Nobel Scientist Supports Homeopathy

When a Nobel Prize-winning scientist produces research normally folks pay attention. Apparently when it challenges the medical status quo that's not necessarily the case. Dana Ullman writes in the Huffington Post recently about Dr. Luc Montagnier, the French virologist who won the Nobel Prize in 2008 for discovering the AIDS virus, and his article in the magazine Science about his experiments on the mechanisms involved in homeopathy.

Scientists today don't just dislike homeopathy, they loathe it. In their mechanical world it's impossible to have any health impact when elements are diluted beyond a reasonable level. They discount any other scientific explanations for the effects of homeopathy and completely ignore their own ignorance of any other possibilities.

Ullman's article makes for fascinating reading for those with an open mind.

U.S. Life Expectancy Lags

A report published on Tuesday by the National Research Council shows that while life expectancy has risen in America over the past 25 years, it hasn't risen as fast as other countries. The poor performance now puts the U.S. behind 21 other countries. The report notes that the results are in contrast to America's spending more on health care than any other nation. However the focus in health care in our country has been on extending life rather than prevention.

How many reports is it going to take before people (especially politicians) stop saying America has the best health care in the world? We have the most expensive health care in the world.

Overdiagnosed Healthcare

“Overdiagnosed,” is an interesting new book by Dartmouth professor H. Gilbert Welch and co-authors Lisa Schwartz and Steven Woloshin. It's all about the hazards of looking too hard for health problems in healthy people. Bottom line: those additional tests and procedures offer no benefit but can result in real harm, certainly higher health-care costs and the simple psychological damage of being told you’re sick. This is part of the problem with our upside-down health care system.

FDA Restrictions

The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has asked prescription drug manufacturers to limit the amount of acetaminophen to 325 milligrams. The move is in response to the increased risk of liver damage from the drug and to the amount used in a wide variety of over-the-counter medications. In other words, we're getting too much of acetaminophen from a wide range of sources.

It's a start.

Health Costs Continue to Grow

Talk about Good News/Bad News! The "good" news: Health care costs in America ONLY increased by 4% in 2009. The "bad" news is that it now represents 17.6% of our nation's total economic output (GDP)! The jump of 1% from 2008 to 2009 was the largest one-year increase in 50 years of tracking the statistic.

More "good" news is that it probably would've been much worse if we hadn't been in a huge economic downturn during the year. With high unemployment and economic uncertainty many elective procedures were postponed and even necessary treatments delayed resulting in lower demand for medical services. Slowing demand effectively held down cost increases for the year.

Controlling health care costs is one of the biggest challenges facing America today.

America's Wellness Network

What a great way to start 2011! I'm a guest blogger on America's Wellness Network talking about how to use complementary and alternative therapies to make New Year's Resolutions more successful this year. Read article here.