Health news this week is both good and bad. A study to be published on February 5 in Circulation, a journal for cardiologists, tells how a little exercise- two hours a week of walking for instance, can cut the risk in half for “premature death.” It doesn’t take Jack Lalane workouts to produce real results. Very high fitness levels reduce the risk further, but just getting off the sofa once or twice a day to take a brisk walk will have an effect. I see an ad for Wii, a television / computer game where a bunch of older guys are enjoying virtual bowling. It beats paying a couple bucks a game and does work up a sweat!
The other piece is about how women who have to pay as little as ten bucks, as co-pay will skip their mammogram. Medicare managed care plans usually ask for a small out of pocket to reduce the insurance companies cost. As it turns out, the costs increase because more women develop more serious cancer without this screening.
Lastly, and this has limited information behind it, they are starting to suggest that gastric surgery- banding was the case study, rather than bypass which is more frequent here in the US, is a diabetes cure. In Australia, they are suggesting that so many diabetics get off all meds after a surgery to reduce stomach size that it qualifies as a cure for diabetes. Many of the patients I’ve met report significant changes in their blood sugar controlling meds. If you are obese and diabetic, it’s worth looking into!
So again I end up sounding like a mother hen to people old enough to be my parents. Get some exercise. Go to the doctor for heath maintenance. Now a radical suggestion: diets work for very few obese people. Gastric surgery works for almost all of them. If you’ve been dieting for 50 years and are still too heavy, check out something that has proven to save lives.