December 18th, 2011 by John Mandrola, M.D. in Research
4 Comments »
Dear Endurance Athletes,
Accept an apology in advance. You have endured so much from me.
Sorry.
Let’s at least start by agreeing that I can’t control the data.
Yes, you guessed it. There is unfortunately more bad news pertaining to the deleterious effects of endurance exercise on the human heart.
Again, I am sorry. Maybe re-phrasing the previous sentence will soften the blow. How about this: “Yet another study on endurance athletes suggests that exercise, like everything else in life, has an upper limit.”
Here goes, buckle up. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr John M*
December 10th, 2011 by BarbaraFicarraRN in Health Policy, Opinion
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How do companies curb health care costs?
Do healthier employees lead to increased productivity? Several progressive companies believe so and have committed to providing employees with programs to help engage them in a healthier lifestyle.
As part of the incentives to lead a healthier lifestyle some employers have instituted a penalty and reward system tied to the companies’ benefits. For example, smokers may incur a significant surcharge to the cost of their health insurance plan while nonsmokers could see a reduction in cost.
According to an article in The New York Times, a growing numbers of companies including Home Depot, PepsiCo, Safeway, Lowe’s and General Mills are seeking higher premiums from some workers who smoke, similar to Wal-Mart’s addition of a $2,000-a-year surcharge for some smokers.
Escalating health care costs Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Health in 30*
December 1st, 2011 by John Mandrola, M.D. in Health Tips, Research
1 Comment »
There was important news this month on statin drugs. As one of the world’s most effective and commonly used medications, statins provide great writing topics. Lots of people have high cholesterol–including cyclists. Lots of people are interested in avoiding our mostly deadly disease.
I’d like to tell you about a recently-published (Lancet) landmark study that should quell safety concerns over statin drugs.
The punch line after I tell you the study’s results are short and sweet. Scroll down if you wish. But first, statin drugs are misunderstood enough to warrant a little blog-like simplicity. Let’s start with some background.
A brief statin review:
Statin drugs are best known for their cholesterol-lowering properties. The notion is simple: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr John M*
November 11th, 2011 by Dr. Val Jones in Health Tips
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Over the past 6 weeks, 5 families (selected by the Boys & Girls Clubs) have been working hard to develop new healthy eating and exercise patterns (part of The Triple Play Fit Family Challenge). Their ultimate goal is to maintain these habits for a lifetime, and teach their peers to follow in their footsteps. Next week I’ll be traveling to Los Angeles to meet the families and participate in the awards ceremony – where the winning family will receive an all expense paid vacation. (Maybe if I play my cards right they’ll take me with them? One can always dream…)
I myself have been challenged to encapsulate all the best nutrition research into simple guidelines for daily living. I gave it my best shot in this blog post, and today I’m going to review some final food philosophy, straight from one of my favorite books, Food Truths, Food Lies.
Food Truths:
- Calories matter most – food is like fuel. It is burned for energy, and when we have reached our daily calorie needs, the rest is stored as fat. Some food is more calorie-dense than others, but the bottom line is that to maintain our weight we need to balance calories in (what we eat) with calories out (what we burn through activities of daily living and/or exercise).
- You can’t exercise your way to weight loss. In other words, you can’t outrun your mouth. Just think about it Read more »
November 6th, 2011 by John Mandrola, M.D. in Better Health Network, Opinion, Research
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An athletic lifestyle offers many health benefits. This is hardly news. Exercise, attention to good eating and getting adequate rest makes everything better: lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels, higher heart rate turbulence and better survival in the event of heart attack and Cancer, just to name a few. The list of positives approaches infinity. We athletes do a lot that is healthy.
But tonight, I want to muse about yet another benefit of being a competitive athlete—you know, the kind of person that signs up for a challenge and then sees it through. No, it’s not just about bike racing, it could be anything that involves pinning a number and seeing results published on the word wide web.
What extra benefit? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr John M*
