In today’s Dose: The Medical profession (Doctor’s firsthand account of the death of Neda Soltan) Obesity politics (Mediterranean diet, Weight-loss surgery and cancer) The medical profession There is an amazing firsthand account of the shooting and death of Neda Soltan, the young Iranian woman who became a focal point for protesters after the video of… Read more
Category Archives: Politics & Issues
Health insurance insider speaks out
Source: Cheap health insurance services in India Wendell Potter, a former executive at health insurance giant Cigna, was one of three health care specialists who testified today before the Senate Commerce Committee. You can read the entire transcript of his testimony at The New Republic. Potter began by identifying himself as an insider who had… Read more
Health Culture Daily Dose #9
In today’s Dose: Health care reform (Robert Reich on the public option) Health news (Migraines, Nipple piercing and breast feeding) Obesity politics (TB and the thrifty gene) Medical journalism (Drug company ties to journalists) Health care reform Be sure to see today’s two posts on Wendell Potter, the former health insurance executive who testified today… Read more
Health Culture Daily Dose #7
In today’s Dose: Health care reform (Public health insurance option, Congressional Budget Office, Optimism in the White House, Doctors and reform, Doctors pay) The Medical profession (What doctors earn) Health care reform Paul Krugman, in the New York Times, writes about health care today with his usual intelligence and trenchant prose. His argument: Democrats who… Read more
Health Culture Daily Dose #6
In today’s Dose: Health care reform (Congressionional Budget Office numbers; Why Maggie Mahar isn’t worried; Kevin MD, Daniel Callahan) Foodborne illness (Cookie dough) Industrialized agriculture (Food Inc.) The risk society (Jodi Picoult novels) Health care reform A recent Ezra Klein Klein column in the Washington Post discussed the bad news this week from the Congressional… Read more
Health Culture Daily Dose #5
In today’s Dose: Health care reform (Health care reform won’t make us healthier) The medical profession (Does the AMA represent doctors?; Does the public trust doctors?) Obesity politics (The cost of healthy eating) The doctor/patient relationship (The effects of malpractice on doctors) Graphic art (Anatomically correct shoes) Video (Sanjay Gupta) Health care reform Ezra Klein… Read more
Health Culture Daily Dose #3
In today’s Dose: Health care reform (Gawande radio interview; Public option) Health news (Bayer and prostate cancer) Obesity politics (Michelle Obama) Social networking technology (Doctors on Twitter and email) Health care reform National Public Radio has an interview with Atul Gawande about his recent New Yorker article. It’s 30 minutes and covers much the same… Read more
Health Culture Daily Dose #2
In today’s Dose: Health care reform (Robert Reich; Blaming doctors; Lobbying Congress; Individual mandate) Foodborne illness (FDA and food safety) Health care reform Lobbyists who oppose the “public option” component of health care reform are spending big bucks. Robert Reich’s latest blog post on health care documents the dollar amounts: $9.8 million from the AMA… Read more
Health Culture Daily Dose #1advertising, alcohol, doctors, FDA, health care, health news, Obama, pharmaceuticals, tobacco
In today’s Dose: Health care reform (Obama’s AMA speech; Underlying issues; David Brooks on Obama; Robert Samuelson’s take; WSJ fiction) Health news (Benefits of alcohol?; Ritalin and unexplained deaths) Tobacco (Litigating over free speech; Is the FDA demoralized) Health care reform The American Medical Association (AMA) came out last week against any government sponsored insurance… Read more
Whatever you say, Phillip Morris
I noted in a previous post (The Altria Earnings Protection Act) that Philip Morris, the major player in the U.S. tobacco industry, was fully supportive of the upcoming Congressional bill that will give the FDA control over tobacco. At the time it seemed to make sense that “Altria,” the newly sanitized name for the same… Read more
Health care reform: Navigating the maze
Source: Marty Nemko If you need help keeping track of current Congressional efforts to reform health care, check out this website: Side-by-Side Comparison of Major Health Care Reform Proposals. The content is provided by the Kaiser Family Foundation, an independent, highly respected organization that studies major health care issues and provides information to policymakers, the… Read more
Is it safe to eat yet?
In an earlier post, I asked whether foodborne illnesses were on the rise. (Not just peanut butter: What’s happening to our food supply?) A recent story in The New York Times addresses that same question. Heather Whybrew, a college student in Washington State, became gravely ill after eating a salad in her school cafeteria. Carl… Read more
What’s wrong with our food?
A new movie, Food, Inc., will be in theaters starting June 12. The film documents how industrialized agriculture has changed the food we eat and explores the impact of this change on health, food safety, and the environment. In the movie’s trailer (see below), a woman eyeing vegetables in a grocery store says “Sometimes you… Read more
Is agriculture bad for your health?
Source: Dental Anthropology By studying the fossilized bones of long-dead humans, physical anthropologists can determine the course of our species’ evolution. But those fossils, which often include bones deformed by lesions and distinctly unhealthy teeth, also allow anthropologists to speculate on the health and the lifestyles of our distant ancestors. Individual anthropologists have long speculated… Read more
The Pepsi challenge: How beliefs affect what you taste
Taste — essential to our survival — is complex. It’s influenced by our past experiences, the associations we make with specific foods, advertising, brand loyalties, cultural and ethnic preferences, and price. If we think of it as totally objective, determined exclusively by our taste buds, we’re underestimating it. This post describes studies that show food preferences are determined more by marketing promotions than by actual taste. Read more
This is your brain on sugar — and sugar substitutes
There’s no question that artificial sweeteners have fewer calories than sugar, but does using a sugar substitute lower the total number of calories we consume? Research indicates we might actually eat more. “If you eat a pound of chocolate, you’re done with it. At least for most people, your brain says, ‘That’s enough.’ This is hypothetical and needs to be tested, but maybe the sucralose sets the sweet taste response in motion but it might not turn the brain response off.” Read more
Grapefruit and the Pill
How the press scared readers with headlines like “Hunt for DVT Cause Reveals Link to Grapefruit.” Wouldn’t you read a story that claims grapefruit causes deadly blood clots? The case was much more complicated than the grapefruit diet. It included birth control pills, a long car trip, and a pre-existing condition. “As several of the better stories pointed out, it’s unwise to do anything in extreme. When part of a balanced diet, grapefruit should not be dangerous. Given increasing evidence of the potency of the grapefruit flavonoid naringin, medical science may want to consider whether women on birth control pills should avoid eating grapefruit every day.” Read more
"Killer" grapefruit?
Grapefruit is a particularly bitter taste – something supertasters are unlikely to indulge in. This post and the next concern the story of a woman who had been on a grapefruit diet – and taken a long car ride – just before experiencing deep vein thrombosis (DVT). … “How did the media handle this story? It was all about the grapefruit, something anyone might innocently eat — and then promptly die. Or at least lose a leg to gangrene. I suppose, to give the media the benefit of the doubt, they probably saw this as a ‘teachable moment.’ Unfortunately, outright fear of ‘killer grapefruit’ was the wrong lesson.” Read more
The taste advantage
Are there health implications to being a supertaster as opposed to a medium or non-taster? The different groups have different preferences for and aversions to fruits, vegetables, sugar, and fats, all of which have implications for the impact of diet on health and weight gain. ”If you go through life as a nontaster, it takes more to get the flavor out of food than it does for a supertaster.” (Since this post was written (April 2009) there is new research that refutes the popular belief that fruits and vegetables protect against cancer. See Study further erodes evidence for eating fruits and vegetables to prevent cancer.) Read more
Do we taste fat?
The flavors that make good food taste delicious are dissolved in fat. Scientists used to think that when we ate fat, we tasted these dissolved flavors and that fat itself was tasteless. We now know that’s not quite true. But the efforts involved in isolating the “taste” of fat are considerable. … “Do we ‘taste’ fat? It’s complicated. Every so often you see headlines like ‘Taste bud for fatty foods found’ or ‘Tongue sensors seem to taste fat.’ I’m not yet convinced we ‘taste’ fat in the same way we experience the taste of sugar, salt, sour, and bitter.” Read more
Why do we love high-fat foods?
Fats can make any food taste better, and it’s in our interest — genetically — to prefer foods that the body needs. Unfortunately, a typical restaurant meal can have more than eight tablespoons of fat — more than an entire stick of butter. That’s way more than we need in one sitting. (The recommended daily allowance for fat is four and a half tablespoons.) Read more
Are you a supertaster: Do you really want to know?
A wine connoisseur is better off not being a supertaster. … It’s good to be sensitive to and tolerant of other people – don’t assume the way food tastes to you is universal. … “I would speculate that supertasters probably enjoy wine less than the rest of us. They experience astringency, acidity, bitterness, and heat (from alcohol) more intensely, and this combination may make wine –or some wine styles — relatively unappealing.” Read more
How do you taste?
An introduction to taste buds – their anatomy, chemistry, and neurophysiology. “The structures involved in taste aren’t exactly like nested dolls. There’s only one Paul inside of John, but there are many taste buds in a papilla, many taste cells in a taste bud, and many taste receptors in a taste cell. The terms papillae, taste buds, and taste receptors come up in subsequent posts, which is why I explain them here.” Read more
A matter of taste
Taste happens on the tongue, but flavor is a combination of taste, smell, and touch. Without smell (think: stuffed up nose), food loses flavor. … Taste is the most important factor in choosing food, followed by cost. Whether food is actually nutritious and good for us is much less relevant to the decision process. … There are biological reasons for the five tastes — sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and savory. They promote survival. Read more
Coughing Up Blood Money: The Altria Earnings Protection Act?
As I mentioned a few posts back, Altria, the sanitized name for Philip Morris, is the major player in the U.S. tobacco industry. The company spent $12.9 million on lobbying in 2006. And yet they fully support the upcoming bill that gives the FDA control over tobacco, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.… Read more
Coughing Up Blood Money: FDA regulation of tobacco
Smoking causes lung cancer. We’ve known that for 60+ years. But the regulation of tobacco has happened in slow motion, thanks largely to political lobbying by the tobacco industry. In 2000, the Supreme Court ruled that the FDA could not take it upon itself to regulate cigarettes. It would first need legislative approval from Congress.… Read more
Coughing Up Blood Money: Taxing tobacco, taxing credibility
Roll Call, the daily paper aimed at Washington politicos, gets endorsements such as the following from members of Congress: Former House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.): “Roll Call is a critical and indispensable tool for deciphering the day-to-day maneuverings of Capitol Hill. Roll Call has its finger on the pulse of Congress.” Former Sen. John… Read more
Not just peanut butter: What's happening to our food supply?
Last year it was tomatoes contaminated with Salmonella. Except not really. After the tomato industry lost $200 million, it turned out it wasn’t tomatoes after all, but jalapeno and serrano peppers from Mexico. Tomatoes aren’t off the hook though. There have been 12 Salmonella-contaminated tomato outbreaks since 1990 serious enough to involve multiple states. In… Read more
Calories: What are we really counting?
The talking calorie pedometer We spend a lot of energy on calories — counting them, avoiding them, feeling guilty about them. But what are calories, anyway? Well, they ARE energy. Specifically, calories are the energy we get from the food we consume. And that makes them a good and essential thing. Calories wouldn’t be a… Read more
Sanjay Gupta a victim of obesity myths?
One group that opposes the nomination of Sanjay Gupta as the next surgeon general is the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), an organization that promotes the interests of the restaurant and food industries. Anyone who suggests eating less can expect criticism from an industry that wants us to eat more. Gupta took on the topic… Read more