Take Charge of Your Health
How will the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) Affect You?
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) remains a mystery to most Americans. Will it make it easier or harder to get health care? Will it really decrease costs or just make health care more expensive? First, remember that PPACA is market-based health...
U.S. Spends Almost Twice as Much as Any Other Country on Healthcare
A recent New England of Medicine article demonstrates that U.S. healthcare costs have risen much faster than those of other countries. The average American now spends over $8000 per year on healthcare, whereas people in most other industrialized countries spend less...
More Evidence that Mediterranean Diet Healthful
The most definitive study yet shows conclusively that the Mediterranean diet—including olive oil and nuts, wine, and fish—is good for your health. The five-year study, recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that people on this diet were 30%...
7th Search for the Healthy City in Padua and Venice, Italy
September 2 - 12, 2012 The theme this year is Healing through the Ages. During this residential seminar we will discuss classics of medical history and public health, visit healing and cultural sites, and examine how health systems and medical educators have...
An Epidemic of Prescription Drug Abuse
More Americans are addicted to prescription drugs than every before. Aggressive marketing by drug companies of prescription narcotics, ADHD drugs, depression and anxiety drugs, and sleep aids has contributed to the problem. More than 27,000 people died in the U.S....
Atul Gawande tells us “How to Heal Medicine”
The Harvard surgeon and writer Atul Gawande explains that the routine mistakes and extensive waste in modern medicine result from a longstanding "cowboy" mentality in medical practice. Because medicine has become so complex he suggests that healing medicine will...
Unnecessary Testing & Treatment Account for Near 1/3 of U.S. Healthcare Spending
The American Board of Internal Medicine and 9 other major medical specialty groups have identified 45 common tests and procedures that are overused (see WSJ blog). Most diagnosis (80% or more) comes from careful history taking or physical exam (10 - 15%), not from...
Report Shows How $700B in Waste Can Be Cut Annually From U.S. Healthcare Bill
When Peter Orzag, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget suggested that $700 billion in waste could be trimmed from the U.S. healthcare budget, many people thought he was nuts. But a report from Thomson-Reuters identifies specific...
Key Steps to Prevent Obesity in Early Childhood
The prestigious Institute of Medicine (IOM) has issued a new report, Early Childhood Obesity Prevention Policies, that outlines the key steps needed to prevent obesity in children from birth to age 5. The physical effects of obesity from "Methods of Healing" website...
Why do Americans die younger than Britons?
According to a recent article in BBC News (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14070090) Americans are falling behind other countries in life expectancy. In this article the BBC reports on recent research by Dr. Ali Mokdad at the University of Washington. The...
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The Healthy City is an independent publisher based in Memphis, Tennessee