Working with some of the world’s greatest athletes on a day-to-day basis teaches you a lot. Even though he’s the expert, trainer Matthew Uohara, president of Hale Inu Strength and Conditioning in Los Angeles, was surprised that he learned just as much from his trainees as they learned from him during this year's offseason workouts.
“I no longer find myself the professor,” says Uohara, who works with NFL, NBA, PGA, and MMA athletes. “These well-educated professionals taught me some important life lessons.” Just what can we learn from some of the nation’s top athletes? Tap into these five tips and see how they improve your fitness level—and your life.
1. Assess Your Goals The highest achievers have the clearest and most concise goals and timetables. Goal assessment consists of three parts:
1. Create a plan with clear timetables 2. Execute the plan 3. Re-evaluate and improve it
Any plan can be broken down and completed using these three steps. Memorize and use them.
2. Take Responsibility When you take your life into your own hands and accept responsibility for the good and the bad, you can achieve great things. Uohara gives this example: “When LeBron James and the Miami Heat faced elimination from the Eastern Conference Finals this year, we saw the meanest, baddest, nastiest man on the planet come alive. The result was an NBA Championship. LeBron finally took responsibility for his previous failures and simply made his own luck.”
Apply the same mentality to your own life. Find what you want through goal assessment, then take responsibility for each step you take to get there.
3. Be Courageous There are always a hundred reasons not to do something. But what are your reasons to go forward? Concentrate on that and find your inner strength. You’ll never find success without first having the courage to try.
4. Work As a Team Surround yourself with people who can help you achieve your goals--people who respect and value you, people who sincerely want to see you achieve your dreams. Your team is your most valuable asset. “Every athlete I had in this offseason preferred to work in a group setting," recalls Uohara. "In our weight room there is no negative talk, no putting people down, and respect for all.” Institute this policy in your space, whether it's at the office, at home or at the gym.
5. Find Mental Focus While working on your physical strength, don’t neglect your mental strength. You need to prepare yourself mentally to succeed. Whenever you feel stressed, find a place you can be alone. Take a minute to refocus on why you’re working toward your goal. Read an article about your industry or catch up on the news before returning to your task. You’ll feel much more connected and calm afterward.
TUESDAY, Dec. 4 (HealthDay News) -- Fractures account for about 10 percent of all injuries suffered by U.S. high school athletes, and can have a major physical, emotional and financial impact on the young competitors, according to a new study.
The findings highlight the need for fracture prevention programs in high school sports, the Ohio State University researchers said.
Researchers analyzed 2008-2009 and 2010-2011 data from the National High School Sports-Related Injury Surveillance System. Fracture rates were highest in boys' sports -- including football, ice hockey and lacrosse -- and boys suffered 79 percent of all fractures reported.
The most frequent fracture sites were the hand/finger, lower leg and wrist. About 17 percent of fractures led to surgery, a rate higher than all other injuries combined. Older athletes had lower fracture rates than younger athletes.
The researchers were surprised to find that a high proportion of fractures suffered by female lacrosse players were caused by player-to-player contact.
"Because girls' lacrosse is a noncontact sport we didn't expect to identify contact as the number-one cause of fractures in the sport," lead researcher David Swenson, an M.D./M.P.H. candidate at the Ohio State Colleges of Medicine and Public Health, said in an Ohio State University Center for Clinical and Translational Science news release.
"What we found was eye opening and highlighted the need for closer adherence to the rules of the game, as well as the potential for new rules like requiring protective equipment to keep these athletes safe on the field," he said.
The study was published in a recent issue of The American Journal of Sports Medicine.
"As we continue to see a rise in U.S. high school students playing sports, it's likely we will see a continued trend of increased injuries among these same athletes, including fractures," Swenson said.
"Unless we change our approach to the way these athletes are trained, players and their families will continue to be faced with the unpleasant reality of fractures, which include expensive surgeries, diagnostic testing and restricted sports participation," he added.
Nearly 8 million U.S. high school students participate in sports every year.
Heavy Smokers Cut Back the Most When Cigarette Taxes Rise: Study
TUESDAY, Dec. 4 (HealthDay News) -- Boosting cigarettes taxes may cause heavy smokers to cut back more than lighter smokers, researchers have found.
The finding is surprising because it's long been believed that heavy smokers would be most resistant to cigarette price increases, said Patricia Cavazos-Rehg, a research assistant professor of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
She and her team looked at data from more than 7,000 smokers who were initially asked how much they smoked and then asked the same question three years later.
"On average, everyone was smoking a little less" at the three-year follow-up, Cavazos-Rehg said in a university news release. "But when we factored in price changes from tax increases, we found that the heaviest smokers responded to price increases by cutting back the most."
At the start of the study, the typical smoker averaged 16 cigarettes a day. That fell to 14 per day after three years. During that time, the average price for a pack of cigarettes increased from $3.96 in 2001 to $4.41 in 2004. Most of that increase came from state taxes.
Heavy smokers -- with a habit of more than 40 cigarettes, or two packs a day -- would have been expected to reduce their consumption by 11 cigarettes a day even without a price hike. In states where cigarette taxes rose by at least 35 percent, however, heavy smokers reduced their consumption by an average of 14 cigarettes per day.
While the heaviest smokers cut back their cigarette consumption by an average of 35 percent in response to higher taxes, smokers with a habit of 20 cigarettes, or one pack per day, cut their consumption by only 15 percent, the investigators found.
No other factors -- such as smoke-free policies -- were as influential on smoking habits as price, according to the study published online recently in the journal Tobacco Control.
But while higher taxes may prompt smokers to cut back, it would be better if they stopped smoking altogether, Cavazos-Rehg noted.
"We don't know whether there's any health benefit if they continue to smoke, even if they are smoking less. However, if reducing helps an individual to quit eventually, then the health advantage becomes clear," she said.
While the study found an association between higher cigarette taxes and reductions in cigarettes smoked, it did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.
Background: The first 18 months of life are the most important for long-term childhood well-being. Anemia and malnutrition occurring in this key period have serious implications for individuals and societies, especially in rural areas in developing country. We conducted a cross-sectional study as the baseline survey to provide data for developing a policy-based approach to controlling infant anemia and malnutrition in rural areas of Shaanxi province in northwestern China. Methods: We randomly sampled 336 infants aged 0--18 months in 28 rural villages from 2 counties of Shaanxi province. Anthropometric measurements and household interviews were carried out by well-trained researchers. The hemoglobin concentration was measured for 336 infants and serum concentrations of iron, zinc, and retinol (vitamin A) were measured for a stratified subsample of 55 infants. Anemia was defined using World Health Organization (WHO) standards combined with the Chinese standard for infants <6 months old. Logistic regression modeling was used to estimate the odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for anemia with non-anemic group as a reference. Results: We found that 35.12% of infants in rural Shaanxi suffered from anemia, and the malnutrition prevalence rates were 32.14% for underweight, 39.58% for stunting, and 11.31% for wasting. Anemia was significantly associated with malnutrition (underweight, OR: 2.42, 95%CI: 1.50-3.88; stunting, OR: 1.65, 95%CI: 1.05-2.61; wasting, OR: 2.89, 95%CI: 1.45-5.76). Low birth weight, more siblings, less maternal education, low family income, crowded living conditions, and inappropriate complementary food introduction significantly increased the risk for infant anemia. Serum concentrations of iron, zinc, and retinol (vitamin A) were significantly lower in anemic infants compared with non-anemic infants. Conclusions: Specific socio-demographic characteristics and feeding patterns were highly associated with infant anemia in rural areas of Shaanxi province. Health education focusing on feeding practices and nutrition education could be a practical strategy for preventing anemia and malnutrition in young children.
I just read a highly disturbing article about how some individuals in South Africa are using antiretroviral therapies (ART) to get high, either alone or in combination with other street drugs. This is enormously disturbing for a number of reasons. The first, and most obvious, is that some people still have difficulty accessing effective combination antiretroviral therapy (cART), and street use of these drugs could end up making it more difficult for people who actually need these drugs to get them -- either because they might become more tightly regulated or because there might be more purchase competition from recreational users. The second problem, however, is far more serious... and already causing significant concerns.
Recreational use of two particular drugs, which are major players in HIV treatment, is causing the development of more antiviral-resistant strains of the virus. A number of people who have never been on treatment are becoming infected with such resistant strains because of their drug use, or because of having sex with people who use ART recreationally. These people are far more difficult to treat than those who have non-resistant strains, particularly since individuals in South Africa may not have access to a wide range of other ART options.
In effect, people who are using HIV drugs to get high are paying for their good time with the risk of reducing their doctors' ability to fight any HIV infection they may acquire. That's bad enough, but as these resistant strains of HIV spread throughout the population, it isn't only the recreational drug users themselves who are at risk. It is also everyone they become intimate with, and the people those people become intimate with... and there is the possibility that novel strains of resistant virus could spread exponentially throughout the population. That's a pretty high price to pay for a few hours of fun.
Raising the minimum wage to a living wage begins the cycle of lifting single mothers out of poverty, according to a policy report released by the Institute for Urban Policy Research & Analysis (IUPRA) at The University of Texas at Austin.
The U.S. census shows more Americans - 46.2 million people - are living in poverty than ever before. And for African American and Hispanic women, a full-time minimum wage job isn't enough to break out of the poverty cycle. According to the report, working women of color make $0.64 and $0.56, respectively, for every dollar white men earn.
Shetal Vohra-Gupta, an IUPRA research fellow, said this disparity is concerning because female-led households with children have increased by approximately 10 percent during the past decade - and more families than ever before depend on women as primary breadwinners.
To illustrate the adverse effects of a stagnant minimum wage, the analysis points to Texas, which has the largest number of low-wage workers ($7.25/hour) in the nation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Despite its national reputation for economic growth, Texas ranks sixth in the number of people living in poverty, and its poverty rate is growing faster than the national average, according to the 2010 U.S. census.
African American and Hispanic women are hit the hardest. Drawing from U.S. census and American Community Surveys data, the report shows the nation's total of single-mother households increased 163 percent among Hispanics and 33 percent among African Americans during the past decade.
To rise above the poverty threshold, a single mother raising two children and working full time would need to earn $17.50 to $31.60 an hour, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank for economic research. This amount, known as the living wage, is more than twice the average minimum wage in most communities.
The findings indicate that Congress should work to increase the federal minimum wage and then adjust it to inflation in order to increase purchasing power and ultimately boost the U.S. economy. King Davis, professor of African and African Diaspora Studies and IUPRA director, says the report reveals the dire implications of a stagnant minimum wage on the U.S. economy.
"Low wage earners cannot participate fully in the economy, thus lowering the overall economic health of their neighborhoods and communities," Davis says. "Dr. Vohra-Gupta identifies that where race, low education and limited skills combine, the risks of long-term poverty for the women and their children requires policy action by a Congress that is intent on eliminating rather than increasing the worth of entitlements."
In a separate policy report, Vohra-Gupta and a team of IUPRA researchers analyzed demographic trends in the African American population in Texas since 1950. The findings show that single mothers comprise the third largest group of householders. Of the 24 percent living below the poverty level, single mothers comprise 65 percent.
The researchers also found the share of African Americans in the category of "high school graduate, GED or alternative" is five percentage points higher than the general population. Yet that group is seven percentage points lower in the category of "bachelor's degree or higher."
The reports raise important questions about several important issues, such as racial disparities in higher education, the economic toll of a stagnant minimum wage and the cycle of poverty among African American single mothers.
"Wages that do not provide women with the ability to meet their needs is a major national problem that is often ignored," Davis says. "This research shows just how concentrated low wages are in populations of women of color. The absence of a living wage greatly limits their ability to sustain themselves and their families or get out of poverty."
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'Raising Minimum Wage Lifts Single Mothers Out Of Poverty And Boosts U.S. Economy, Policy Report Shows'
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Background: Cardiovascular diseases and cancer are jointly responsible for more than half all deaths in Portugal. They also share some important risk factors and act as mutual competing risks. We aimed firstly to describe time trends in death rates and years of life lost due to cardiovascular diseases and cancer in the Portuguese population from 1980 to 2010; and secondly to quantify the contribution of the variation in population and age structure, and age-independent "risk" by cardiovascular or oncological causes to the change in the corresponding number of deaths. Methods: We estimated the annual percent change in age-standardized mortality rates from cardiovascular diseases and cancer, in each sex. The specific contribution of demographic changes (due to changes in population size and in population age structure) and the variation in the age-independent "risk" of dying from the disease to the observed trends in the number of deaths was quantified using the tool RiskDiff. Years of life lost were computed using the Global Burden of Disease method. Results: Among men, the mortality rate from all cardiovascular diseases was more than two-fold higher than cancer mortality in 1980. However, three decades later mortality from cancer surpassed cardiovascular diseases. After 2005, the years of life lost from cancer were also higher than from cardiovascular diseases. Among women, despite the decrease in death rates, cardiovascular diseases remained the leading cause of death in 2010 and their absolute burden was higher than that of cancers across the whole period, mainly due to more events in older women. Conclusions: In Portugal, the 20th century witnessed a dramatic decrease in the cardiovascular disease mortality and YLL, and the transition towards cancer. In more recent years, the highest burdens of disease came from cancers in men and from cardiovascular diseases in women.
TUESDAY, Dec. 4 (HealthDay News) -- Fractures account for about 10 percent of all injuries suffered by U.S. high school athletes, and can have a major physical, emotional and financial impact on the young competitors, according to a new study.
The findings highlight the need for fracture prevention programs in high school sports, the Ohio State University researchers said.
Researchers analyzed 2008-2009 and 2010-2011 data from the National High School Sports-Related Injury Surveillance System. Fracture rates were highest in boys' sports -- including football, ice hockey and lacrosse -- and boys suffered 79 percent of all fractures reported.
The most frequent fracture sites were the hand/finger, lower leg and wrist. About 17 percent of fractures led to surgery, a rate higher than all other injuries combined. Older athletes had lower fracture rates than younger athletes.
The researchers were surprised to find that a high proportion of fractures suffered by female lacrosse players were caused by player-to-player contact.
"Because girls' lacrosse is a noncontact sport we didn't expect to identify contact as the number-one cause of fractures in the sport," lead researcher David Swenson, an M.D./M.P.H. candidate at the Ohio State Colleges of Medicine and Public Health, said in an Ohio State University Center for Clinical and Translational Science news release.
"What we found was eye opening and highlighted the need for closer adherence to the rules of the game, as well as the potential for new rules like requiring protective equipment to keep these athletes safe on the field," he said.
The study was published in a recent issue of The American Journal of Sports Medicine.
"As we continue to see a rise in U.S. high school students playing sports, it's likely we will see a continued trend of increased injuries among these same athletes, including fractures," Swenson said.
"Unless we change our approach to the way these athletes are trained, players and their families will continue to be faced with the unpleasant reality of fractures, which include expensive surgeries, diagnostic testing and restricted sports participation," he added.
Nearly 8 million U.S. high school students participate in sports every year.
I just read a highly disturbing article about how some individuals in South Africa are using antiretroviral therapies (ART) to get high, either alone or in combination with other street drugs. This is enormously disturbing for a number of reasons. The first, and most obvious, is that some people still have difficulty accessing effective combination antiretroviral therapy (cART), and street use of these drugs could end up making it more difficult for people who actually need these drugs to get them -- either because they might become more tightly regulated or because there might be more purchase competition from recreational users. The second problem, however, is far more serious... and already causing significant concerns.
Recreational use of two particular drugs, which are major players in HIV treatment, is causing the development of more antiviral-resistant strains of the virus. A number of people who have never been on treatment are becoming infected with such resistant strains because of their drug use, or because of having sex with people who use ART recreationally. These people are far more difficult to treat than those who have non-resistant strains, particularly since individuals in South Africa may not have access to a wide range of other ART options.
In effect, people who are using HIV drugs to get high are paying for their good time with the risk of reducing their doctors' ability to fight any HIV infection they may acquire. That's bad enough, but as these resistant strains of HIV spread throughout the population, it isn't only the recreational drug users themselves who are at risk. It is also everyone they become intimate with, and the people those people become intimate with... and there is the possibility that novel strains of resistant virus could spread exponentially throughout the population. That's a pretty high price to pay for a few hours of fun.
Heavy Smokers Cut Back the Most When Cigarette Taxes Rise: Study
TUESDAY, Dec. 4 (HealthDay News) -- Boosting cigarettes taxes may cause heavy smokers to cut back more than lighter smokers, researchers have found.
The finding is surprising because it's long been believed that heavy smokers would be most resistant to cigarette price increases, said Patricia Cavazos-Rehg, a research assistant professor of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
She and her team looked at data from more than 7,000 smokers who were initially asked how much they smoked and then asked the same question three years later.
"On average, everyone was smoking a little less" at the three-year follow-up, Cavazos-Rehg said in a university news release. "But when we factored in price changes from tax increases, we found that the heaviest smokers responded to price increases by cutting back the most."
At the start of the study, the typical smoker averaged 16 cigarettes a day. That fell to 14 per day after three years. During that time, the average price for a pack of cigarettes increased from $3.96 in 2001 to $4.41 in 2004. Most of that increase came from state taxes.
Heavy smokers -- with a habit of more than 40 cigarettes, or two packs a day -- would have been expected to reduce their consumption by 11 cigarettes a day even without a price hike. In states where cigarette taxes rose by at least 35 percent, however, heavy smokers reduced their consumption by an average of 14 cigarettes per day.
While the heaviest smokers cut back their cigarette consumption by an average of 35 percent in response to higher taxes, smokers with a habit of 20 cigarettes, or one pack per day, cut their consumption by only 15 percent, the investigators found.
No other factors -- such as smoke-free policies -- were as influential on smoking habits as price, according to the study published online recently in the journal Tobacco Control.
But while higher taxes may prompt smokers to cut back, it would be better if they stopped smoking altogether, Cavazos-Rehg noted.
"We don't know whether there's any health benefit if they continue to smoke, even if they are smoking less. However, if reducing helps an individual to quit eventually, then the health advantage becomes clear," she said.
While the study found an association between higher cigarette taxes and reductions in cigarettes smoked, it did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.
Background: The first 18 months of life are the most important for long-term childhood well-being. Anemia and malnutrition occurring in this key period have serious implications for individuals and societies, especially in rural areas in developing country. We conducted a cross-sectional study as the baseline survey to provide data for developing a policy-based approach to controlling infant anemia and malnutrition in rural areas of Shaanxi province in northwestern China. Methods: We randomly sampled 336 infants aged 0--18 months in 28 rural villages from 2 counties of Shaanxi province. Anthropometric measurements and household interviews were carried out by well-trained researchers. The hemoglobin concentration was measured for 336 infants and serum concentrations of iron, zinc, and retinol (vitamin A) were measured for a stratified subsample of 55 infants. Anemia was defined using World Health Organization (WHO) standards combined with the Chinese standard for infants <6 months old. Logistic regression modeling was used to estimate the odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for anemia with non-anemic group as a reference. Results: We found that 35.12% of infants in rural Shaanxi suffered from anemia, and the malnutrition prevalence rates were 32.14% for underweight, 39.58% for stunting, and 11.31% for wasting. Anemia was significantly associated with malnutrition (underweight, OR: 2.42, 95%CI: 1.50-3.88; stunting, OR: 1.65, 95%CI: 1.05-2.61; wasting, OR: 2.89, 95%CI: 1.45-5.76). Low birth weight, more siblings, less maternal education, low family income, crowded living conditions, and inappropriate complementary food introduction significantly increased the risk for infant anemia. Serum concentrations of iron, zinc, and retinol (vitamin A) were significantly lower in anemic infants compared with non-anemic infants. Conclusions: Specific socio-demographic characteristics and feeding patterns were highly associated with infant anemia in rural areas of Shaanxi province. Health education focusing on feeding practices and nutrition education could be a practical strategy for preventing anemia and malnutrition in young children.
A new study led by Joshua Hart, assistant professor of psychology, suggests that men's insecurities about relationships and conflicted views of women as romantic partners and rivals could lead some to adopt sexist attitudes about women.
The study was recently published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, a peer-reviewed journal.
Hart and his co-authors, Jacqueline Hung '11, a former student of Hart's, and psychology professors Peter Glick of Lawrence University and Rachel Dinero of Cazenovia College, surveyed more than 400 heterosexual men to gauge their responses to questions about their attachment style, hostile and benevolent sexism, and views on romance.
Attachment style refers to the way people relate to others in the context of intimate relationships, defined by two personality traits: attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance. Both traits reflect different kinds of relationship insecurities; people who are low in both traits are considered secure.
Hostile sexism depicts women as mean-spirited foes who aim to dominate men. Benevolent sexism regards them as objects of adoration and affection, but also fragile and needy of chivalrous treatment.
Previous research has found that some men view women as offering the possibility of romantic fulfillment, but also competing with them in areas such as the workplace, where both vie for similar resources.
Hart's study found that anxiously attached men tend to be ambivalent sexists - both hostile and benevolent - whereas avoidantly attached men typically endorse hostile sexism, while rejecting benevolent sexism.
"In other words, anxious men are likely to alternate between chivalry and hostility toward female partners, acting like a knight in shining armor when she fulfills his goals and ideals about women, but like an ogre when she doesn't," Hart explained this month to the Society of Personality and Social Psychology's web-based news site, Connections. "Avoidant men are likely to show only hostility without any princely protectiveness."
The survey results also showed that anxiously attached men tend to be romantics at heart who adopt benevolently sexist beliefs, while avoidantly attached men lean toward social dominance. That, in turn, leads them to embrace hostile sexism.
The findings highlight how personality traits could predispose men to be sexists, according to Hart. This information could help couples build stronger relationships, particularly during therapy.
For the full study in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, click here. To read Hart's summary for the Society of Personality and Social Psychology, click here.
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'Delusions Of Gender: Men's Insecurities May Lead To Sexist Views Of Women'
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All opinions are moderated before being included (to stop spam)
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Note: Any medical information published on this website is not intended as a substitute for informed medical advice and you should not take any action before consulting with a health care professional. For more information, please read our terms and conditions.
Imagine getting a text message telling you when and how to take your diabetes medication. Or a voice mail reminding you of your next mammogram. That's what two UN agencies are hoping to do with mobile technology to save lives, reduce illness and disability and bring down healthcare costs.
Increased access to communications technologies has given rise to the concept of "mobile health," or mHealth, involving the use of mobile phones for healthcare purposes. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) are currently testing mobile solutions to help people with non-communicable diseases (NCDs) like diabetes, cardiovascular maladies, respiratory diseases and cancer to better manage their conditions. The agencies also hope to encourage people to quit smoking, exercise more and eat healthier.
An estimated 36 million people die every year from NCDs in both developed and developing countries alike, according to WHO. They also account for a major share of health care needs and expenditures. In the next decade deaths from NCDs in Africa will jump by 24 per cent, the agency forecasts.
The initiative builds on current projects like WHO's use of mobile devices to gather data on tobacco use in 17 countries, covering half the world's population. Mobile phones have also been shown to help health care providers offer better care and deter harmful practices. In Kenya, according to a recent study, government health care workers were sent text messages coaching them on the proper malaria-treatment protocol. Health clinic workers can send alerts when they run low on medications to avoid stock shortages.
By early 2012, says ITU, there were more than 6 billion mobile phone subscriptions worldwide, with developing countries accounting for the lion's share of growth. In that context, mHealth could be one of the best ways to reach huge numbers of patients and care providers.
However, warns Harsha Thirumurthy, an economist whose research focuses on the link between health and economic outcomes in low-income settings, several aspects of the mHealth interventions warrant further research. In the Bulletin of the World Health Organization, he and Richard T. Lester strongly recommend a more thorough investigation of how text-messaging interventions compare with other interventions such as feeding programmes or home visits by community workers. They also bring up issues of cost -- who will foot the bill remains unclear. If not the health care providers, are patients willing to pay for the service? Furthermore, it remains to be seen if mHealth can help induce behavioural change and get people to better adhere to treatment regimens for diseases like malaria and tuberculosis.
Huge leap in African ICT development
Three African countries have made the most progress in adopting information and communications technology, according to a new report by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). In its annual flagship report, Measuring the Information Society 2012, the UN agency notes that Rwanda, Kenya and Ghana have increased efforts to bridge the so-called "digital divide."
Meanwhile, the overall cost of ICT services is down by 30 per cent, reports the agency. Although fixed-broadband Internet services showed the biggest decline in average prices, by 75 per cent, mobile broadband continues to display the sharpest growth. Over the past year, mobile broadband grew 40 per cent worldwide and 78 per cent in developing countries, the report notes.
Despite the surge in mobile- broadband subscriptions, notes Brahima Sanou, director of ITU's Telecommunication Development Bureau, prices still remain too high in low-income countries. "For mobile broadband to replicate the mobile-cellular miracle and bring more people from developing countries online," he says, "3G network coverage has to be extended and prices have to go down even further."
Meanwhile, Rwanda continues to enjoy its standing as number one in East Africa, as ranked by the UN Broadband Commission for Digital Development. In 2012 it took seventh place among all African countries with active mobile-broadband subscriptions. Rwanda's policy is to increase mobile connectivity in rural areas and make it affordable to the masses. A government-run portal, the Rwanda Development Gateway, says that the country is "determined to take full advantage of the digital revolution" to grow the country's economy.
I just read a highly disturbing article about how some individuals in South Africa are using antiretroviral therapies (ART) to get high, either alone or in combination with other street drugs. This is enormously disturbing for a number of reasons. The first, and most obvious, is that some people still have difficulty accessing effective combination antiretroviral therapy (cART), and street use of these drugs could end up making it more difficult for people who actually need these drugs to get them -- either because they might become more tightly regulated or because there might be more purchase competition from recreational users. The second problem, however, is far more serious... and already causing significant concerns.
Recreational use of two particular drugs, which are major players in HIV treatment, is causing the development of more antiviral-resistant strains of the virus. A number of people who have never been on treatment are becoming infected with such resistant strains because of their drug use, or because of having sex with people who use ART recreationally. These people are far more difficult to treat than those who have non-resistant strains, particularly since individuals in South Africa may not have access to a wide range of other ART options.
In effect, people who are using HIV drugs to get high are paying for their good time with the risk of reducing their doctors' ability to fight any HIV infection they may acquire. That's bad enough, but as these resistant strains of HIV spread throughout the population, it isn't only the recreational drug users themselves who are at risk. It is also everyone they become intimate with, and the people those people become intimate with... and there is the possibility that novel strains of resistant virus could spread exponentially throughout the population. That's a pretty high price to pay for a few hours of fun.
Extensive background checks and denials on gun purchases can aid in gun violence prevention, especially mass shootings, such as the ones that occurred at Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech, Aurora, or Columbine, suggests a top expert on gun violence prevention and an emergency medicine physician at UC Davis, Garen Wintemute.
Wintemute, director of the UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program and inaugural Susan P. Baker-Stephen P. Teret Chair in Violence Prevention at UC Davis says:
"To reduce the number of deaths and injuries from firearms in the United States, we need to develop policies that require background checks for all firearm purchases, including private-party sales, the most important source of firearms for criminal buyers and others who are prohibited from purchasing guns."
Wintemute's views were published in the New England Journal of Medicine as a perspective article. The focus of his article was geared towards putting in place harsher credentials for individuals who try to obtain a firearm. He believes criminals who have previously been convicted of a misdemeanor or violent crime should not be allowed to buy a gun.
He also recommends more criteria be set to differentiate between treatable non-violent mental illness and those with a past of mental illness, violence and substance abuse.
The United States only accounts for five percent of the world's population, and yet holds 40 percent of all firearms that are owned by civilians, according to Wintemute. Additionally, the current laws and policies regarding gun ownership and purchase allow for the broadest group of people to use them under the broadest range of conditions.
Specifically, Wintemute cites the "Stand Your Ground" laws, put into effect at the state level, as harmful and used to validate shootings that should be known as murder.
Wintemute recommends taking a comprehensive stance:
"It may be impossible to predict the next mass shooting incident, and we cannot expect interventions designed for specific circumstances to eliminate the risk of firearm violence. But we can change our firearms laws, based on existing evidence, to reduce harm and better ensure public safety."
He points out that 40 percent of all firearm sales involve private-party sellers and they do not need to conduct background checks or maintain records. Wintemute suggests policies be put into action to avoid these anonymous and unreported sales, as well as those that prevent sales of guns to those who are more inclined to be violent.
The author's research has proven that among people who buy firearms legally, those with a prior charge for a misdemeanor violent crime are nine times more inclined to be arrested again for a violent crime. For individuals with two or more prior convictions, the risk rises by 10 or 15. Also, previous research has established that gun owners who abuse alcohol are at a higher risk than others to participate in violence-related firearm behavior.
He explains:
"We know that comprehensive background checks and expanded denial criteria are feasible and effective, because they are in place in many states and have been evaluated. In California, the denial policy reduced the risk of violence and firearm-related crime by 23 percent among those whose purchases were denied. But we need to broaden these and other effective state-level regulations to eliminate the flow of firearms from states where laws are lax to states where laws are stricter."
Policies for background checks and sales denials for violent criminals has gained significant public support, even from gun owners. Wintemute's research came from survey data and several public polls conducted by the Mayors Against Illegal Guns.
Wintemute stresses that putting into action stricter background check and denial policies for gun sales may not get rid of gun violence but it will surely reduce it. He believes we can only change the outcome of horrible tragedies such as that of Sandy Hook by addressing access to guns.
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'Stopping Gun Massacres With Extensive Background Checks And Denial Criteria'
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TUESDAY, Dec. 4 (HealthDay News) -- Bullied teenagers can develop
post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, according to a new study.
The findings suggest that victims of bullying may require long-term support, said the researchers from the University of Stavanger in Norway.
They looked at almost 1,000 teens, ages 14 and 15, and found that one-third of those who said they had been bullied had post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, such as intrusive memories and avoidance behavior.
Those with the worst symptoms were bullying victims who also bullied others. The researchers also found that girls were more likely to have PTSD symptoms than boys.
The study was published recently in the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology.
The findings are "noteworthy, but nevertheless unsurprising," study author and psychologist Thormod Idsoe said in a university news release.
"Bullying is defined as long-term physical or mental violence by an individual or a group," he explained. "It's directed at a person who's not able to defend themselves at the relevant time. We know that such experiences can leave a mark on the victim."
PTSD symptoms can create major problems for students.
"Pupils who are constantly plagued by thoughts or images of painful experiences -- and who use much energy to suppress them -- will clearly have less capacity to concentrate on schoolwork," Idsoe said. "Nor is this usually easy to observe -- they often suffer in silence."
Idsoe and his colleagues hope their study increases awareness that some bullied schoolchildren may require support even after the bullying is stopped.
"In such circumstances, adult responsibility isn't confined to stopping the bullying," he said. "It also extends to following up with the victims."
Despite evidence that earlier diagnosis and improved treatment increases survival, rates of people seeking preventive cancer screening have fallen in the US in the last ten years. Failure of leading bodies to agree screening guidelines, plus reductions in workers with insurance cover could be among reasons for the decline, suggest researchers from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.
They write about their NIH-funded study in a paper published 27 December in the online open-access journal Frontiers in Cancer Epidemiology.
In the US, although numbers of cancer survivors have gone up as a result of improved diagnosis and treatment, cancer is still one of the most prominent chronic diseases that in 2011 killed more than 570,000 people.
Alongside a fall in rates of advanced cancer diagnoses in the US in the last ten years, has been an increase in the number of cancer survivors returning to work. The researchers suggest, in their background information, that keeping to a cancer screening schedule could be an important factor (as this helps detect secondary tumors early and reduce potentially limiting side effects).
However, their analysis reveals that although cancer survivors tend to show much higher rates of screening adherence, their numbers too have started falling off in the last three years.
Lead author Tainya Clarke, a research associate in the School's Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, says in a statement:
"There is a great need for increased cancer prevention efforts in the US, especially for screening as it is considered one of the most important preventive behaviors and helps decrease the burden of this disease on society in terms of quality of life, the number of lives lost and insurance costs."
"But despite this, our research has shown that adherence rates for cancer screenings have generally declined with severe implications for the health outlook of our society," she adds.
For this latest study, Clarke and colleagues examined cancer screening adherence rates of the general public and cancer survivors and compared them to government-recommended "Healthy People" screening goals.
They looked at screening rates for colorectal, prostate, breast and cervical cancers. Not only did they compare rates between the general population and cancer survivors, but they also looked at rates among workers.
The data on screening rates came from National Health Interview Surveys conducted between 1997 and 2010 that in total covered nearly 174,400 people aged 18 and over. These annual surveys randomly sample the US population by household, and collect demographic and health information, including cancer history and cancer-related health behaviors such as cancer screening.
The Results
When they analyzed the data, Clarke and colleagues found that the general population did not meet the government's "Healthy People" screening goals for any type of cancer, apart from colorectal cancer (for this cancer, 54% of the general population underwent screening: the government's 2010 goal is 50%).
But among cancer survivors, who have a higher risk for cancer, the pattern was quite different. Their screening rates, for all types of cancer except cervical (this fell to 78% over the last ten years), exceeded the government goals.
However, the researchers also noticed a decline in the number of cancer survivors who went for cancer screening in the last three years.
Disparities Among Workers
The NIH Survey results also enabled the researchers to include data on working adult Americans with and without a history of cancer: including more than 7,500 with a history of cancer (representing 3.8 million working cancer survivors), and over 119,300 workers with no history of cancer (representing more than 100 million).
They found that among survivors, white collar workers on the whole had higher cancer screening rates than blue collar workers.
Clarke says this was a key finding that she hopes will lead to changes in employment policies to eliminate disparities among different groups of the working population of cancer survivors.
She hopes it will also spur researchers to look more closely at factors influencing screening rates so as to design better workplace interventions and encourage more workers in all occupations to take up screening.
She and her colleagues speculate that ongoing disputes over screening guidelines among bodies like the United States Preventive Services Task Force, American Cancer Society and others, plus reductions in rates of workers covered by insurance that have occurred in the past decade, may lie behind the trend.
Written by Catharine Paddock PhD Copyright: Medical News Today Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today
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Visitor Opinions (latest shown first)
Insurance policies at odds with medical science
posted by Patrick on 28 Dec 2012 at 8:45 am
Sure early detection increases treatment and survival rates. Hard evidence proves that. And sure, insurance companies CLAIM to be in favor of preventative care. Unfortunately their own policies don't reflect this interest.
I don't go to the doctor very much anymore because of cost.just basic visits cost me over 11 hundred in co-pays this year alone.I cancell visits when i'm not feeling bad
posted by Debra Grossman on 28 Dec 2012 at 8:18 am
The simple and basic reason falls on word, EXPENSE! A lot of health insurance companies have made it very difficult and nearly impossible to get screenings because they won't pay for the pet scan or x-rays. Mine only gives me 3 appointments with my co-pay and that only covers the visit with the Doctor and nothing else! A lot of us have very bad health insurance. I can't wait until better laws kick in.
Well Duh...Cancer survivor in remission for 7 years
posted by Angelia on 28 Dec 2012 at 7:51 am
I am a cancer survivor and have been in remission for 7 years now. At least that is what I hope. I lost my job in 2010 and thus my insurance along with it. The cost to get my scans and MRI is around $5000. We barely make it each month to keep the power bill on, yet I am to come up with $5k to pay for a scan? Health insurance is insane and I dont know how anyone can afford it on their own. My hubby says we are going to take me to the emergency room and say I fell on my head and need a scan. They will have to do it and we will just have another bill, but at least we will know if the cancer is back. Its sad to think of how many others are just like me.
I know first hand why it has declined....EXPENSE! I am a 4 year survivor and there was a time I had to tell my oncologist that I could not afford a CT or PET because I already owe the hospital $9k from previous scans. With a $3k annual ins. deductible and the costs of a scan at $6k plus and a dr. visit usually runs $500. That...is why it has dropped. Some just cannot afford it...Like me.
I have a physical yearly. My doctors used to do chest xray, psa, prostate exam each year, and colonoscopy every other year. They dropped the xray, psa, and prostate exam altogether and changed the colonoscopy to every 5 years. Before my first 5 years was up, they changed it to every 10 years. My wife used to have a yearly mamogram. Now it's every other year. Help me understand: Why is it that academics are surprised that screening frequency is down?
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Background: To determine the association between social deprivation and the prevalence of caries (including caries lesions restricted to enamel) and enamel fluorosis in areas that are served by either fluoridated or non-fluoridated drinking water using clinical scoring, remote blinded, photographic scoring for caries and fluorosis. The study also aimed to explore the use of remote, blinded methodologies to minimize the effect of examiner bias. Methods: Subjects were male and female lifetime residents aged 11--13 years. Clinical assessments of caries and fluorosis were performed on permanent teeth using ICDAS and blind scoring of standardized photographs of maxillary central incisors using TF Index (with cases for fluorosis defined as TF > 0). Results: Data from 1783 subjects were available (910 Newcastle, 873 Manchester). Levels of material deprivation (Index of Multiple Deprivation) were comparable for both populations (Newcastle mean 35.22, range 2.77-78.85; Manchester mean 37.04, range 1.84-84.02). Subjects in the fluoridated population had significantly less caries experience than the non-fluoridated population when assessed by clinical scores or photographic scores across all quintiles of deprivation for white spot lesions: Newcastle mean DMFT 2.94 (clinical); 2.51 (photo), Manchester mean DMFT 4.48 (clinical); 3.44 (photo) and caries into dentine (Newcastle Mean DMFT 0.65 (clinical); 0.58 (photo), Manchester mean DMFT 1.07 (clinical); 0.98 (photo). The only exception being for the least deprived quintile for caries into dentine where there were no significant differences between the cities: Newcastle mean DMFT 0.38 (clinical); 0.36 (photo), Manchester mean DMFT 0.45 (clinical); 0.39 (photo). The odds ratio for white spot caries experience (or worse) in Manchester was 1.9 relative to Newcastle. The odds ratio for caries into dentine in Manchester was 1.8 relative to Newcastle. The odds ratio for developing fluorosis in Newcastle was 3.3 relative to Manchester. Conclusions: Water fluoridation appears to reduce the social class gradient between deprivation and caries experience when considering caries into dentine. However, this was associated with an increased risk of developing mild fluorosis. The use of intra-oral cameras and remote scoring of photographs for caries demonstrated good potential for blinded scoring.
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