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July 19, 2011  In This Issue... - Lose Weight Without Giving Up Your Favorite Foods
- Belly Fat: It's Even Bad for Skinny People!
- Shocking #2 Cause of Cancer
- When Hospitals Make Mistakes
- Garlic Tea: My Favorite Food Cure
Lose Weight Without Giving Up Your Favorite Foods Losing weight is such a struggle. That's why Dr. Alan Hirsch created the SENSA® Weight Loss System, designed to enhance weight loss without changing your diet. In a clinical study, 1,436 people lost an average of 30.5 pounds in 6 months simply by sprinkling SENSA® on their food. It's not a pill or drug -- so you can lose weight naturally. It's the easy -- and effective way -- to get the body you want. CBS calls it "...the newest weight-loss success story." For a limited time, try SENSA® free! Click here to learn more.
Belly Fat: It's Even Bad for Skinny People! It’s well-known that for overweight people, being "apple-shaped" -- with the extra fat mostly around their middle -- is particularly dangerous for their health, especially heart health. But if your weight is in the normal range, you don’t have to worry about that little muffin top or beer belly, right? Wrong. A new analysis from the Mayo Clinic published in the May 10, 2011 Journal of the American College of Cardiology looked at how belly, or "visceral," fat impacts cardiac disease patients. It gathered data from six studies totaling nearly 16,000 heart patients, 40% of whom were of normal weight. These patients (all of whom had either had a heart attack or a procedure to open blocked arteries) were followed for just over two years after their attacks or treatment. The studies revealed that among the normal-weight folks, their belly fat was associated with early and unexpected death -- an astonishing one in five deaths. Remember, these people were not overweight -- they just had a little extra around the middle! Matters were even worse for the obese group, where belly fat caused one in three deaths... but that’s not very surprising given how dangerous we all know obesity to be. Right now, I’m more concerned about the many of us who keep our overall weight in check and therefore tend not to worry about the fat that we do have. A Different Kind of "Bad Fat" To discuss the most recent findings about abdominal fat, I called Robert Kushner, MD, clinical director at the Northwestern Comprehensive Center on Obesity at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Most of us don’t think of fat around the middle as anything more than unsightly "spare tires," but Dr. Kushner describes it as "angry fat that is biologically active." What he means is that this fat, unlike the thinner layer of fat that lies just beneath the skin (subcutaneous fat), produces chemicals that lead to insulin resistance, a precursor of diabetes. Diabetes, as we know too well, is a disease that puts people at high risk for cardiac disease and inflammation -- making it harder for blood vessels to dilate and easier for blood to clot, all of which increases the risk for heart attacks and strokes. While the Mayo Clinic’s meta-analysis involved only people who already had cardiac disease, Dr. Kushner wanted to remind Daily Health News readers that belly fat is dangerous for people with good health histories as well. In fact, several years ago, data from the long-range Nurses’ Health Study, which tracked 44,000 women for 16 years, showed that women with greater waist circumferences were more likely to die early of cancer or heart attack than women with smaller waists -- and the Nurses’ Health Study data baseline was healthy women. Should You Whittle Your Waistline? You may already know that your weight is in the officially healthy range if your body mass index (BMI) is under 25 (to calculate your BMI, go to http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/). But to have a more accurate picture of your health, you need to know just how big your belly is, so go ahead and get out that tape measure. Do not worry about gauging your hip-to-waist ratio, a measurement that was widely used in the past as a measure of abdominal fat, says Dr. Kushner. Research now shows that waist circumference alone is a good indicator of the presence of that deep "angry fat." However, it is crucial that both men and women take this measurement at a very specific part of the body. Place the tape measure just above the top of the hip bones. Reason: Hip bone position never changes, and it is easy to find even for people who are overweight. For men, you are at risk if your waist circumference is 40 inches or more... for women, 35 inches or more puts you into the danger zone. Use Your Head -- for Your Heart For your health, it is crucial to lose belly fat if your waist measurement exceeds the above guidelines. Despite the promises you see on many magazine covers for both women and men -- you know, "Bust That Belly Fat with One Simple Move!" -- there is no way to spot reduce, says Dr. Kushner. The only way to get that fat to budge is to reduce your calorie intake via a healthy weight-loss program, such as the Mediterranean Diet. For more on this fruit, veggie and whole-grain-heavy diet that most people find both delicious and filling, check out our Bottom Line Secrets article at www.BottomLineSecrets.com/Extra. Exercise is a must as well, with aerobic exercise particularly good for both shedding pounds and boosting cardiovascular health. Once you have lost some weight and reduced your waistline to a healthy number of inches, you’ll need to be vigilant to keep that belly fat from doing what it does best -- creeping back onto your body. Source(s):
Robert F. Kushner, MD, clinical director, Northwestern Comprehensive Center on Obesity (NCCO) at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago. 
Shocking #2 Cause of Cancer An official at the American Cancer Society said that it's easy to avoid half of all cancers. However, an adviser to the American Institute for Cancer Research was even more optimistic when he said that nine out of 10 cancers are related to factors we control. Of course, their #1 piece of advice is "stop smoking." We all know that. But I bet you don't know the #2 cause of cancer. It's something totally under your control -- it's much easier than quitting cigarettes -- and it's the last thing you'd ever expect. I'll tell you about it in a moment. Keep reading...
When Hospitals Make Mistakes You research the pros and cons and shop around before you buy a car -- so why not compare local hospitals in case you, or someone close to you, becomes ill or has an accident? Lack of accessible information may have discouraged you from taking a close look in the past, but the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) now reports hospital error rates on its Web site. The information is right there at www.HospitalCompare.hhs.gov, making it easy to see how the various medical centers in your area stack up against each other. So what can you find out? ADVERSE EVENTS: MORE COMMON THAN YOU THINK Hospital-acquired conditions (HACs) are also called "never events" -- because they are serious problems that people develop in the hospital that should seldom, if ever, happen as long as proper procedures are followed. As an example, according to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Inspector General, 13.5% of hospitalized patients on Medicare experience preventable adverse events such as falls and infections. That’s clearly way more than "never"... and way too many. The CMS tracks hospitals’ rates on these eight "never events"... - Foreign objects. Yes, it really is true -- sometimes surgeons accidentally leave a sponge or clamp in a patient’s body.
- Air embolism. Without proper care and attention, a dangerous air bubble may develop in your bloodstream. This can happen with a central IV line and during vascular procedures.
- Mismatched blood. Hospitals occasionally administer the wrong type of blood in a transfusion.
- Severe pressure sores. If you can’t move around independently and caregivers don’t help you shift position frequently, you can develop painful and potentially life-threatening pressure sores, what most people call bedsores.
- Falls and injuries. Without proper assistance, a simple trip to the bathroom may result in a fall and a debilitating injury.
- Vascular catheter-associated infection. This is a blood infection from catheters -- small tubes that are used to treat heart disease or other disease and carry a risk for sepsis.
- Catheter-associated urinary tract infections. Catheters also are used to help patients urinate, and infections are a common complication.
- Uncontrolled blood sugar. Signs of poorly controlled blood sugar range from confusion, anxiety and sweating (low blood sugar or hypoglycemia) to headaches, blurred vision and fatigue (high blood sugar or hyperglycemia). This is a concern for hospital patients with diabetes and also for others -- for instance, those for whom the stress of hospitalization is too much. Pregnancy can cause short-term hyperglycemia as well.
After reading through that list, are you ready to take yourself to just any old hospital? I didn’t think so. It’s clearly a good idea to track error rates, notes E. Wesley Ely, MD, MPH, a professor and specialist in pulmonary and critical care medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center -- but, he adds, it’s something that needs to be done very carefully for the benefit of both patients and the hospitals themselves. For example, it’s reasonable and helpful to hold hospitals responsible for mistakes such as transfusing the wrong blood type or leaving a foreign object in a patient during a surgical procedure -- but it’s not helpful to automatically blame hospitals when patients develop delirium after surgery, as the CMS originally proposed, because delirium is not always preventable. Fortunately, the CMS reversed its position on this condition, says Dr. Ely. WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW BEFORE YOU GO To increase your odds of a safe and successful hospital stay, become an educated consumer... Check hospital ratings. Visit CMS’s Web site and read about hospital errors. You’ll find the incidence rate for each of the eight HACs in the nation’s 4,700 hospitals. That is how many times an HAC has occurred per 1,000 discharges. At www.HospitalCompare.hhs.gov, you also can learn how satisfied other people were with their hospital stays... how closely hospitals followed best practices of care... how many people died within 30 days of hospitalization for a heart attack, heart failure or pneumonia... and 30-day readmission rates for these conditions. Don’t pay for their mistakes. Medicare does not pay for treatment of conditions that result from hospitals’ mistakes, and you don’t have to either. If you develop any of the eight above conditions in the hospital, you can’t be charged for the resulting necessary treatment, according to the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. Work with caregivers as a team. For best results, Dr. Ely urges families to communicate closely with doctors, nurses and other health-care professionals. Provide caregivers with a complete list of all prescription and over-the-counter medications and supplements that the patient takes so that nothing gets overlooked in an emergency. This is particularly important so that doctors can avoid drug interactions with new medications they might prescribe. Ask questions about the risks and potential benefits of treatment options, and speak up about any other concerns, such as a patient being sedated too deeply or for too many days. As well-meaning as most health-care professionals are, the demands of their jobs mean that a patient’s quality of care isn’t necessarily automatic. Safer at home. Dr. Ely also encourages you to keep talking to your hospitalized loved ones so they remain as oriented and aware as possible... so that they get out of bed sooner... recover and come back home where they belong. It’s much safer there! Source(s):
E. Wesley Ely, MD, MPH, professor of medicine and critical care, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville. Dr. Ely is the founder of Vanderbilt’s ICU Delirium and Cognitive Impairment Study Group and associate director of aging research for the VA Tennessee Valley Geriatric Research and Education Clinical Center (GRECC).
Garlic Tea: My Favorite Food Cure If I don't watch out, I think that my family and friends are going to nickname me "The Garlic Lady" since I so frequently suggest its use to "cure what ails you." The last time I blogged about garlic, I wrote about putting it on the bottom of your feet -- yes, feet! -- to fight colds. Since then, I've become a big proponent of garlic tea, which is much easier than garlic-in-socks, and it works faster. Click here to read more...
Be well, 
Carole Jackson
Bottom Line's Daily Health News
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