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POPSWhen Your Insurer Says You're No Longer Covered
"We do not rescind a policyholder's coverage because someone on the policy gets sick," said a spokeswoman for Anthem Blue Cross, a subsidiary of WellPoint. "We have put in place a thorough process with multiple steps to ensure that we are as fair and as accurate as we can be in making these difficult decisions." In a pending case, Blue Shield searched in vain for an inconsistency in the health records of the wife of a dairy farmer after she filed a claim for emergency gallbladder surgery, according to attorneys for the family. Turning to her husband's questionnaire, the company discovered he had not mentioned his high cholesterol and dropped them both. Yvette Thomassian of Glendale, Calif., lost her Blue Cross policy because she did not declare a deviated septum. She questioned why a common misalignment of the nostrils would disqualify anyone. They cancelled her healthcare over a crooked nose bone! Shocking this is tolerated, in a supposedly civilized nation.
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POPSSurge in Food Nanotechnology Worries Consumers Davies quoted David Rejeski of the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, who advocates a U.S. investment of $150 million a year in such research by 2010, to benefit from an industry that will involve “15 percent of globally manufactured goods, worth $2.6 trillion, by 2014.”
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POPSAlmonds boost weight loss According to Wien, “The weight-loss benefits of eating almonds came as something of a surprise, since the study was originally designed to evaluate the cholesterol-lowering effects of almonds. As it turned out, the dieters who ate almonds lost more weight than would be expected if they were taking prescription diet pills.”
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POPSThe Healing Power of Dogs Integrative Cancer Therapies reported how ordinary house dogs could identify breast and lung cancer patients by smelling their breath. A University of Maine study is testing whether dogs can sniff out ovarian cancer.. Via the breath too, I hope! *LOL* Dogs rock, cats rule. Get a pet. It's good for you. :)
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POPSThe Promise and Power of RNA RNA interference, or RNAi, discovered only about 10 years ago, is attracting huge interest for its seeming ability to knock out disease-causing genes. There are already at least six RNAi drugs being tested in people, for illnesses including cancer and an eye disease. And while there are still huge challenges to surmount, that number could easily double in the coming year. “I’ve never found a gene that couldn’t be down-regulated by RNAi,” said Tod Woolf, president of RXi Pharmaceuticals, one of the many companies that have sprung up in the last few years to pursue RNA-based medicines. The two scientists credited with discovering the basic mechanism of RNA interference won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2006, only eight years after publishing their seminal paper. And three scientists credited with discovering the closely related micro-RNA in the 1990s won Lasker Awards for medical research this year.
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POPSEven Healthy People Risk Heart Attacks Many people believe that heart disease is a risk for older men. And everyone knows the normal risk factors of heart disease, like eating foods that are high in cholesterol or not exercising. Women need to understand the facts. Heart disease is the leading cause of death among American women; in fact, it kills six times as many people as breast cancer. More facts at the source.
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POPSHappity New Year!! 2008 May what you see in the mirror delight you, and what others see in you delight them. May someone love you enough to forgive your faults, be blind to your blemishes, and tell the world about your virtues. May the telemarketers wait to make their sales calls until you finish dinner, may the commercials on TV not be louder than the program you have been watching, and may your check book and your budget balance - and include generous amounts for charity.
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POPSMost older adults have brain disease: study Older persons can often handle one pathology in their brain, but the burden of more than one pathology may tip them over the threshold of clinical dementia Therefore, prevention of not only Alzheimer's disease but these other pathologies, particularly stroke and those things that may increase the risk of stroke, like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, cigarette smoking, obesity, "are likely to significantly decrease the prevalence of dementia
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POPSIf you still believe drugs should be illegal, If you still believe drugs should be illegal, answer this question... Why do you believe it is good policy to punish me--and 20 million adult Americans like me--because I choose to use marijuana in the privacy of my own home? Who benefits from this policy and how do they benefit? * Over 300,000 nonviolent people lose their freedom to prison/jail. * Thousands of murders, assaults, and robberies caused by drug crimes. * $20 billion/year in law enforcement costs. * $10 billion/year in lost tax revenue (similar to alcohol tax). * $5 billion/year in property losses due to drug-related crimes. * $50 billion/year and 500,000 jobs lost because of no hemp industry. Total cost = $85 billion/year = $500 per taxpayer every year!
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POPSHeart Attack Calculator Created
They recorded details of body mass index, family history, physical activity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes were recorded. They then matched the data against healthy individuals as a scientific control. Rather then using conventional methods for analysing statistics, the researchers borrowed an approach from the computer science field of artificial intelligence, OLAP. Online analytical processing was developed in the early 1990s and was exploited primarily in industrial and commercial applications, for financial and marketing analysis. Fundamentally, OLAP provides a multidimensional view of data that allows patterns to be discerned in even the largest datasets that remain invisible even to the most expert user of spreadsheets. In a standard model, sales, purchases, pricing, customer base, and other economic measurements are used, Kostakis' colleagues at the University of Patras have adapted this system instead to accommodate the risk factors of heart disease.
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