR-Thomson Reuters Health Poll tag below.

Permanent cessation of menstrual bleeding in women is called menopause, which is due to loss of function of ovarian follicles. Consecutive 12 months amenorrhea (absence of menstruation is called amenorrhea) should be present to diagnose menopause. Normally menopause occurs in between 45 and 55 years of age. In the United States the average age of menopause is 51 years. Women who smoke, menopause can appear two years ahead of normal time.

Peri-menopause is the term used to refer the period preceding menopause. During peri-menopause the menstrual cycle becomes irregular along with waning of fertility. The period of peri-menopause lasts for two to eight years with an average of four years. During peri-menopause, menstruation should be absent for at least a year to call that menopause has begun. The period after menopause is called post menopause and during this period a woman may suffer typical health problems.

Diagnosis of menopause:

Women after 40 years of age with irregular menstrual bleeding can be diagnosed as peri menopause and during this period the irregularity of menstruation increases, e.g. amenorrhea may be become more frequent. Once peri-menopause sets in, continuous absence of menstrual bleeding for successive 12 months is called menopause. Essentially menopause is diagnosed clinically and no test is done or required for diagnosis of menopause.

Transition from peri-menopause to menopause:

The transition from peri-menopause to menopause may be a problem for women taking oral contraceptive hormone therapy to alleviate symptoms of peri-menopause. It may be difficult to determine whether to switch over to hormone replacement therapy (HRT) or not and if yes, when and how. Hence this should be individualized. The doses of estrogen and progestogen in HRT are lower than oral contraceptives and can not prevent pregnancy. Those willing to use barrier method of contraception should do so and advised to do so. During use of barrier method, if natural menstrual bleeding occurs oral contraceptives should be resumed. This should be repeated every year till permanent cessation of menstrual bleeding or menopause.

Image: Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Related posts:

What is Amenorrhea?

Natural Remedies for Menopause

What are the causes of Secondary Amenorrhea?

Causes of Primary Amenorrhea

Treatment of Amenorrhea

The Lesser known Contraceptive pill Centchroman

Know about Ovarian Cysts

Should You Use Centchroman as Contraceptive?

How Amenorrhea is diagnosed?

Diagnosis of Pregnancy

It may or may not be a punt, but the Obama administration wants to let states play a bigger role in deciding what constitutes an "essential health benefits" package when it comes to health insurance.

The Department of Health and Human Services issued what it called a "bulletin" outlining a policy it hopes to impose. In other words, it's not even yet a formal regulation.

The idea is to give states "more flexibility and freedom" to implement the part of the health law that includes the essential health benefits requirement. Under the proposal, rather than having the federal government set a package of benefits for plans sold to individuals and small businesses, states could match the benefits of specified plans currently available to their residents.

States would choose a "benchmark" plan from one of these groups:

• The three largest small group plans in the state by enrollment.
• The three largest health plans available to state employees.
• The three largest health plans available to federal workers.
• The largest HMO offered in the state's commercial market.

 

"This is the latest step we're taking, in partnership with the states, to ensure that all Americans have access to quality, affordable coverage," HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told reporters on a conference call.

The concern with the requirement for essential health benefits comes down to this: One goal of the federal Affordable Care Act is to ensure that insurance be comprehensive enough that people get care they need, but that coverage must remain affordable.

"And we've acknowledged many times, coverage that works in Florida may not work in Nebraska," Sebelius said.

But the proposal, which is open to public comment until the end of January, is already drawing criticism from those who think it goes too far and those who think it doesn't go far enough.

Debra Ness, President of the National Partnership for Women and Families, called the proposal "deeply disappointing" and said it "jeopardizes the promise of health reform for millions of women and families." The partnership is worried that by "failing to provide specific standards on what the maternity coverage required under the law must include, HHS allows plans to continue offering substandard coverage that fails to meet women's needs."

Meanwhile, Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee and an opponent of the health law, said the proposal will cause premiums to rise.

"The framework proposed by the administration takes away the right of individuals to choose the health care plan that best fits their needs," Hatch said.

Once you decide to enter into sexual relationships, your whole life changes.  You open the door to a form of deep intimacy that gives you the opportunity to know another person on a different level than you’ve experienced before.  But such a relationship is equal parts risk and reward.  Although you can experience the true love that writers, artists, and musicians have spent centuries trying to adequately express, you will almost certainly have to deal with a loss of that love at some point, complete with a broken heart.  But aside from the emotional issues at play, there are also physical drawbacks to consider.

For one thing, you need to take precautions to stop unwanted pregnancy and/or the spread of sexually transmitted diseases like genital herpes, gonorrhea, syphilis, and HIV (just to name a few).  Some of them are merely annoying, but others can be life-threatening.  For example, nearly one in six adults has genital herpes (which never goes away) and they can pass along the disease even when they have no visible signs of an outbreak.  And although there are now many medical treatments available to manage HIV, it is still considered a deadly disease, especially once it develops into AIDS.  And these are just a few of the many STDs you could catch from having unprotected sex.

Of course, even with protection you might suffer mishaps.  There’s a reason why the effectiveness for most forms of birth control is listed at 99% instead of 100% (and that’s only when used according to directions).  For one thing, there is the small problem of human error.  Raise your hand if you didn’t know that antibiotics can mess with the effectiveness of oral contraceptives (the birth control pill).  It’s surprising how many women find this out the hard way simply because their doctors assume they already know and fail to mention it.  And then there are times when a woman misses a pill and poof!  Suddenly she’s pregnant.  Oops.  Abstinence is, in truth, the only form of birth control that is 100% guaranteed to work (apparently they decided not to factor in Immaculate Conception, although plenty of girls have tried that excuse).

Keep in mind though that most forms of birth control, while fairly effective at stopping pregnancy, are no deterrent to the spread of disease.  And unless you trust that your partners are 1) disease-free, and 2) not having sexual relations with others, you don’t really know what they might be passing along.  In fact, without testing, you don’t know what you might be passing on before symptoms show up.  And while you can certainly ask your partners to provide medical documentation before you get busy, you have no way of knowing if it is currently accurate.

So your best bet is to use condoms all the time, at least until you enter into a long-term, monogamous relationship.  And since even that may not be enough, start going in for annual exams with a gynecologist or urologist and getting regular STD tests (pap, Western Blot Reagents exams, and so on) to ensure that you are in optimal health, or begin treatment if you aren’t.

Carol Montrose is a contributing writer for Western Blot Reagents which offers STD and other related health testing.

Image: healingdream / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Related posts:

Importance of Travel Insurance

How to Treat Hemorrhoids During Pregnancy?

Herpes Zoster during Pregnancy

Pregnancy and MRI

Common Western Diet can cause Obesity

Importance of Certified Nursing Assistants

Enlarge Tom Williams/Roll Call/Getty Images

Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat, (left) and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, present their plan for changing Medicare at the U.S. Capitol Thursday.

Tom Williams/Roll Call/Getty Images

Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat, (left) and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, present their plan for changing Medicare at the U.S. Capitol Thursday.

There's not much that's new in the Medicare proposal just unveiled by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.)

So why is it getting so much attention? One word. No, not plastics. Politics!

Sure, the proposal is quite a bit different from the controversial plan authored by Ryan and passed by the House in April that would essentially turn Medicare into a voucher program. The latest one, like Ryan's original, would include a cap on total Medicare spending and feature more private competition than under the current program, though.

But Wyden, at a briefing at held by the Bipartisan Policy Center, said he was careful in negotiating with Ryan to ensure that the current proposal, which would not be introduced in legislative form until after the 2012 election, preserves the things progressive Democrats value most in Medicare.

 

"The first of course, was to make sure traditional Medicare, with its marketplace clout, popularity among seniors, low administrative costs, was preserved for all time," he said. At the same time, he said, the compromise with Ryan represents a "more reasonable approach" to limiting growth, and making sure that if costs did grow they wouldn't "automatically hammer the seniors."

Wyden's fellow Democrats aren't sure he's doing them such a big favor. They think he's more likely letting Ryan and his fellow Republicans off the hook just as Dems are using Medicare as a club on the campaign trail.

"We are concerned that Wyden-Ryan, like Congressman Ryan's earlier proposal, would undermine, rather than strengthen, Medicare," said a statement from White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer. "The Wyden-Ryan scheme could, over time, cause the traditional Medicare program to 'wither on the vine' because it would raise premiums, forcing many seniors to leave traditional Medicare and joint private plans."

Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.), the longtime chairman and now ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means health subcommittee said the measure still does "end Medicare as we know it, plain and simple." Said Stark, "if these two get their way, senior citizens' health coverage will depend on what big insurance offers and what seniors â€" most of them on modest, fixed incomes â€" can afford."

Ethan Rome, head of the advocacy group Health Care for America Now, said the proposal is "just another version of the Ryan Republican plan to do away with Medicare and bankrupt seniors, but this time it's got one Democrat on board."

Just because Wyden's on board "doesn't make it bipartisan," Rome said, and the latest plan would ultimately replace "guaranteed benefits with vouchers."

Wyden, for his part, said he doesn't think Republicans will be able to use the new proposal to walk away from their support for Ryan's earlier, more radical rewrite of Medicare. "Nobody ducks their past votes and their previous statements. That's just a given," he said.

But it appears some Republicans are already trying.

Speaking on Iowa Public Television, GOP presidential frontrunner Newt Gingrich called it "a very important breakthrough" and "a bipartisan effort to really come to grips with one of the major entitlement challenges we face."

And, according to a tweet from Talking Points Memo's Brian Beutler, House Speaker John Boehner called the plan "a bipartisan idea that's worthy of our consideration" and "a step in the right direction."

Once you decide to enter into sexual relationships, your whole life changes.  You open the door to a form of deep intimacy that gives you the opportunity to know another person on a different level than you’ve experienced before.  But such a relationship is equal parts risk and reward.  Although you can experience the true love that writers, artists, and musicians have spent centuries trying to adequately express, you will almost certainly have to deal with a loss of that love at some point, complete with a broken heart.  But aside from the emotional issues at play, there are also physical drawbacks to consider.

For one thing, you need to take precautions to stop unwanted pregnancy and/or the spread of sexually transmitted diseases like genital herpes, gonorrhea, syphilis, and HIV (just to name a few).  Some of them are merely annoying, but others can be life-threatening.  For example, nearly one in six adults has genital herpes (which never goes away) and they can pass along the disease even when they have no visible signs of an outbreak.  And although there are now many medical treatments available to manage HIV, it is still considered a deadly disease, especially once it develops into AIDS.  And these are just a few of the many STDs you could catch from having unprotected sex.

Of course, even with protection you might suffer mishaps.  There’s a reason why the effectiveness for most forms of birth control is listed at 99% instead of 100% (and that’s only when used according to directions).  For one thing, there is the small problem of human error.  Raise your hand if you didn’t know that antibiotics can mess with the effectiveness of oral contraceptives (the birth control pill).  It’s surprising how many women find this out the hard way simply because their doctors assume they already know and fail to mention it.  And then there are times when a woman misses a pill and poof!  Suddenly she’s pregnant.  Oops.  Abstinence is, in truth, the only form of birth control that is 100% guaranteed to work (apparently they decided not to factor in Immaculate Conception, although plenty of girls have tried that excuse).

Keep in mind though that most forms of birth control, while fairly effective at stopping pregnancy, are no deterrent to the spread of disease.  And unless you trust that your partners are 1) disease-free, and 2) not having sexual relations with others, you don’t really know what they might be passing along.  In fact, without testing, you don’t know what you might be passing on before symptoms show up.  And while you can certainly ask your partners to provide medical documentation before you get busy, you have no way of knowing if it is currently accurate.

So your best bet is to use condoms all the time, at least until you enter into a long-term, monogamous relationship.  And since even that may not be enough, start going in for annual exams with a gynecologist or urologist and getting regular STD tests (pap, Western Blot Reagents exams, and so on) to ensure that you are in optimal health, or begin treatment if you aren’t.

Carol Montrose is a contributing writer for Western Blot Reagents which offers STD and other related health testing.

Image: healingdream / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Related posts:

Importance of Travel Insurance

How to Treat Hemorrhoids During Pregnancy?

Herpes Zoster during Pregnancy

Pregnancy and MRI

Common Western Diet can cause Obesity

Importance of Certified Nursing Assistants

Medicaid sure is popular. And that's a big problem for state budgets.

These days the health program for the poor is claiming a bigger slice of states' spending than even K-12 education, says a report from the National Association of State Budget Officers.

All told, Medicaid is expected to grab 23.6 percent of states' spending in fiscal 2011, up from 22.3 percent the year before.

For comparison, spending on elementary and secondary education shool is expected to claim 20.1 percent of spending in fiscal 2011, down from 20.5 percent in 2010.

 

What's going on? The bad economy has more people enrolling â€" more than 50 million in Medicaid as of June last year.

Enlarge Kaiser Family Foundation

Medicaid enrollment climbs.

Kaiser Family Foundation

Medicaid enrollment climbs.

Overall Medicaid spending for fiscal 2011 looks to be about $399 billion, up 10.1 percent over the previous year.

Medicaid is funded by money from the states and the federal government. And some critics say analyses like NASBO's overstate the burden by reporting on the total spending, without showing how much of the revenue for the program comes from the feds and other sources.

Looked at that way, Medicaid ranks second or third behind basic education in most state budgets.

Still, states' share of the 2011 bill is increasing by an estimated 16 percent while the federal chunk is risking by 6.9 percent over fiscal 2010, according to NASBO.

Almost every state is working to contain the rising cost of Medicaid.

A nurse called NPR's Talk of the Nation Tuesday to ask Dr. Donald Berwick, who ran Medicare and Medicaid until early this month, why Medicaid doesn't require even small copayments for emergency room care. That might help encourage people not to overuse emergency rooms and seek less costly primary care, she suggested.

Berwick answered that it's a tricky proposition. "A lot of Medicaid patients are very much on the edge, and that copayment may be the thing that dissuades them from coming in to have a symptom treated in early stages," he said. "So, yes, of course there can be abuses. But I'm not sure I'd use copayment as the mainstay. We need to build a stronger primary care system for Medicaid patients, better coordinated care. And we'll see costs fall and quality go up."

Once you decide to enter into sexual relationships, your whole life changes.  You open the door to a form of deep intimacy that gives you the opportunity to know another person on a different level than you’ve experienced before.  But such a relationship is equal parts risk and reward.  Although you can experience the true love that writers, artists, and musicians have spent centuries trying to adequately express, you will almost certainly have to deal with a loss of that love at some point, complete with a broken heart.  But aside from the emotional issues at play, there are also physical drawbacks to consider.

For one thing, you need to take precautions to stop unwanted pregnancy and/or the spread of sexually transmitted diseases like genital herpes, gonorrhea, syphilis, and HIV (just to name a few).  Some of them are merely annoying, but others can be life-threatening.  For example, nearly one in six adults has genital herpes (which never goes away) and they can pass along the disease even when they have no visible signs of an outbreak.  And although there are now many medical treatments available to manage HIV, it is still considered a deadly disease, especially once it develops into AIDS.  And these are just a few of the many STDs you could catch from having unprotected sex.

Of course, even with protection you might suffer mishaps.  There’s a reason why the effectiveness for most forms of birth control is listed at 99% instead of 100% (and that’s only when used according to directions).  For one thing, there is the small problem of human error.  Raise your hand if you didn’t know that antibiotics can mess with the effectiveness of oral contraceptives (the birth control pill).  It’s surprising how many women find this out the hard way simply because their doctors assume they already know and fail to mention it.  And then there are times when a woman misses a pill and poof!  Suddenly she’s pregnant.  Oops.  Abstinence is, in truth, the only form of birth control that is 100% guaranteed to work (apparently they decided not to factor in Immaculate Conception, although plenty of girls have tried that excuse).

Keep in mind though that most forms of birth control, while fairly effective at stopping pregnancy, are no deterrent to the spread of disease.  And unless you trust that your partners are 1) disease-free, and 2) not having sexual relations with others, you don’t really know what they might be passing along.  In fact, without testing, you don’t know what you might be passing on before symptoms show up.  And while you can certainly ask your partners to provide medical documentation before you get busy, you have no way of knowing if it is currently accurate.

So your best bet is to use condoms all the time, at least until you enter into a long-term, monogamous relationship.  And since even that may not be enough, start going in for annual exams with a gynecologist or urologist and getting regular STD tests (pap, Western Blot Reagents exams, and so on) to ensure that you are in optimal health, or begin treatment if you aren’t.

Carol Montrose is a contributing writer for Western Blot Reagents which offers STD and other related health testing.

Image: healingdream / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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iStockphoto.com

Los Angeles is no stranger to traffic jams and road rage.

It's not unusual for awful traffic conditions or incompetent driving to make some people really angry behind the wheel. But when enraged drivers actually lash out at others on the road, that's road rage â€" and experts say it can be a sign of deeper emotional problems.

The term road rage was coined in Los Angeles â€" a city long known for its epic freeway jams. Mike Shen got a taste of how bad it can get shortly after moving to L,A., when a woman viciously tailgated him on the freeway.

"She got so angry that she started pacing me to my right," Shen says. "She wasn't looking at the road, she was literally yelling â€" out the window â€" racial epithets at the top of her lungs."

 

So Shen decided to take his road rage digital, starting the blog LA Can't Drive, where he and others vent about the disastrous driving they've seen. Often, it's distracted driving that's to blame â€" people eating, applying makeup or even shaving behind the wheel. Shen recalls seeing one driver reading the newspaper while merging onto the freeway. "Literally in my rearview mirror, I didn't see the person's face," he says â€" only the spread out newspaper.

In fact, surveys show that the more drivers are distracted, the more other drivers get angry and start honking, cursing, making obscene gestures and waving their fists in the air.

In its annual survey, the road club AutoVantage asks members about bad driving: Did they curse at another driver? Make an obscene gesture? Wave their fist in anger? Purposely slammed your vehicle into another car?

"Oddly," says AutoVantage official Michael Bush says, "in Washington, D.C., you're four times more likely to have somebody drive into you on purpose than anywhere else on the planet."

Clearly, ramming into someone else on purpose is an extreme version of road rage. But this type of outburst is exactly what might signal a deeper underlying problem, says psychiatrist Emil Coccaro at the University of Chicago.

Oddly, in Washington, D.C., you're four times more likely to have somebody drive into you on purpose than anywhere else on the planet.

- Michael Bush, spokesman, AutoVantage

It's called Intermittent Explosive Disorder, and it can affect as much as 6 percent of the population, says Coccaro. It doesn't just happen on the road but at home, on the job, even when out with friends.

"Those outbursts can be temper tantrums, throwing things around, breaking things, pushing, shoving, hitting people," he says. They can be caused by any number of underlying problems, Coccaro says â€" for example, paranoia.

"If somebody gets in their face, they're going to respond aggressively to that," he says. Like: "So who're you looking at? Why are you looking at me like that?"

Other people are emotionally unstable and explode when they're rejected. Still others are compulsively rigid and explode when their sense of "order" is upset.

"Their fuse for exploding is very, very short," says Coccaro, "so if something happens that they're not happy with, there's not much time for them to think of other ways to handle their reaction to it."

Their fuse is short for a number of biological reasons. For starters, he says, people don't produce enough of the "happy" hormone, serotonin, which is thought to be a behavior inhibitor. "It's basically the brakes," he says, "and if your brakes are bad, you're going to get into trouble."

At the same time, people produce too many of other brain chemicals that promote aggression â€" a "dangerous combination," says Coccaro, but one that can be treated.

Medications like antidepressants and mood stabilizers can help to restore the brain's chemical balance. Cognitive behavior therapy helps patients not take things personally, and coping techniques like a time out â€" just leaving the scene â€" can make a difference, says Coccaro.

Of course, if you're driving in your car, you can't just leave the scene. But you can stop engaging in the aggressive behavior.

These techniques won't completely "cure" the disorder, but they can certainly help contain the explosions.

Vitamins are the group of organic compounds that can not be synthesized by our body but are essential for our body and must be supplied in the diet (exceptions are vitamin D is synthesized in our skin when exposed to sunlight and small and insufficient quantity of vitamin K is synthesized in the intestine by intestinal flora). Vitamins can not be synthesized but are essential nutrients for us. Vitamins are required by us in very small quantity and fall in the category of micronutrients.

Vitamins do not give us any calorie or energy but helps the body for utilizing other nutrients. Since our body is unable to synthesize vitamins (even if synthesized they are not sufficient), they must be supplied in our diet. A well balanced diet can provide us all the vitamins and other nutrients both major (proteins, fats and carbohydrates) and minor (vitamins, minerals and trace elements or trace minerals).

Vitamins are broadly divided into two groups:

Fat soluble vitamins:

This include vitamin A, D, E and K

Water soluble vitamins:

This include B complex group of vitamins and vitamin C. Vitamin B complex group include vitamin B1 or thiamin (thiamin is the first B complex vitamin to be discovered and named as B1), B2 or riboflavin, B3 or niacin, B6 or pyridoxine, B5 or pantothenic acid, folic acid and vitamin B12, the group also includes choline and flavoniods.

Each of the vitamins has one or more specific functions to perform and deficiency of any of the vitamins can lead to specific deficiency disease (except vitamin E, any deficiency disease is yet to be identified if it is there, but it helps in making the skin glow), e.g. deficiency of vitamin C leads to scurvy (very well known).

The minimum intake of vitamins per day has been determined but the daily optimum intake is still not clear and is still speculative. So the recommended daily allowance of vitamins is in speculative stage.

Image: piyaphantawong / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Factors that alter Energy/Nutrients Need

Dietary modification for Underweight

Common Terms of Nutrition/Health: F to Z

Enlarge iStockphoto

A survey identifies traits, like generosity, that help couples buck the trend toward marital discord once baby arrives.

iStockphoto

A survey identifies traits, like generosity, that help couples buck the trend toward marital discord once baby arrives.

As many couples can attest â€" and lots of research backs this up â€" marital happiness plummets with the arrival of a baby. Sleepless nights, seemingly endless diaper changes and the avalanche of new chores that come with a newborn leave little time for the intimacies of marriage. It's a situation ripe for mental stress and marital discord.

In fact, the strain is so well documented that, as the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year, a growing number of mental-health professionals now advise pre-emptive relationship counseling for expectant parents.

But in a survey of 2,870 married couples, the National Marriage Project of the University of Virginia found that more than a third of them buck the trend, managing to stay happy through the emotional, physical and financial strains of new parenthood. So, how do they do it?

 

Not surprisingly, the report finds sexual satisfaction and a sense of commitment top the list of traits that lead husbands and wives to say they are "very happy" in marriage. No. 3 is "generosity," defined as:

"the virtue of giving good things to [one's spouse] freely and abundantly," and encompasses small acts of service (e.g., making coffee for one's spouse in the morning), the expression of affection, displays of respect, and a willingness to "forgive him/her for mistakes and failings."

Further down the list: shared housework. That's right, both mothers and fathers are more likely to report they are "very happy" when housework is "shared equally." So presumably, asking your husband to do the laundry (or your wife to change the light bulb) can be good for your marriage. Though harking back to generosity, perhaps it's better if each volunteers to take on the task.

The survey is a joint project of the National Marriage Project and the Institute for American Values, conservative groups that promote marriage. Their report also finds â€" as many surveys have shown â€" that more devoutly religious people often rank themselves happier. Another recent study attributes this effect to the social networks that religion can foster.

Strikingly, the National Marriage Project finds a big jump in marital happiness among couples with four or more children (which, as the researchers note, is likely a pretty self-selecting group.)

Or, there's a simpler strategy: patience. Contrary to popular perception, evidence suggests marital bliss rebounds with the empty nest.

Vitamins are the group of organic compounds that can not be synthesized by our body but are essential for our body and must be supplied in the diet (exceptions are vitamin D is synthesized in our skin when exposed to sunlight and small and insufficient quantity of vitamin K is synthesized in the intestine by intestinal flora). Vitamins can not be synthesized but are essential nutrients for us. Vitamins are required by us in very small quantity and fall in the category of micronutrients.

Vitamins do not give us any calorie or energy but helps the body for utilizing other nutrients. Since our body is unable to synthesize vitamins (even if synthesized they are not sufficient), they must be supplied in our diet. A well balanced diet can provide us all the vitamins and other nutrients both major (proteins, fats and carbohydrates) and minor (vitamins, minerals and trace elements or trace minerals).

Vitamins are broadly divided into two groups:

Fat soluble vitamins:

This include vitamin A, D, E and K

Water soluble vitamins:

This include B complex group of vitamins and vitamin C. Vitamin B complex group include vitamin B1 or thiamin (thiamin is the first B complex vitamin to be discovered and named as B1), B2 or riboflavin, B3 or niacin, B6 or pyridoxine, B5 or pantothenic acid, folic acid and vitamin B12, the group also includes choline and flavoniods.

Each of the vitamins has one or more specific functions to perform and deficiency of any of the vitamins can lead to specific deficiency disease (except vitamin E, any deficiency disease is yet to be identified if it is there, but it helps in making the skin glow), e.g. deficiency of vitamin C leads to scurvy (very well known).

The minimum intake of vitamins per day has been determined but the daily optimum intake is still not clear and is still speculative. So the recommended daily allowance of vitamins is in speculative stage.

Image: piyaphantawong / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Related posts:

Vitamins and Minerals in Your Diet

Nutrition and Nutrients

What Complications may Arise due to Gluten Free Diet?

Importance of Vitamin E

Important facts about Essential Amino Acids

Scientific Fact About Foods & Nutrition

Dietary Modification Recommended in Cirrhosis

Factors that alter Energy/Nutrients Need

Dietary modification for Underweight

Common Terms of Nutrition/Health: F to Z

Enlarge Jeff Barnard/AP

Michele Pereira, who questions the schedule of mandatory vaccines, sat with her daughters, Evangeline, 6, right, and Genevieve, 2, at a park in Ashland, Ore., earlier this month.

Jeff Barnard/AP

Michele Pereira, who questions the schedule of mandatory vaccines, sat with her daughters, Evangeline, 6, right, and Genevieve, 2, at a park in Ashland, Ore., earlier this month.

Anxious parents sometimes ask the pediatrician if they can postpone vaccines for young children. And a new survey suggests quite a few doctors go along with the requests, despite standing recommendations they stick to a strict schedule.

In a survey of more than 200 pediatricians in Washington state, 61 percent of the doctors said they are OK with spacing out or delaying some vaccines. That approach flies in the face of the immunization schedule from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Family Physicians, which calls for each child to get 25 shots in the first 18 months of life.

The study was published in the journal Pediatrics.

There's abundant proof that vaccinations protect children from deadly diseases, such as polio, measles and pertussis. Some parents cringe when they see their 4-month-old getting five different shots at a well-baby visit. That inclination and worries about vaccine side effects has sparked interest in alternative immunization schedules that space the shots out.

Indeed, 1 in 10 parents say they've delayed or skipped some vaccines, according to a survey published in Pediatrics last month.

What's more, a new analysis by the Associated Press finds "that more than half of states have seen at least a slight rise in the rate of exemptions" from vaccine requirements for school attendance in the past five years. And in eight states, more than 1 in 20 kindergartners in public school aren't receiving all the required vaccines.

Exemption rates are highest in in the West and Upper Midwest. In Washington state, 6 percent of public school parents have opted out of vaccination, the AP reports.

There's no evidence that delaying or skipping vaccines benefits children's health. And recent outbreaks of measles among unvaccinated children are clear reminders of the dangers posed by infectious diseases.

The alternative vaccine schedule has been popularized by pediatrician Robert Sears, whose The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child, was published in 2007.

Many of Sears' claims, such as the one that vaccines cause chronic disease, have no basis in science. Vaccine expert Dr. Paul Offitt rebutted the claims in a 2009 article in Pediatrics: "The Problem With Dr. Bob's Alternative Vaccine Schedule."

Still, as the latest survey shows, more than half of pediatricians said they are willing to try an alternative vaccination schedule if asked. Three-quarters of the doctors said they had been asked to do so. Almost all said the Sears book didn't influence their thinking on vaccine schedules.

The doctors were most likely to consider delaying hepatitis B; varicella (chickenpox), and polio for four months or more.

But the docters balked at delaying Hib, which prevents meningitis and pneumonia caused by a bacteria; pneumococcal immunization, which prevents pneumonia and ear infections; and DTaP, which protects against diphtheria, tetanus, and whooping cough.

What gives? The study authors suggest that doctors are engaged in a tricky balancing act. "Primary care physicians should be recognized for seeking to immunize their patients against common and devastating diseases of infancy while maintaining a therapeutic alliance with parents," the authors wrote.

In other words: We'll bend a bit so we don't alienate parents. But we're going to make darned sure kids get their shots.

When it comes to their own kids, 96 percent of the surveyed pediatricians said they would stick to the recommended vaccination schedule.

Health insurance doesn’t have to be expensive, and there are policies out there to suit all needs and budgets. Here are five important reasons why you should always shop around for a UK health insurance policy.

1) The NHS Postcode Lottery

The NHS Postcode Lottery describes the huge variation in the National Health Service (NHS) across the UK. Whilst some hospitals give fantastic service, others are performing badly.

Health insurance is designed to supplement the service provided by the NHS, so before shopping for health insurance you should research your local NHS hospital to see where it could improve. If it has long waiting lists for tests and scans, choose a health insurance policy which offers speedy diagnosis.

2) Customise your policy

Before you start looking for health insurance, make a list of the things you want covered and the things that are less important to you- are you interested in quick diagnosis, staying in a particular private hospital, or access to expensive cancer drugs?

Many insurers are now offering adaptable health insurance policies, which you can customise to suit your needs and budget. True health insurance comparison websites will show you all the options from each provider so you can make an informed choice.

3) Reduce your premiums

As with all insurance, your premiums will directly affect your level of cover. Cheap health insurance may seem like good value for money at the time, but you may not be covered for certain drugs and treatments in the future.

There are many ways you can reduce your premiums when purchasing health insurance without sacrificing on cover. Increasing your excess is an easy way of dramatically cutting costs. By choosing an excess of £200, you will pay a maximum of £200 towards your annual claims, and will have significantly lower monthly premiums.

4) Check the small print
Sometimes companies place a limit on the maximum amount they will pay out, particularly when it comes to cancer drugs. Customers might also be unaware that health insurers don’t cover certain procedures, like cosmetic surgery.

Before you purchase health insurance, make sure you are happy with the terms and conditions. If you are not satisfied with the small print, continue to shop around.

5) Beware of unethical companies

Searching through health insurance policies can often be complicated. Comparison websites are an easy way to find a health insurance quote in minutes. However, there are many companies out there who will simply take your personal details and sell them on.

True health insurance comparison websites will be FSA regulated, with a registration number at the bottom of their homepage. These companies should also offer a demonstration of the comparison service they provide.

This is a guest post by Chloe, who writes on health insurance for www.activequote.com, the true health insurance comparison website in the UK.

Related posts:

How to get Affordable Health Insurance?

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Why you should have Health Insurance?

Are you planning to buy Health Insurance?

Should You Buy Travel Insurance?

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Enlarge iStockphoto.com

Right this way, ladies and germs.

iStockphoto.com

Right this way, ladies and germs.

Turns out Howard Hughes was right. The world is a very germy place, especially public restrooms.

The reclusive billionaire, who had the world's most notorious case of so-called germophobia, would go to just about any length to avoid contamination. He wore tissue boxes on his feet. He burned his clothing if someone near him got sick. He wrote careful instructions to his staff on how to open a can of peaches without contaminating them.

And now a study funded in part by his legacy foundation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, provides what may be one of the most thorough assessments so far of the germs that lurk in public restrooms.

Researchers swabbed surfaces in a dozen public johns on the University of Colorado campus in Boulder. They came up with 19 different bacterial phyla, or types.

Some came from soil tracked in on people's shoes. Some of those germs ended up on flush handles, probably because some cautious people used their feet to push down on the handles. But the source of the vast majority of the bacteria was human skin.

Now, it's hardly a surprise that restrooms are full of germs. But this study, which appears in the online journal PLoS-ONE (the acronym stands for Public Library of Science), adds two types of granularity to the "biogeography" of public restrooms, as the scientists term it.

First, previous studies relied on the ability of researchers to culture, or grow bacteria from collected samples. And most microorganisms are not easily cultivated. So the new study, which uses so-called bar-coding of a gene common to viritually all bacteria, gives a more complete picture of the highly diverse types of bacteria lurking in these common spaces.

Second, by tracking the types of bacteria found on different surfaces, the study gives a more complete â€" and disturbing â€" picture of how germs spread all over the place. A restroom user can hardly avoid contacting contaminated surfaces.

As study authors put it, bacterial types associated with human skin, such as staph and strep bacteria, "were abundant on all surfaces."

The surfaces sampled included door handles (into and out of the restroom), stall handles (inside and out), toilet seats, flush handles, faucets, soap dispensers and the floor around the sink. (Ever put your bag on the floor while you washed your hands? I thought so.)

Restroom bacteria cluster in three different communities, the researchers say: those on toilet surfaces, those on the floor and those on door handles and hand-washing appliances.

Those around the toilet were types that live in the human gut, "suggesting fecal contamination of these surfaces...either via direct contact (with feces or unclean hands), or indirectly as a toilet is flushed and water splashes or is aerosolized."

Yes, I know, very unappealing. But I thought you should know.

Interestingly, at least for some people, there was a somewhat different mix of bacteria in women's restrooms compared to men's. Some were germs that prefer female genital tracts.

The bottom line â€" er, grand conclusion â€" is that "routine use of toilets results in the dispersal of urine- and fecal-associated bacteria throughout the restroom."

So wash your hands thoroughly, for Pete's sake! And when you do, try to avoid recontaminating them as you leave.

Addendum: It's possible these particular University of Colorado restrooms were dirtier than most. "Previous studies have documented that college students...are not always the most diligent of hand-washers," the study notes.

But you never know.

Health insurance doesn’t have to be expensive, and there are policies out there to suit all needs and budgets. Here are five important reasons why you should always shop around for a UK health insurance policy.

1) The NHS Postcode Lottery

The NHS Postcode Lottery describes the huge variation in the National Health Service (NHS) across the UK. Whilst some hospitals give fantastic service, others are performing badly.

Health insurance is designed to supplement the service provided by the NHS, so before shopping for health insurance you should research your local NHS hospital to see where it could improve. If it has long waiting lists for tests and scans, choose a health insurance policy which offers speedy diagnosis.

2) Customise your policy

Before you start looking for health insurance, make a list of the things you want covered and the things that are less important to you- are you interested in quick diagnosis, staying in a particular private hospital, or access to expensive cancer drugs?

Many insurers are now offering adaptable health insurance policies, which you can customise to suit your needs and budget. True health insurance comparison websites will show you all the options from each provider so you can make an informed choice.

3) Reduce your premiums

As with all insurance, your premiums will directly affect your level of cover. Cheap health insurance may seem like good value for money at the time, but you may not be covered for certain drugs and treatments in the future.

There are many ways you can reduce your premiums when purchasing health insurance without sacrificing on cover. Increasing your excess is an easy way of dramatically cutting costs. By choosing an excess of £200, you will pay a maximum of £200 towards your annual claims, and will have significantly lower monthly premiums.

4) Check the small print
Sometimes companies place a limit on the maximum amount they will pay out, particularly when it comes to cancer drugs. Customers might also be unaware that health insurers don’t cover certain procedures, like cosmetic surgery.

Before you purchase health insurance, make sure you are happy with the terms and conditions. If you are not satisfied with the small print, continue to shop around.

5) Beware of unethical companies

Searching through health insurance policies can often be complicated. Comparison websites are an easy way to find a health insurance quote in minutes. However, there are many companies out there who will simply take your personal details and sell them on.

True health insurance comparison websites will be FSA regulated, with a registration number at the bottom of their homepage. These companies should also offer a demonstration of the comparison service they provide.

This is a guest post by Chloe, who writes on health insurance for www.activequote.com, the true health insurance comparison website in the UK.

Related posts:

How to get Affordable Health Insurance?

Health Insurance for Visitors

Why you should have Health Insurance?

Are you planning to buy Health Insurance?

Should You Buy Travel Insurance?

Going for a Trip? Did you Buy Travel Insurance?

Importance of Travel Insurance

Emergency Loans in Health Care

Health Reasons of Quitting Smoking

Find a Doctor Online

Enlarge iStockphoto.com

Right this way, ladies and germs.

iStockphoto.com

Right this way, ladies and germs.

Turns out Howard Hughes was right. The world is a very germy place, especially public restrooms.

The reclusive billionaire, who had the world's most notorious case of so-called germophobia, would go to just about any length to avoid contamination. He wore tissue boxes on his feet. He burned his clothing if someone near him got sick. He wrote careful instructions to his staff on how to open a can of peaches without contaminating them.

And now a study funded in part by his legacy foundation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, provides what may be one of the most thorough assessments so far of the germs that lurk in public restrooms.

Researchers swabbed surfaces in a dozen public johns on the University of Colorado campus in Boulder. They came up with 19 different bacterial phyla, or types.

Some came from soil tracked in on people's shoes. Some of those germs ended up on flush handles, probably because some cautious people used their feet to push down on the handles. But the source of the vast majority of the bacteria was human skin.

Now, it's hardly a surprise that restrooms are full of germs. But this study, which appears in the online journal PLoS-ONE (the acronym stands for Public Library of Science), adds two types of granularity to the "biogeography" of public restrooms, as the scientists term it.

First, previous studies relied on the ability of researchers to culture, or grow bacteria from collected samples. And most microorganisms are not easily cultivated. So the new study, which uses so-called bar-coding of a gene common to viritually all bacteria, gives a more complete picture of the highly diverse types of bacteria lurking in these common spaces.

Second, by tracking the types of bacteria found on different surfaces, the study gives a more complete â€" and disturbing â€" picture of how germs spread all over the place. A restroom user can hardly avoid contacting contaminated surfaces.

As study authors put it, bacterial types associated with human skin, such as staph and strep bacteria, "were abundant on all surfaces."

The surfaces sampled included door handles (into and out of the restroom), stall handles (inside and out), toilet seats, flush handles, faucets, soap dispensers and the floor around the sink. (Ever put your bag on the floor while you washed your hands? I thought so.)

Restroom bacteria cluster in three different communities, the researchers say: those on toilet surfaces, those on the floor and those on door handles and hand-washing appliances.

Those around the toilet were types that live in the human gut, "suggesting fecal contamination of these surfaces...either via direct contact (with feces or unclean hands), or indirectly as a toilet is flushed and water splashes or is aerosolized."

Yes, I know, very unappealing. But I thought you should know.

Interestingly, at least for some people, there was a somewhat different mix of bacteria in women's restrooms compared to men's. Some were germs that prefer female genital tracts.

The bottom line â€" er, grand conclusion â€" is that "routine use of toilets results in the dispersal of urine- and fecal-associated bacteria throughout the restroom."

So wash your hands thoroughly, for Pete's sake! And when you do, try to avoid recontaminating them as you leave.

Addendum: It's possible these particular University of Colorado restrooms were dirtier than most. "Previous studies have documented that college students...are not always the most diligent of hand-washers," the study notes.

But you never know.

Health insurance doesn’t have to be expensive, and there are policies out there to suit all needs and budgets. Here are five important reasons why you should always shop around for a UK health insurance policy.

1) The NHS Postcode Lottery

The NHS Postcode Lottery describes the huge variation in the National Health Service (NHS) across the UK. Whilst some hospitals give fantastic service, others are performing badly.

Health insurance is designed to supplement the service provided by the NHS, so before shopping for health insurance you should research your local NHS hospital to see where it could improve. If it has long waiting lists for tests and scans, choose a health insurance policy which offers speedy diagnosis.

2) Customise your policy

Before you start looking for health insurance, make a list of the things you want covered and the things that are less important to you- are you interested in quick diagnosis, staying in a particular private hospital, or access to expensive cancer drugs?

Many insurers are now offering adaptable health insurance policies, which you can customise to suit your needs and budget. True health insurance comparison websites will show you all the options from each provider so you can make an informed choice.

3) Reduce your premiums

As with all insurance, your premiums will directly affect your level of cover. Cheap health insurance may seem like good value for money at the time, but you may not be covered for certain drugs and treatments in the future.

There are many ways you can reduce your premiums when purchasing health insurance without sacrificing on cover. Increasing your excess is an easy way of dramatically cutting costs. By choosing an excess of £200, you will pay a maximum of £200 towards your annual claims, and will have significantly lower monthly premiums.

4) Check the small print
Sometimes companies place a limit on the maximum amount they will pay out, particularly when it comes to cancer drugs. Customers might also be unaware that health insurers don’t cover certain procedures, like cosmetic surgery.

Before you purchase health insurance, make sure you are happy with the terms and conditions. If you are not satisfied with the small print, continue to shop around.

5) Beware of unethical companies

Searching through health insurance policies can often be complicated. Comparison websites are an easy way to find a health insurance quote in minutes. However, there are many companies out there who will simply take your personal details and sell them on.

True health insurance comparison websites will be FSA regulated, with a registration number at the bottom of their homepage. These companies should also offer a demonstration of the comparison service they provide.

This is a guest post by Chloe, who writes on health insurance for www.activequote.com, the true health insurance comparison website in the UK.

Related posts:

How to get Affordable Health Insurance?

Health Insurance for Visitors

Why you should have Health Insurance?

Are you planning to buy Health Insurance?

Should You Buy Travel Insurance?

Going for a Trip? Did you Buy Travel Insurance?

Importance of Travel Insurance

Emergency Loans in Health Care

Health Reasons of Quitting Smoking

Find a Doctor Online

Narcotic painkillers are among the most commonly prescribed drugs in the U.S., with more than 244 million prescriptions dispensed in 2010.

The drugs help ease the pain of tens of millions of people each year. But the potent narcotics also carry serious risks that can be heightened by chronic use or abuse.

So-called pill mills have drawn fire for enabling abuse of such drugs as Oxycontin and Vicodin. And some prominent doctors have called for a re-think of narcotics to treat chronic pain, citing a lack of evidence for that practice and serious problems with misuse.

In the latest NPR-Thomson Reuters Health Poll, we asked Americans about their experience with narcotic painkillers and their views about the drugs. Half the respondents said they had been prescribed a narcotic painkiller at least once. More than three-quarters said the drugs are linked to addiction.

 

Among those who said they'd received a painkiller, about 31 percent said they'd received a medicine to relieve chronic pain. Some 88 percent said they'd been prescribed a narcotic to help with acute pain caused by such things as injuries and surgery. (Some people had been prescribed narcotics for both types of pain.)

A little more than a third of respondents who have used they medicines said they had concerns about them. The top issues were side effects (45 percent) and fear of addiction (27 percent).

About 30 percent of those who said they hadn't used the painkillers said they had concerns about them. The fear of addiction was the top worry (38 percent) followed by narcotics' association with drug abuse (25 percent).

Finally, 31 percent of people polled said they'd questioned or refused a doctor's recommendation of painkillers.

Since the discovery of narcotic painkillers, "there's been a swinging pendulum" of opinion about them, said Dr. Gregory Terman, a professor of anesthesiology at the University of Washington School of Medicine. At one extreme people are afraid of the drugs, he told Shots, and at the other people see them as a panacea.

"All medications have side effects, and it sound like the people who have used the medication are very aware of the side effects," he said of the poll's findings.

Addiction is a legitimate concern, he said, but it's "a side effect that affects a small fraction of people" who have a predisposition for abuse or develop a preference for recreational use of the drugs.

He stressed the importance of keeping the "medications in the hands of patients who are doing better" because of them while minimizing the diversion of the drugs for misuse and abuse.

The telephone poll was conducted during the first half of October. The margin for error is plus or minus 1.8 percentage points. Click here to read the questions and full results. You can find the previous polls here.

Prediabetes is a condition where blood glucose level is higher than normal but not high enough to diagnose it as diabetes. Studies has shown that majority of prediabetics develop type-2 diabetes within 10 years. It is therefore important to find out if you are prediabetics, because it is possible to delay/prevent development of type-2 diabetes if proper preventive measures are taken.

Why should I know if I have prediabetes?

The simple reason for knowing if you have prediabetes is that, majority of prediabetics will develop type-2 diabetes within 10 years and it is possible to delay/prevent development of diabetes from prediabetes by taking appropriate measures such as lifestyle modification (daily physical exercise of approximately 30 minutes), adopting healthy eating habits with lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. If you know you have prediabetes you can take measures to prevent diabetes. There are also some oral hypoglycemic drugs which can help in preventing diabetes.

Should I get tested for prediabetes?

Everybody does not need to get tested for prediabetes. Test for prediabetes is generally recommended if you are overweight/obese and above 45 years of age. You also need to be tested for prediabetes if you have any risk factors of developing diabetes, such as family history of diabetes, if you are a female and gave birth to a large baby, you belong to some ethnic group with high prevalence of diabetes, unfavorable lipid profile (high LDL or low density lipoprotein and low HDL or high density lipoprotein) etc. So, next time when you go for routine medical check up, ask your doctor if you need to get tested for prediabetes/diabetes.

Can I have prediabetes if I do not have any risk factors mentioned above?

Yes, you can have prediabetes or even diabetes without having any of the risk factors mentioned above. Because prediabetes do not suffer from any symptoms and some diabetes (especially in early stage) also may not have any symptoms. Sometimes five years or more may lapse before diabetes is diagnosed and the disease may have already progressed and started causing complications.

How prediabetes is diagnosed?

It is diagnosed by any of the three methods, namely (1) Fasting plasma glucose test, (2) oral glucose tolerance test or OGTT and (3) by testing hemoglobin A1C.

What is the treatment for prediabetes?

The treatment for prediabetes is mainly aimed at preventing/delaying development of type-2 diabetes. Regular physical exercise such as brisk walking for 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week is recommended. Change your dietary habits (and have diet for diabetes) to include more fresh fruits and vegetables. Exercise and diet will help reduce body weight if you are obese or overweight. Weight loss of 5-10% can make a huge difference.

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NIDA

Research that found a third of popular songs contain drug references, led to headlines like, "Study: Music Has Drug References, Pope Is Catholic" a few years back.

Drugs and music. The two just seem to go together. Often, though, in a more tragic way than artists would like to let on. Compare Amy Winehouse's defiant lyrics to her reality: the singer who said "no, no, no" to rehab lost her very public struggle with alcohol last summer.

There are countless other examples. But some artists and organizations aren't content with the status quo.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse has teamed up with MusiCares and the Grammy Foundation to sponsor a music contest to raise teen awareness of substance abuse.

 

Young songwriters submit original compositions that either celebrate a healthful lifestyle or accurately depict drug abuse.

The result is a series of honest, heartbreaking and hopeful songs from young people whose lives had been altered by substance abuse and addiction.

Unlike motivational speakers and celebrities, who have usually already slain their demons and are talking about their drug use in retrospect, these young people are sharing their stories from the thick of things.

When the winners were named recently, the top songwriting team was identified only as Harvie and Amanda. Both are currently in treatment, and their full names won't be released until they finish their program.

"The winning song reflects the hope that treatment brings, especially to young people who have so much potential to change their life course," NIDA Director Nora Volkow said in a statement. "This songwriting team brought incredible emotion to their personal journey that hopefully will encourage others to seek treatment for substance abuse problems."

Kevin Simmons, who took second place, also wrote his composition during a stay in a rehabilitation center. His rap number My Life chronicles a drug habit that started in fifth grade and landed Simmons in both jail and rehab by the time he was in high school.

Creative endeavors can be an important outlet for those trying to overcome an addiction, and the strategy also works for those dealing with a loved one's addiction.

Fifteen-year-old Grant Davis has been involved in music for 5 years. He took up singing when his sister's drug use started taking over his family life. "I needed a way to cope," Davis told Shots.

Last year, he tried his hand at songwriting. His first effort, "Just a Child" won third place in this year's contest.

Davis said that before he wrote the song, he was struggling to understand his sister's addiction and why she couldn't just get better. The song was an exercise in seeing things from her point of view and realizing how much of a battle she faced.

The song became a collaborative project, with many members of the family and others who knew Davis' sister contributing and shaping the lyrics. As he asked for help with his musical endeavor, Davis was also reaching out to his family and friends and opening up more communication between them. "It was my first real song," Davis told Shots. "I wanted to make sure that it was good enough for me and for my sister."

When asked about the message behind his song, Davis said "drugs take away your dreams and take all control. You have no choice any longer."

His advice to other teens? It's important to find an expressive outlet, a way to cope with substance abuse, whether it's your own, or that of a family member. "It's a place where you can find peace," Davis said of music.

All the contest winners will get to go backstage during the rehearsals for the Grammy awards next February, and their songs will be aired on various websites including Grammy 365, MTV, and the Above the Influence Campaign.

Vitamin A is widely distributed among animal and plant sources of our food. In animal foods vitamin A is present as preformed vitamin A (retinol) and in plant foods vitamin A is present as provitamin (carotenes, such as beta carotene).

The vitamin A value of food is expressed as retinol activity equivalent (RAE). One RAE is equivalent of 1 mcg (microgram) of retinol, 12 mcg of beta carotene, and 24 mcg of other provitamin-A carotenoids.

Animal Sources of Vitamin A:

Liver, egg and fish are excellent source of vitamin A (preformed vitamin A). Other rich sources of vitamin A of animal origin include butter, cheese, meat etc. The richest natural source of vitamin A is fish liver oil (cod liver oil, halibut liver oil etc.), but fish liver oil is generally used as dietary supplement for vitamin A deficiency, rather than as diet or food source of vitamin A. Presence of fat in the diet aid absorption of vitamin A as it is fat soluble vitamin.

Plant Sources of Vitamin A:

Very cheap and rich plant source of vitamin A are green leafy vegetables such as spinach, amaranth, cabbage etc. Other rich plant sources of vitamin A include colored vegetables (tomato, pumpkin, carrots, beet root etc.) and fruits like papaya, orange, mango, pineapple, brown grapes etc. The darker the vegetable generally the better is the vitamin A content of the vegetable. Moderate cooking of vegetables enhances carotenoid release for uptake in the gut and help in absorption of vitamin from gut due to higher availability.

Fortified Foods for Vitamin A:

Foods fortified with vitamin A are also very important sources of vitamin A. Vitamin A fortification of foods is done for providing adequate (recommended amount) vitamin A to general population. Food fortification (with vitamin A) is done for milk, cooking oils, ghee, butter etc.

Some foods with vitamin A content in micrograms/100 gram:

• Halibut liver oil- 900,000 mcg/100 grams
• Cod liver oil- 18,000 mcg/100 grams
• Liver (beef) â€" 16,500 mcg/100 grams
• Egg- 140 mcg/100 grams
• Butter- 825 mcg/100 grams
• Cheese- 350 mcg/100 grams
• Milk (cow) â€" 38 mcg/100 grams
• Fish- 40 mcg/100 grams
• Carrot- 1167 mcg/100 grams
• Spinach- 607 mcg/100 grams
• Green leaves- 300 mcg/100 grams
• Amaranth- 515 mcg/100 grams
• Tomato- 84 mcg/100 grams
• Mango- 313 mcg/100 grams
• Orange- 25 mcg/100 grams

The liver is the store house for vitamin A in humans and other animals, so liver is a rich source of vitamin A. Vitamin A is stored in liver in the form of retinol palmitate. In normal person the store in liver can supply vitamin A requirement for 6-9 months or more. So in general vitamin deficiency means, it is long term deficiency.

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Enlarge Keith Weller/Courtesy of Johns Hopkins Medicine

Striking a pose like Hamlet, Kofi Boahene, a surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital, peers through the natural opening under the cheekbone and above the jaw that he uses for surgery.

Keith Weller/Courtesy of Johns Hopkins Medicine

Striking a pose like Hamlet, Kofi Boahene, a surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital, peers through the natural opening under the cheekbone and above the jaw that he uses for surgery.

Add minimally invasive surgery through an opening between the cheek and jaw to the list of procedures I'm happy exist and that I hope I'll never have to endure.

A Johns Hopkins surgeon who is pretty handy with an endoscope has figured out how to operate in some hard-to-reach spots at the base of the skull through a natural opening that's above the jawbone, behind the back teeth and just below the cheekbone.

It requires a small incision inside the cheek, sure, but that's no biggie, really.

 

Dr. Kofi Boahene, an assistant professor of facial plastic and reconstructive surgery at Hopkins, has tried the technique in a handful of patients. The results from four cases were described in the journal The Laryngoscope last month.

The base of the skull is a tough place for an operation because of all the nerves and blood vessels there. The usual approach to removing tumors or dealing with other problems in the infratemporal fossa and parapharyngeal space, if you're interested in the particulars, is invasive and can be disfiguring.

The new, endoscopic technique seems pretty slick but also a little tricky. Can other surgeons do it? I emailed Boahene about that. He replied: "The procedure can be widely done. I have already taught another surgeon in another hospital who has done one case."

So far the patients have fared well. One patient had temporary trouble swallowing after the operation, another had some numbness in the lower lip that soon went away, the recently published paper says. The other two patients had no reported complications.

Next month, the approach will be taught to more surgeons at a Hopkins conference. "The surgical skill set required for this can be made widely available quickly," Boahene wrote. His peers already have the equipment and comfortable using it, he added.

Discovery of ORS (oral rehydration salt or solution) is one of the greatest discoveries in the field of medical science in recent time. It has saved (still saving and will continue to save) more lives than any other medicine (e.g. penicillin). Discovery of penicillin is considered one of the greatest discoveries of medical science, but simple ORS has saved more lives than penicillin. Every year ORS is saving millions of lives (infants, children and adults alike) around the world, especially in developing countries.

Diarrhea is responsible for mortality, morbidity, social inconvenience, loss of work productivity, and consumption of medical resources of all nations. More than one billion individuals are affected by one or more episodes of diarrhea worldwide every year. It is estimated that globally (mostly in developing countries) approximately 3 million deaths occur due to diarrhea every year, mostly children and infants. But a greater (>3 million) number of deaths are averted by use of ORS in developing countries, which is cheap, easily available and can even be made at home with available ingredients (homemade ORS).

When ORS should be used?

ORS should be used in case of mild to moderate dehydration. If fluid loss due to diarrhea (sometimes due to vomiting also) is 5% to 7% of body weight, it is considered mild dehydration and fluid loss of 7% to 10% of body weight is moderate dehydration. Fluid loss of more than 10% (severe dehydration) needs treatment with intravenous fluid. For example, if body weight of a baby is 10 kilo, loss of 500 ml of body fluid is 5% fluid loss. Ideally correction of dehydration should start from the beginning of diarrhea.

How much ORS should be used for treatment?

The aim of treatment (correction of dehydration) with ORS is to replace the lost body fluid in 2 to 4 hours. For example if a baby has body weight of 10 kilo and has mild dehydration (loss of approximately 5% fluid), the lost fluid i.e. approximately 500 ml (5% of 10 kilo) should be replaced in 2 to 4 hours. In simple words, 500 ml of ORS should be given to the baby in 2 to 4 hours.

Babies should be given ORS every 10-15 minutes with spoon. Thirst due to lost fluid provides adequate driving force for the baby to drink ORS. Once the lost fluid is replaced, it can be left to demand of the baby (patient), but it should cover at least the fluid lost due to diarrhea.

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