Nobody Cares about Your Health

[Innula Zenovka]

(from the referenced web page) The benefit drops in half when you factor in that people who have been notified they are diabetic (or worry they might be) cut ice cream out of their diet, while healthy people with no such risk or fear continue to eat ice cream. There is still an effect that stands apart from statistical noise, however.

The article deals with that, though:

To test this idea, Hu and his co-authors set aside dietary data collected after people received these sorts of diagnoses, and then redid their calculations. The ice-cream effect shrank by half, though it was still statistically significant, and still bigger than the low-fat-dairy effect that Harvard had publicized in 2005. In any event, if people who received adverse diagnoses cut back on their ice cream, you might expect that they’d also cut back on, say, cake and doughnuts. So shouldn’t there be mysterious protective “effects” for cake and doughnuts too? “There should be,” Mozaffarian said. “That’s why the finding for ice cream is intriguing.”

 

[Rose Karuna]

Nutrition Science’s Most Preposterous Result: Could Ice Cream Possibly Be Good for You?

Studies show a mysterious health benefit to ice cream. Scientists don’t want to talk about it.

www.theatlantic.com

Evernote link

This great news because right now, it's all my husband will eat. Well, that and Cheerios.

 

[Isabeau]

Pretty sure most everyone who reads that article will be eating a bowl of ice-cream soon after.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Radiotherapy ten years ago did strange stuff to my tastebuds and throat, and I haven't much cared for ice cream since. I eat the odd bowl now and again, but only once ever few weeks.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

Radiotherapy ten years ago did strange stuff to my tastebuds and throat, and I haven't much cared for ice cream since. I eat the odd bowl now and again, but only once ever few weeks.

I wish you luck! I heard that outcomes are very, VERY rough for patients who lose critical stuff in that area such as saliva glands... it's apparently very important for quality of life but an easy thing to take for granted.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I wish you luck! I heard that outcomes are very, VERY rough for patients who lose critical stuff in that area such as saliva glands... it's apparently very important for quality of life but an easy thing to take for granted.

Thanks. The oncologist tried to leave me some saliva glands which, with time, have grown back a bit, though not to anything like they were. Swallowing is the real problem, because of scarring on the inside of my throat and damage to some of the muscles, so I eat a lot of soup that I've put through a liquidiser, and lots of toast and biscuits, which I can manage. Good coffee and tea still taste they way they should, so that's most of the battle.

As far as I'm concerned, I got off lightly -- I was worried I'd end up with a laryngectomy (or dead, of course!), so I'm not complaining.

 

[Beebo Brink]

Nutrition Science’s Most Preposterous Result: Could Ice Cream Possibly Be Good for You?

Studies show a mysterious health benefit to ice cream. Scientists don’t want to talk about it.

www.theatlantic.com

Fascinating look at how science grapples with its own orthodoxy. Thank you!

 

[Free]

We are near literally 2 different countries.



EDIT: Or more...

 

[Rose Karuna]

I did not realize that a law was enacted to force hospitals to disclose their rates. The problem is, it's not being enforced. I think this is an excellent article about the problems non-transparency has created for many communities and families.

Fat Joe is taking on a big problem in health care | CNN

Kirsi Goldynia speaks with rapper Fat Joe, who is sounding the alarm on an issue that he says impacts many in his South Bronx community — and nationwide: the lack of health care price transparency.

www.cnn.com

The law in question is an executive order that took effect in 2021, at the end of the Trump administration, and has since required hospitals to make public the prices of health services, which they privately negotiate with insurers. The objective is to give patients the power to shop around for medical services and avoid surprise bills. Hospitals that fail to comply risk a fine of $300 to $5,500 per day.

<snip>

But according to a February review by the nonprofit Patient Rights Advocate, hospitals have largely ignored the rule, and fines for noncompliance are extremely rare.

<snip>

Fat Joe: I’ve had a friend for over 20 years. His name is Kevin Morra. He’s one of the founders of Power to the Patients. And he said, “You have to sit down with this woman, Cynthia Fisher.” And when I sat down with her, she was just so passionate and so intelligent, and she told me about families who lost it all over medical bills.

When you can’t pay your bills and you can’t take care of your family, what happens? The family falls apart. This is an American issue. This isn’t just a Fat Joe the rapper issue or a brown and Black issue. This is White, this is Native American, this is Asian, this is Amish, this is rural America.

I find it interesting that insurance companies would also be against this law.

Before the price transparency rule took effect, the insurers’ trade association pushed back, arguing that it is unconstitutional and would “undermine competitive negotiations and push health care prices higher—not lower—for patients, consumers, and taxpayers.” Four hospital associations filed a joint lawsuit against the Trump administration to prevent the rule from taking effect, and lost.

It's obvious why hospitals are against the transparency law. They make a ton of money by not being transparent. When you are that sick, who asks? I call bullshit on the reason insurance companies don't though. Companies that insure your home require transparency for a replacement roof or a quote when you get a replacement anything, why should hospitals and medical care be any different? It's obvious they are in cahoots with the hospitals and are driving up the costs so that they can charge more for insurance. Employer based medical insurance has gone up astronomically (47% in the last decade).

Average family premiums for employer-based health insurance have jumped 47% in the last decade, outpacing wage growth and inflation

Annual family premiums this year for workplace health insurance reached an average $22,221, with workers contributing an average $5,969.

www.cnbc.com

While transparency will not actually fix the problem, it will at least, bring the actual problem to light.

 

[Free]

Jesus F Christ...AI is now being used for union busting.

Eating Disorder Helpline to Replace Human Staff With AI Chatbot

The National Eating Disorder Association has disbanded its long-running, telephone helpline. NEDA has fired the small group of human staff that coordinated and ran the helpline, effective June 1. In lieu, the nonprofit plans to offer people seeking help access to an AI-powered chatbot named “Tessa” next month, as reported by NPR on Wednesday and confirmed by NEDA to Gizmodo over phone and email.

Staff were informed of the change, and of their firing, just four days after they successfully unionized, according to a blog post written by helpline associate and union member Abbie Harper earlier this month. Members of Helpline Associates United say that—by firing them—NEDA is retaliating against the union. The workers’ organization has repeatedly called the move union busting on the its official Twitter account and elsewhere.

 

[WolfEyes]

They aren't going to be able to deny all of those ex employees unemployment. I bet they didn't think about the repercussions. Not to mention the increase in suicides.

How can people be this stupid? (rhetorical)

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Here's an article about the real success rate of bystander CPR: while many people due to TV and movies believe it is at 70-75%, it is in reality around 7.69%. It doubles when done in hospitals.

Also the older you are, the less effective the procedure becomes. And the most shocking insight is this: about 50% of the people, who were brought back into life using CPR, would have preferred to die. The reason for this are long time consequences of the method, which is for many permanentely partially/totally damaged body parts/organ caused by receiving CPR as well as brain injury after coming back into life. Many people revived by CPR will be in the need of lifelong care after that.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/05/29/1177914622/a-natural-death-may-be-preferable-for-many-than-enduring-cprhttps://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/05/29/1177914622/a-natural-death-may-be-preferable-for-many-than-enduring-cprhttps://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/05/29/1177914622/a-natural-death-may-be-preferable-for-many-than-enduring-cpr

 

[Free]

Unless there's drugs in the blood and urine?

 

[Veritable Quandry]

Unless there's drugs in the blood and urine?

True story: many psychoactive mushrooms also contain toxins. So you get high and you get sick at the same time. But the psychoactive agents pass through your urine, while the toxins don't. Shamen would sometimes take one for the team and let their followers drink their urine to get high.

 

[WolfEyes]

A statement on the [non] state of mental health care in the US.

My 10-Year-Old Daughter Wants to Be Dead. When I Tried to Help, I Saw How Deep Our National Crisis Really Is. (msn.com)

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/05/29/1177914622/a-natural-death-may-be-preferable-for-many-than-enduring-cpr

 

[Khamon]

One of my grandfathers did tell the medics to stop reviving him because it hurt too much. They did not stop. He had to make it to the hospital to sign a DNR.

 

[Free]

Scientists in Japan Have Developed an Experimental Tooth-Growing Drug

A team of scientists in Japan is hoping to make their tooth-growing drug a reality in the near future. Following recent promising research in animals, the group is planning to conduct small-scale human trials of the drug starting next year. Should everything go well, the treatment could reach the public by the end of the decade.

The experimental treatment is being developed by scientists at the Medical Research Institute Kitano Hospital in Osaka and other institutions. It’s a drug designed to block the action of a protein known as USAG-1. Years earlier, the team conducted research showing that mice lacking the gene needed to produce USAG-1 would go on to grow extra teeth. Their work found that USAG-1 seems to interact with other proteins to suppress tooth growth. And eventually, they appeared to find an antibody that would safely block one of these interactions while not having dangerous side effects elsewhere.

 

[Lexxi]

Scientists in Japan Have Developed an Experimental Tooth-Growing Drug

I find it suspicious, but not enough to do more than read that one linked article, that the article didn't mention where the new teeth grow.

 

[Sid]

Scientists in Japan Have Developed an Experimental Tooth-Growing Drug

O dear.