Inexorably, as the national health bill rises, the number of people able to afford health care diminishes, steadily and alarmingly. There are more than 37 million uninsured; untold more millions are underinsured, while we boast the most technologically advanced facilities in the world. Read more…
IT is not a totally radical idea that poverty, pollution and poor job prospects are at the root of many of society’s health problems. But the notion was given important new currency this week with the release of several reports by the Ontario Premier’s Council on Health Strategy that have been nearly four years in the making. Read more…
With a health care system that fails to cover one in seven persons but is nonetheless the world’s costliest, the stage may be set for major surgery on the way U.S. citizens receive and pay for medical treatment. Read more…
Look carefully. You have about 6,500 clubs to choose from, offering pools, weight rooms and other amenities. But watch out for crowds. Membership estimates range from 8 million to 12 million, says Peg Angsten, editor of American Fitness magazine, with some clubs counting as many as 50,000 members. A checklist: Read more…
These can all be symptoms of prolonged stress, and they are not confined to ousted presidents. They have been found in blue collar workers facing layoffs, in accountants as tax time nears, in bereaved spouses and other lonely people, in ethnic minorities, in the poor and in children. If you think you can get away from stress by fleeing the city and taking up the rustic life, forget it. Read more…
Women are living 30 years past the cessation of their menstrual periods. A woman’s life expectancy in 1900 was 50 years. It’s 78 today and could be 85 by the year 2000. “Women spend a lot of time in the menopause – one-third of their lives. They are interested in knowing how they are going to function,” said Dr. Robert Kinch, professor emeritus of obstetrics and gynecology at McGill University and senior obstetrician and gynecologist at the Montreal General and Royal Victoria Hospitals. Read more…
A radical new theory explaining how the immune system fights off disease, dubbed the “danger” hypothesis, has become a hot topic among scientists and doctors who work on everything from heart transplants to AIDS. The idea was introduced in a series of reports last week in the journal Science. It suggests that our immune systems react to a variety of “danger signals” given off by cells, proteins and microbes that invade our bodies, rather than to the fact that these materials weren’t part of us in the first place. Read more…
A few years ago, Johnson & Johnson began chasing a mysterious gene that appeared to be the cause of schizophrenia in an isolated community in the Canadian province of Quebec. In the past three years, the U.S. health-care concern and its French research ally, Genset SA, have stepped up the search for that gene. Today, they appear tantalizingly close to victory in one of the hottest races of the genetic revolution. Read more…