This week’s update from the Ms.Fits, our home team competing in Live Healthy Iowa, proves that individual differences have a lot to do with how people respond to lifestyle changes. The team wins a gold medal for activity, logging more than 60 hours last week. That’s impressive by any measure. Unfortunately, a few of the team members have seen some of the weight they lost earlier creep back. That’s discouraging, of course, but it doesn’t mean they can’t lose it again and keep it off.

One of the Ms.Fits, Sue, is still on track to reach her goal of losing 21 pounds over the 100-day challenge. She’s down 17 pounds, with 4 more to go.

Since she has tried diets and exercise programs before to lose weight and been frustrated and ultimately disappointed with the results, PDQhealth asked her what seems to be working for her this time around. She pointed to five strategies that, together, are making it easier to lose weight and stick with the program.

Is President Obama tackling too many issues? At a time like this, with the economy teetering, is it really wise to try to reform the health care system?

Pundits and politicians have been debating that question a lot of late. “This is no time to be taking on something as big and complex as health care,” the naysayers admonish. It’s no coincidence that many of them are politicians or high-profile media talking heads–among the lucky few who don’t have to worry about health care coverage. Most of them don’t have the foggiest idea what the rest of us are up against.

These days, $1 billion dollars can seem like a drop in the bucket. Still, health officials have good reason to applaud one small piece of the $787 billion economic stimulus bill signed by President Obama that sets aside $1.1 billion for studies designed to identify the safest and most effective treatments for specific conditions such as heart disease, high blood pressure, neck pain, or diabetes.

In our view, it will be money well spent.

Going in for a regular check-up after switching doctors, I had no complaints beside the odd aches and pains that a man my age shouldn’t complain about. Otherwise, my cholesterol levels were perfect. Triglycerides: right where they should be. Blood pressure: smack dab the middle of normal. Weight: normal. Blood sugar levels? “Wow,” my new doctor said. “Your fasting blood sugar levels are high. Did you know that?”

Not many of the math geeks I knew in high school liked gym class–and not only because they were usually the last to be picked for any team. As far as these future math wizards were concerned, running laps was a dumb waste of time that could have been better spent solving equations. Turns out working up a sweat in phys ed class may have helped them hone their mathematical skills.

Americans on the whole are no happier than they were three decades ago, according to new findings from the University of Pennsylvania. But happiness inequality–the gap between the happy and the unhappy–has narrowed dramatically. “For every unhappy person who became happier,” explains economist Betsey Stevenson, co-author of the study along with economist Justin Wolfers, “there’s someone on the other side coming down.”

Who’s up? Who’s down? The answers might surprise you.

Results from a recent University of Florida College of Medicine study reminded us of a wonderful quote from Thomas Jefferson.

First, the findings. Reviewing 100 studies that looked at the effect of alcohol taxes on consumption of booze, Alexander C. Wagenaar, PhD, professor of epidemiology and health policy research, discovered a clear but unsurprising association. “When prices go down, people drink more,” he succintly explained, “and when prices go up, people drink less.”

In a commentary published along with the research findings in the journal Addiction, Frank Chaloupka, PhD, a professor of economics at the University of Illinois at Chicago, wrote: “these findings provide a strong rationale for increases in alcoholic beverage tax as a way to promote public health by reducing drinking”.

Here’s where Mr. Jefferson comes in.

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Featured in the Press Democrat
January 20, 2009
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With apologies to the poetess
Whose fine-turned words and lofty address
Will grace the nation’s grand inaugural.
Herewith, instead, a shaggy doggerel,
A modest clutch of limping rhymes
In keeping with these threadbare times.

“Many drugs that are assumed to be effective are probably little more than placebos.” That’s the stunning assertion made by Marcia Angell, MD, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine and a professor at Harvard Medical School. The drug approval system is so corrupt, she charges, that it is almost impossible to know whether some of the most commonly prescribed medications—from antidepressants to sleeping pills—actually work.

Money, as you might expect, is at the root of the evil. A blockbuster drug can earn billions for pharmaceutical companies. To get one approved and widely prescribed, the companies are willing to do almost anything.

PDQhealth is proud to introduce The Ms.Fits! This team from the University of Iowa will be taking part in Live Healthy Iowa, a 100-day program that challenges participants to eat better, be more active and shed some pounds. We’ll be tracking their progress each week. Along the way, PDQhealth plans to publish interviews with experts in fitness, motivation, and nutrition designed to help our team (and our readers) achieve their goals. Check in for more soon. And share your comments with the Ms.Fits–or else just cheer them on.