The United States Ranks Last Compared With The Six Other Industrialized Countries

The United States Ranks Last Compared With The Six Other Industrialized Countries.
Compared with six other industrialized nations, the United States ranks wear when it comes to many measures of blue blood salubrity care, a new report concludes. Despite having the costliest vigour care system in the world, the United States is last or next-to-last in quality, efficiency, access to care, high-mindedness and the ability of its citizens to lead long, healthy, dynamic lives, according to a new report from the Commonwealth Fund, a Washington, DC-based private cellar focused on improving health care. "On many measures of health system performance, the US has a hanker way to go to perform as well as other countries that spend far less than we do on healthcare, yet cover everyone," the Commonwealth Fund's president, Karen Davis, said during a Tuesday matutinal teleconference.

And "It is disappointing, but not surprising, that regardless of our significant investment in health care, the US continues to lag behind other countries". However, Davis believes rejuvenated health care reform legislation - when fully enacted in 2014 - will go a elongate way to improving the current system. "Our hope and expectation is that when the measure is fully enacted, we will match and even exceed the performance of other countries".

The report compares the performance of the American vigorousness care system with those of Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. According to 2007 facts included in the report, the US spends the most on health care, at $7,290 per capita per year. That's almost twice the bulk spent in Canada and nearly three times the compute of New Zealand, which spends the least.

The Netherlands, which has the highest-ranked robustness care system on the Commonwealth Fund list, spends only $3,837 per capita. Despite higher spending, the US ranks most recent or next to last in all categories and scored "particularly inexpertly on measures of access, efficiency, equity and long, healthy and productive lives".

The US ranks in the mid-point of the pack in measures of effective and patient-centered care. Overall, the Netherlands came in first on the list, followed by the United Kingdom and Australia. Canada and the United States ranked sixth and seventh.

Speaking at the teleconference, Cathy Schoen, major failing president at the Commonwealth Fund, pointed out that in 2008, 14 percent of US patients with hardened conditions had been given the wrong medication or the wrong dose. That's twice the indiscretion rate observed in Germany and the Netherlands.

An Effect Of Hormone Therapy On Breast Cancer

An Effect Of Hormone Therapy On Breast Cancer.
Although several overweight studies in latest years have linked the use of hormone therapy after menopause with an increased danger of breast cancer, the authors of a new analysis claim the evidence is too limited to confirm the connection. Dr Samuel Shapiro, of the University of Cape Town Medical School in South Africa, and his colleagues took another air at three eminently studies that investigated hormone therapy and its credible health risks - the Collaborative Reanalysis, the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) and the Million Women Study. Together, the results of these studies found overall an increased jeopardize of breast cancer centre of women who used the combination form of hormone therapy with both estrogen and progesterone.

Women who have had a hysterectomy and use estrogen-only group therapy also have an increased risk, two of the studies found. The WHI, however, found that estrogen-only remedy may not increase breast cancer risk and may actually decrease it, although that has not been confirmed in other research. After the WHI scrutinize was published in July 2002, women dropped hormone cure in droves.

Many experts pointed to that decline in hormone therapy use as the reason breast cancer rates were declining. Not so, Shapiro said: "The declivity in breast cancer extent started three years before the fall in HRT use commenced, lasted for only one year after the HRT dab commenced, and then stopped". For instance between 2002 and 2003, when large numbers of women were still using hormone therapy, the numeral of new breast cancer cases fell by nearly 7 percent.

In taking a bearing at the three studies again, Shapiro and his team reviewed whether the evidence satisfied criteria superior to researchers, such as the strength of an association, taking into account other factors that could influence risk. Their conclusion: The fact is not strong enough to say definitively that hormone therapy causes breast cancer. The go into is published in the current issue of the Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care.

Doctors Discovered A Link Between Alcoholism And Obesity

Doctors Discovered A Link Between Alcoholism And Obesity.
People at higher endanger for alcoholism might also impression higher odds of becoming obese, new contemplate findings show. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis analyzed material from two large US alcoholism surveys conducted in 1991-1992 and 2001-2002. According to the results of the more fresh survey, women with a family history of alcoholism were 49 percent more liable to to be obese than other women. Men with a family history of alcoholism were also more likely to be obese, but this association was not as offensively in men as in women, said first author Richard A Grucza, an assistant professor of psychiatry.

One exegesis for the increased risk of obesity among people with a family history of alcoholism could be that some masses substitute one addiction for another. For example, after a person sees a close allied with a drinking problem, they may avoid alcohol but consume high-calorie foods that stimulate the same reward centers in the perception that react to alcohol, Grucza suggested.

In their analysis of the data from both surveys, the researchers found that the element between family history of alcoholism and obesity has grown stronger over time. This may be due to the increasing availability of foods that interact with the same percipience areas as alcohol.

Good Health Of The Heart Protects Against Alzheimer's Disease

Good Health Of The Heart Protects Against Alzheimer's Disease.
Sticking to a heart-healthy lifestyle may also quarter off Alzheimer's disease, according to a late study that suggests that raising "good" cholesterol levels can helper prevent the brain disorder in older people. The study, published in the December edition of Archives of Neurology, found that people who had low levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) or "good" cholesterol had a 60 percent greater endanger of developing Alzheimer's blight after the age of 65 than those who had high levels. Cholesterol is a waxy substance composed of "good and bad" cholesterol and triglycerides found in the bloodstream.

More than 50 percent of the US citizens has high levels of "bad" cholesterol, according to the study. "Our memorize suggests that high HDL levels 'good' cholesterol are associated with a decrease risk for Alzheimer's disease," said Dr Christiane Reitz, the study's author. "Ways to enhancement HDL levels include losing weight if overweight, aerobic irritate and a healthy diet".

By treating problems with cholesterol levels, "we can debase the incidence of Alzheimer's disease in the population". Some medications, such as statins, fibrates and niacin, that are in use to lower "bad" cholesterol also raise "good" cholesterol an assistant professor of neurology at Columbia University's Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease in New York City. More than 5 million Americans have Alzheimer's disease, the most banal ceremony of dementia, and those numbers could triple by 2050, according to vigorousness officials.

The US National Institutes of Health reports that about 5 percent of Americans between the ages of 65 and 74 have late-onset Alzheimer's disease, the more commonplace form of the disorder, and the control increases with age. By age 85, nearly 50 percent of the population develops the disease, according to the agency.

Early-onset Alzheimer's, a excellent form of the disease, begins in middle age and runs in families. Late-onset Alzheimer's has a genetic component influenced by lifestyle factors, according to the agency. There is no prescription for Alzheimer's disease, but a few drugs can hand reduce symptoms for a time, according to experts.

German Scientists Have Found That Many Food Supplements For Weight Loss Are No Better Than Placebo

German Scientists Have Found That Many Food Supplements For Weight Loss Are No Better Than Placebo.
A big bunch of weight-loss supplements don't appear to knead any better than placebos (or fake supplements) at helping rank and file shed pounds, a new study has found. German researchers tested placebos against weight-loss supplements that are all the rage in Europe. The supplements were touted as having these ingredients: L-Carnitine, polyglucosamine, cabbage powder, guarana egg powder, bean extract, Konjac extract, fiber, sodium alginate and unavoidable plant extracts.

So "We found that not a single product was any more effective than placebo pills in producing burden loss over the two months of the study, regardless of how it claims to work," said researcher Thomas Ellrott, belfry of the Institute for Nutrition and Psychology at the University of Gottingen Medical School in Germany, in a word release from the International Congress on Obesity in Stockholm, Sweden. The researchers tested the products and placebos on 189 overweight or overweight people, of whom 74 percent finished the eight-week study.

Computer Simulation Of The New Look Of The Nose

Computer Simulation Of The New Look Of The Nose.
Computer imaging software gives patients a properly first-rate idea of how they'll look after a "nose job," and the mass value the preview process, a new study finds. The "morphing" software, reach-me-down by plastic surgeons since the 1990s, appears to improve patient-doctor communication, surgeons tortuous with the study said. "Having an image of an individual in front of you and manipulating that nose on the veil is better than the patient showing me pictures of 15 other women's noses she likes," said Dr Andrew Frankel, elder study author and a plastic surgeon at the Lasky Clinic in Beverly Hills, Calif. "It's her semblance and her nose".

Patients who thought their computer image was accurate tended to be happier about the results, the reflect on found, while plastic surgeons were less likely than patients to think the computer archetype correctly predicted how the remodeled nose turned out. The study is in the November/December daughter of the Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery.

The imaging software was a major step forward in the everyone of rhinoplasty, or plastic surgery of the nose. "Before computer imaging, people would bring in pictures of celebrities or other noses they liked and would say, 'Could you think me look like this?'" Frankel said.

But reassuring that was often impossible, plastic surgeons said. Plastic surgeons can break bone, crop off or reshape the cartilage that makes up the lower two-thirds of the nose, even graft cartilage from other areas of the body onto the nose, but they are still predetermined by the nose's basic structure.

And "I have to constantly communicate to the patient what are moderate expectations," said Dr Richard Fleming, a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon. "If big noise comes in with a huge Roman nose and they want a little turned up pug nose, you're not universal to give it to them. It cannot be accomplished".

And even nearly identical noses will look different on different people. "Everything else about the obverse structure and the person could be different - the skin color, eyes, apex - there is no translation between some Latina celebrity's nose and some Irish 40-year-old's nose".

The Future Of Worrying More Than Frighten The Past

The Future Of Worrying More Than Frighten The Past.
When it comes to feelings, original inspection suggests that the past is not always prologue. People be prone to have worse and more intense views on events that might happen down the road than identical events that have already taken place. The word touches upon perceptions of fairness, morality and punishment, the study noted, as people superficially take more extreme positions regarding events that have yet to occur.

Thinking about future events simply tends to get a move on up more emotions than events in the past, study author Eugene Caruso, an assistant professor of behavioral system with the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, explained in a university report release. The findings were published in a recent online issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Caruso's conclusions are worn out from several experiments conducted to assess feelings regarding days beyond recall and future occurrences.

In one instance, study participants expressed their feelings regarding a soft taste vending machine designed to hike up prices as temperatures rise. People had stronger dissentious reactions about the fairness of the notion when told that the machine would soon be tested than they did when told that the dispenser had already been put in place a month prior, according to the report.

Smoking And Drugs Increases The Risk Of Eye Diseases

Smoking And Drugs Increases The Risk Of Eye Diseases.
A in good health intake helps guard against cataracts, while certain medications raise the risks of this average cause of vision loss, two new studies suggest. And a third writing-room finds that smoking increases the risk of age-related macular degeneration, another disease that robs woman in the street of their sight. The first study found that women who eat foods that contain high levels of a mix of vitamins and minerals may be less likely to develop nuclear cataract, which is the most common type of age-related cataract in the United States.

The library is published in the June issue of the Archives of Ophthalmology. The researchers looked at 1808 women in Iowa, Oregon and Wisconsin who took faction in a turn over about age-related eye disease. Overall, 736 (41 percent) of the women had either nuclear cataracts clear from lens photographs or reported having undergone cataract extraction.

So "Results from this learning indicate that healthy diets, which reflect adherence to the US dietary guidelines - are more strongly reciprocal to the lower occurrence of nuclear cataracts than any other modifiable risk factor or protective middleman studied in this sample of women," Julie A Mares, of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and colleagues said in a release release from the journal. The second study found that medications that increase supersensitivity to the sun - including antidepressants, diuretics, antibiotics and the pain reliever naproxen sodium (commonly sold over-the-counter as Aleve) - strengthen the risk of age-related cataract.

Researchers followed-up with 4,926 participants over a 15-year era and concluded that an interaction between sun-sensitizing medications and sunlight (ultraviolet-B) leaking was associated with the development of cortical cataract. "The medications active ingredients replace a broad range of chemical compounds, and the specific mechanism for the interaction is unclear," Dr Barbara EK Klein and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, said in the statement release. Their record was released online in advance of publication in the August print issue of the Archives of Ophthalmology.

Some Elderly Men Really Suffer From Andropause, But Much Less Frequently Than Previously Thought

Some Elderly Men Really Suffer From Andropause, But Much Less Frequently Than Previously Thought.
In describing a set of reliable symptoms for "male menopause" for the foremost time, British researchers have also ascertained that only about 2 percent of men age-old 40 to 80 suffer from the condition, far less than previously thought. Male menopause, also called "andropause" or late-onset hypogonadism, allegedly results from declines in testosterone production that occur later in life, but there has been some think on how real the phenomenon is, the study authors noted. "Some aging men undeniably suffer from male menopause.

It is a genuine syndrome, but much less common than previously assumed," concluded Dr Ilpo Huhtaniemi, chief author of a study published online June 16 in the New England Journal of Medicine. "This is outstanding because it demonstrates that genuine symptomatic androgen deficiencies androgens are virile hormones is less common than believed, and that only the right patients should get androgen treatment," added Huhtaniemi, a professor of reproductive endocrinology in the control of surgery and cancer at Imperial College London.

Many men have been taking testosterone supplements to grapple the perceived effects of aging, even though it's not acquit if taking these supplements help or if they're even safe. The result has been mass confusion, not only as to whether male menopause exists but also how to boon it. "A lot of people abuse testosterone who shouldn't and a lot of men who should get it aren't," said Dr Michael Hermans, an confederate professor of surgery in the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine and boss of the section of andrology, male sexual dysfunction and man's infertility at Scott & White in Temple, Texas.

Study Of Obesity Among Africans

Study Of Obesity Among Africans.
A genetic anomaly associated with an increased endanger of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and other health problems is trite in Africans and people of African descent worldwide, according to a new study Dec 2013. The findings may relieve explain why Africans and people of African descent are more likely to develop insensitivity disease and diabetes than many other racial groups, the Weill Cornell Medical College researchers said. The modification in the ApoE gene is linked to increased levels of triglycerides, which are fats in the blood associated with conditions such as obesity, diabetes, knock and heart disease.

The researchers' analysis of worldwide material revealed that the "R145C" variant of the ApoE gene is found in 5 percent to 12 percent of Africans and woman in the street of African descent, especially those from sub-Saharan Africa. The variant is rare in grass roots who are not African or of African descent. "Based on our findings, we estimate that there could be 1,7 million African-Americans in the United States and 36 million sub-Saharan Africans worldwide with the variant," work senior founder Dr Ronald Crystal, chairman of genetic medicine at Weill Cornell, said in a college low-down release.