Category: Health

Getting too little sleep is linked with a higher risk of having low bone mineral density (BMD) and developing osteoporosis, researchers have warned. Osteoporosis is a disease in which bone weakening increases the risk of a broken bone.

“Our study suggests that sleep may negatively impact bone health, adding to the list of the negative health impacts of poor sleep,” said the study lead author Heather Ochs-Balcom, from the University at Buffalo in the US.

In the study of 11,084 postmenopausal women, those who reported sleeping five hours or less per night had lower BMD at all four sites assessed — whole body, total hip, neck, and spine — compared with women who reported sleeping seven hours per night.

After adjustments, women reporting five hours or less per night had 22 per cent and 63 per cent higher risks of experiencing low bone mass and osteoporosis of the hip, respectively.

Similar results were seen with the spine. “I hope that it can also serve as a reminder to strive for the recommended seven or more hours of sleep per night for our physical and mental health,” Ochs-Balcom said. The study was published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research.

The number of older Americans who drink excessively is up 42 percent and their use of illicit drugs is now  higher than in almost any other country in the world and is expected to grow substantially in both number and proportion.

Substance use disorders among people older than 50 years are projected to increase from about 2.8 million in 2006 to 5.7 million in 2020, according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information.

Substantial evidence indicates that substance use among older adults — also known as the baby boomer generation whose last members are now comfortably over the age of fifty — has been underidentified for decades.

According to the Vice President of Clinical Services for one of the largest addiction treatment center networks in the nation, at Recovery Centers of America (“RCA”) 25 percent of patients receiving treatment for drug and alcohol addictions are over fifty years of age.

Seventy-nine percent of baby boomer patients at Recovery Centers of America have an alcohol addiction, according to Weisenberger. That tracks with national data showing that alcohol is the most commonly used substance among older adults.

“At RCA we have seen a big increase of patients in this age group with a drug and alcohol addiction. In 2019, the number of patients over 50 admitted to one of our six inpatient locations has increased by nearly 21 percent,” RCA Vice President of Clinical Services Scott Weisenberger stated. “These ‘Baby Boomer’ addiction patients need a specialized age-tailored program while undergoing treatment in a smaller group setting where they can feel comfortable with others from a similar age group.”

Recovery Centers of America’s Evolutions Program for Older Adults was designed to provide patients over fifty with an enhanced curriculum tailored to the growing needs of this age group. One of the building blocks of addiction treatment is group and individual therapy and patients will experience group therapy with other older adults. This way, patients who feel uncomfortable in mixed-age therapy group sessions, can concentrate on their treatment, according to Weisenberger.

By creating an environment for patients in the same life stage whether it be empty-nesters, retirees, or those who have recently suffered a loss of a spouse or other loved one, the RCA Evolutions program allows patients to draw strength from each other as they navigate treatment together. According to Weisenberger, research shows that being surrounded by peers in addiction treatment can increase the likelihood of achieving and maintaining recovery.

RCA patients who choose the program will also benefit from:

• Live seminars on addiction in mature adults including why addiction happens faster with older people.
• Medication education detailing how medications interact with alcohol and how patients should manage their medication.
• Updates on the latest research about Circadian Rhythms and the role it plays in sleep, hygiene, weight management, and the development of metabolic disorders like diabetes.
• An individualized plan to increase feelings of self-purpose and eliminate guilt through mental exercises, volunteer efforts, wellness activities, or the development of a new hobby.
• Mindfulness techniques that help patients move away from negative feelings and identify engrained physical cues to a patient’s drinking or drug usage.

“Addiction is a disease that tries to isolate you. Treatment works because you learn that you are not alone and there is no shame in having this disease, but that treatment is absolutely essential to get your life back again,” explained Weisenberger.

Evolutions is offered at RCA’s Danvers, MA, Devon, PA, and Waldorf, Maryland locations.

Recovery Centers of America (1-800 Recovery) provides comprehensive inpatient addiction treatment at facilities in Devon, PA; Mays Landing, NJ; Westminster and Danvers, Massachusetts; and Earleville and Waldorf, Maryland. A full spectrum of outpatient addiction treatment is also provided at many RCA facilities and in Vorhees, NJ. RCA also provides Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) with Methadone and Suboxone treatment options in Camden County, NJ and in Trenton, NJ.

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Snack foods, hot dogs, fatty beef, butter, sugar, white bread and artery-clogging fat.

A new study suggests Americans are still eating too much bad food.

Though Americans’ diets are a little less sweet and a little crunchier.

Overall, the authors estimated there was a modest improvement over 16 years on the government’s healthy eating index, from estimated scores of 56 to 58. That’s hardly cause for celebration — 100 is the top score.

Diets are still too heavy on foods that can contribute to heart disease, diabetes, obesity and other prevalent U.S. health problems, said co-author Fang Fang Zhang, a nutrition researcher at Tufts University near Boston.

The study was published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The results are from an analysis of U.S. government health surveys from 1999 to 2016 involving nearly 44,000 adults.

“Despite observed improvements,” the authors wrote, “important dietary challenges” remain.

Among them: getting Americans to cut down on snack foods, hot dogs, fatty beef, butter and other foods containing saturated fats. The study found these unhealthy fats increased from 11.5 percent to almost 12 percent of daily calories, above the recommended 10 percent limit.

And while the biggest change was a small drop in added sugars, from about 16 percent to roughly 14 percent, that’s still too high. The government says less than 10 percent of daily calories should come from added sugars. Researchers think fewer sweetened sodas contributed to the decline, but Zhang noted added sugars are often found in foods that don’t even seem sweet, including some yogurts and tomato sauce.

Fruits, nuts, oatmeal and other whole grains are among the types of foods of which adults ate slightly more. Still, each of those contributed to less than 5 percent of daily calories in 2016, the study found.

Salt intake dipped slightly and a small decline in fruit juice contributed to a drop in low-quality carbs. But these still amount to 42 percent of daily calories, including many likely from highly processed white bread and other refined grains, Zhang said.

The study is based on in-person health surveys conducted every two years that ask adults to recall what foods they ate in the previous 24 hours. Starting in 2003, adults were asked that question twice several days apart.

The study lists food groups rather than individual foods; for example “whole grains,” not oatmeal, and “refined grains,” not white bread but Zhang said those two foods are among the most common grains in the U.S. diet.

U.S. dietary guidelines recommend a “healthy eating pattern” to reduce chances of developing chronic disease. The focus should be on nutrient-dense foods including vegetables, fruits, whole grains, low-fat dairy products; plus varied proteins sources including seafood, lean meats and poultry, eggs nuts and seeds, the recommendations say.

During the study years, U.S. diabetes rates almost doubled, to more than 7 percent; obesity rates increased during many of those years, with about 70 percent of U.S. adults now overweight or obese. Heart disease remains the leading cause of death.

Besides continued public health efforts, “Cooperation from the food industry” is key, a journal editorial said, including reducing sugar, salt and saturated fats in foods.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

A philosopher’s 350-year-old trick to get people to change their minds is now backed up by psychologists.

The 17^th century philosopher Blaise Pascal is perhaps best known for Pascal’s Wager which, in the first formal use of decision theory, argued that believing in God is the most pragmatic decision. But it seems the French thinker also had a knack for psychology. As Brain Pickings points out, Pascal set out the most effective way to get someone to change their mind, centuries before experimental psychologists began to formally study persuasion:

When we wish to correct with advantage, and to show another that he errs, we must notice from what side he views the matter, for on that side it is usually true, and admit that truth to him, but reveal to him the side on which it is false. He is satisfied with that, for he sees that he was not mistaken, and that he only failed to see all sides. Now, no one is offended at not seeing everything; but one does not like to be mistaken, and that perhaps arises from the fact that man naturally cannot see everything, and that naturally he cannot err in the side he looks at, since the perceptions of our senses are always true.

Pascal added: People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others.

Put simply, Pascal suggests that before disagreeing with someone, first point out the ways in which they’re right. And to effectively persuade someone to change their mind, lead them to discover a counter-point of their own accord. Arthur Markman, psychology professor at The University of Texas at Austin, says both these points hold true.

“One of the first things you have to do to give someone permission to change their mind is to lower their defenses and prevent them from digging their heels in to the position they already staked out,” he says. “If I immediately start to tell you all the ways in which you’re wrong, there’s no incentive for you to co-operate. But if I start by saying, ‘Ah yeah, you made a couple of really good points here, I think these are important issues,’ now you’re giving the other party a reason to want to co-operate as part of the exchange. And that gives you a chance to give voice your own concerns about their position in a way that allows co-operation.”

Markman also supports Pascal’s second persuasive suggestion. “If I have an idea myself, I feel I can claim ownership over that idea, as opposed to having to take your idea, which means I have to explicitly say, ‘I’m going to defer to you as the authority on this.’ Not everybody wants to do that,” he adds. In other words, if it wasn’t enough that Pascal is recognized as a mathematician, physicist, and philosopher, it seems he was also an early psychologist.

(This article was originally published on September 11, 2016, by Quartz)

Nine-11 hours of sleep and no more than two hours of recreational screen time a day is what can save your children from becoming impulsive and make poorer decisions in life, find researchers.

Impulsive behavior is greatly linked to sleep and screen time, found Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group (HALO) at the CHEO Research Institute in Ottawa.

“Impulsive behavior is associated with numerous mental health and addiction problems, including eating disorders, behavioral addictions and substance abuse,” said Dr Michelle Guerrero, lead author from CHEO Research Institute and University of Ottawa.

The paper, published in the journal Pediatrics, analyzed data for 4,524 children from the first set of data of a large longitudinal population study.

In addition to sleep and screen time, the study also captured data related to physical activity — at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise daily.

The ABCD study allowed Guerrero and her team to look at the three pillars of the movement guidelines against eight measures of impulsivity, such as one’s tendency to seek out thrilling experiences, to set desired goals, to respond sensitively to rewarding or unpleasant stimuli, and to act rashly in negative and positive moods.

The results suggested that meeting all three pillars of the movement guidelines was associated with more favorable outcomes on five of the eight dimensions. (IANS)

Newswise — Ketamine has gotten a bad rap as an opioid when there’s plenty of evidence suggesting it isn’t one, Johns Hopkins experts say. They believe this reputation may hamper patients from getting necessary treatment for the kinds of depression that don’t respond to typical antidepressants. In a new paper, the researchers clarify the mechanism behind ketamine’s mechanism of action in hopes of restoring the therapy’s standing among health care professionals and the public.

In March of this year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved ketamine as a nasal spray to treat depression.

“A study done late last year delivered a black eye to ketamine, and as a result of the coverage, there was a wholesale acceptance by both potential patients and physicians that ketamine is an opioid,” says Adam Kaplin, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “This is most worrisome if people continue to think this way, particularly in the wake of the opioid epidemic; clinicians won’t refer patients for a treatment, despite that it has been shown to be incredibly effective for many patients with treatment-resistant depression.”

The researchers published their viewpoint and explanation of the alternative mechanism as a Letter to the Editor in the May 1 issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry.

Naltrexone — the drug used to reverse accidental opioid overdoses — binds to opioid receptors on the surface of brain cells and prevents opioids like morphine or heroin from sticking to them and acting on the brain, preventing the high.

In late 2018, researchers at Stanford University and Palo Alto University showed that naltrexone also blocks the antidepressant effects of ketamine, which led them to propose that ketamine must also bind to the same opioid receptors and thus concluded that ketamine must be an opioid. Kaplin says that there’s plenty of contrary evidence demonstrating that ketamine sticks to an entirely different receptor on brain cells: the NMDA receptors — involved in learning and memory — instead of the opioid receptors.

He, proposes how this works: Normally, NMDA receptors get turned on when the chemical messenger glutamate binds to them. Turning on the NMDA receptors turns off a master control switch in the cell called mTOR, which ultimately results in learning a behavior or forming a new memory. Ketamine can also bind to the NMDA receptors, but it has the opposite effect of glutamate, in that it turns these receptors off. Turning off the NMDA receptors turns on the master control switch mTOR, which is required for ketamine’s antidepressant properties.

Separately, says Kaplin, opioid receptors are normally turned on at low-levels all the time, even without opioids to turn them on all the way. This low activity of the opioid receptors normally suppresses the level of another chemical messenger called cyclic AMP (cAMP). When the overdose drug naltrexone is administered, it sticks to the opioid receptors, turning them completely off, which releases the brakes on cAMP. This increase in cAMP is what then interferes with the master switch mTOR, shutting it down. When ketamine is taken, it turns on the master switch mTOR to enable antidepressant effects, but if naltrexone is given on top of that, naltrexone obstructs and shuts off the mTOR again. It is through cAMP that naltrexone overrides and extinguishes the antidepressant effects of ketamine.

These NMDA receptors are found together with the opioid receptors on brain cells, and Kaplin says it’s no surprise that their components can meddle with one another, like interference picked up on a phone call or on the radio. “This interference and cross-talk does not mean that ketamine is an opioid, and to wrongly label it as such could eventually keep patients from essential antidepressant medications that could make a huge difference in their quality of life,” says Kaplin.

The FDA specified that ketamine is to be administered under the watch of physicians in small doses and in a health care setting to minimize any chance of abuse. The drug works much faster than other traditional antidepressants on the market, sometimes even after one or two uses.

Kaplin and his team are in the process of setting up their own ketamine clinic at Johns Hopkins, which they anticipate will be opening within the next year.

Mike Wang was also an author on the paper. Wang and Kaplin received grant funding from Janssen. Kaplin is the co-founder of Reward Pathways and a consultant for Biogen, EMD Serono and Pear Therapeutics.

S.C.A.R.F Rhythm of Life Gala Increases Awareness of Sudden Cardiac Death awareness

The physical therapy field is a dynamic one. In fact, job growth projections for the industry over the next few years are significantly higher than average projections in other fields.

Now is one of the most exciting times to get involved. As the following examples illustrate, new developments in the industry will soon offer major benefits to physical therapists, their clients, and everyone else involved in the recovery process. These benefits will enable patients to have direct access to physical therapy in New Jersey and other states across the nation, among other numerous advantages.

These are just a few changes to look out for in the coming months:

Merit-based Incentive Payment System

As of January 1, 2019, some physical therapists are now required to adopt MIPS physical therapy billing, while others may choose to do so.

What is MIPS? It’s simply a payment adjustment system designed to both improve the quality of care while reducing average costs.

With this change, a physical therapist will receive a MIPS payment adjustment score based on four criteria: Quality, Improvement Activities, Advancing Care Information, and Cost. The score will determine a Medicare B payment adjustment two years later.

Mergers & Acquisitions

In the first half of 2018 alone, approximately $2.5 trillion in total deals were made as a result of hospital mergers and acquisitions. It’s highly likely this uptrend will continue. Large healthcare corporations will continue to buy smaller practices and operations in the coming years. Although the impact this will have on the quality of care remains to be seen, it’s still an important trend to pay attention to.

New Referral Methods

The degree of ownership hospitals and physicians have over physical therapy billing has increased recently. The result? Doctors and healthcare providers can no longer be relied on as the primary referral sources for physical therapists who operate private practices. Physicians and healthcare facilities are simply less likely to refer patients to anyone out of network.

Thus, private practice physical therapists will have to seek other ways to attract clients, such as leveraging social media.

Technology Boosting Patient Engagement

Patient engagement is crucial in physical therapy. In order to ensure patients successfully complete treatment programs, physical therapists need to maintain relationships with them. That means making sure they have ways to coordinate even when a patient can’t actually visit their physical therapist in person.

Luckily, technology is making that easier than ever. Thanks to new patient engagement tools, physical therapists can cultivate productive relationships, resulting in better results for everyone.

Again, these are merely a few new developments worth paying attention to. The main point to remember is that physical therapy is a constantly-changing field. Staying abreast of those changes is key to success for both patients and practitioners.

Scientists who found a link between eating red meat and a higher risk of death believe cutting down on foods like burgers and bacon could lead to a longer life.

Over a period of eight years, eating 3.5 more servings of red meat per week on average was linked to a 10 percent higher risk of dying in the following eight years. That percentage rose to 13 percent for processed meat, falling to 9 percent for unprocessed, according to the study published in the journalBMJ.

But a decrease of one serving per day of red meat and an increase of one serving per day of fish over eight years was linked to a 17 percent lower risk of death in the subsequent eight years.

The servings sizes depended on the food, with 85g counting as one portion of beef, pork, and lamb as a main dish.

The authors concluded that short, medium and long-term changes in how much red, processed and unprocessed meat the participants ate was “directly associated” with the risk of death, regardless of their starting level.

The study is the latest in a pile of evidence which suggests eating red meat can heighten the risk of developing conditions including heart disease, type 2 diabetes, as well as types of cancer including colorectal. Processed meat, meanwhile, is also associated with heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease—which includes breathing problems like emphysema and bronchitis—and high blood pressure. Scientists think this could be explained by the combination of saturated fats, cholesterol, potential carcinogens, salt, and preservatives which foods like beef, bacon, hot dogs, and sausages contain.

This could be of particular concern for Americans, who eat more than double the amount of meat than the rest of the world, on average.

For the latest study, scientists wanted to look at whether eating more or less meat over eight years would affect health in the following eight years.

A total of 53,553 women aged between 30 to 55 at the start of the study, and 27,916 men aged between 40 to 75, took part in the research. The participants had worked as healthcare professionals and were free from cancer and heart disease when the study launched.

Every four years between 1986 and 1994, the participants filled out questionnaires about their lifestyle, medical history, and what they would normally eat. That included how often they consumed a standard portion of different foods in the past year, such as beef, pork, lamb, hamburgers, bacon, hot dogs, salami, and other processed red meats.

This gave the researchers an idea of how their health and habits changed over time. Researchers followed up with the participants in 2010, and divided them into five categories according to how their consumption of red meat changed over time.

When researchers followed-up with participants after eight years, they found 14,019 people had died. Between 1986 to 1994, more participants ate less meat than added it to their diet.

The figures revealed a pattern: those who ate increasing levels of red meat over the eight years had a higher risk of death. That means they were more likely to die than the other participants in the study, on average.

The risks remained even when the authors accounted for variables like age, exercise levels, the quality of the diet and whether they smoked or drank alcohol.

But the authors acknowledged several limitations to their study, including that the participants were health professional, so the results might not be applicable to others, and that they didn’t know exactly what caused the changes in diet.

“Because this is an observational study, the observed association does not necessarily imply causality. Dietary information was based on self-reports by the participants and thus some inaccuracies are inevitable,” study co-author Frank B. Hu, professor and chair of the Department of Nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told Newsweek.

Still, both Hu and experts not involved agreed this works provides further evidence that it is wise to cut down on how much red meat we eat.

Hu said: “it is desirable to cut back on overall red meat consumption, but it does not mean that everyone has to become a vegetarian or vegan.

“It’s better to minimize processed meats as much as possible. It’s also important to choose healthy sources of protein such as fish, nuts, whole grains, and legumes.”

He continued that reducing red meat in the diet can also help with environmental sustainability.

Ian Johnson, nutrition researcher at the Quadram Institute Bioscience, who was not involved in the work, commented that although the study was observational—where researchers look at a population which they have no control over and can’t confirm causation—the results come from a large, well established cohort study and are consistent with current public health advice.

“The important new point is that adults seem to be able to significantly improve their chances of a longer healthier life by adjusting their diets toward what can be broadly described as a more ‘Mediterranean‘ pattern,” he said.

Professor Tom Sanders, professor emeritus of nutrition and dietetics at King’s College London who also didn’t work on the research, said: “This report comes hot on the heels of another big study of 409,885 men and women in nine European countries that found red and processed meat consumption was associated with a 19 percent increased risk of ischemic heart disease, which is a leading cause of premature mortality.

“That study also found milk, fish, eggs and poultry were not associated with risk.

“These findings taken together challenge the popular myth that high protein diets containing lots of red meat are good for health, but support current dietary guidelines that advocate a shift to a Mediterranean style diet, which contains plenty of vegetables, nuts, wholegrain, some fish, poultry and milk but very small amounts of red and processed meat.”

Gunter Kuhnle, associate professor in nutrition and health at the U.K.’s University of Reading, highlighted that the benefits were modest and only when meat was replaced with certain foods: in particular nuts, fish, whole grains and vegetables, without legumes.

“The study is mainly of interest for long-term dietary recommendations, as it shows that on a population scale, even small increases in meat intake were associated with increased mortality, although only slightly—and that replacing meat with nuts, fish, whole grains or vegetables was associated with reduced mortality.”

He continued that meat is an important source of essential nutrients like iron and vitamin B12.

“This highlights the difficulties of nutritional research and the development of dietary recommendations: many foods are ‘healthy’ when consumed in the right amounts and it is excessive (or insufficient) consumption that has an adverse effect on health,” Kuhnle said

KnowYourMeds, a Waltham, MA-based startup today announced that its popular app has crossed the 50,000-download benchmark and is averaging about 500 downloads per day, primarily from the US, Canada and Mexico.

The app is available on iPhone and Android devices. The app provides a variety of very useful and popular features – pill reminders, refill reminders, drug/food interactions, dietary considerations, FDA warnings and notifications. It also has a health tracker tool where users are able to keep track of any adverse reactions they might experience while taking their various medications.

The app also allows users to create and track dependent profiles for family members such as children or elderly parents.

“We are very pleased with the growing popularity of the app and its increasing awareness among users worldwide,” said KnowYourMeds Founder and CEO Kim Shah. “Since we officially launched our app in September, we have seen phenomenal growth in downloads. There was clearly a need for such an easy-to-use app and we are filling this niche.”

“We have over 50,000 downloads since the initial launch in September, and we are averaging around 400-500 per day currently,” said Mr. Shah, adding that of those who are downloading 70 percent are female and 30 percent male. “Age range is everything from 20 – 70 years old.”

Mr. Shah said that twenty-five percent of users have entered 5-25 drugs each in their profiles, another 25 percent have entered 2-4 drugs and the rest have entered just one drug.

Headquartered in Waltham, MA, KnowYourMeds is a free digital health app that helps patients who take multiple drugs to treat various chronic illnesses and offers pill reminders assisting patients adhere to their medication’s schedules. The app uses the world’s largest database of suspected side effects and adverse effects, along with AI driven insights to provide users with early identification of drug interactions as well as early detection of potential medication errors. The app provides useful news and information that is relevant to the user – this can be notifications and warnings from the FDA, new research on their diseases, dietary considerations and so on. For more information, visit: www. KnowYourMeds.com

Americans borrowed an estimated $88 billion over the last year to pay for health care, according to a survey released last week by Gallup and the nonprofit West Health. The survey also found that one in four Americans have skipped treatment because of the cost, and that nearly half fear bankruptcy in the event of a health emergency.

There was a partisan divide when respondents were asked whether they believed that the American health care system is among the best in the world: Among Republicans, 67 percent of respondents said they believed so; that number was 38 percent among Democrats.

But Democrats and Republicans had similar responses about putting off medical treatment. Asked if they had deferred treatment because of the cost, 27 percent of Democrats said they had, compared with 21 percent of Republicans and 30 percent of independents.

Respondents from across the political spectrum also reported pessimism about their leaders’ abilities to reduce health care costs. About 70 percent of respondents said they had no confidence in their elected officials to bring prices down. And 77 percent said they were concerned that rising health care costs would damage the American economy.

“Our data shows an American public that’s beaten down from this really serious issue,” said Dan Witters, a senior researcher at Gallup.

At the same time, 64 percent of respondents said they were mostly satisfied with their experiences in the health care system. When asked if they were satisfied with how well the system was serving Americans generally, only 39 percent said they were.

The survey’s authors noted that Americans’ feelings were complicated and at times conflicted. But one thing was clear: High health care costs had created significant anxiety.

Even among households earning $180,000 or more a year, a third of respondents said they were concerned about the specter of personal bankruptcy because of a health crisis. (There has been fierce debate among researchers about the extent to which health care costs can be blamed for bankruptcies.)

Many American families earning less than that, of course, feel the effects of high health care costs acutely. They are forced to cut back on other expenses to pay for health care, or skip appointments and prescription refills, creating health risks down the road.

Twelve percent of respondents said they had borrowed money for care, including 11 percent of those with health insurance, who may still face high deductibles and other out-of-pocket expenses.

Most survey respondents said they believed that Americans were paying too much for health care relative to what they receive. Asked to choose between a hypothetical freeze in their health care costs or a 10 percent increase in household income, 61 percent of respondents chose the freeze. Those in low-income households were most likely to choose that option.

“When we’re talking about health care and the debate right now, it usually bifurcates between the financial impact of health care or the health outcomes themselves,” said Tim Lash, chief strategy officer for West Health, a nonpartisan nonprofit that aims to lower health care prices.

“But those two things intersect at access,” which can have dire health consequences, he said.

The organization believes that Congress should allow Medicare to negotiate directly with drug companies; that there should be more transparency about the prices of medicines and procedures; and that the health care industry should shift toward “value-based care” — in which doctors are paid based on patient outcomes — rather than the current “fee-for-service” model.

Adhera Therapeutics (OTCQB: ATRX), a specialty pharmaceutical company leveraging technology to commercialize unique therapies and improve patient outcomes, and Alyvant, a company focused on tech-enabled pharma commercialization, today announced a digital co-promotion agreement for Prestalia®, an approved therapy for the treatment of hypertension.

Robert Moscato, Jr., CEO of Adhera Therapeutics, commented, “We are pleased to enter into a co-promotion agreement with Alyvant. The agreement affords Adhera the opportunity to increase the frequency of communication to healthcare providers and educate physicians beyond the reach of our sales team. Alyvant is a likeminded, data-driven company, and working together on Prestalia supports Adhera’s mission of increasing drug adherence amongst our patients. We are delighted that Alyvant is co-promoting Prestalia and connecting patients to therapies that may benefit them through innovative uses of data and technology.”

Gillian Cannon, President of Alyvant, added, “We are excited to partner with Adhera Therapeutics. Adhera’s patient-centric treatment approach aligns well with Alyvant’s targeted patient-level analytics approach. We anticipate the digital co-promotion will have a positive impact on the commercialization of Prestalia, and most importantly patients at risk of cardiovascular events who would benefit from taking this therapy.”

Dr. Cannon is an industry veteran with more than 30 years of experience in leadership roles at pharmaceutical companies including Merck, Otsuka and UCB. Alyvant’s Chief Technology Officer, Mitchell Mittman, has held senior leadership roles in companies including Amazon, Expedia and Goldman Sachs, where he led the development of software and data science platforms.
Alyvant uses de-identified patient-level analytics to better understand the nuances of a disease, patterns of physician prescription behavior, and payer reimbursement. We then turn insights into action through our fit-for-purpose commercial pharmaceutical organization. Alyvant’s long-range vision is to use technology to reduce the cost of commercializing all medicines, thereby generating savings for the healthcare system at large and helping to ensure that every patient who might benefit from an approved therapy has the opportunity to speak with a physician about appropriate treatment options. For more information, please visit www.alyvant.com.

Adhera Therapeutics, Inc. is a specialty pharmaceutical company leveraging technology to commercialize unique therapies and improve patient outcomes. The company is initially focused on commercializing Prestalia (perindopril arginine and amlodipine besylate) through DyrctAxess, a patient-centric treatment approach. Our Prestalia product is approved by the US FDA for the treatment of hypertension to lower blood pressure. Adhera is dedicated to identifying additional assets to expand our commercial presence. Additional information can be found at www.adherathera.com.

Roivant aims to improve health by rapidly delivering innovative medicines and technologies to patients. We do this by building Vants – nimble, entrepreneurial biotech and healthcare technology companies with a unique approach to sourcing talent, aligning incentives, and deploying technology to drive greater efficiency in R&D and commercialization. For more information, please visit www.roivant.com.

Statements made in this news release may be forward-looking statements within the meaning of Federal Securities laws that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties and involve factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or suggested. These factors include those contained under the heading “Risk Factors” in the most recent filings by Adhera Therapeutics with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including, without limitation, its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2017. Adhera Therapeutics assumes no obligation to update or supplement forward-looking statements because of subsequent events.

Indian Nurses Association of New York (INANY), an organization that professionally represents the interests of nurses and nursing students of Indian origin in the State of New York, is organizing a continuing education conference as part of its professional development measures.  The conference lead by academic and professional practitioners will focus on heart and brain which control the life itself.

The objective is to deepen the insight and knowledge of participants in the anatomical physiological complexities with latest diagnostic and treatment modalities in treating heart and neurological conditions and diseases such as atherosclerosis, heart failure, stroke and so on, in general population, women and South Asians. Statistics show that while heart disease remains the number one cause in the United States, South Asians are at higher risk to get heart attacks at younger ages than any other ethnic groups.  INANY, through this conference, hopes to empower nurses, nurse practitioners and other advanced practitioners to increase awareness among their patients and communities.

Numerous studies have been conducted among South Asians in Singapore, U.K., Canada and the U.S. established the risk factors, however, the cause factors that bring this ethnic group above all others are still unknown.  South Asians that constitute about 25 per cent of the global population, is the fastest growing ethnic groups in the U.S. and have proportionately higher death rate from cardio vascular diseases.   Cardiovascular disease is also the leading cause of death among women in the United States.  Another topic this conference will be discussing is stroke which is also a leading cause of death or long term or permanent disability in the population.  The conference will conclude with a talk on Complimentary medicine in cardiovascular disease.

The conference, titled “Sharpen the Brain – Pamper the Heart” and entails 6.5 hours of Continuing Education credits, is planned for Saturday, April 13 at Cotillion, 440 Jericho Turnpike, Jericho.  More information regarding registration can be obtained from Tara Shajan (347 401 4231), Dr. Anna George (646 732 6143) or Paul D Panakal (516 732 2520) or email paudom88@gmail.com

Americans can expect to live just over 78 years and six months on average – a 0.1 year drop from 2016, according to the report released on Thursday, November 29th.

“Tragically, this troubling trend is largely driven by deaths from drug overdose and suicide,” said The Centers for Disease Control (CDC)  director Robert Redfield in a statement.

“Life expectancy gives us a snapshot of the nation’s overall health and these sobering statistics are a wake-up call that we are losing too many Americans, too early and too often, to conditions that are preventable.”

The CDC found nearly 70,000 more Americans died in 2017 than 2016, with rising rates of death among 25- to 44-year-olds, media reports here say.

The reports revealed synthetic opioid-related overdose death rates rose by 45% on average, nationwide. The suicide rate is also the highest it has been in decades.

The top 10 leading causes of death – including heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, and suicide – were the same as in 2016, accounting for the majority of deaths.

Only cancer death rates decreased by 2.1%, while the rates for most other causes increased.

US women continue to outlive men, and the death rate did decrease among 45- to 54-year-olds.

Between 2016 and 2017, mortality rates also decreased for black women, and there was no significant change in rates for black men and Hispanic Americans. Life expectancy in the US began dropping in 2015.

Monaco and Japan currently have the longest life expectancies in the world at 89 and 85 years. The UK’s life expectancy is around 80 years.

As the US grapples with an opioid crisis, overdoses claim more and more lives, the CDC report found. The age-adjusted death rate has gone up 16% per year since 2014.

Drug overdose deaths accounted for 70,237 deaths last year – nearly 10% higher than in 2016 – with a significantly higher rate of death among men, compared to women.  The death rate from overdoses caused by synthetic opioids like fentanyl increased by 45% in one year.

West Virginia saw the highest overdose death rate in 2017 at 58 per 100,000 people; Ohio, Pennsylvania and the US capital also topped the list.

The CDC found suicide became the second leading cause of death for 10- to 34-year-olds in 2016, with rates increasing 33% between 1999 and 2017, according to the report.

Urban-area suicide rates were 16% higher in 2017 than 1999, and rural-area suicides increased by 53% over the same time period.

Dr Jerry Reed of the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention told the BBC that suicide is not always just a mental health challenge.

“Economic conditions or livelihood opportunities in decline could lead people to positions where they’re at risk. We need to intervene in both mental and public health cases,” Dr Reed says.

From Canada or US: If you’re in an emergency, please call 911. You can contact the US National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 1-800-273-8255 or the Crisis Test Line by texting HOME to 741741. Young people in need of help can call Kids Help Phone on 1-800-668-6868

People when they return after a good holiday often say, “I need another holiday to overcome the stress of this one”. Holidays and celebrations can sometimes be stressful, as some of us must be experiencing after this short Dusshera/Deepavali holiday season, complete with shopping and a bit of overeating. But it was a time to celebrate, so why not?

The Bible says, “To everything there is a season; a time for every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck…; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance…; a time to keep, and a time to throw away;… a time to keep silence, and a time to speak…

Drawing inspiration from the last verse as well as Jesus’ invitation to his disciples, “Come away by yourselves to a remote place and rest for a while”, gave birth to a strong tradition in Christianity of going on a “retreat”.

The term “retreat” is usually used in the context of war. The army either advances or retreats. Retreat in the spiritual realm, however, can only mean “advancing”. Retreat is actually a time to get away from our routine activities to spend time to know God more and to examine one’s priorities. It is a time to make and renew resolutions, reminding ourselves of the ones we made on New Year. It is a time to basically recharge our energies to rediscover the path that God wants us to tread on. When done properly with the help of a spiritual director, a retreat can be a sure and steady road toward personal conversion.

The Bible tells us that before Jesus launched on his mission of sharing the message of God’s love and liberation, he spent 40 days in the desert fasting and praying. The time was spent, to pack himself, as it were, with divine energies to withstand the challenges of his mission that lay ahead.

The first important requirement to make a fruitful retreat is to choose a quiet place away from family, friends and workplace. The second absolute necessary prerequisite that spiritual masters recommend is to observe strict silence, a silence, not only of the tongue/ear, but more importantly, of one’s thoughts. For it is only in and through silence can one begin to hear the divine whisper! Keeping silence is probably one of the greatest challenges of our modern times, as we are endlessly distracted with hundreds of things around us.

Anyone looking for a spiritual experience can begin with a short retreat of two-three days and having tasted its sweetness can gradually attempt longer ones. And one need not wait for end of holidays to begin a retreat.

Psychiatrist Bharat Vatwani, one of this year’s winners of the prestigious Magsaysay Award — also known as Asia’s Nobel Prize — hopes to erase the stigma associated with mental illness in India.

“Mental illness is a biochemical response, just like any other illness. Mentally ill people have a right to treatment and should be seen in the same way we see all others,” Vatwani told India-West here Oct. 20 afternoon on the sidelines of the Indians for Collective Action’s Golden Jubilee celebrations (see India-West story here). Vatwani was a keynote speaker at the conference and received an award from ICA that evening at a gala marking the 50th birth anniversary of the organization.

In 1988, Vatwani and his wife Smitha, who is also a psychiatrist, launched the Shraddha Rehabilitation Foundation in Mumbai with the aim of helping mentally ill homeless people to be reunited with their families. Since its inception 30 years ago, Shraddha has reunited 7,000 mentally ill street people with their families after providing rehabilitation and support.

Shraddha’s army of volunteers find wandering mentally ill people on the streets and bring them in for the first line of rehabilitation, attending to their physical needs. Many are emaciated, suffering from other illnesses, and in need of hygiene care.

“We then slowly add in psychiatric evaluations and begin a course of medication,” Vatwani told India-West. He noted that many people who are found without the ability to speak slowly start talking after a few days of treatment and start to remember bits of their lives. Often, patients can remember mobile phone numbers after some treatment, which eases the search for family members.

Technology has helped immensely, said Vatwani, noting that Aadhar cards and biometrics can more readily identify a mentally ill homeless person. Police helping the organization use the WhatsApp mobile phone app to connect to police stations across the nation to convey information about persons found.

Shraddha has a 95 percent success rate of reunification with families. Those who are not reunited are given over to an NGO which will provide support and rehabilitation to the person throughout his lifetime.

The wandering mentally ill tend to primarily be men, said Vatwani, noting they are often migrant laborers who have left their villages and come to cities in search of work. Women are housed in their communities, often without getting help and treatment for their mental illness.

There is a marked lack of psychiatrists in India, Smitha Vatwani told India-West, noting there were fewer than three per 100,000 people. Speaking at the 22nd convocation of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences last December, Indian President Ram Nath Kovind noted there were only 5,000 psychiatrists and 2,000 psychologists for a country with a population of 1.3 billion.

“India does not simply have a mental health challenge: it is facing a possible mental health epidemic,” he said.

Shraddha was launched after Vatwani met an unkempt young man on the streets of Mumbai who was drinking polluted water from a roadside gutter and eating garbage thrown on the street. The psychiatrist took him to his clinic and started to treat him.

After a few months, the young man — Vijayam — began to remember bits of his former life before the streets: he had graduated from college with a degree in medical laboratory technology and his father was a zilla parishad superintendent in Andhra Pradesh. “It was like a dream when I received a telegram from a faraway unknown place that my son was alive and well,” Vijayam’s father told The Times of India in 1990.

“The wandering mentally ill deserve attention. They have feelings and emotions,” said Vatwani in a keynote address at the ICA jubilee celebrations. He spoke about a boy found by Shraddha social workers. Through the process of rehabilitation, the organization was able to reunite the young man with his family in time to light the funeral pyre for his mother “so that her soul could go to heaven,” he said.

About 180 million people in India suffer from some form of mental illness, said Vatwani in his keynote, adding that overall, 20 percent of India’s population has some form of disability. “I stand before you as a representative of 250 million people who are under-represented.”

“Compassion is like a river, widening and widening until it reaches the sea,” he said.

Civility is a style of argument that implicitly welcomes response. It’s not often that an obituary goes viral, but this October a family chose to expose its immense pain for all the world to see, and the story of that pain rocketed around the Internet.

Madelyn Linsenmeir was 30 when she died from her addiction. She first tried OxyContin as a teenager, a moment that “began a relationship with opiates that would dominate the rest of her life.” Reading on, you find that she had a son. And when she became a mom, she tried “harder and more relentlessly to stay sober than we have ever seen anyone try at anything.” But, her family wrote, “she relapsed and ultimately lost custody of her son.” That loss was “unbearable,” and her addiction took her to places of “incredible darkness”–a reality that friends and families of addicts know all too well.

Madelyn was one life among the hundreds of thousands (72,000 in 2017 alone) lost to drugs. Along with suicide and alcohol-related deaths, overdoses are fueling a stunning three-year decline in life expectancy in the U.S. These deaths of despair are happening in a time of robust economic growth in arguably the most prosperous and powerful nation in the history of the world, and the decline began even as more Americans had access to health insurance than ever before.

When historians review this period, they’ll see two seemingly disconnected cultural realities, existing side by side. Yes, they’ll see the astounding death rates and the terrible spread of self-harm. They’ll also see something else–a nation divided by fear and anger. America has become a nation that mourns and a nation that hates, and the two are more related than they may appear.

Negative partisanship has infected nearly every corner of political life. By 2017, 81% of Republicans and Democrats viewed the opposing party unfavorably, with the percentage viewing their opponents “very” unfavorably nearly tripling since 1994.

This fall, a group called More in Common released a comprehensive survey of America’s “hidden tribes,” seeking to understand the sources of American polarization. It concluded that much of America’s political anger was driven by what it called “the wings,” which are flanked by the 8% of Americans who are “progressive activists” and the 6% who are “devoted conservatives.”

The members of the tribes on each end of the spectrum share some common characteristics. They’re disproportionately white, they’re well off, and they’re intensely engaged in politics–roughly twice as likely to list politics as a “hobby” than the average American. They’re motivated. They have means. And they focus many of those resources and much of that energy opposing a political enemy they view as truly dangerous.

Now let’s contrast the polarizing wings with the suffering segments of society. The overdose crisis is harming every social class, but it’s hitting the least educated the hardest. And it affects single men and women disproportionately, with overdose rates skyrocketing for single men without a college degree.

To be clear, I’m not arguing that poor Americans are killing themselves with drugs because of politics. Nor am I arguing that political fights among the relatively affluent are contributing to the crisis. No, the question I raise is this: When their fellow citizens are suffering on such a terrible scale, what are the most engaged, most resourced Americans doing with their lives?

Unless you’re among the tiny group of people who exercise actual, substantial political authority, each of us can only have a large influence on a small number of people and a small influence on a large number of people. In other words, we have the potential to transform a life. We have minimal capacity to individually change American politics.

So after we take care of ourselves and our families, where do we expend our excess emotional and financial energy? Is it on the community that we can immediately and consequentially reach? Or is it on a national polity that seems immune to our rage? While some members of our most partisan class do engage in their communities, for millions of Americans, the answer is clear. Politics is the true faith, and political argument is the work that replaces our religious salvation.

Solving our most pressing problems is a titanic undertaking, and they won’t be fixed simply by putting a stop to political squabbling. Indeed, the scale of our challenges contributes to a sense of futility. Americans die by the tens of thousands, and each life is hard to save. This can lead us to throw up our hands and focus on the shouting that seems more manageable. Thus too many talented and passionate citizens spend too much energy where they can have the least impact. The nation that hates thus too often ignores the nation that mourns.

Too many of our citizens spend too much of their energy where they can have the least impact

The solution isn’t to disengage. “Can’t we all just get along” is a naive call in a nation so profoundly divided by consequential questions. Those for and against access to abortion, for example, should engage each other in the marketplace of ideas, even when doing so can be emotionally fraught. We should debate the Saudi alliance, the Mueller probe and tax rates. There is, however, a matter of priority and proportion that often gets lost, and that can and should demand a sustained policy response to our national malaise. But there’s a problem. The opioid crisis is so deep-seated and complex that it doesn’t fit neatly in the partisan box. Is there any way through that doesn’t require cooperating with the people we’ve grown to hate?

Not long ago I was deeply convicted by an off-hand comment at my church. A woman lamented that she was “too busy for her community.” She was too busy for the people she could influence most. That’s me, I thought. That is my most fundamental flaw. I don’t know my neighbors well, but you can be sure that I know when someone is wrong online. I sometimes struggle to provide even my own friends who’ve battled addiction and alcoholism with sufficient support. Life gets busy, after all, and there are always libs to own. This is the inversion of our priorities from the neighbor whose life I can help change to the nation I can’t save.

This is a moment of profound historic importance. For the blessed, privileged class of Americans, the challenge is clear. A mass cultural crisis demands a mass cultural response. And if loathing for the distant partisan motivates us more than love for the close neighbor, I’d argue that we’re failing that test. That is the hate that will ultimately shame us all.

(This appears in the November 05, 2018 issue of TIME.)

Source Newsroom: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Newswise — To the government leaders gathered in New York today for the third UN high-level meeting on noncommunicable diseases, Michael R. Bloomberg brings a positive message: The 41 million annual deaths from NCDs are largely preventable.

What’s needed to save millions of lives is political will.

Bloomberg, who is to be reappointed today to a second term as WHO’s Global Ambassador for Noncommunicable Diseases, backed effective strategies against NCDs as a 3-term mayor of New York City—leading to a 3-year increase in life expectancy for residents during his tenure. And as a philanthropist, Bloomberg has supported efforts to reduce the effects of tobacco, sugar-sweetened beverages, trans fats and other threats to health. (Bloomberg is a benefactor of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, which publishes Global Health NOW.)

In an exclusive Q&A with Global Health NOW conducted via email, Bloomberg shares his advice to national leaders at today’s UN high-level meeting, examples of best-buy interventions against NCDs, the value of solid data in allocating resources, and the under-appreciated power of cities to improve global health.

“Many of the most effective measures to fight NCDs don’t require a lot of money,” Bloomberg says. “They do require political will—and that’s something that today’s meeting at the UN can help to build.”

What will be your takeaway message today to the UN high-level meeting on NCDs?

We’re facing an epidemic—but we can do something about it. Noncommunicable diseases are largely preventable, and we know what works. National governments can save an awful lot of lives by putting the right measures in place, and their leadership can set an example for others.

What has most encouraged you and most discouraged you in the global fight against NCDs?

The progress we’ve made fighting tobacco use is very encouraging, because it is the number one agent of preventable death. Since 2007, Bloomberg Philanthropies has committed nearly $1 billion to combat tobacco use. When we started out, around 40 countries had at least one high-quality tobacco control policy in place. Today, 121 countries do. Over that period, global sales of cigarettes began falling for the first time since the beginning of the tobacco industry. Tobacco control measures adopted in the last 10 years will have saved nearly 35 million lives.

It’s also encouraging to see an increasing number of cities and countries pass taxes on sugary drinks. Obesity is a growing problem that will take an enormous toll on public health and the economy unless we act.

It’s disappointing that more countries and cities aren’t taking action yet—but we can’t let that discourage us.