“It makes no sense for the District of Columbia to shut down the entire outside market for small business health insurance—which has worked for thousands of businesses over many decades, and force employers to use a never-been-tried government-run insurance exchange to insure their employees. We think D.C. should go ahead with its health exchange—but also continue, like the rest of America, liberal states and conservative states, to keep the outside market open—and provide D.C. businesses a choice for where they purchase their insurance.”
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Ah, spring. A time when Outliers' fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love ... and healthcare reform's effects on marriage. Sure, President Barack Obama has promised that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will lead to a decline in the number of uninsured and better healthcare coverage for all. But a California congresswoman also sees a chance to boost wedded bliss.
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While marijuana may be more commonly associated with inducing a case of the munchies, now comes news from the American Journal of Medicine that researchers have found a link between pot-smoking and a smaller waist size.“Despite its associations with increased appetite and caloric intake, marijuana use also is associated with lower body mass index and prevalence of diabetes,” researchers from the University of Nebraska College of Medicine, the Harvard School of Public Health and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, wrote in their report.
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Apparently the word is out. The discerning expectant Canada goose won't hatch her goslings just anywhere anymore. Only the hospital will do. Seems two facilities have had parts of their employee parking lots turned into fowl maternity wards this spring.
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Outliers has always tended to be a glass half-full kind of column. And now, a new study shows that the tendency to feel good about the future isn't just because spring is finally in the air and the sun is shining.In fact, no matter where you live, how much you earn or how long you're expected to live, chances are you believe the future will be at least as good as, if not better than, the present.
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Science has spoken: Enter a grocery store on an empty stomach at your peril. You are more likely to buy foods with a high calorie count than more healthy options when you're hungry, according to the results of a study published by JAMA Internal Medicine. Even the journal's editor concedes it's a bit of shopworn guidance. “I think all diet guides include the advice to 'never go grocery shopping when you are hungry,' ” begins an editor's note from Dr. Rita Redberg.
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Close your eyes and imagine a world where you could receive a liposuction, magically extract specific cells from the tumbler of excess fat and then inject them into your heart tissue to repair the muscle damage that causes your coronary artery disease.Now open your eyes: Welcome to that world.
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Leukemia is attacking the body's bone marrow with waves of mutant cancer cells, but you don't have to stand back and let it happen. You are a nanobot. Your mission? “Save the precious stem cell colonies and cleanse the bone marrow of all leukemia cells with slashing, arcade-style game play.”So begins one of six new free online games designed to appeal to youthful cancer patients, a cohort who traditionally have had trouble with what the squares in academia call “treatment adherence” and what Outliers calls “following doctor's orders.”
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Outliers notes a new campaign is encouraging Americans to take an online test to screen for common mental illnesses. Advocacy group Mental Health America is partnering with M3 Information to let anyone take a three-minute screening for depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. At the end, you receive a number that evaluates your mental health.
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Sixty years ago, the late American crime novelist Mickey Spillane published Kiss Me, Deadly, which could also serve as the title of a new analysis from the University of California at Berkeley's School of Public Health. Researchers there tested 32 lipsticks and lip glosses sold mostly in drugstores and department stores and found some ugly results. The lip products contained lead, cadmium, chromium, aluminum and five other metals, some of which were found at levels that are cause for public health concerns.
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And in other culinary danger news, steer clear of the cinnamon challenge. That's the advice from doctors in a new report about a dangerous prank depicted in popular YouTube videos that has led to hospitalizations and a surge in calls to U.S. poison centers.The fad involves daring someone to swallow a spoonful of ground cinnamon in 60 seconds without water. But the spice is caustic, and trying to gulp it down can cause choking, throat irritation, breathing trouble and even collapsed lungs, according to the report.
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Next time you're doing a risk assessment while planning a menu … wait, you don't do a risk assessment? According to some new research, Outliers thinks it might be a good idea.If you want to steer clear of foodborne illness, chicken nuggets, ham and sausage could be your best bet. What to avoid? According to an analysis of more than 33,000 cases of foodborne illness by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, ground beef and other chicken products have caused more hospitalizations than other meats.
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The price of fame may include a better chance of landing in an early grave, at least according to a new study that Outliers ran across. After all, there's Marilyn Monroe, River Phoenix, James Dean, Jimi Hendrix, Billie Holiday, Elvis Presley, John Belushi, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Charlie Parker, Amy Winehouse, Bix Beiderbecke, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, John Lennon …
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Ben Patton may be smart, good-looking and successful, but the head of Integrity Transitional Hospital in Denton, Texas, decided to call in the experts when it came to dating.The camera-ready CEO of the 54-bed long-term acute-care hospital debuted this month as one of the stars on NBC reality show “Ready for Love,” which tasks matchmakers with finding worthy women for three bachelors.His co-stars include a musician from Santa Barbara, Calif., and a philanthropist from Miami.
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Could Sartre and Camus have found relief from their existential anguish in a bottle of the pain reliever hospitals recommend most? Researchers from the University of British Columbia are arguing the answer may, in fact, be yes. In a study published in the journal Psychological Science, they found that acetaminophen could demonstrably reduce the feelings of angst people experience when thinking about their own deaths.
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“A baseball bat doesn't exist until it's isolated from a tree. But that's still the product of human invention to decide where to begin the bat and where to end the bat.”—Gregory Castanias, a lawyer for Myriad Genetics, in oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court for a case about whether human genes can be patented.
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In case you're wondering what the world of college sports looks like from the perspective of a Quaker mascot, Dr. Robert Wachter is happy to share. Seems the physician, author and teacher was prompted to reminisce about his sports mascot past in the wake of the recent NCAA basketball tourney.
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If you know someone who likes things that last, Outliers could have found the perfect gift. A Santa Fe, N.M., company is party to a plan to shrink a copy of the entire human genome—all 3.2 billion base pairs—and write it in microscopically small letters on a set of five, 6-inch nickel disks so tough the data could last 10,000 years.
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CaroMont Health has decided it doesn't want to “Cheat death” anymore. Seems the hospital organization in Gastonia, N.C., wasn't anticipating the negative reaction that greeted its new tagline this month.
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The med student stereotype calls to mind an individual driven by ambition, with their face buried in a book or peering into a microscope. The University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine sought to shake up that image last year by resorting to verse. And the Pritzker Poetry Contest was born.
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Note to HHS staff: Having two treadmill desks is sufficient to get you in congressional hot water.It turns out that the CMS' Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation has a grand total of two treadmill desks, the agency confirmed last week. That number was sufficient to feature prominently in a senior Republican senator's criticisms of the new innovation office as a squanderer of taxpayer funds, during a March 20 hearing. We dubbed it Treadgate in last week's Outliers column.
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It seems Miami Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill plans to be an orthopedic surgeon one day, and this year he's getting the chance to dabble in the field—without even having to finish med school.Tannehill will be the public face of Broward Health's orthopedics and sports medicine program for the next three years under a new celebrity endorsement deal with the South Florida healthcare system. The gig even had Tannehill, a former pre-med major at Texas A&M University, donning a personalized white lab coat and observing a hip scope procedure at a Fort Lauderdale clinic.
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“We were prepared to do that had we had the votes to do it after the election. Well, the election didn't turn out the way we wanted it to. The monstrosity has ... begun to be implemented, and we're not giving up the fight.”—Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), in an interview with the National Journal on the GOP's “secret plan” to repeal Obamacare
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Providers in the Military Health System who are feeling the pressure of caring for our wounded warriors now have one more tool to help them cope. The Defense Department's National Center for Telehealth and Technology has developed the Provider Resilience app. The aim is to help military healthcare providers stay “productive and emotionally healthy as they cope with burnout and compassion fatigue,” according to a news release.
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What's more symbolic of strenuous exertion without progress than a treadmill?The stationary exercise device was both a symbolic and literal target of attacks recently by a prominent Republican against the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation at the CMS.
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