This Is News?

"MP3 Players Might Harm Hearing"

Yeah, and vuvuzelas just might do the same thing. I suppose it's noteworthy that the researchers found that hearing was temporarily harmed by listening to an MP3 player at high volume, which I assume leads to louder and louder playing volume and further damage. Then, after 30 years, the iPod generation(s?) will be completely deaf.

If you own an iPod, you might consider setting the max volume at a level that does not hurt your ears, even in quiet surroundings. Then you can be assured that you won't destroy your hearing when you're listening to your music on the plane or at the gym. This is how it is done -

-Settings
-Volume Limit
-Use Clickwheel to set maximum volume
-If you're doing it on your punk kid's iPod, you can even set a combination, or just click "Done."

HSAs Are Going Through Changes

And they're not good ones. This was emailed to me by a Unitedhealthcare South Florida account executive -

As expected, the IRS recently released that there are not going to be any changes on HSA limits in 201l.  These limits include:

Maximum Contribution:

     $3,050 Individual

     $6,150 Family

HDHP Maximum Out-of-Pocket:

     $5,950 Individual

     $11,900 Family

HDHP Minimum Deductible:

     $1,200 Individual

     $2,400 Family

An additional catch-up contribution of $1,000 is available to account holders ages 55 and older.

There are also 2 provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that are scheduled to take effect in 2011, unless Congress changes them:

1) The tax penalty on HSA withdrawals not used for qualified medical expenses will be increased from the current 10% penalty to 20%.

2) Expenses for OTC medications (other than insulin) will not be eligible for payment or reimbursement from HSAs or other types of consumer-directed health accounts, unless they are obtained with a prescription.

For additional details, please refer to the IRS document at http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/rp-10-22.pdf

The 2nd provision is a real shame. It was really easy to pay for something at the drug store that was eligible to be paid with HSA dollars. All you had to do was use your card like you would any other debit or credit card. Drugstores had even begun noting on the receipt which of your purchases were covered.

Lord Have Mercy

I had to take my girlfriend to the emergency room last night (she's ok now : ), and since she lives quite near Mercy Hospital, a place that occupies priceless waterfront property just like Mt. Sinai on Biscayne Bay, that's where we went.

I'm just writing this to say how wonderful the staff was and how nice we found the hospital environment. My only concern was that our doctor looked like he stepped out of a soap opera, but that's pretty standard for Miami. People tend to be really, really, ridiculously good-looking here. I'm not sure that my girlfriend was paying attention to what he was saying, but the nurses that followed were conscientious and informative. A+'s all around, Mercy Hospital.

In their honor, I'm posting one of the most beautiful (Marvin Gaye) songs ever written (sorry about the cheesy sunsets, but this was the only one I could find with an embed code) -

25 Smackers

Dollars, bucks, greenbacks, clams, dead presidents, big ones. 25 of 'em.

If you would like this amount of moolah in your pocket (and by "pocket," I mean "a number designated to an account that you open"), go to ING's Sharebuilder and open an account by May 25th, using the promotion code MAY25. Open the account with a minimum of $25, and they will match that amount.

Now you've got half a C note that you can start trading and become the next Warren Buffett. Then you can move to Omaha and drink all the cherry Coke you want, and maybe update your glasses once every 20 years. Looking sharp.

MediFraud

Wanna know one of the many, many reasons that the healthcare system is so messed up in this country? Do you? How about teams of con-artists, doctors among them, making fraudulent claims in the tens of billions, paid for by the rest of us?

When I see a young guy driving a Bentley or a Lamborghini in Miami, my gut reaction is now that he's a crook or a celebrity, but most likely a crook since I would probably recognize a famous dude who can afford a $400,000 car that has 2 seats and no trunk space.


http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/04/12/1576543/former-pitcher-i-made-millions.html

Fitness

Paul Ryan's the best. He's whipping congress into shape literally.

To watch click here.

Nuyoricans Can't Handle Their Coke

The journal "Addiction" has published the results of a study that links outdoor temperatures of over 75 degrees to increased death among cocaine users. The solution they suggest is hilarious -

"What to do? Air conditioning and special health alerts could help in urban areas where cocaine use is high, the study suggested."

Not "don't use cocaine." Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Read it on MSN Health & Fitness.

Singapore Healthcare

I found this article on the Singaporean Healthcare System very interesting. It was a bit confusing to process all the details, but my understanding was that they have a government sponsored catastrophic insurance plan and payroll taxes that are put aside in an account to be spent on medical expenses. It was also interesting to see the different countries' healthcare spending and "healthy living" ages. I'm certainly not a proponent of government sponsored insurance, but they seem to have some of the right ideas. Click here for the article.

2010 Is Gonna Be the Best Year Ever

I can't believe that I haven't posted anything this year. I've been more focused on my restaurant blog, I suppose.

Well, here are a few articles that have grabbed my attention, as of late -

Strokes Are Increasing Among Young

This is surprising, but I do have a young friend who recently had a mild one. I get queazy just thinking about it. I also feel pain in my chest when I think about heart attacks. I'm quite squeamish.

"The best way to ward off strokes, heart attacks, and a host of other diseases is to eat right, exercise, and refrain from smoking."

The Danger of Taking Aspirin Daily

Check with your doctor on this one, or tell your parents to do so if they're the ones you're worried about, like I was.

"Now, medical experts say some people who are taking aspirin on a regular basis should think about stopping. Public-health officials are scaling back official recommendations for the painkiller to target a narrower group of patients who are at risk of a heart attack or stroke. The concern is that aspirin's side effects, which can include bleeding ulcers, might outweigh the potential benefits when taken by many healthy or older people."

12 Steps To Boost Your Health For Life

A friend of mine posted this on Facebook and it's wonderful advice. Try this one - Drink more water. It'll give you more energy and "crowd out" other bad foods and beverages you might be consuming.

Oh, Holy Crap!

You better watch out
You better not cry
Put down that egg nog
So that you don't die...

From ThirdAge-

"Researchers at University of California at San Diego found Christmas Day and New Year's Day to be the most deadly of the year. More people die of natural causes on those two days, with heart attacks leading the way."

Motivational Quote of the Day

"The difference between try and triumph is a little umph."

-Unknown

I like that.

Take It Off

I heard the news some time ago that those wacky Brits were planning on banning neckties in their hospitals, but now that might happen in the U.S. of A.?

Didn't we kick their butts and any vestige of their culture out 233 years ago? We don't even drive on the same side of the road! What's that you say? We speak the same language? Yeah, right. They think "subway" means "underground pedestrian walkway." It's obviously a purveyor of delicious, yet affordable, sandwiches.

Read all about it! Here

One woman has found a business opportunity in the infectious nature of neckties, by selling ones that have an anti-microbial coating on them. This is a hilarious way to end an article -

"She recently took delivery of the first shipment of ties bearing a design based on the H1N1 'swine-flu' virus. 'I'm so excited,' she says. 'H1N1 is a really pretty virus.'"

Marriage Is What Brings Us Together Today

Married people who have children are happier than married people who don't have children and are also happier than people who are unmarried who do have children. Interesting.

health.msn.com/kids-health

And this is from the Princess Bride, one of the greatest movies ever made -



I met Chris Sarandon (Prince Humperdink) at Albany Airport once. It was a fine day.

Men's Health Dr. Oz Health Tips

This is a great list of easy things one can do to improves one's health by Dr. Oz. Two excellent tips were getting enough sleep and eating breakfast, certainly things most people can do. Another helpful tip is that the best way to help one's back is pull-ups and that staying in bed is only going to make back problems worse. I recently moved and haven't joined a new gym, but I have used body weight exercises to stay in shape. Some of the most challenging exercises are pull-ups and push-ups. So, not having a gym doesn't mean there is no way to get a good workout, all one needs is a bar for pull-ups or I use the I-bar in the basement. Read the whole list here.

Be Happy

Here are five tips on how to be so from ThirdAge. They have nothing to do with driving a fancy car or wearing diamonds around your neck. I'm fairly certain that those things will not make you happy.

1. Reflect more, be true to yourself. "We must recognize the importance of good stuff every day, always nurture the good stuff and reflect on the good stuff," Thibodeau said. He said people smile, laugh, feel good and have energy about the positive things in life. "We forget about the good stuff," he said. "How many messages we receive are positive?" Thibodeau asked. He suggested that people take time for family and visit a friend, read and write poetry, and follow their heart, he said. "Take time for matters of the heart," Thibodeau said.
2. Leave no regrets. The sin of old life is melancholy, Thibodeau said. "No matter what you're doing, show up and do the best you can," he said. He referred to Ann Quindlen, an author and a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, who said, "I show up, I listen, and I try to laugh." People never forget an act of kindness or someone who took the time to come to a funeral, Thibodeau said. "Your friends need you more than Oprah," he told the audience.
3. Become love. Be a loving presence to others. The biggest regrets are that we have not loved enough and didn't spend more time with family and friends, Thibodeau said.
4. Enjoy more. Live in the moment. Thibodeau asked the crowd to stand up and follow what looked like a dance and the cheer, "I feel good, I feel fine, I feel happy all the time." He said we will be judged for what we have not enjoyed. "Laughter and play are so important to our health," Thibodeau said. "One of the greatest gifts is to give someone the gift of joy."
5. Give more than you take. Give more and nurture a legacy. "What are you going to leave behind?" Thibodeau said, adding that good work always lasts.

Your Flip-Flops Might Kill You

Check out this scary, out-of-context quote:

"Worst-case scenario...you die."

Pretty scary, huh? Dennis Kinney, PhD microbiologist, said that.

If you wear flip-flops around all summer, especially if you live in a city, they have like 20,000 bacteria on them. If you were to get a cut on your foot and a particularly virulent bacterium got into your bloodstream, you could have organ failure and die if you weren't treated with antibiotics.

So, you should not wear them all day long, every day in the city. This goes doubly for women, since they're not flattering the way high heels are. Even that mediocre woman from Sex and the City looked attractive because she always wore high heels, even with a tank top and gym shorts. That's the real lesson here.

Here's the New York Daily News article.

Here are some tips from eHow on how to clean your flip-flops -

1. Step 1

   Start with plain old soap and water and an old toothbrush. Remove most of the grime with a little scrubbing.

2. Step 2

   Put them in the dishwasher. Do not wash them with dishes, and use a gentle cleaner when running your rubber sandals through the wash. Add vinegar and baking soda to the wash to do double duty--cleaning your shoes and your dishwasher.

3. Step 3

   Let your tub fill with water while you take a shower. Soak flip flops to loosen dirt, and scrub with a nail brush afterward.

4. Step 4

   Use the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser as an easy way to remove grime from your flip flops and bathtub.

5. Step 5

   Try an oxygen cleaner and water to get stains off your sandals. You may need to add the power of a scrub brush for maximum results.

6. Step 6

   Use steel wool pads with soap to get down and dirty with the grit in your flip flops. This method works best after soaking the sandals in a sink of water for about an hour.

Haven't Talked About Soda In a While...

The American Heart Association is the latest group to come down on sugary drinks. Some day in our post-apocalyptic, Big Brother-run dystopia, one will likely be unable to buy sugarful soft drinks in 12-ounce cans, since they exceed the daily recommended allowance of sugars. I'm glad I did the right thing and got one of those old fashioned bottles at lunch today. I think those are safe. The enormous Mountain Dew that you get with your Taco Bell - not good.

"'Over the past 30 years, total calorie intake has increased by an average of 150 to 300 calories per day, and approximately 50 percent of this increase comes from liquid calories (primarily sugar-sweetened beverages),' the report reads.

"And daily consumption of sweetened soft drinks rose 70 percent between 1970 and 2000. One 12-ounce (0.35 liter) can of regular soda contains roughly 130 calories, which exceeds a woman's daily discretionary sugar budget."

Full article here on Reuters Health.

MSN Health & Fitness to Time Magazine: "You Suck"

So, that Time article about exercise not making people thin was, of course, a big hit with all the people who want an excuse for not losing weight. There are undoubtedly millions of people who want to think that there is nothing they can do about the excess weight they carry and this article justified that mindset.

It reminds me that studies show that most people search the internet not for unbiased information from which to learn, but rather that which backs up a previously held belief.

MSN Health & Fitness writer, David Zinczenko, whose name sounds like he should be playing professional tennis, writes in his article -

"Bottom line: Our responses to diet and exercise are all highly individualized, explains Dr. Church. Sure, some people might compensate for their exercise by eating more, but according to Dr. Church, this isn’t the fault of exercise. More likely, he says, it’s because people don’t realize how easy it is to consume 1,000 calories at the drive-thru compared to burning just 250 calories on a treadmill. 'If your weight is a concern for you, exercise is important. But it doesn’t give you license to eat what you want,' cautions Dr. Church. 'You still need to pay close attention to what you’re putting in your mouth.'

"Exercise can protect your muscle. A Penn State University study found that people who lifted weights along with a program of diet and aerobic exercise had the same weight loss as those who only dieted (or who dieted and performed aerobic exercise). The difference? The lifters lost 5 pounds more fat because almost none of their weight loss came from muscle. Read: Resistance training didn’t improve weight loss, but it did improve fat loss. And isn’t that what really matters?

"Exercise may help you stick to your diet. University of Pittsburgh researchers studied 169 dieters for 2 years and found that the participants who didn’t follow a 3-hour-a-week training plan ate more than their allotted 1,500 calories per day. The reverse was also true—sneaking snacks sabotaged their workouts. 'One healthy behavior without the other will not work—you need to diet and exercise to maintain long-term weight loss,' says lead study author John Jakicic, Ph.D. That’s because both actions can act as a reminder to stay on track.

"Exercise may target belly fat. While weight loss was similar among all four groups in the LSU study, only the groups that exercised saw their waist size decrease. The Time story downplays this finding, but isn’t it relevant? Think about it: This study actually shows that even a small amount of low-intensity exercise—performed in, say, just three 24-minute sessions a week—could help your jeans fit better. In other words, it makes you thinner. Doesn’t sound like a waste of time to me."

I don't think a fair reading of the Time article leads to the conclusion that exercise is not good for you. Time does, however, play up the argument that it doesn't make you thin, and certainly doesn't put much emphasis on the health benefits of exercise, which was a disservice to Time readers.

Time: Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin

That's the most read and most emailed article on time.com today. It's no surprise that the topic concerns many. That there's so much disagreement about what it takes to lose weight is pretty amazing, considering how much medicine and health care have advanced. The conclusion of the article is basically this -

"The problem ultimately is about not exercise itself but the way we've come to define it. Many obesity researchers now believe that very frequent, low-level physical activity — the kind humans did for tens of thousands of years before the leaf blower was invented — may actually work better for us than the occasional bouts of exercise you get as a gym rat. 'You cannot sit still all day long and then have 30 minutes of exercise without producing stress on the muscles,' says Hans-Rudolf Berthoud, a neurobiologist at LSU's Pennington Biomedical Research Center who has studied nutrition for 20 years. 'The muscles will ache, and you may not want to move after. But to burn calories, the muscle movements don't have to be extreme. It would be better to distribute the movements throughout the day.'"

So what the article argues is that what you eat is more important than how much rigorous exercise you do. You're better off keeping moderately active and eating less rather than working out feverishly and then rewarding yourself with ice cream and a cigarette (though there isn't one mention of cigarettes in the entire article, which I find somewhat surprising).

Haw Haw Haw, Zere Eez Prohblem Een Zee Fronce

As the healthcare debate rages on in the U.S., the Sarkozy administration is attempting to make some cost-saving changes to the universal system in France. As an American, it is really funny to hear some of the stories from other countries where so much is provided by the government and taken for granted. It's not free though, smart guys. It has to come from somewhere.

This is my favorite -

"Yet even the smallest budget moves are proving controversial. Local residents are up in arms over a cost-cutting measure that makes patients pay €1.10 an hour to park at the hospital. 'It's a scandal,' says retired local Communist politician Gérard Eude. 'It goes against the very idea of universal health care.'"

Read the article on WSJ.com.