American adults have a higher prevalence of stroke than their European counterparts, due in part to a higher rate of stroke risk factors among Americans and barriers to care in the United States, according to a study presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2008.
Compared to European men, U.S. men had 61 percent higher odds of having a stroke and U.S. women had almost twice the odds of stroke as European women.
Vicki Warren is the program director for the International Institute for Bau-Biologie & Ecology (IBE). For more details on this exciting and growing movement, see How Bau-Biologie Can Keep You and Your Home Healthy.
One of the most common justifications for consumer-driven medicine is reduced health care costs. The reasoning here is two-fold:
1. Since they're high-deductible and low premium, consumer-driven health plans require more out-of-pocket spending. Consumers are more cost-conscious when they have to actively shell out for purchases. As a result, they will user fewer health care services - and thus overall health care costs will fall.
2. If consumers are in the driver's seat, competition in an open market will drive prices down. For-profit providers will want to offer the best deal to get the most business. Consumers will also have better information thanks to the commoditization of medicine, which will translate medical jargon into universally comprehensible knowledge. Smarter consumers translate into less over-payment for services.
This is standard-issue free market orthodoxy at its finest. Unfortunately, this isn't the whole story. In fact, there's an even stronger argument to be made that consumer-driven health plans could lead to higher health care costs.
While medical ethicists continue to debate the morality of the practice, couples from the United States and elsewhere are increasingly turning to India for the ultimate outsource - surrogate mothers.
One such couple is Lisa and Brian Switzer. After spending seven years and $90,000 trying to get pregnant, the American couple last year engaged a surrogate in India to carry their child.
Charles Starmer-Smith The Telegraph Fri, 22 Feb 2008 15:04 UTC
More and more pilots are reporting that air polluted by engine fumes is making them ill and even incapable of handling their aircraft. So why are passengers not being told? Charles Starmer-Smith reports.
"It was during the descent that my first officer told me he was feeling really bad and very close to vomiting. He went on to oxygen. I felt confused and five seconds later I, too, was close to vomiting. I just managed to put on my mask, after which I could hardly move. We were sitting there flying at 600 miles an hour, late at night, both of us more or less incapacitated. I could not even raise my hand; I could not talk; it was like I was paralysed."
This is not a script for a Hollywood action film but the account of Neils Gomer, a captain on a Swedish aircraft, who was almost completely incapacitated by toxic fumes. He also stated that many of the 73 passengers on the flight were so deeply asleep that it was difficult to wake them up - a fact confirmed by the accident investigator, who noted that passengers were in a "zombie-like condition". He managed to land, but said later that if he had delayed by seconds going on to oxygen the plane would have crashed.
Roger Highfield The Telegraph Fri, 22 Feb 2008 14:37 UTC
Some say it is harmful to bottle up anger.
Now evidence has been found that suppressing rage delays healing, suggesting that anger management courses could help wounded people to leave hospital sooner.
Earlier work showed how stresses hold up healing, from the chronic stress caused by caring for a parent with dementia to the burst of hostility caused by everyday events, such as a marital spat.
It's become an occupational hazard for celebrities. But what's it really like to live with bipolar disorder?
Gail Porter has it. Stephen Fry made a documentary about it. Sophie Anderton, Adam Ant, Russell Brand, Richard Dreyfuss, Kerry Katona and Tony Slattery are all sufferers. And now Britney, too, has bipolar disorder, at least according to the media, in whose unforgiving glare she has undergone her very public meltdown.
At times, it seems as though bipolar illness is the latest celebrity fad - like wheat intolerance, perhaps. But the apparent spike in celebrity sufferers points to something else: that awareness amongst both clinicians and the public is growing and some of the stigma attached to admitting to mental health problems has begun to diminish.
Once known for gentle cheerleading and encouragement, the genre now berates readers with 'you're an idiot' messages.
Of all the aisles in the typical American bookstore, none has expanded faster than the one devoted to self-help. But customers looking for some sage words of relationship advice or a little "you can do it!" encouragement to lose weight may be in for a shock. The motivational gurus of the Simon Cowell (of "American Idol" fame) generation are here with blunt appraisals of our personal shortcomings.
Beijing - China expressed regret on Thursday at reports the U.S. Olympic team would bring its own meat for the Beijing Games over concerns of drugs tainted food, and said it could guarantee safe supplies.
"We have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population. This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction."
~ US State Department, 1948
- George Kennan
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