Chronic diseases like heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes cause 70% of deaths in the US these days… absorbing 75% of the $2.5T spent on annual medical care costs. When it comes to employee healthcare expenses- the indirect costs of poor health like absenteeism, disability, and reduced work output can be several times higher than direct medical [...]
I’m happy to share our new Arizona Chronic Disease Strategic Plan. This past year, our team from the Bureau of Tobacco & Chronic Disease worked with community partners from across the state on a new guiding document for chronic disease prevention and health promotion. This strategic plan will be used by ADHS, county health departments, and community partners [...]
The first thing that you learn in a Toxicology 101 class is the old saying coined by the Renaissance German scientist Paracelsus that: "All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; only the dose permits something not to be poisonous." We've shortened that to: 'the dose makes the poison". Anyway... a key question for [...]
There’s an old tale about a Texas “Sharpshooter” that pulls his pistol out of his holster and shoots at the broad side of a barn pretty much at random without aiming. Then he goes up to the barn with a paintbrush and draws a circle around the bullet holes and says: “See, I have perfect [...]
Keeping off the pounds is tough at any age. Now seniors are getting a helping hand from Medicare. Last month Medicare announced that it’s adding coverage for nutritional and behavioral counseling for those who are obese as measured by body mass index or BMI. BMI is a tool which measures weight status for adults- and [...]
A few months ago our tobacco & chronic disease prevention team was awarded a CDC grant to increase coordination and collaboration on evidence-based interventions addressing the leading causes of chronic diseases in Arizona (heart disease, cancer, pulmonary disease, stroke, diabetes, and arthritis). The Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion grant will look for ways we [...]
Issues regarding the vaccine that prevents infection with the human papillomavirus (also called HPV) have been in the news lately- so I thought I’d do a thumbnail sketch on it this week. HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection. Most people with HPV don’t have symptoms or health problems from it- and 90% of the time the [...]
For years, you’ve heard that you should take your health care into your own hands. It may soon be easier because HHS wants you to be able to access your electronic health care records. One key argument to give people access is if they know what is there, they’ll ask better questions or even make notes [...]
After your baby is born, the umbilical cord is clamped and cut but some blood remains in the cord. It turns out that this umbilical cord blood is actually liquid gold. The stem cells in cord blood are very flexible biologically and can be transplanted in people to treat a number of life-threatening diseases. In [...]
The World Health Organization International Agency for Research on Cancer met this week in Lyon, France to analyze health-risk data regarding the electromagnetic fields generated by cell phones. Their initial report was published this week, concluding that the chronic use of cell phones could be “possibly carcinogenic to humans”. The group didn’t do any primary [...]
