Is Sugar Down for the Count?
Sugar has had a bad year or two. Several US cities have implemented so called “soft drink” taxes. Recent research by a UCSF team uncovered records revealing the sugar industry’s secret payoffs to academic scientists tasked with determining sugar’s...
J2H: What & Why
![Three Pillars [(c) William Lawson]](https://ehop-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/article/picture/e1d104f2-bda6-4da3-9622-5ee6df7d0abd/three-pillars%40800w-9d979a8d_large.jpg)
As much as anything, this is a personal story of a very small group of people. As you know from experience, any journey can be unpredictable. Often we end up at a destination we didn’t foresee.
Let me begin with a personal example of my own. I entered...
Fake Science
News journalism is a mess. "Alternative facts" render truth-seeking almost impossible. But journalists have compounded the problems by abandoning their educational roots. As my Medill School of Journalism educated wife reminds me, the news should be...
Huis Clos
![Black Vultures [(c) William Lawson]](https://ehop-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/article/picture/2673ed51-4acf-489a-8c49-7eca4b6beef6/vultures%40800w-dc25e6b5_large.jpg)
Okay. Okay. Maybe a little too cute in using the French term for “no exit”. But the constant reports about the opioid crisis in America has me wondering if I am living in a foreign land. Yahoo’s banner article just reminded us of how insidiously narcotics...
Waiting for a Raise
![Pompeii Resident [(c) William Lawson]](https://ehop-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/article/picture/b40ab74d-f28d-475c-ad28-076077daf07c/pompeii-resident%40800w-3eec1648_large.jpg)
Rising healthcare costs need to be understood as the most important financial issue affecting the middle class. This slow, inexorable squeeze and subsequent pressure on jobs and income must be released. The St. Louis Fed helpfully illustrates the volcanic...
Actions Speak Louder Than Words
![Fountain [(c) William Lawson]](https://ehop-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/article/picture/87ae2e4a-5666-4c94-8e84-d414605f7721/fountain%40800w-01a62e5b_large.jpg)
It wasn’t unusual for patients to ask me, "If it were you, Doctor, what would you do?" After telling them that they had prostate or kidney cancer or that they had a large kidney stone that needed treatment, it was a natural question. And a wise one.
After all, if I would not follow my own advice, why should my patient?
The Solution to Poor Health
There's an expensive belief that the solution to poor health is more health care. Ironically, well-researched studies and the CDC argue against this belief – as costs and utilization of healthcare services have risen, so too has the prevalence of chronic disease.
Our health care system does an excellent job treating acute illness. However, our record reversing or curing chronic disease is much less impressive.
Leaving the Death Spiral
![By Alain R [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://ehop-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/article/picture/022934db-4b37-4039-8bc2-b56422031ace/black-hole-ab141047_large.png)
According to Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini:
Obamacare is in a "death spiral" and more insurers will flee in 2018. There isn't enough money in the ACA today as it is structured – even with its fees and taxes – to support the population that needs to be served.
Hearing that there's "not enough money" in the Affordable Care Act may come as a surprise to individuals and businesses that have watched their premiums increase over the past few years. Is there another option?
A Welcome Dose of Common Sense
This weekend's New York Times featured an editorial pushing back against the medical industry's most recent device for obesity and diabetes treatment, called the Aspire Assist. The Aspire Assist is essentially a tube surgically implanted into your stomach so you can drain a portion of your stomach contents after each meal, in an effort to avoid absorbing all the calories you consumed.
How is it that we've come to the point of believing that human physiology requires this degree of intervention to achieve a healthy weight, and healthy metabolism?
The authors of this article add their voices to the growing chorus that thinks our health is suffering because we're eating the wrong types of foods, not just too many calories.
Movement Goes Mainstream
Over the past decade, therapists and trainers across multiple disciplines have been quietly rewriting the rulebook for fitness expectations. Slowly but inexorably, stale philosophies like "no pain, no gain" and prioritization of appearance over function...