WASHINGTON The nation’s health care tab is on track to hit $4.6 trillion in 2020, accounting for about $1 of every $5 in the economy, government number crunchers estimate in a report released today.How much is that? Including government and private money, health care spending in 2020 will average $13,710 for every man, woman and child, says Medicare’s Office of the Actuary.Compare it to this year, when U.S. health care spending is projected to top $2.7 trillion, about $8,650 per capita, or roughly $1 of $6 in the economy. Most of those dollars go to provide care for the sickest people.Along with rising costs, the report found that the share of the health care tab paid by the government keeps growing, approaching half the total.The update from Medicare economists and statisticians is an annual barometer of a trend that many experts say is unsustainable, but doesn’t seem to be slowing. Full Post…
Atypical antipsychotic medications have been suggested to contribute to the risk of type 2 diabetes in patients with serious mental illness, possibly by directly interfering with glucose metabolism. New research suggests that olanzapine and risperidone treatment leads to a small but significant decrease in insulin sensitivity in patients with schizophrenia and shizoaffective disorder. The study examined insulin sensitivity and whole body adiposity in 41 olanzapine-treated patients and 33 risperidone-treated patients. Mean change from baseline in insulin sensitivity normalized to fat free mass declined 9% and 13.2% during the clamp procedure’s low insulin phase and 10.4% and 2.1% during the high insulin phase, in olanzapine and risperidone-treated patients, respectively.
Full Post…
Injectable, light-activated implants could help to reconstruct soft tissue. The implants offer a less invasive alternative to current techniques for rebuilding tissue lost as a result of trauma or disease; they will be especially useful for facial tissue, which is difficult to reconstruct without scarring or loss of function.
Jennifer Elisseeff, a biomedical engineer at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and her colleagues developed the implants from a combination of naturally occurring hyaluronic acid and the synthetic polymer polyethylene glycol (PEG).
Full Post…
OCCUPATION: Palm Beach County’s top-producing Coldwell Banker real estate agent
BACKGROUND: Growing up in Canada, Sheres treasured her vacations to South Florida. Even after building up a bustling Montreal boutique, Sheres always knew that, eventually, she and her husband Allan would turn their tropical retreats into a permanent change of address. A’One day,’ I’d remind him, ‘One day ‘A Sheres recalls.
That day happened in August 1992, and it’s a testament to how much the pair wanted to live in South Florida that they didn’t do an about-face: We moved in the day after Hurricane Andrew hit, Sheres explains.
Despite the inauspicious timing of her arrival, Sheres has loved every minute of living in Woodfield Country Club. Full Post…
< ?xml version="1.0"?>
NEW YORK (Reuters) – New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who has frequently been mentioned as a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2012, was taken to the hospital on Thursday after having “difficulty breathing,” his spokesman said.
Christie, 48, who is heavily overweight and has asthma, was given “routine tests as a precautionary measure,” spokesman Michael Drewniak said in a statement.
“Governor Christie was having difficulty breathing morning and out of an abundance of caution he went to Somerset Medical Center to be checked out,” Drewniak said.
Christie is expected to be released from hospital on Thursday evening, Drewniak said.
The Republican governor has repeatedly said that he is not running for the White House.
Full Post…
Recent Comments