The recent announcement of the planned 2008 increase in Medicare premiums underscores the urgent need for congressional action on Medicare, says the American Medical Association (AMA). In CMS’ analysis of the premium increase, it is clear that growth in Medicare Advantage plans is solely responsible for the increase in the 2008 Medicare Part B premium.

“It is outrageous that all Medicare patients are helping subsidize overpayments to private insurance companies, while only one in five Medicare patients participates in a private Medicare plan,” said Dr. Langston.

“Medicare patients’ premiums are rising, yet the government is cutting payments to the doctors who care for them, which will make it harder for seniors to see the doctor,” said AMA Board Chair Edward Langston, MD. “This is short-sighted government policy, and Congress needs to restore some sense into the system by stopping Medicare physician payment cuts.”

“Over the next two years, the government will slash Medicare physician payments 15 percent, and 60 percent of physicians say they will be forced to limit the number of new Medicare patients they can treat when the first Medicare cut occurs next year,” said Dr. Langston.

Congress must take action to level the playing field between payments to Medicare Advantage and traditional Medicare, resulting in important savings that will allow Congress to stop the cuts and preserve Medicare patients’ access to physicians.

“America’s seniors – and the baby boomers soon to reach age 65 – are relying on the Senate to stop Medicare cuts to physicians and ensure seniors have access to a doctor when they need one,” said Dr. Langston.

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For most people, summer is the season for wearing light clothing and enjoying the outdoors, but those who have gained weight over the winter are probably not eager to throw on a swimsuit or pair of shorts.

Thankfully, it’s not too late to shed those extra pounds you’ve been battling since New Year’s Day and keep them off.

“This time of year offers us a greater variety of healthy foods to choose from, which makes this an ideal time to lose weight and keep it off,” says Megan Fendt, a registered dietitian at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center.

Michele Murphy, a registered dietitian at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, adds that “Every season offers us new ways to improve our diets and the summertime is no exception.”

Megan Fendt and Michele Murphy offer the following tips to help trim the fat this summer:

– Take advantage of the warm weather to increase your exercise regimen. Play a game of Frisbee, volleyball or tennis; take long walks; or swim.

– Make seasonal vegetables the focus of your meal. Indulge in salads and steamed vegetables. Season vegetables with spices, lemon and balsamic vinegar, a little Parmesan cheese and low-fat dressings. Make these the largest items on your plate and add small portions of protein and/or starch.

– Grilling your food is a great way to add flavor while reducing fat and calories. Grilling meats allows some fat to drip off, which lowers fat and calorie content. Try wrapping fish or chicken in foil and add vegetables and seasonings to the grill.

– Satisfy your sweet tooth with fresh fruits. Bypass cakes, cookies and ice cream and opt for fresh berries, melons and even some of the more exotic fruits that are available instead. Fruit is fat-free, high in nutrients and fiber, and a natural energizer.

– Try “calorie banking.” Cookouts with family and friends should not signal a diet disaster. By cutting back on your calories a week before special occasions, you can indulge a little more and enjoy yourself. However, try to restrict high-fat foods such as potato chips and mayonnaise-based salads.

– Stay away from empty calories. It is important to drink plenty of fluids during these warm summer months, but juice, whole milk, regular soda and alcoholic beverages are high-calorie drinks that you want to avoid. Alcoholic beverages contain empty calories and may stimulate your appetite. Instead, fill up on water, seltzer, juice diluted with seltzer, low-fat milk or iced tea.

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, based in New York City, is the nation’s largest not-for-profit, non-sectarian hospital, with 2,353 beds. The Hospital has more than 1 million inpatient and outpatient visits in a year, including more than 220,000 visits to its emergency departments more than any other area hospital. NewYork-Presbyterian provides state-of-the-art inpatient, ambulatory and preventive care in all areas of medicine at five major centers: NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center, NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/The Allen Hospital and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Westchester Division. One of the largest and most comprehensive health care institutions in the world, the Hospital is committed to excellence in patient care, research, education and community service. NewYork-Presbyterian is the #1 hospital in the New York metropolitan area and is consistently ranked among the best academic medical institutions in the nation, according to U.S.News & World Report. The Hospital has academic affiliations with two of the nation’s leading medical colleges: Weill Cornell Medical College and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Source: NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital Continue reading →

The National Academies Keck FUTURES INITIATIVE has announced the recipients of its 2007 FUTURES grants, each awarded to support interdisciplinary research on aging and healthspan — the period of life that is free from serious or chronic illness. The 15 projects chosen represent a wide range of approaches to such research, which was the subject of the fifth annual FUTURES conference, “The Future of Human Healthspan: Demography, Evolution, Medicine, and Bioengineering,” held last November in Irvine, Calif. A summary of the conference, which explores challenges in this field and possible solutions, is available online at www.keckfutures.

John W. Rowe, M.D., professor of health policy and management, Columbia University, New York City, and the conference chair, said, “We received many bold and innovative proposals and believe we have selected the most promising research projects to pursue.”

These competitive seed grants aim to fill a critical gap for research on new ideas. Major federal funding programs do not typically provide support in areas that are considered risky or unusual. The FUTURES grants allow researchers to start recruiting students and postdoctoral fellows, purchasing equipment, and acquiring preliminary data – all of which can position the researchers to compete for larger awards from other public and private sources.

Established through a $40 million grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation in 2003, the National Academies Keck FUTURES INITIATIVE is a 15-year effort to enhance communication among researchers, funding agencies, universities, and the general public – with the objective of stimulating interdisciplinary research at the most exciting frontiers. The National Academies and the W.M. Keck Foundation believe considerable scientific progress and social benefit will be achieved by providing a counterbalance to the tendency to isolate research within academic fields. The FUTURES INITIATIVE is designed to enable researchers from different disciplines to focus on new questions and entirely new research, and to encourage better communication among scientists as well as between the scientific community and the public.

The award recipients and their grant research topics are:

STEVEN AUSTAD, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio
DAVID J. WATERS, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind.

WORKSHOP ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF DOGS AS ANIMAL MODELS FOR THE STUDY OF EXTENDED HEALTHSPAN – $25,000

These researchers will hold a workshop with experts in basic aging research, canine genomics, epidemiology, pathology, and the assessment of canine health, to develop a research plan to study dogs and breed differences for animal models of extended healthspan.

LAZELLE BENEFIELD, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City
GEORGE DEMIRIS, University of Washington, Seattle
TAMARA HAYES, JEFFREY KAYE, and MISHA PAVEL, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland
MARGARET PERKINSON, St. Louis University
ELAINE WITTENBERG-LYLES, University of North Texas, Denton

TECHNOLOGY-ENHANCED INTERVENTIONS FOR DISTANCE CAREGIVING OF OLDER ADULTS: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH – $50,000

This project will explore information and communication technology solutions to support long-distance caregiving. The researchers will develop the long-term research agenda to assess human-technology interface within an aging-in-place model.

BAMBI BREWER, SUJATA PRADHAN, and ANTHONY DELITTO, University of Pittsburgh

ROBOTIC ASSESSMENT FOR QUANTIFICATION OF PRECLINICAL SYMPTOMS OF NEURODEGENERATIVE DISEASE – $75,000

These researchers will use robotic technology to develop methods to measure early symptoms of degenerative diseases like Parkinson’s disease. Such tools could increase the human healthspan by accelerating the development of drug treatment and allowing early diagnosis of these diseases once effective treatment is available.

EILEEN CRIMMINS, University of Southern California, Los Angeles

HUMAN LIFESPAN AND HEALTHSPAN ACROSS TIME AND SPACE – $75,000

This project will estimate the healthspan or life without physiological dysregulation and impaired functioning in a number of populations that span time and space. The information gathered will be used in models that clarify the effects of changing physiological, social, and behavioral characteristics on future healthspan.

DIDDAHALLY GOVINDARAJU, Boston University School of Medicine
STEVE N. AUSTAD, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio
NIR BARZILAI, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York City
CHARLES LEE, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, Mass.

COPY NUMBER VARIATION AND EXCEPTIONAL HUMAN HEALTHSPAN: THE ASHKENAZI CENTENARIANS – $87,500

Human genomic length variation ranging from 500bp to 5 Mb, also known as structural or copy number variation (CNV), has been shown to influence complex traits including longevity and diseases. These researchers will investigate this influence by a genome-wide survey of CNVs in relation to longevity among the Ashkenazi centenarians.

CHRISTINE GRANT, North Carolina State University, Raleigh
ANATOLI I YASHIN, KEITH MEADOR, and ELIZABETH ANN GERKEN HOOTEN, Duke University, Durham, N.C.
KHALED SALEH, University of Virginia, Charlottesville
SARA PECKHAM, Wellness Consultant, Cleveland

PARADIGM SHIFT TOWARD POSITIVE HEALTH AND HEALTHSPAN OUTCOMES – $50,000

This project will bring together experts from many fields including orthopedic medicine, biomedicine, and spiritual, wellness, to focus on how orthopedic events will enhance orthopedic medicine and foster health care personnel diversity, facilitating culturally competent care.

SCOTT HOFER, Oregon State University, Corvallis
JEFFREY KAYE, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland
ILENE C. SIEGLER, Duke University, Durham, N.C.
AVRON SPIRO, Boston University

HEALTH AND HEALTHSPAN IN LONGITUDINAL STUDIES OF AGING – $75,000

These researchers will hold a conference to better understand age-related health changes by evaluating measurement and modeling approaches. Using current longitudinal studies of aging, participants will compare the various models, measures, and methods of assessing health and provide an empirical basis for harmonizing existing measures, suggesting novel ones, and eventually integrating health information from new and ongoing longitudinal studies across disciplines.

KENNETH MANTON, Duke University, Durham, N.C.

PLATEAUS IN HUMAN MORTALITY AND DISABILITY DYNAMICS AT ADVANCED AGES – $87,500

This project will examine data from National Long-Term Care Surveys from 1982 to 2004 with data for linked Medicare Part B files for the same dates to see if the age trajectory of human mortality and disability processes reaches a plateau or even declines, above age 95.

MAJA MATARIC and CALEB FINCH, University of Southern California, Los Angeles

SOCIALLY ASSISTIVE ROBOTICS FOR THE PHYSICAL AND COGNITIVE HEALTH – $75,000

Socially assistive robotics (SAR) — autonomous, intelligent, and companionable technology — has the potential to positively impact the human healthspan. These researchers will develop and test SAR systems that provide individualized physical and cognitive exercises for improving motivation and function, in a socially engaging context, through social (not physical) human-machine interaction.

RICHARD MILLER, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
STEVEN AUSTAD, University of Texas, San Antonio
JUDITH CAMPISI, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, Calif.
CALEB FINCH, University of Southern California, Los Angeles
LINDA MILLER, Nature Publishing Group, New York City
CHRISTOPHER K. PATIL, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, Calif.
WOODRING ERIK WRIGHT, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas

COMPARATIVE BIOGERONTOLOGY INITIATIVE – $75,000

These researchers will hold two meetings with senior scholars to develop a plan to test hypotheses about biological factors that control lifespan and healthspan, and compare tissues from multiple species of animals. The scholars are pathologists, comparative physiologists, methodologists, statisticians, and experts in the biology of aging.

STEVEN ORZACK, Fresh Pond Research Institute, Cambridge, Mass.
DIDDAHALLY R. GOVINDARAJU, Boston University School of Medicine
SHRIPAD TULJAPURKAR, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif.
TIM COULSON, Imperial College, London

SIGNATURES OF HEALTHSPAN IN HUMANS – $75,000

These researchers will study the causal basis for differences in human healthspan by using “signatures” and health trajectories, and assessing the dynamic nature of heterogeneity of healthspan.

CORINNA ROSS, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio
SARA ESPINOZA, University of Texas, San Antonio

DEVELOPMENT OF A SMALL PRIMATE MODEL OF FRAILTY – $25,000

Frailty has been defined as a wasting syndrome characterized by weight loss, fatigue, weakness, and vulnerability to stressors that predisposes them to increased risk of morbidity and mortality. These researchers will convene a group of experts to explore the development of a small primate model of frailty.

RICHARD SPROTT, The Ellison Medical Foundation, Bethesda, Md.

CREATING A CENTER FOR MODELS FOR HEALTHSPAN RESEARCH – $75,000

There are currently no accepted models for healthspan research. A universally accessible center for model development and maintenance would make an enormous contribution to this essential research. This project is to convene a group of experts to develop guidelines for healthspan models.

CATHERINE WOLKOW, National Institute on Aging Intramural Research Program, Bethesda, Md.
NAN JOKERST, Duke University, Durham, N.C.
CRAIG S. ATWOOD, University of Wisconsin, Madison

ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS TO EXTEND HUMAN HEALTHSPAN – $50,000

New technologies promise to extend healthspan, but their development is hampered by poor communication between engineers and biologists. To speed technology development, these researchers propose to identify specific healthspan research areas that would benefit from engineer-biologist collaborations.

WOODRING WRIGHT, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas

THE COMPARATIVE CELLULAR BIOLOGY OF AGING – $100,000

Mammalian lifespan varies more than fiftyfold. This researcher will establish a resource of normal and immortalized cultured cells from over 30 species to be shared between laboratories to study the comparative cellular biology of aging. The goal is to identify strategies to manipulate the process of limiting human healthspan.

###

Source: Maureen O’Leary

The National Academies Continue reading →

“Fiscally speaking, the U.S. government has been living on borrowed time for decades” because it “has promised massively expensive benefits — mainly Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — heedless of the enormous tax burdens these promises implicitly place on our children and grandchildren,” according to a Washington Times opinion piece by Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, Stuart Butler, vice president for domestic policy issues at the Heritage Foundation and Isabel Sawhill, a senior economic studies fellow at the Brookings Institution.

According to the authors, “If the Wall Street crisis has taught us nothing else, it has shown there are financial limits — even for America.” They write, “Health care reform is a good and noble goal. But if we do only that — without fundamentally redesigning the Medicare commitment — our grandchildren will inherit a crushing financial burden.” The authors state, “Medicare has led before and can do it again,” asking, “Why hold Medicare reform hostage to a global ‘fix’ of health care?”

The authors recommend that the U.S. government:”Use Medicare to leverage wholesale change in reimbursement policies, encourage use of electronic medical records, and experiment with new health care delivery methods” and allow “competitive bidding on medical equipment for home-based seniors”;

“Reduce the commitments we’ve made — seriously, but fairly,” such as by reducing Medicare Parts B and D premium subsidies for upper-income beneficiaries;

“Look for savings in Medicare payments,” for example, by reducing Medicare Advantage payments; and

“Finally, put Medicare (and Social Security and Medicaid) on a budget, with automatic ‘triggers’ to make sure spending stays within budgeted amounts” (Bixby et al., Washington Times, 11/18).
Reprinted with kind permission from kaisernetwork. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at kaisernetwork/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

© 2008 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved. Continue reading →

When faced with such an epidemic, healthcare professionals have little choice but to respond. The 1992 Health of the Nation report set targets for weight reduction in the English population by 2005, but obesity rates have continued to climb.

There are currently over one million people in the UK suffering with severe and complex obesity (defined by NICE as a BMI of over 40 or between 35 and 40 if suffering from other significant disease)1 and the management of this obesity epidemic is currently costing the NHS around ??4.2 billion, with indirect healthcare and societal costs estimated at around ??16 billion; figures which have been predicted to more than double by 2050.2

Today’s scientific paper in the British Medical Journal is good news for those suffering from the associated health concerns of severe obesity, and good news for the NHS who will reap the rewards of their investment in this life-saving and cost effective treatment.

When the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) first reported on the benefits and value for money of obesity surgery eight years ago, less was known about the dramatic effects of such surgery on associated co-morbidities such as diabetes, sleep apnoea and even cancer.

We now know that bariatric surgery not only has the capacity to induce major weight loss in the long term, but also ‘cure’ diabetes in 84% of cases, sometimes within days, resulting in patients no longer needing costly treatments with drugs such as insulin. 3 Sleep apnoea syndrome – thought to account for 300 deaths on the road each year where patients fall asleep at the wheel – enters remission4, and over a seven year period, cancer death rate is halved in patients who have had surgery compared to those who did not.3

Availability of surgery though has remained limited; relatively few surgeons were able to deliver this treatment using safer and cheaper key-hole (laparoscopic) techniques, and there have only been a limited number of designated centres. “It is a tribute to the NHS as a whole, that it has been able to scale up services to meet the need for this treatment.” Comments Professor Nick Finer, Consultant Endocrinologist and Chairman of ESCO, the independent multi-disciplinary group made up of experts in obesity management.

Even with a rapid expansion of surgical services across the UK, ESCO highlights today that not all patients who are eligible and willing to undergo surgery will be able to receive treatment. There are currently 230,000 people who are eligible under the NICE guidelines and willing to have the surgery in the UK, yet this year only 6,000 patients will actually receive surgical treatment. 1

Professor Finer added: “Currently 98% of eligible patients do not have access to this treatment, even though the NHS is currently spending approximately ??4.2 billion on obesity. The health economic outcomes of bariatric surgery are not only positive, but significantly better than non-surgical management, are sustained over at least 15 years and can essentially be cost-neutral within three years.5″

Cost is often cited as a major barrier to NHS managers and other interested parties. However, surgery is cost-effective, with gastric bypass paying for itself within 3.5 years due to reduced drug costs and hospital admissions, this before taking into account the individual’s renewed productivity, and benefit – rather than burden – to the economy.

Dr Carel Le Roux, a consultant and ESCO member, comments; “Weight loss surgery is not ,as many people believe, an ‘easy option’ or ‘quick fix’ for patients. In some ways the surgery makes patients’ lives much harder than before as they have to make lifestyle changes that require many adjustments and a great deal of support. In treating the associated chronic illnesses, weight loss surgery helps to make people healthier and more functional, while dramatically reducing the need for and cost of healthcare provision.”

Professor Nick Finer concludes: “It is disappointing that this good news has been met with prejudice and dogma. Would those who have responded negatively to this research prefer to squander NHS resources on chronic and poorly effective treatments of diabetes, liver disease, respiratory disease and obesity-related cancer? In many cases such an approach is far more costly and achieves far less benefit than surgery. Surgical approaches to obesity are no ‘quick-fix’ but a serious medical intervention for a serious and often complex disease.”

References

1 NICE implementation uptake report: [Obesity guidance on the prevention, identification, assessment and management of overweight and obesity and in adults and children' NICE clinical guideline 43 December 2006]

2 Cost – efficacy of Surgically Induced Weight Loss for the Management of Type 2 Diabetes

3 New England Journal of Medicine: 357;8. August 2007. Long-Term Mortality after Gastric Bypass Surgery. Ted D.Adams et al.

4 britishsnoring/hgv_drivers_and_sleep_apnoea.php

5 Cost – efficacy of Surgically Induced Weight Loss for the Management of Type 2 Diabetes

Source

Experts in Severe & Complex Obesity Continue reading →

It is possible to improve the antioxidant action of tomatoes by a directed change in the production of flavonoids by means of genetic modification. This has been shown in research by Elio Schijlen at Plant Research Internationa, part of Wageningen University and Research Centre in the Netherlands. Schijlen demonstrated that this approach enables tomatoes to produce larger amounts of specific flavonoids and to let tomatoes produce flavonoids they cannot produce by nature. On the basis of the research Schijlen obtained HIS his PhD-degree on Thursday 8 February at the University of Amsterdam.

The results of this research show that genetic modification is a possible approach to further increase the health promoting value of vegetables and fruit. Flavonoids are frequently occurring and important metabolites in plants. About 6000 different flavonoids are known to be involved in various natural processes. The colour of flowers and ripe fruits, e.g., are often caused by flavonoids. But flavonoids also play an important role in other plant processes such as pollen production, disease resistance, and protection against UV radiation.

Because flavonoids are so frequently occurring in plants, they are a permanent component of our food. Part of the health promoting effects of vegetables and fruit is attributed to flavonoids. It may therefore be attractive to increase the amount of flavonoids and/or change their composition.

This was why Schijlen, working at Plant Research International of Wageningen UR, studied the possibilities of steering the production of flavonoids by a directed change of the biosynthesis route via genetic modification. He followed various approaches to achieve this. One approach was to investigate the possibility of increasing the amount of flavonoids in tomato by means of so-called transcription factors, proteins involved in regulating gene activity.

Schijlen also investigated the possibility to produce new flavonoids in tomatoes which might increase the health promoting properties of tomatoes. For this purpose he used genes form other crops such as grape and alfalfa, genes that are involved in certain steps in the biosynthesis of flavonoids in these crops.

Both approaches were found to be successful. Through genetic modification Schijlen succeeded in developing tomatoes not only with more flavonoids but also with new flavonoids.

Via biochemical analysis Schijlen demonstrated an increased antioxidant action of tomatoes with flavones and more flavonoles, two specific groups of flavonoids. In cooperation with scientists of BASF Plant Science and TNO, the potential health promoting effects of these tomatoes were tested in feeding studies with mice. Blood analyses showed that that the tomatoes with increased flavonoids had a stronger positive effect on blood properties that are characteristic of a reduced risk of cardiovascular disorders.

With his results, Schijlen has shown that genetic modification can further increase the health promoting effects of vegetables and fruit.

About WAGENINGEN UNIVERSITY AND RESEARCH CENTRE

Wageningen University and Research Centre is an internationally leading knowledge institution, making essential contributions to the quality of life with pioneering research and innovative teaching programmes in the areas of nutrition and health, sustainable agrosystems, a viable environment and processes of social change.

WAGENINGEN UNIVERSITY AND RESEARCH CENTRE
Postbus 9101 6700 HB Wageningen
wageningen-ur.nl Continue reading →

The MS Society has called on MPs to throw their weight behind the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, which will be debated in the House of Commons.

In a letter addressed to every Member of Parliament, the MS Society is among seven charities asking politicians to support the Bill, which if approved could open new avenues of research into conditions such as multiple sclerosis (MS).

The much-publicised Bill lays out plans to allow scientists to create four types of embryos containing both human and animal DNA, known as human admixed embryos, under licence. This would help overcome the problem of a current shortage of donated human eggs for embryonic stem cell research.

MS Society chief executive, Simon Gillespie, said: “The use of hybrid embryos is an important part of stem cell research.

“At the moment, there are limited options for scientists investigating the use of stem cells and as a result, their full potential is yet to be realised.

“Diseases such as MS, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s have a devastating impact on more than a million families throughout the UK; families to whom stem cell research could offer vital hope.”

There is currently no cure for MS and few effective therapies. The MS Society believes it is essential to keep all possible avenues of research open and supports the use of the best technology available to achieve its goals of finding effective treatments for people with MS.

View coverage in the The Times newspaper, which refers to the letter

MS Society Continue reading →

Golf legend Seve Ballesteros is asking golfers across the UK to support the first ever ‘Seve Summer’ to help him raise over ??300,000 towards life-saving research into cancers of the brain. The new initiative is part of a fundraising drive for the Seve Ballesteros Foundation’s partnership with Cancer Research UK, which launched last December and hopes to raise ??1 million in its first year.

‘Seve Summer’ tees off on the 1st May and runs throughout the summer. It is a chance for golf clubs and golfers across the country to show their support for Seve in his battle against brain cancer by raising vital funds to help beat the disease.

Anyone inspired to take part can get involved through their club or by coordinating fundraising activities themselves, for example:

- Adding a fundraising element to usual monthly medal competitions;
- Introducing a ‘Ballesteros Bunker’, where golfers donate to the cause if their ball goes into the dedicated bunker;
- Adding a ‘Pound per Round’ as a fundraiser at the 19th hole;
- ‘Green in One’ sweepstakes, where golfers bet on their chances of getting the ball on the green in the first shot
- An Open BBQ for the final day’s play of the Open Championship.

All clubs that return funds will be entered into a prize draw to win one of three pairs of tickets to Viva la Vida, a spectacular evening of entertainment and a celebration of golf in aid of the Seve Ballesteros Foundation’s partnership with Cancer Research UK, which will be hosted by the man himself. In addition the top two fundraising clubs will automatically receive a pair of tickets each.

The five times Major winner was diagnosed with a brain tumour in October 2008 after collapsing at Madrid airport. He says: “I’m lucky to be alive and owe it all to the vital research carried out by organisations like Cancer Research UK. But there’s still a lot more research that can be done into this disease – which affects around 8,000 people in the UK each year – and that’s why I’m asking golfers to support ‘Seve Summer’ and help my Foundation raise as much money as possible for Cancer Research UK.

“There are more than five million golfers in the UK and if just a small proportion of those got involved, we’d be well on our way to reaching our target and making a real impact on the lives of people like me who are diagnosed with brain cancer.”

For more information about Seve’s fight against cancer and how to support The Seve Ballesteros Foundation and its partnership with Cancer Research UK through ‘Seve Summer’ visit seveballesterosfoundation.

Source
Cancer Research UK Continue reading →

“Explaining Medicare Part D’s ‘Split Deductible’ Design: Dispelling the Myths of the ‘Doughnut Hole,’” Republican Policy Committee: The policy paper examines the design of the Medicare prescription drug plan and discusses the impact the so-called “doughnut hole” coverage gap — during which beneficiaries are responsible for 100% of total prescription drug costs between $2,250 and $5,100 — will have on seniors. The paper provides an analysis of the 2006 costs for beneficiaries enrolled in the drug plans and cites a PriceWaterhouseCooper study finding that approximately 3.5 million beneficiaries, or 15%, will reach the coverage gap this year. According to the paper, the number of seniors reaching the coverage gap in future years likely will decline as drug plan information and options improve and seniors are better able to understand plan benefits (Republican Policy Committee, 9/21).

“Reprinted with permission from kaisernetwork. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at kaisernetwork/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation . © 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved. Continue reading →

People who have gastric band surgery to lose weight are at risk of low self-esteem, relationship problems and being dissatisfied with their body image, according to new research being presented at the Diabetes UK Annual Professional Conference (APC).

Researchers from the University of the West of England and Southmead Hospital, Bristol, followed 25 patients aged from 30 to 58 years and recorded their experience 12 months after receiving a post-laparoscopic gastric banding operation. 64 per cent of the participants had Type 2 diabetes.

Health benefits versus negative psychological effects

Although the people who took part in the study reported significant health benefits such as improved blood glucose levels and lower cholesterol and blood pressure levels, they also found that living with the gastric band had a strong, negative psychological impact on their daily lives.

The majority reported that having a gastric band was as hard as having to diet and that losing the opportunity to eat as a coping strategy left them struggling to cope with distressing life events.

“Losing weight not only reduces your risk of developing Type 2 diabetes but also significantly improves management in people who have the condition,” said Simon O’Neill, Director of Care, Information and Advocacy Services at Diabetes UK.

“We always advise people wanting to lose weight to try to do so by following a healthy, balanced diet high in fruit and vegetables and low in fat, sugar and salt, combined with physical activity.”

“Weight-loss surgery can be a way of losing significant amounts of weight for people who are obese. However, surgery does have serious associated risks and should only be considered if sustained attempts to lose weight through diet and lifestyle changes have been unsuccessful.

“This new research also shows that there might be psychological consequences to having the procedure and patients should be made aware of these when considering the surgery.”

Not the easy option

Lead researcher Dr Andrew Johnson from Southmead Hospital said “Our findings show that having a gastric band fitted should not be seen as the easy option when it comes to losing weight.

“This operation has a strong psychological impact as well as a physical one, and we found that regular psychological support is needed to help people cope with the realities of having the device fitted.”

55 per cent jump in weight-loss operations

The NHS Information Centre recently released figures showing a 55 per cent increase in the number of people having weight-loss surgery, such as stomach stapling or having a gastric band fitted, between 2006/07 and 2008/09, from 1,950 to 4,220.

Source
Diabetes UK Continue reading →