But is it hard cold cash or increased awareness that is fueling this apparent surge in egg donation interest?

Given that these are tough economic times and an egg donor can recevie compensation in the range of $5000 to $10000, it stands to reason that there is a strong financial motive behind becoming an egg donor. But while money might be the initial motivator, most woman would not do this without an underlying desire to help infertile couples have children.

It might sound like easy money but it’s not. Egg donation is an extensive, and potentially dangerous, procedure. First, there’s the series of psychological and physical exams that any potential donor has to undergo. It’s a process that can take over a month and will eliminate up to 90% of those who apply.

If accepted, donors then have to a daily fertility drug injection for a couple of weeks or more. And then there’s the egg procurement, an invasive procedure involving a large thin needle, done in the operating theater while the woman is sedated.

Plus, there are risks ranging from mild short time risks such as abdominal pain, bloating, and weight gain to more serious long term risks such as enlarged ovaries (ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome).

Definitely not a walk in the park.

And definitely not something that, in my mind, any woman would do simply for the money.

What do you think?

Post from: Healthbolt

Well, it seems that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is no different. They, too, attach conditions on their loans to recipient countries. Conditions such as the country being required to reduce or limit their education, social services, and health expenditure in an effort to get inflation in check. The idea behind this is that, despite these cutbacks in services, once the country’s inflation has been controlled and economy restored, the health of the people will improve automatically.

But as a recent article in Slate points out – this ain’t necessarily so!

Turns out a new research study with a long drawn out title – International Monetary Fund Programs and Tuberculosis Outcomes in Post-Communist Countries - has found the opposite seems to be happening.

Here’s Slate’s take on it…

“The authors find that the IMF’s strictly conditioned loans are associated with a fall in the quality of health, measured by one important indicator: an increase in the rate of tuberculosis. They further argue that this is a relationship of cause and effect—that the IMF loans (or, realistically, the conditions attached to them) are responsible for the observed decline in health. While it’s perhaps impossible to prove this using the tools of epidemiology, the authors substantiate an extremely strong case.”

And there seems to plenty of numbers and stats to back this up.

Read the non-scientist speak version over at Slate or dig in and read the full research article over at PLos, a peer-reviewed open-access journal, and you’ll see what I mean.

I guess money not only doesn’t buy happiness, it also doesn’t guarantee good health!!!

Post from: Healthbolt

When he announced his condition in December, he called it ‘an embuggerance’.

Now he has a whole lot more to say. At the recent Annual Network Conference of the Alzheimer’s Research Trust in England, Terry talked about how it felt to discover he had Alzheimer’s disease and the extreme measure he would go to in order to get cured…

“Part of me lives in a world of new age remedies and science, and some of the science is a little like vodoo, but science was never an exact science, and personally I’d eat the arse out of a dead mole if it offered a fighting chance.”

He also discussed at length the lack of funding for Alzheimer’s research…

“I am, along with many others, scrabbling to stay ahead long enough to be there when the Cure comes along. Say it will be soon – there’s nearly as many of us as there are cancer sufferers, and it looks as if the number of people with dementia will double within a generation. In most cases, alongside the sufferer you will find a spouse suffering as much. It is a shock to find out that funding for Alzheimer’s research is just 3% of that to find cancer cures.”

Terry then pledged $1 million to the Alzheimer’s Research Trust.

(source)

Post from: Healthbolt

The results of the study, published in the latest edition of Science, were based on a series of experiments that examined the question ‘How could people use their money more effectively so that it would actually deliver more happiness?’

Three experiments were conducted…

The first featured 632 Americans who were asked to rate their happiness on a five point scale, report their annual income, and estimate the amount they spend in a typical month on bills, gifts for themselves and others, and charitable donations. The results showed that those who spent more money on others scored higher on the five point ‘happiness’ scale.

A second experiment narrowed the scope of the study. Sixteen employees of a Boston company were asked to rate their happiness one month before receiving a $5000 bonus and then six to eight weeks after the bonus was given. They then had to report how the bonus was spent. Turns out that those who spent more of their bonus money on others or gave more away to charity scored higher on their post-bonus  ’happiness’ scale.

The third experiment was conducted on the University of British Columbia campus. A group of people were given money – either $5 or $20 – and then given specific instructions on how to spend it. They also had to spend it by 5pm that day. Some were told to spend it on their rent, bills, or a gift for themselves. Others were told to spend it on a gift for someone else or give it to charity. As with the other experiments, the participants were asked about where they were on the five point ‘happiness’ scale before and after the money was given and spent. And again, those who spent the money on others or gave it to charity increased their ‘happiness’ score.

Seems that money can buy happiness after all – as long as you spend it on someone else.

(source)

Post from: Healthbolt

Turns out it’s not only humans that are attracted to money. Germs are too according to a new Swiss study that suggests that those who deal with large quantities of money are at greater risk of catching the flu. The study found that flu viruses were able to survive on banknotes for up to 17 days after initial exposure.

Luckily (or unluckily) most of us don’t handle enough money to be at risk of getting infected.

But what about cashiers and bank employees who routinely deal with large amounts of paper currency?

Will they soon be turned into gloved and masked men (and women) in an attempt to keep them safe.

Post from: Healthbolt

Well, here’s a way to not only exercise your brain but also give food to those in need.

FreeRice.com has created an interactive multichoice vocabulary quiz. You click on an answer and if you’re right, the rice bowl on the screen fills with rice. For each right answer 20 grams of rice is donated on your behalf through the United Nations to help end world hunger. If you choose a wrong answer the right answer appears but no rice. So you win both ways – by donating and by learning.

I first wrote about FreeRice.com at my writing blog back in November. Since then the total donated has grown by the millions. At last count (28 Dec 2007) 11,895,283,110 grains of rice have been donated by people like you and me simply clicking onto the site and playing the interactive game.

It costs us nothing but time.

So do one last good thing before the end of the year.

Play FreeRice.com

Post from: Healthbolt

Ever wondered how much your body is worth? Start planning now with the Cadaver Calculator!

The Cadaver Calculator asks you a series of questions, including whether you are fit or obese, if you’re a lil smokey or not, how much liquor you quaff, if you are an albino (hey), and if you ever eat anything remotely leafy and green. My mortal coil is evidently worth 5 G’s. How much is yours worth?

(Brilliant: the Cadaver Calculator comes to us via Mingle2, an online dating site. Now that’s romance!)

Post from: Healthbolt

Post from: Healthbolt

• Tenet had to pay $900 million to Uncle Sam last summer to settle charges that it had overbilled Medicare and Medicaid over many years.
• Tenet just paid $80 million to the IRS after an audit found it owed back taxes going back as far as 1995.
• The company recently had to restate nearly five years of earnings statements after an investigation into its books.
• One of its clinics in South Carolina performed 436 open heart operations without certification.
• The company is being sued in California by staff claiming they were systematically short-changed on pay and overtime, in breach of the state’s labor code.
• Three former Tenet staff members, at a New Orleans hospital it owned, are under investigation for allegedly euthanizing four patients following Hurricane Katrina.

Well, hell. I know what I would do. I’d get a Florida politician involved at the top levels. That’ll turn things around… (yikes)

Post from: Healthbolt

If anyone cares to send me a pair of those Men’s Cyclo Race ST’s, I’m an 11.

Post from: Healthbolt