A JAMA study shows how our diets have changed since 2000. The big winners?
Nuts
Whole grains
Whole fruits
The big losers?
Sugar sweetened beverages
Fruit juice
White potatoes
Maybe there’s hope for us after all?
Research led by Stacey McMorrow (a former student of mine) shows that Obamacare was especially helpful in enabling black and Hispanic people obtain healthcare insurance: Disparities in insurance rates among either groups are declining:
Aggressive control of blood pressure has saved millions of lives, and has prevented millions of people from experiencing heart attacks, strokes and kidney failure, among other things. Admittedly, controlling blood pressure is not the sexy part of medical care, but when primary care doctors like me help people get their blood pressure under control, we…
Shutterstock Last spring and summer, the Republicans stumbled in their efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare. But they might try a new approach later this year. If they do, expect to hear more debates about what their replacement plans mean for chronically ill Americans. People with pre-existing conditions might get priced out of insurance. People…
Here is a chart from the Washington Post, showing the percent of people lacking health insurance over the last few years. For a long time now, a higher proportion of Democrats have been uninsured than Republicans, with low income and minority communities experiencing a disproportionately high uninsurance rate. But since Obamacare has come into effect,…
Here is a picture, courtesy of the Financial Times, showing obesity rates among OECD nations. Only 5% of people living in Korea and Japan qualify as obese. Yet obesity rates are drastically higher in the United States; if someone’s in American, there is practically a 4 in 10 chance they are obese. Not something to…
Let me be clear: how long people live in any country of the world is determined by lots of things, not just by the quality of their healthcare system. Nevertheless, one of the things medical care is supposed to do is help us live longer and healthier lives. So you would think that a country…