In a year where most of the media has been focusing on the American elections, these are the ten Most unreported humantiarian stories of 2008…
 

• Somalia’s Humanitarian Catastrophe Worsens
• Beyond the International Spotlight, Critical Health Needs in Myanmar Remain Unmet
• Health Crisis Sweeps Zimbabwe as Violence and Economic Collapse Spread
• Civilians Trapped as War Rages in Eastern Congo
• Millions of Malnourished Children Left Untreated Despite Advances in Lifesaving Nutritional Therapies
• Critical Need of Assistance in Ethiopia’s Somali Region
• Civilians Killed and Forced to Flee as Fighting Intensifies in Northwestern Pakistan
• No End in Sight to Violence and Suffering in Sudan
• Iraqi Civilians in Urgent Need of Assistance
• HIV/TB Co-infections Posses Health Battle on Two Fronts

Have a read. It’s a true eye opener on what’s really happening in the world around us.
 

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Post from: Healthbolt

Tomorrow America votes and a new president will be elected.

But tomorrow’s election is not just about whether McCain or Obama wins.

There are also a number of important health initiatives on various State ballots. Here’s just a few of them…

Washington has Measure 1000, also known as The Washington Death with Dignity Act, on the ballot. It’s an initiative that asks whether to allow dying patients to get a prescription for medicine to commit suicide.

Arizona has Proposition 101 which looks at freedom of choice in health care. This initiative, if passed, would block the state from enacting a universal health-insurance plan.

Michigan has two health-related issues on it’s ballot.

First, there’s Medical Marijuana Measure that wants to “…to provide protections for the medical use of marihuana..[and]…to provide for a system of registry identification cards for qualifying patients and primary caregivers…”

Second, there’s the Stem Cell Initiative that would “…allow researchers in the state to study embryos that were created as part of fertility treatments, provided the embryos would be destroyed if they weren’t used in research.”

For a full list of ballot measures that voters throughout the country are deciding on, check out 2008 ballot measures

(source)

Post from: Healthbolt

Can someone’s political leaning be determined by how messy their office and bedrooms are ?

Researchers of a controversal new study about to be published in The Journal of Political Psychology say yes.

The study, which included surveys and room inspections of 76 college students and 94 professionals ranging from realtors to architects, found that…

“…the bedrooms and offices of liberals, who are generally thought of as open, tend to be colorful and awash in books about travel, ethnicity, feminism and music, along with music CDs covering folk, classic and modern rock, as well as art supplies, movie tickets and travel memorabilia.”

while…

“Conservatives…tend to surround themselves with calendars, postage stamps, laundry baskets, irons and sewing materials in their personal spaces, according to the study. Their bedrooms and offices are well-lighted and decorated with sports paraphernalia and flags—especially American ones.”

Does this ring true for you?

(source)

Post from: Healthbolt

Today is Blog Action Day, a day when bloggers throughout the world join together and post about a common topic, hoping to activate, inform, and increase awareness of important world issues.

This year Blog Action Day focuses on Poverty.

Here at Healthbolt, instead of writing paragraphs about poverty, I decided to provide a link to a place where, with the use of our brains and the click of our mouse, we can ensure that money is being donated to people and places in great need.

So please, take a some time out of your busy schedules and visit this site. And get clicking…

FreeRice

For each answer you get right, they donate 20 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program.

Post from: Healthbolt

C’mon, people, you know there is some serious partying going on at these things.

But who’s having the most fun? At one time, conventional wisdom might have pointed to the Dems. Not so much due to their star-power and celeb-heavy support system (though that surely helps), but because their convention was held in the high altitude haven of Denver, Colorado. Every fool knows that drinking in the thin air will lead to moments of tipsy table dancing faster than at sea level, right? In fact, it has been reported that the DNC attendees were even handed out warnings saying as much.

Not so, says researchers. Instead, in studies, there was little to no difference seen at all between the behaviors of mountain top drinkers and those more rooted. True, higher altitudes can play with your mind slightly in general, but drinking is drinking wherever ye’s glass shall be tipped.

As for who’s having the most fun…well now that Gustav has blown away and Sarah Palin takes the podium tonight, we’ll just have to wait and see…

Cheers!

Post from: Healthbolt

So I’ve decided if you can’t beat them, you might as well join them.

In the spirit of providing fair and balanced (isn’t that what all the news channels are claiming they are doing) coverage, here’s Healthbolt’s list of healthcare election resources…

WebMD claims that they have cut through the clutter with their Health Matters in the 2008 Election. It’s a comprehensive report on both Obama’s and McCain’s Health Platforms, a side-by-side comparison chart of the where the two candidates stand on key health issues, and a WebMD reality check by three health care experts who analyze the candidates’ health care plans.

The Henry J Kaiser Foundation provides detailed information on John McCain’s and Barack Obama’s health proposals as well as a comparision chart. Plus there are videos and ads that each candidate has made on the issue of health.

Families USA also has information and comparisons of the healthcare platforms of Obama and McCain in their 28 page report Health Care and the 2008 Presidential Elections.

That’s it.

We provide the information.

You make the decisions.

…………………………………………………………………………………………

…..Enter here to win a DVD of the Food Matters Documentary…..

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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

The Japanese goverment, however, thinks otherwise and has embarked on a mandatory campaign to slim it’s nation down. Two months ago they passed a national law that requires all companies and local governments to measure the waists of their employees (including family members) aged 40 to 74 as part of their annual checkups. With almost half the Japanese population fitting into this category, that makes an awful lot of waists to be measured.

The new law puts the maximum limit for male waistlines at 33.5 inches and women at 35.4 inches. Anyone exceeding this will be expected to bring their waists into line with the approved government standards through dietary advice, guidance, and education.  Failure to do so will result in the financial penalties being imposed on the employee’s company and local government.

Reducing waistlines has much scientific merit. Studies have proven that being thick around the middle increases your risk of having a heart attack, or gettng cancer, diabetes, and dementia.

So maybe the Japanese government is on the right track but somehow I can’t see the same tactics being used in the United States or England.

Can you?

(source)

POSTSCRIPT: After posting ‘Japanese Government Attacks Metabo’ I received an email from a reader who suggests that my statement ‘reducing waistlines has much scientific merit’, based on information from a NYT article,  might not necessarily be right. The email went on to say ‘ Please consider that all studies are not created equally and correlations are not causations. The facts do not support waistlines as a causative factor in any chronic disease of aging’ and included a link to Metabo — Is a small waistline a measure of health? an article that asks “While having a trim waistline to avoid the dreaded metabo and reduce medical costs has become a popular health mandate, is it evidence-based?” Have a read. Citing numerous studies, Sandy makes a compelling arguement that ‘having a small waist was not a measure of lower risks and having a larger waist size was not a measure of higher risks.’

Post from: Healthbolt

IT might look like a political video but it’s not really.

IT is something that we all need to be aware of.

IT can strick any of us, at any time.

IT is growing.

Can we stop IT ?

Post from: Healthbolt

We’ve been talking quite a bit about the intriguing topic of longevity lately. And if living to a ripe old age is on your “To Do” list, you may want to consider gaining a higher education.

So, does that mean those with a college degree will live longer than their less-educated counterparts? Perhaps.

Epidemiologists from the American Cancer Society and scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) teamed up to analyze the data and death certificate information of more than three and a half million deaths which occurred between 1993 and 2001. During that time period, an evident gap emerged between those in different educational brackets. The most educated folks saw a significant decrease in death rates from causes such as heart disease, cancer, stroke, etc, while the death rates for the least educated groups remained nearly unchanged.

This is the first study to look at recent socioeconomic inequality trends concerning death rates from all causes, as well as from several of the leading causes of death in the U.S.

Potential contributors to this discrepancy? Less educated folks have fewer financial resources to help them stay healthy, including health insurance and stable employment, and they also tend to be less educated on health matters. What’s more, this group is three times more likely to be a current smoker than those with college degrees. And with smoking comes issues like heart disease, lung disease and cancer.

With such an unnerving discovery, we’re left wondering: what can be done to change this?

What would you do if you were the president? How would you bridge the gap between the haves and have-nots, at least from a health standpoint? Or is this issue simply too far gone and hopeless? Weigh in – we’d love to hear your ideas…

More reading:
The Washington Post
American Cancer Society

Image: Newscom

Post from: Healthbolt