Health News of the Day

Health News of the Day is a daily summary made from the selected links I post on Twitter. It is in a bullet points format with links to the original sources which include 350 RSS feeds that produce about 2,500 items per day.

• "Female athlete tetrad" - disordered eating, menstrual dysfunction, osteoporosis, early signs of cardiovascular disease http://bit.ly/147w6J
  
  
• 40% of contact lens wearers don’t replace their lenses in keeping with the makers' recommendations http://bit.ly/13OLnR
  
  
• Sedatives and sleeping pills for anxiety and sleep problems increase the risk of suicide four-fold among the elderly http://bit.ly/J4j1E
  
  
• Text message reminders to take medications reduce the risk of organ rejection in teenagers who've had a liver transplant http://bit.ly/t44l4
  
  
• New disease: DIRA, deficiency of the interleukin-1–receptor antagonist leading to autoinflammatory disorder http://bit.ly/N0dqm

Image source: OpenClipArt.org, public domain.

Health News of the Day

Health News of the Day is a daily summary made from the selected links I post on Twitter. It is in a bullet points format with links to the original sources which include 350 RSS feeds that produce about 2,500 items per day.

• Medical bills are involved in more than 60% of U.S. personal bankruptcies, an increase of 50 percent in just 6 years. More than 75 percent of bankrupt families had health insurance but still were overwhelmed by their medical debts. 62% of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical; 92% had medical debts over $5,000, or 10% of pretax family income http://bit.ly/15fke5
  
  
• BBC: The majority of all doctors after 2017 will be women, which will have huge implications for NHS workforce planning http://bit.ly/4xMj3k
  
  
• PubMed abstract: Using Web 2.0 to enhance a community of practice for intensive care physicians. http://bit.ly/Yhxdj
  
  
• ACP: Do internists have confidence in their own training when compared to NPs? Please read the comments: http://is.gd/NxvZ
  
  
• Twitter Research by Harvard: "Men Follow Men and Nobody Tweets" http://is.gd/Nv9R
  
  
• Video: CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta takes you inside his operating room where he "moonlights" as a neurosurgeon http://is.gd/Ns4o

Image source: OpenClipArt.org, public domain.

Video: Children and Sedentary Lifestyle

Video: Children and Sedentary Lifestyle, by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.

"As our kids have more opportunities for sedentary entertainment like television, computers and video games, an increasing number of children are not getting the recommended exercise daily. Recent research indicates that recommended levels of physical activity - at least 35-60 minutes per day - increases children's bone strength. This video helps inform parents about the critical need for adequate levels of physical activity in our children."

Dr. Tiller

While I wrote something quickly for AWEARNESS on Dr. Tiller, I have purposely taken a few days to write something here.

I received the word over Twitter just as I was ready to take my daughter to see "Cinderella" with her BFF, J. I was floored, shocked, but not surprised. I think we all knew that Dr. Tiller had such a target on him that it would be a miracle if he was able to retire.

I'm not a grab your gun and take up arms kinda gal. But I am a grab your friend and use your voice kinda gal.

Many people have written about Dr. Tiller in the past week, but here are some of my suggestions:

• RH Reality Check: They have a great Dr. Tiller round-up section full of news, opinion and whatever falls in the middle.
• I am Dr. Tiller: In the same vein of "I'm not sorry" where women share their abortion stories comes a site where abortion providers are telling their story.
• The George Tiller Memorial Abortion Fund: While almost every pro-choice organization has set up a memorial page for Dr. Tiller and asking for donations, I am highlighting the National Network of Abortion Fund's Tiller fund because the money will go directly to women in need of assistance. Don't read that as a diss to anyone, but rather a statement that at this moment, I want to do something for the women & girls who Dr. Tiller gave his life for. You can also donate to the Chicago Abortion Fund which is a member of NNAF, but serves the Chicago area. Yes, CAF gives money to women in the suburbs.
  
• Medical Students for Choice: They don't have a blog, tweet or anything like that. But what they do do is craft a supportive community for medical students who want to learn to perform abortions. MS4C also advocates for medical schools to incorporate abortion training into the curriculum so that the training isn't something that is extra. Dr. Tiller was one of three people in this country willing to do late-term abortions, now we are down to two. We must support students who want to serve women.
  

Peace my sisters and brothers.

Health News of the Day

Health News of the Day is a daily summary made from the selected links I post on Twitter. It is in a bullet points format with links to the original sources which include 350 RSS feeds that produce about 2,500 items per day.

• New study does not support hypothesis that habitual coffee consumption increases risk of CV events or mortality in DM2 http://bit.ly/mEq35
  
  
• Call cubital tunnel syndrome a "cell phone elbow" and you make the front page of CNN.com: http://bit.ly/RaXrt and http://bit.ly/TTRfg
  
  
• Merck's Gardasil vaccine against cervical cancer also benefits women aged 24 to 45. Gardasil is 90 percent effective in preventing sexual transmission of HPV in men. http://bit.ly/18cIFJ
  
  
• The Spanish Bullfighter Gored last week has made a successful recovery after surgery: http://bit.ly/Uk5VV and http://bit.ly/yTNIm
  
  
• Cleveland Cavaliers' LeBron James had surgery to remove "benign parotid gland growth" http://bit.ly/17sT0l
  
  
• Pictures beat words: Seeing video firms up end-of-life care decisions http://bit.ly/1xuX6

Image source: OpenClipArt.org, public domain.

Doctors and dentists among unfortunate few who owe more under proposed income-based loan repayment plan

From Forbes:

"Budding doctors and dentists may be among the unfortunate few who owe more under the income-based repayment plan. Under previous rules, students who were either in medical school or residency could defer all payments on their often-sizable federal Stafford loans (becoming a doctor isn't cheap; the average medical student graduates with $140,000 in student debt).

Under the income-based plan, doctors and dentists will be required to make small monthly payments during residency if they earn more than $16,245. A resident making $56,000, for instance, would owe $503 per month under the income-based repayment plan."

References:
Grads May Soon Repay Student Loans Based On Income. David K. Randall, 06.02.09.
Image source: United States one-dollar bill. Wikipedia, public domain.

Funny science video: Cockatoo Dances to the Beat

Cockatoo Dances to the Beat

The movie shows three excerpts of videos analyzed in this experiment. Each excerpt is at a tempo different from the original song (Everybody, by the Backstreet Boys; 108.7 beats per minute [bpm]). The excerpts include synchronized bouts, periods during which Snowball bobs his head in synchrony with the musical beat for at least 12 consecutive bobs.

Current Biology 19(10), published online April 30, 2009.

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