The Daily HIT

Compared to 20 years ago, things have gotten worse. The worst sign of all? Fruit and vegetable consumption is plummeting. The proportion who eat five or more fruits and vegetables a day has decreased from 42% to 26%. There is no substitute for fruits and vegetables. Our bodies depend on them.

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Legislators who take on an important though underappreciated issue and then refuse to let go are performing an important public service.  From today’s health blog at the Wall Street Journal: The latest doctor to draw attention from the Iowa senator is Jeffrey Wang, chief of spine surgery at UCLA, who Grassley says didn’t inform the [...]

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This British NHS policy change marks a major breakthrough, which could turn out to be comparable in impact to the landmark U.S. government report from the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research AHCPR in late 1994. Tens of millions of pounds are being wasted by the NHS on useless treatments for back pain, money that should be diverted [...]

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Dr. Atul Gawande has a superb article in The New Yorker, in which he reports from McAllen, Texas, site of the highest per capita medical expenses in the nation. This piece is a real eye-opener, because what emerges is a picture of high costs due to across-the-board, doctor-driven overutilization, which results in lower effectiveness. Higher [...]

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The gel of the aloe vera plant has historically been used for skin irritations of various kinds, including burns. Now, a promising small study shows aloe vera achieving results superior to topical steroids. Patients with plaque psoriasis had a greater reduction in disease activity when treated with topical aloe vera compared with a topical steroid, [...]

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A review of the scientific literature, underwritten by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, brings good news. Smoking cessation rates were about one-and-a-half times greater among those who participated in web or computer interventions than those in a control group, according to a meta-analysis in the May 25 issue of Archives of Internal [...]

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Macrobiotics, based on principles drawn from the traditional diet of Japan but adaptable to other cultures, appears to be in a renaissance. Today’s Los Angeles Times documents current developments: The primary macrobiotic prescription: whole grains. Vegetables and plant-based proteins, such as beans and soy products, are also key. The diet deemphasizes acid-forming foods such as [...]

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A great story from today’s Washington Post: Bolstered by a growing body of data and my own clinical experience, I opened my electronic medical record and entered a prescription that would give Martha relief without more side effects: mushroom ginger soup. The recipe sits right there on my screen, one click below morphine and one [...]

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Reuters has a useful list: * U.S. government economists predict that public and private health spending will hit $2.5 trillion this year, taking up a 17.6 percent share of gross domestic product. * Americans spend more per capita on healthcare than any other country at $7,421 per person, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid [...]

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In today’s New York Times, a thought-provoking essay on the college binge drinking culture by a Dartmouth sophomore who nearly died of liver disease two years ago and is thus unable to drink any alcohol. I was known as a “dry” pledge — everybody from the president to all the brothers made it clear to [...]

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