She was a 46-year-old Army veteran hired by the Louis A. Johnson Medical Center in 2015 with no certification or license to care for patients. Reta Mays worked in the middle of the night, tending to elderly, onetime service personnel, sitting bedside and monitoring their vitals, including their blood sugar levels. Mays went room to….
Continue ReadingDiabetes
With viral risks, a new chance to weigh in on obesity, diet and exercise
Health and nutrition experts may get a rare and unexpected chance in the Covid-19 pandemic time to see whether Americans have experienced even a minor reset in their maintaining a more healthful diet, increased exercise, and maybe even reduction in weight gain and its associated problems. To be sure, these have been times of high….
Continue ReadingHealth disparities, laid bare by the virus, lead to loss of both lives and limbs.
Although the Covid-19 pandemic may be opening more and more Americans’ eyes to the harsh effects of the country’s economic and racial inequities, the stark damage from the nation’s health disparities can be plain to see — in truly disheartening ways. Lizzie Presser, a reporter for the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative site ProPublica, deserves high praise….
Continue ReadingWhile policy makers engage in food fights, kids are getting fed dubious eats
Will grownups in the room step up soon and stop the nonsense? Or should consumers, especially parents and those who want to eat in healthful ways, just expect a perpetual food fight about what’s good and reasonable for Americans, especially our kids, to eat? When it comes to breakfasts and lunches served to 30 million….
Continue ReadingNeed simple, clear, and direct ideas to be healthier? Heed these 48 words
Bravo, brevity. Four dozen words is all it takes for a doctor and noted writer on diet and obesity to offer plenty of sound advice on how to get and stay healthy. Here are the suggestions from Yoni Freedhoff, associate professor of family medicine at the University of Ottawa, founder and medical director of Ottawa’s….
Continue ReadingAs life expectancy and fertility rates decline, health politics more key than ever
Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Indiana — if you’re obsessed with national politics, these states might register in your mind as key partisan battlegrounds. But if you’re focused on Americans’ health and well-being, these states — along with New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, and West Virginia — may be causes for different and considerable concern: the nation’s….
Continue ReadingHeart failure deaths spike as nation ages and diabetes and obesity abound
Although many Americans fret that old age will afflict them with cognitive impairment, from Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia, it may be that their hearts will give way first. Experts have expressed growing concern about increasing issues with rises in heart disease, especially in the elderly, and a new study appearing in the online medical….
Continue ReadingToo many spoons full of sugar going down in kids’ drinks
Grownups shouldn’t be surprised that child obesity is a major and rising concern for 1 in 5 of the nation’s young, putting their short- and long-term health at serious peril: That’s because Big Sugar and major food makers persist in a costly, relentless barrage on kids and adults for unhealthful products, notably sweet drinks that….
Continue ReadingLawmakers order schools to give teens more time for California dreaming
If millions of young folks in the nation’s largest state seem even sunnier than before, that may be because they are getting a wee bit more needed shut eye: California has become the first state in the nation to order public schools to roll back their start times, so middle school classes generally won’t start….
Continue ReadingA toast to clear and simple advice: Parents, it’s just milk and water for the kids
Milk and water — it’s that simple. That’s the latest and official recommendation for what children 5 and younger mostly should drink. For parents, if any doubt persists, that advice comes from leading health authorities, including Healthy Eating Research, a nutrition advocacy group funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The group developed the kids’….
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