Rochdale Village Health

Doctors lined up at a public hearing to speak in favor of a proposed ban on large sugary drinks in New York, saying sodas and other sweetened beverages are a leading factor in the nation’s fat problem. Critics see the plan as an assault on personal freedom.

New York City’s health board was hearing testimony Tuesday on a proposal to combat a deadly obesity epidemic by banning restaurants, movie theaters and other eateries from serving giant-sized sugary drinks.

The panel is considering a rule that would limit soft-drink cup and bottle sizes at food service establishments to no larger than 16 ounces.

One doctor said before the hearing that the calorie-packed beverages consumers now down with abandon increase the risk of diabetes, and are responsible for a big share of the “massive suffering and premature death” linked to obesity.
“Soda in large amounts is metabolically toxic,” said Walter Willett, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health. “It’s obvious that this is the right thing to do.”

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Today, diabetes mellitus is one of the most serious health problems in the United
States. Diabetes is particularly common in middle-aged adults and the elderly. It
is much more common in obese people and in black Americans than in those of
European origin. In African-Americans over 50 years old, 19% of men and 28%
of women have diabetes. For every 6 white Americans who have diabetes, there
are 20 black diabetics. African-Americans with diabetes have more complications
than white diabetics.

What is Diabetes?

Diabetes mellitus is a disease that is characterized by high blood glucose
concentrations. There are two different processes that cause diabetes. Type I
diabetes is due to problems with insulin secretion. The pancreas, which is an
organ in the abdomen located behind the stomach, has cells called islets that
normally produce insulin. In type I diabetes, these islet cells stop producing
insulin and the result of this is insulin deficiency. Patients with type I diabetes
must receive insulin to be able to control their glucose concentrations. Type II
diabetes occurs when the body cannot effectively use the insulin that the
pancreas produces. These patients require medication to help the body use
insulin more effectively. In some cases, additional insulin may be needed to
control glucose. Diabetes can be associated with serious complications and early
death, but people with diabetes can take measures to lower these risks.
Most African-Americans (approximately 90 to 95%) with diabetes have type II
diabetes. This type of diabetes generally appears in adulthood and is due to the
body’s resistance to the action of insulin. It can be treated with diet, exercise, oral
medications (pills) and injected insulin. A small number of African-Americans
(between 5 to 10%) have type I diabetes, which generally appears before the age
of 20 and is always treated with insulin.

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Original article can be found at mydailynews.com

The FBI collared dozens of suspects in New York and New Jersey Tuesday in a massive fraud scheme involving the resale of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of prescription drugs, authorities said.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara scheduled a 1 p.m. news conference to announce the unsealing of charges against 48 people.

The scheme involved the resale of prescription drugs originally dispensed to Medicaid recipients in the New York City area, prosecutors said.

The pills were resold into collection and distribution channels that ultimately end at pharmacies, where the meds are resold to unsuspecting consumers.

The drugs involved were not drugs of abuse but prescriptions meant for the treatment of various illnesses, including HIV, schizophrenia and asthma, prosecutors said.

For instance the fraudsters target the HIV drug Atripla. One bottle has a Medicaid reimbursement value of $1,635.

The indictment describes a daisy-chain involving at one end Medicaid beneficiaries who are typically AIDS patients or individuals who suffer from other illnesses and at the other end “aggregators” who sell the second-hand drugs into the underground distribution channels.

Original article can be found at finalcall.com

The Supreme Court decision upholding the Affordable Care Act (also known as “Obamacare”) has triggered a predictable debate among right wing politicians and opponents of President Barack Obama. On the national level opponents are promising to undo the legislation. On the state level they are promising to refuse to implement its provisions which expand Medicaid coverage for the poor and uninsured. Never mind the fact that the federal government will finance about 95 percent of the cost of Medicaid expansion from 2014 through 2019.

And for politicians such as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney—the presumptive Republican presidential nominee who crafted an almost identical health plan when he was in office, a plan which was the template for the federal law—the principal reason for opposition appears to be simply that President Obama supports it.

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Agency’s decision comes two weeks after it OK’d first over-the-counter HIV test. Manufactured by Gilead Sciences, decision greeted with apprehension

The 30-year AIDS epidemic reached a once-unseen milestone Monday as the feds approved the first drug that prevents the transmission of HIV.

The Food and Drug Administration okayed Truvada, calling the little blue pill “an important milestone” in the struggle to curb a disease once considered a killer.

The FDA’s decision comes less than two weeks after the agency approved the first over-the-counter HIV home test.

And such testing is key, activists said, because too many New Yorkers have the virus that causes AIDS yet don’t know it.

As a result, the approval of Truvada, manufactured by Gilead Sciences, was greeted with some apprehension.

“We celebrate Truvada, [but] we still want to tell people to be sure they use all the tools . . . to prevent HIV,” said Marjorie Hill, CEO of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis. “The reality is this is one good tool, but it’s only one tool. We still need education, education, education.”
About 50,000 Americans are diagnosed with HIV every year, and about 1.2 million people nationwide are living with the virus.

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Original article can be found at nytimes.com

Every hospital makes mistakes. But some New York City hospitals may not have enough money to pay for them.

Several of the city’s most troubled hospitals are partially or completely uninsured for malpractice, state records show, forgoing what is considered a standard safeguard across the country.

Some have saved money to cover their liabilities, but others have used up their malpractice reserves, meaning that any future awards or settlements could come at the expense of patients’ care, and one hospital has closed its obstetric practice, in part out of fear of lawsuits.

Executives of these hospitals, most of which are in poor neighborhoods, say their dire financial circumstances and high premiums make it impractical to pay millions of dollars a year for insurance.

But insurance experts say that though dropping coverage may make economic sense in the short term, it is hardly in the best interest of patients, and in the long term it may be costly to hospitals and their bondholders, including some bonds backed by the state, should large judgments force them into bankruptcy.

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These 17 medical centers are standouts in half a dozen or more specialties

The medical centers in the Best Hospitals Honor Roll are members of an unusually exclusive club, one that makes up less than 0.4 percent of the nearly 5,000 hospitals nationwide that U.S. News evaluated for the 2012-13 rankings. The 17 hospitals on the list, most of them household names, excel across a broad spectrum of patient care, scoring at or near the top this year in at least six of the 16 Best Hospitals medical specialties.

Displacing Johns Hopkins, Mass General is No. 1 for the first time. It marks the end of a 21-year reign for Hopkins that started in 1991, the year after U.S. News began publishing Best Hospitals. Another first: Indiana University Health is new to the Honor Roll.

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(CNN) — When the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act in a 5-4 ruling Thursday, the American Medical Association was quick to release a statement in support of the “historic” decision that will give more people access to health coverage.
But (and there’s always a “but”) medical professionals across the country are wondering: When an additional 32 million Americans get medical insurance, who exactly is going to treat them?

“We’ve expressed some concerns before about whether or not we’re going to have enough physicians out there,” AMA President-Elect Ardis Hoven said.

They have good reason to worry. When Thailand enacted the “30-bhat scheme” in 2002, requiring all patients to be covered by health insurance, 14 million people were added to the country’s health care system. The result was longer waits at the doctor’s office and complaints of subpar service.

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Original article can be found here

The Supreme Court Thursday upheld the 2010 federal health care law, dismissing the challenge by states to the law’s requirement that individuals get insurance. The justices, however, did give states the right to opt out of a critical provision requiring them to expand Medicaid programs for the poor and disabled.

The decision will have sweeping ramifications for consumers, state officials, employers and health careproviders, including hospitals and doctors.

First Edition: July 2, 2012
Boehner Says GOP ‘Resolved’ To Overturn Health Law; Pelosi Calls Effort ‘Unrealistic’
While some of the key features don’t kick in until 2014, the still-controversial law has already altered the health care industry and established a number of consumer benefits.
Here’s an FAQ about some of the law’s provisions that are already up and running as well as major features of what’s to come.

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By Joy Bauer, TODAY nutrition expert (click here for original article)

Cutting-edge research from Boston Children’s Hospital suggests that the type of diet you eat may affect your metabolism, a finding that has important implications for weight maintenance. Published in the Journal of the American Medical Association this week, the study looked at three popular diets (low-carb, low-glycemic, and low-fat) to see which combination of fat, carbs, and protein was the best for people trying to maintain a previous weight loss.

Low-glycemic carbs like beans, lentils, and non-starchy vegetables take a long time for the body to absorb and appear to be more effective at satisfying hunger.

Because decreases in metabolism can contribute to weight regain, the researchers aimed to see which eating plan worked best with the body’s internal mechanisms to rev up dieters’ calorie burn and help them keep the weight off.

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