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7348. thoughtful - 7/3/2008 5:25:38 PM Doing a lot of reading lately about importance of waist as a sign of health. For women health risks start to rise at waists over 31.5 inches and rise substantially at over 35 inches.
For men it's 37 inches and 40 inches. Guess what really loads on the middle fat...carbs!
I think I need some chocolate about now....
:) 7349. thoughtful - 7/8/2008 1:43:06 AM 
7350. robertjayb - 7/8/2008 4:52:21 PM Elizabeth Edwards to front health care effort...
(HuffPost)- A consortium of progressive groups, think tanks, trade unions and activists are set to launch a $40 million health care campaign to prepare the ground for the next president to sign expanded care early in 2009.
The work of Health Care For America Now was first made public late last week. But the group, with Elizabeth Edwards as a figurehead, offered expanded insight into the details of its campaign during a meeting on Monday. In addition to spending $40 million -- $1.5 million of which will be put behind an initial ad buy (national TV, print, and online) -- the group will be sending organizers to 52 cities, blasting out emails to 5 million households, airing spots on MSNBC and CNN and submitting op-eds to major papers (officials hinted at the New York Times piece to come).
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"The focus of the campaign is on national legislation. "This year, however, it is also a referendum: do you support quality, affordable, health care for all, or an alliance with the private insurance industry?"
Perhaps the effort will wean O away from his apparent affection for insurance companies.
7351. arkymalarky - 7/8/2008 8:30:27 PM Wombat, I think it was, mentioned this when we were talking about weight loss a while back, and it's worked best for both Bob and me:
Keeping a food diary doubled weight loss in a study 7352. thoughtful - 7/8/2008 9:12:45 PM It is an important part of weight watchers, as well as weighing and measuring to maintain portion control. 7353. judithathome - 7/9/2008 1:52:00 PM I've hit a plateau at 28 pounds lost. I'm just going to wait it out like I did the others...ha! So long as I don't "weight" it out, I should start to lose again. 7354. arkymalarky - 7/9/2008 4:04:20 PM 28lbs is great! That's what I did after losing during school. I'm trying to jump on down during the summer about another 15lbs or so, but right now I'm nursing a sinus infection. At least I'm not eating much, but exercising is out until at least tomorrow. That's my worst thing. Getting into an exercise routine. I'm of the Martin Mull school of exercise. He said he took up jogging, but he kept spilling his martini and his cigarette kept going out. 7355. thoughtful - 7/9/2008 4:38:50 PM 28lbs is great!
Wasn't it phyllis diller who said her idea of exercise was a good, brisk sit? 7356. thoughtful - 7/16/2008 5:09:17 PM Concerning news about drugs to prevent osteoporosis:
The concern rises mainly from a series of case reports showing a rare type of leg fracture that shears straight across the upper thighbone after little or no trauma. Fractures in this sturdy part of the bone typically result from car accidents, or in the elderly and frail. But the case reports show the unusual fracture pattern in people who have used bone-building drugs called bisphosphonates for five years or more.
I'm telling you, stay away from doctors...it's the only way to stay healthy! 7357. judithathome - 7/17/2008 3:14:49 PM Two year study shows Atkin's diet superior to Low Fat or Mediterranian diet.
I could have told you that...down 30 pounds thus far. I'm not eating huge amounts of fatty meats but lean meats and fish and am getting my carb intake from fruits and veggies. On occasion, I'll have a bowl of oatmeal...the real stuff, not that 2 minute junk.
7358. thoughtful - 7/17/2008 4:37:21 PM Good for you J. It'll be interesting to see what the impact is on your cholesterol readings.
According to the stuff in Taubes book, he said the 2 numbers to watch for are a high HDL and a low triglycerides. The LDL is useless as there are good and bad LDLs and the bloodwork we get doesn't distinguish between them.
7359. thoughtful - 7/17/2008 6:38:04 PM I hate it when I know more than the doctors.
Just talking to an internist and an ob/gyn about the lung cancer/hormone replacement therapy connection. They both said there was none...I just forwarded them an article about how estrogen blockers improve survival rates and other studies suggesting as strong a link between estrogen and lung cancer as there is with estrogen and breast cancer. 7360. arkymalarky - 7/19/2008 1:51:51 AM Estrogen/progestin is the breast cancer connection, but even women who aren't in menopause who get breast cancer have to address their hormones, sometimes with hysterectomies. My SIL hasn't gone there yet, and thankfully her cancer has not returned, but they did try to force her through menopause medically, without surgery. It didn't work.
I've been off and on estrogen since my hysterectomy and am weaning off it permanently now, though I will probably go to a non-systemic cream if I have to. I really was not at all prepared for the effects of a full hysterectomy, and the hrt decision is a much harder one for some women to make because of the effects of menopause. I told a friend whose wife is going through menopause now that everything you put in your mouth has a cost/benefit issue. But I've never done an estrogen pill. I tried one for a few days and had a migraine every day I took it.
I'm coming off a two-day migraine right now, but it's not hormone-related. I just hope the problems I've had in the past without estrogen are better now. I don't like getting personal, but for one thing I'm not ready to go platonic with my husband. Another was the profuse sweating. Being inconveniently hot is one thing--your hair literally dripping sweat in a public place that's air conditioned is another. If jerry curls would come back maybe I could pass it off as that, but otherwise I'm sol. 7361. arkymalarky - 7/19/2008 1:55:06 AM Losing weight, especially after getting my thyroid under control, helped with some of my discomfort, but I was miserable on or off hormones. When I had the thyroid issue I quit sweating completely. Which was the one upside of it. 7362. robertjayb - 7/19/2008 10:24:56 PM Americans stiffed on health care...HouChron editorial
A trio of scathing reports in the last week has trumpeted first, second and third opinions on the miserable value Americans get for what we spend on health care.
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To be blunt, our health care system is a racket. We spend $230 million every hour on it — more per capita than any other country. Yet the rewards for this huge outlay are shabby.
Eleven other countries score better on health indices established by the United Nations Development Program. Especially damning is our infant mortality rate, the measure of life expectancy for children 1 year old and younger.
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Though Americans spend more than twice as much money on health care as any other industrialized nation, we are among the most likely to die of ailments that could have been successfully treated with prompt or more effective care.
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....the current administration has had nearly eight years to prove its disinterest in making Americans a better deal. But as the presidential election nears, the closely linked findings from the studies should be addressed concretely by each candidate.
7363. thoughtful - 7/21/2008 2:59:56 PM Arky, you have to do what's best for you and your individual situation. But you can't make the best choice without being fully informed. What irritates me is how ill-informed so many docs are so the patients aren't getting the straight story with which to make the right decision...or docs are swaying their patients to their point of view, without taking the individual patient's needs into account.
I've been through this in spades with my thyroid disease.
I find it very frustrating as to why certain aspects of health get all the headlines and other important aspects slip by the wayside. For example, my old secy who ended up with a double mastectomy never knew that the discharge she was having was a sign of cancer. It is an important indicator but is rarely in the literature.
Another example is the number of women who die of heart disease and yet breast cancer seems to get the lion's share of the headlines. Go figure.
And then with thyroid disease, even endos who are supposed to know this stuff, seem to be ill-informed...then they get defensive and act like know-it-alls and refuse to learn anything because it's coming from, god-forbid, the patient!
They all ought to go pound sand! 7364. arkymalarky - 7/21/2008 3:36:49 PM I absolutely agree. It's why I quit my gynecologist after my surgery. He did great with that, but when it came to hormones, he was a wall. I don't want to sound biased, but I went to a woman after that--one who was post-menopause herself--and it made a difference. I now just go to my regular doctor, who's also a (young) woman, but who has dealt with all of that very well. I also liked the fact about my doctor that when I was having chest pains, etc, she went ahead with a stress test, which was abnormal, and proceeded from there to check it out, rather than just assuming that I wasn't old enough to have problems, etc. My main concern about her is that she's getting so popular that she's getting busy, and I worry she won't be as thorough. She has two small kids and it seems like everyone in town wants to go to her--it doesn't hurt that she's very pretty. 7365. arkymalarky - 7/21/2008 3:47:17 PM I told my first gyno that I wanted to try without hormones and he was very much against it. I did have significant menopausal issues, so I tried to work with him on what to take, and he wasn't at all helpful. He started me with a patch right after surgery which burned me like fire. Then he put me on Premarin, which gave me migraines every day I took it, and he didn't seem to take that seriously at all. When I asked him how long I'd have to be on hormones, he said "ten or fifteen years." The woman I went to put me on a lotion, which I LOVE. You just put it on your legs in the mornings. But I don't intend to stay on it, and now that I'm out of graduate school and have gotten through a year of teaching and some significant transitions at work, it's a good time to try to wean off it again and see how I do. I've gone on and off it several times in the last three years, and I've reduced it to half the dosage several times. There's no way I could have done that with my other doctor without an argument every time I went in for a yearly exam. And of course his biggest sin was not informing me of exactly what I'd be looking at after a full hysterectomy. I would have gotten it anyway, but it would have been nice to have been more prepared going in. 7366. thoughtful - 7/21/2008 3:59:17 PM The lotion sounds great as it offers the opportunity to wean yourself off of it with infinitely variable dosage...something you can't do with pills or patches.
I hate it when docs dismiss your symptoms. Migraines are incredible, not something to ignore. I wish there were a way to give the symptom to the doc and say, see? how do you like it? now maybe you'll pay some attention! 7367. thoughtful - 7/29/2008 6:20:50 PM They're coming around, however slowly. Now Prevention mag has picked up on it: Flat Belly Diet
Their approach...include monounsaturated fats in each of 4 meals a day. Of course imo it's the fat offsetting the carbs that's the critical element tho getting a balance of fats in the diet is also a good thing.
Also a nice diet for chocolate lovers!
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