The (not huge) world of Health 2.0, participatory medicine and ePatients has been fretting itself about a comment Susannah Fox (all hail) elevated into a post called “What’s the Point of Health 2.0”.
Here’s an excerpt from the comment from DarthMed,
The remaining 95% of “patients” out there are not motivated to become informed, or invest the time/energy/money in using any of these tools. These are the folks that know that fast food isn’t healthy, but are just too tired to choose differently. Some (emphasis on some) will do a standard google search when they receive a new diagnosis at best. Yet these are the folks – often folks with multiple chronic (often preventable) health problems, many overweight, on multiple medications, sometimes social problems – that have the real issue that needs fixing.
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6
February
German supermodel is now pregnant with fourth child, but does not even think to panic about rounded tummy and inevitable weight gain. Heidi is strongly sure - she will be able to regain slenderness after childbirth.
Once she already had to astound the audience by participating in Victoria’s Secret show only after 3 weeks after birth. David Kirsch - Hollywood fitness guru - worked out model’s figure at that time.
Now a 36-year-old model is confident, children are the best alternative to a diet, they are (not counting David Kirsch, of course) help mum being in excellent shape. The mystery of model’s gorgeous figure «is» in constant motion. Prior to the fourth pregnancy, Heidi played with children in the garden, jumped on trampoline, went to to the park to feed the ducks, played tennis with her husband and even climbed trees.
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10
July
Keep in mind reducing centimeters in the abdomen and waist is not easy. Diet, exercise, special creams for «problem» areas and … absence of stress will help you.
Why am I seeing «belly»
Recent studies have shown that stress is the main culprit of fat in abdominal cavity.
Constant stress promotes production of hormone cortisol, which helps fat accumulating in the body. Abdomen cavity has a lot of receptors, it is increasingly supplied with blood, that is why fat deposits “settle” on belly and waist. There is only one way out - want to become a leaner, stop being nervous on trifles.
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9
July
By Gregory Kellett, a cognitive neuroscience researcher at SFSU and science writer for Lumos Labs .
Turns out there may be a link between cardiovascular fitness and the size of one’s hippocampus, a portion of the brain important for the formation of new memories.
Researchers from the University of Illinois and the University of Pittsburgh, looked at the cardiovascular fitness of 165 adults between the ages of 59 and 81. They also measured (via MRI) the size of each participant’s hippocampus and tested for spatial reasoning abilities.
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18
March
In this interview on “The Business Case for Health 2.0," Ken Shachmut, Senior VP Strategic Initiatives, Health Initiatives, and Health Re-engineering at Safeway, shares is thoughts on some of the highly impressive results that the company has obtained by introducing market-based health plans.
SS: Ken, thanks for making time today. Tell me a little about your background?
KS: I have been active as an executive and management consultant for over 30 years. I graduated from Princeton in Engineering and later obtained my MBA from Stanford. In consulting, I worked first with McKinsey & Company, later at Booz Allen Hamilton, and for awhile independently. I had done some consulting for Safeway. I later joined Safeway and have been there the last 15 years in various capacities.
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29
October
A spate of recent global news coverage on cognitive fitness and "brain training" reflects a growing interest in innovative interventions to keep our brains sharp as we age. This interest is very timely, given an aging population, the increasing prevalence of Alzheimer's, and the growing body of research linking a number of clinical conditions with specific cognitive deficits.
US brain fitness market: significant and growing
We estimate the size of the US brain fitness market was $225m in 2007 - more than double what it was in 2005. Consumers were responsible for most of the growth from 2005 to 2007, followed by health care and insurance providers. We estimate that the consumer segment grew from a few million in 2005 to $80m in 2007, and the health care/ insurance one from $35m to $65m, and foresee continued growth in both.
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23
October
The worldwide video gaming industry is a thriving business – with hardware and software sales reaching 43.5 billion in 2007 and projected to grow to more than 61 billion in the next 4 years. This growth isn’t propelled by just the latest teenage gaming craze, but by a variety of nontraditional organizations integrating video games, immersive simulations and virtual worlds to improve effectiveness and engagement across all business lines.
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20
October
I'm excited to let you all know that Johnson & Johnson has just launched a health channel on You Tube! It's called, creatively enough, the Johnson & Johnson health channel.
We've posted videos produced by Dr. Nancy Snyderman, presently an NBC-TV medial correspondent, who had worked at J&J for several years. She covers such topics as obesity, heart disease, cancer, and also reports on how to stay healthy with diet and fitness programs. In my opinion, the videos are excellent and have a lot of value. The videos are neither brand-related nor product-centric, though many of the videos cover disease states in which some of our operating companies participate.
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19
July
Since we launched Lumosity last year, we’ve heard lots of feedback from users saying you love the brain games, and the feeling of getting smarter and seeing your improvement. One thing many of you have requested is more exercises and games. Well, we’ve just raised $3 million from 2 top venture capital firms, as well as some really smart individual investors, in order to keep improving Lumosity so it’s always the best site for brain training.
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6
January
Employees are split on whether employer wellness programs intrude on privacy, according to an Issue Brief from the Center for Studying Health System Change (CSHC).
The report details the results of interviews conducted in 2007 in 12 metropolitan American communities: Boston, Cleveland, Greenville, Indianapolis, Lansing, Little Rock, Miami, northern New Jersey, Orange County, Phoenix, Seattle, and Syracuse.
Employee wellness programs are growing in the marketplace as employers try to stem ever-increasing costs, both direct and indirect. This is real money: a report from the American Hospital Association estimated that three chronic diseases — asthma, diabetes and hypertension — accounted for 164 million days of absenteeism each year which cost cost employers $30 billion.
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12
October