Tai chi, a form of slow, focused movement derived from the Asian martial arts tradition, yields a broad array of health benefits. One of these, new research shows, is improved sleep. The study, published in the journal Sleep, found the tai chi chih group showed improved sleep quality and a remission of clinical impairments, such [...]
Archive for June, 2008
Tai Chi Helps Sleep Quality
Posted in Uncategorized on June 26, 2008 |
Corporations Offer Cash for Healthier Habits
Posted in Uncategorized on June 26, 2008 |
File this under ”whatever it takes” … To reduce healthcare costs, U.S. employers are offering cash of up to $600 as an incentive to adopt healthier habits, a trade association official says. “More than three out of four major employers are using health and wellness programs in an effort to rein in costs that continue to [...]
Low Vitamin D Levels Associated with Heart-related Deaths
Posted in Uncategorized on June 26, 2008 |
Over the past decade, no nutrient has seen more dramatic research results than vitamin D, which our bodies produce when the skin is exposed to sunlight. Best known for aiding the absorption of calcium for the formation of bone, vitamin D has recently been shown to protect against certain cancers, as well as chronic pain [...]
Big Pharma Spent $168 Million on Lobbying Last Year
Posted in Uncategorized on June 26, 2008 |
For anyone wondering why things are the way they are in health care practice, health care economics, and health care policy, here’s part of the reason: WASHINGTON, June 25 — The pharmaceutical lobby, Washington’s largest, increased its spending by almost a third — to $168 million — from 2006 to 2007, an analysis showed. Pharmaceutical [...]
Ornish Program That Reversed Heart Disease May Also Be Beneficial for Prostate Cancer
Posted in Uncategorized on June 25, 2008 |
Dean Ornish, MD, was the driving force behind the breakthrough research in the 1980s and 1990s that proved heart disease can be reversed. Combining a very low-fat whole foods vegetarian diet with exercise (yoga and walking) and stress reduction (meditation and emotional sharing groups), Ornish’s group used PET scans to demonstrate significant decreases in the [...]
Depression from a Different Point of View
Posted in Uncategorized on June 23, 2008 |
In his new book, Unstuck, psychiatrist and Health Insights Today board member James Gordon, MD, draws on 40 years of experience to put forth a radical yet eminently sensible set of ideas about depression. Dr. Gordon starts the book this way: Depression is not a disease, the endpoint of a pathological process. It is, or can be, [...]
Portion Sizes, Then and Now
Posted in Uncategorized on June 18, 2008 |
What a difference 20 years makes! (h/t Matthew Yglesias)
Excellent New Book on Holistic Approaches to Depression
Posted in Uncategorized on June 17, 2008 |
Penguin Books has just released Unstuck: Your Guide for the Seven Stage Journey Out of Depression, a superb book by James Gordon, MD. Dr. Gordon, one of our Health Insights Today editorial board members, is the founder and director of The Center for Mind-Body Medicine in Washington, DC, and is a Clinical Professor in the Departments [...]
The Effects of Paperwork on Doctors
Posted in Uncategorized on June 17, 2008 |
Today’s New York Times has a powerful essay by a medical physician, who reports with great empathy and intensity something that I (and many others) have observed as a growing phenomenon over the past decade or two: the frustration of physicians at the power that health care bureaucracy wields over their lives. I asked when [...]
Japan, Seeking Trim Waists, Measures Millions
Posted in Uncategorized on June 14, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Different nations take different approaches to improving the health of their populations. I’m quite confident that no one in the United States holding elected or appointed office is likely to suggest copying Japan’s new policy. It also is far too early to gauge whether it will prove successful. On the other hand, it is widely [...]
