SimpleCare
Monday, April 26, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
Health Buzz: Prostate Drug May Cut Cancer Risk – US News and World Report
Prostate Drug May Cut Cancer Risk
A new study found that a drug currently used to treat a benign prostate condition may also be an effective way to prevent prostate cancer, reports the Los Angeles Times. GlaxoSmithKline's Avodart, approved to treat benign prostate enlargement, reduced the risk of developing cancer in 3,305 men at elevated risk of the disease by 22.8 percent compared to those men given a placebo. The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, did find a slightly increased risk of heart failure in those taking the drug: 0.7 percent, compared to 0.4 percent in the placebo group. The Times said previous research showed a protective effect from a similar drug, but that Avodart appears "slightly more effective." GlaxoSmithKline is seeking Food and Drug Administration approval for the expanded use of the drug.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
SIMPLEARE HEALTH PLAN
The New Atkins for a New You Diet: What It Is
Ever since it was introduced in the 1970s, the Atkins diet has been controversial. Critics say there’s too little evidence that a low-carb diet is effective, and that a diet so high in fat is unhealthy. Still, the diet has survived through several revisions, including the latest, The New Atkins for a New You.
This new Atkins diet is a more flexible approach that includes more vegetables, plus limited amounts of healthy carbs in its final phases. But it’s still basically a low-carb, high-protein, high-fat diet. This version includes more than 50 research papers that shed a positive light on the safety of low-carb diets (some of these studies were funded by the Atkins Foundation).
Refined carbs — and too many carbs — may be to blame for our national weight problem, says co-author Jeff Volek, PhD, researcher and associate professor at University of Connecticut. Fats, on the other hand, are your friend, he says.
He explains: Fat is a more stable energy source than carbs. Carbs increase the production of insulin, which shuts down your body’s ability to burn fat, he says. So when you limit carbs, you reduce insulin levels and allow for more fat-burning.
“Studies show that a low-carb, high-fat plan can help you lose weight and reduce the risk for diabetes, heart disease, and metabolic syndrome along with improving triglycerides, insulin, glucose and HDL (‘good’ cholesterol),” says Volek.
The New Atkins for a New You Diet: What You Can Eat
On the New Atkins for a New You diet, you can forget most carbs. Butter, bacon, cream, meat, seafood, eggs, cheese, avocados, olives, olive oil, greens, and non-starchy vegetables make up the majority of your daily meals.
Here’s a sample menu for the Induction phase of the diet:
- Breakfast : 2 eggs, sausages, steamed spinach
- Snack: String cheese, half an avocado
- Lunch: Roast beef on 4 cups mixed salad, 1/2 cup mung bean sprouts, 5 black olives, onions and 2 tablespoons vinaigrette
- Snack: 10 green olives, 1 slice cheddar cheese
- Dinner: Salmon with 2 tablespoons garlic mayonnaise, 6 asparagus spears, 2 cups arugula, 5 cherry tomatoes, 1/2 cup sliced cucumbers, 2 tablespoons Italian dressing
You eat mostly monounsaturated fats (olive oil, olives, avocado and salad dressings) but saturated fats from animal products are fine, too. Approximately 65% of your daily calories will come from fat (the Institute of Medicine’s Dietary Reference Intake recommends 20%-35%).
For protein, you choose from a variety of animal foods, like eggs, meat, fish, poultry, shellfish, and cheese – and there’s no need to worry about choosing lean cuts, trimming the fat, or removing the skin. Some low-carb yogurts, nuts, and seeds are allowed in the second phase.
The book states that the new Atkins diet is not a high-protein diet. But it advises that the average woman get 16 ounces of protein (112 grams, equal to a pound of meat) each day, and the average man get 18 ounces (126 grams). (The Dietary Reference Intake recommendations are far lower — 46 grams for women and 56 grams for men.)
The New Atkins for a New You Diet: What You Can Eat continued…
Instead of counting total carbs on this diet, you count “net carbs,” which you compute by subtracting the grams of fiber from the grams of carbs. Net carbs are the important number, the book says, because fiber doesn’t affect blood sugar levels.
Initially, most carbs in this diet come from high-fiber vegetables (you eat 2 cups cooked non-starchy vegetables plus 6 cups of leafy greens per day).In later phases, you can gradually increase net carbs from a list that includes low-sugar fruits, tomato juice, high-carb vegetables, and legumes.
Forbidden on the New Atkins for a New You diet are most grains, dried fruits, foods with added sugar, refined carbs, juices, most snacks and sweets. Carb-free snacks, like pork rinds, are allowed.
Dieters avoid alcohol during the first phase, but a cocktail (without juice or sweetened mixers) or glass of wine can be added in later phases.
The book recommends taking a daily multivitamin and mineral with an omega-3 fatty acid supplement.
The New Atkins for a New You Diet: How It Works
The plan has four phases — induction, ongoing weight loss, pre-maintenance, and lifetime maintenance. Dieters’ intake of fats and protein remains relatively steady during all these phases. But carb intakes vary from a low of 20 grams per day during induction to roughly 70 grams in the final phases.
Most dieters will follow the induction phase — the most restrictive — for at least two weeks. (You can skip this phase if you don’t have much weight to lose.)
As carbs are slowly increased in the later phases, dieters use their weight, energy level, and the absence or presence of cravings to determine whether they’re at the right carb threshold.
The book suggests that women get 1,500-1,800 calories per day and men 1,800-2,200 calories. Eating too much protein and fat could lead to excess calorie intake and thwart weight loss.
Dieters are urged to drink plenty of fluids because a low-carb diet acts like a diuretic, releasing cellular fluids that contain the essential minerals sodium and potassium.
No exercise is required, at least initially. Since your body will be adapting to burning fat for fuel, the authors suggest you wait to engage in regular physical activity until the later phases.
And during the adaptation to fat burning, the book warns, you should be prepared for unpleasant symptoms such as tiredness, leg cramps, and weakness.
The New Atkins for a New You Diet: What the Experts Say
The new Atkins diet’s warnings of dizziness, tiredness, leg cramps, and more should be a red flag, says American Dietetic Association spokesperson Joan Salge Blake, MS, RD.
Protein and high-fiber vegetables are important components of any healthy weight loss plan, she says, but eliminating healthy carbs goes against a wealth of scientific evidence.
The New Atkins for a New You Diet: What the Experts Say continued…
“This plan is a drastic departure from a healthy diet and chances are it will be so monotonous that dieters won’t be able to sustain it,” she says.
At the end of the day, calories count, no matter where they come from. When you eat a low-carb, high-fat diet, experts say, it suppresses appetite. And weight loss on the new Atkins diet could simply be the result of getting fewer calories because you’re less hungry, says Salge Blake, an assistant professor at Boston University.
She recommends diets that don’t eliminate any healthy food groups. A healthy diet, she says, includes satisfying foods like lean and low-fat protein (not high-fat protein) as well as high-fiber whole grains, healthy fats, fruits, vegetables, legumes, and low-fat dairy. Not only will such a diet help with weight loss, it’s also heart-healthy and helps protect against chronic disease.
The New Atkins for a New You Diet: Food for Thought
While scientific evidence has shown that successful weight loss diets can vary widely – and the jury may still be out on saturated fat’s role in the diet — many experts still believe that a high-fat diet is contradictory to good health.
Following a low-carb diet like Atkins may be an option for people who have not been successful on traditional calorie-cutting, moderate-carb plans. The diet may be suited for people who don’t metabolize or tolerate carbs well, such as those with metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance, says Volek.
Even so, many dieters may find living with such small amounts of carbs and large amounts of fat and protein impossible to keep up for the long term.
Before you embark on the New Atkins for a New You diet plan, you’re strongly encouraged to consult your doctor.
SIMPLEARE HEALTH PLAN
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Saturday, April 3, 2010
Friday, April 2, 2010
What Is Integrative Medicine?
Experts explore new ways to treat the mind, body, and spirit -- all at the same time.
Reviewed by Brunilda Nazario, MD
At age 68, Martha McInnis has had her share of health woes: breast cancer, high cholesterol, clogged arteries, osteoporosis, and scoliosis -- curvature of the spine. Once a year she journeys from her home in Alabama to the Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina where an internist, endocrinologist, and other specialists monitor her with blood tests, X-rays, bone scans, and other tests.
But McInnis knows that she's more than the sum of her illnesses. When her checkup ends, she heads for the , where she has learned about nutrition, fitness, yoga, tai chi, meditation, and other practices she says have helped her to live better. "I became an avid tai chi person," she says. "I'm a type A personality. I knew I had to do something about my lifestyle. I had to bring myself down to a type B."
Many Americans have never heard of integrative medicine, but this holistic movement has left its imprint on many of the nation's hospitals, universities, and medical schools.
Treating the Whole Person
Both doctors and patients alike are bonding with the philosophy of integrative medicine and its whole-person approach -- designed to treat the person, not just the disease.
IM, as it's often called, depends on a partnership between the patient and the doctor, where the goal is to treat the mind, body, and spirit, all at the same time.
While some of the therapies used may be nonconventional, a guiding principle within integrative medicine is to use therapies that have some high-quality evidence to support them.
Conventional and Alternative Approaches
The Duke Center for Integrative Medicine is a classic model of integrative care. It combines conventional Western medicine with alternative or complementary treatments, such as herbal medicine, acupuncture, massage, biofeedback, yoga, and stress reduction techniques -- all in the effort to treat the whole person. Proponents prefer the term "complementary" to emphasize that such treatments are used with mainstream medicine, not as replacements or alternatives.
Integrative medicine got a boost of greater public awareness -- and funding -- after a landmark 1993 study. That study showed that one in three Americans had used an alternative therapy, often under the medical radar.
In the past decade, integrative medicine centers have opened across the country. According to the American Hospital Association, the percentage of U.S. hospitals that offer complementary therapies has more than doubled in less than a decade, from 8.6% in 1998 to almost 20% in 2004. Another 24% of hospitals said they planned to add complementary therapies in the future. Patients usually pay out of pocket, although some services -- such as nutritional counseling, chiropractic treatments, and biofeedback -- are more likely to be reimbursed by insurance.
The Appeal of Integrative Medicine
What makes integrative medicine appealing? Advocates point to deep dissatisfaction with a health care system that often leaves doctors feeling rushed and overwhelmed and patients feeling as if they're nothing more than diseased livers or damaged joints. Integrative medicine seems to promise more time, more attention, and a broader approach to healing -- one that is not based solely on the Western biomedical model, but also draws from other cultures.
"Patients want to be considered whole human beings in the context of their world," says , a National Institutes of Health senior scientist and author of The Balance Within: The Science Connecting Health and Emotions.
The Mind-Body Connection
Sternberg, a researcher who has done groundbreaking work on interactions between the brain and the immune system, says technological breakthroughs in science during the past decade have convinced even skeptics that the mind-body connection is real.
"Physicians and academic researchers finally have the science to understand the connection between the brain and the immune system, emotions and disease," she says. "All of that we can now finally understand in terms of sophisticated biology."
That newfound knowledge may help doctors to see why an integrative approach is important, she says.
"It's no longer considered fringe," Sternberg says. "Medical students are being taught to think in an integrated way about the patient, and ultimately, that will improve the management of illness at all levels."
at the University of California, San Francisco, takes a similarly broad view of health and disease. The center, which includes a patient clinic, says on its web site: "Integrative medicine seeks to incorporate treatment options from conventional and alternative approaches, taking into account not only physical symptoms, but also psychological, social and spiritual aspects of health and illness."
To promote integrative medicine at the national level, the Osher Center and Duke have joined with 42 other academic medical centers -- including those at, , , and the -- to form the .
Medical Schools and Integrative Medicine
Even medical schools have added courses on nontraditional therapies, although doing so can sometimes be a point of contention among faculty.
At the University of California, San Francisco, medical students can augment their coursework in infectious disease and immunology with electives, such as "Herbs and Dietary Supplements" or "Massage and Meditation." They can even opt to study as exchange students at the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine. In the world of integrative medicine, it's not unusual to see a Western-trained MD who also has credentials in acupuncture or hypnosis, or a registered nurse who is also a yoga teacher and massage therapist.
Opposing Views
Not all doctors are jumping onboard, though. Some critics have charged that integrative medicine is driven largely by market forces, as well as public fascination and demand for alternative treatments.
"This is a very faddish country," says Tom Delbanco, MD, a Harvard Medical School professor and doctor at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. In one national survey of hospitals that offer complementary therapies, 44% listed "physician resistance" as one of the top three hurdles in implementing programs, along with "budgetary constraints" (65%) and "lack of evidence-based research" (39%).
Delbanco says he's concerned that there's not enough scientific evidence to justify the amount of resources spent on integrative medicine and complementary therapies. "I worry that people are making claims in the context of scientific medicine that they cannot really justify. I think there have been few rigorously controlled, scientifically sound studies in the area, and when they have been done, the vast majority have shown these medicines to be no different from placebo."
"I have no trouble with offering hope," he adds. "I think people need hope and optimism. Where I have trouble is when we promise things to people that aren't real."
Finding the Evidence
The search for solid evidence is key: which therapies help and which don't? "There's a clamoring for understanding the biology of this," Sternberg says. Many proponents of integrative care say that it's crucial to hold alternative therapies up to scientific scrutiny, rather than dismissing them outright, because doctors and patients alike need answers. For example, a patient may be taking an herb that is harmful or may interfere with prescription drugs.
As a result, researchers across the country are studying complementary and alternative therapies for safety and effectiveness. Duke is studying whether stress-reduction techniques, such as meditation and writing in a journal, can help prevent preterm labor, which can be precipitated by stress-related hormones. In other clinical trials, researchers are trying to determine, among other things, how acupuncture affects brain activity, how biofeedback can better treat incontinence, and whether the medicinal herb valerian improves sleep in patients with Parkinson's disease.
With the large numbers of people using nontraditional therapies, even finding out what doesn't work can be valuable. For example, researchers affiliated with the Osher Center at the University of California, San Francisco, completed a study that showed that saw palmetto did not improve benign prostate hyperplasia, a noncancerous enlargement of the prostate gland. More than 2 million men in the U.S. take saw palmetto as an alternative to drugs. The results were published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Tracy Gaudet, MD, director of the Duke Center for Integrative Medicine, says she encounters little resistance once fellow doctors understand that integrative medicine doesn't entail "blindly advocating for alternative approaches and rejecting conventional ones."
"That's not what we're about," she says. "There's a lot of quackery out there and a lot of dangerous therapies. Our first priority is to guide people away from them."
"We all want the same thing: the best care for patients," Gaudet says.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
SimpleCare International and Hospital Santa Elena Renew Network Agreement
COSTA DEL SOL, Malaga., March 31 /Newswire/ — SimpleCare International and Hospital Santa Elena in Torremolinos announced today they have reached agreement on their contract renewal. As a result, Hospital Santa Elena will continue as a participating hospital in SimpleCare’s networks without interruption.
“We are pleased to have reached a multi-year agreement with Hospital Santa Elena that allows SimpleCare and the hospital to continue our valuable relationship,” said Raymond B. Prats, president, SimpleCare Health Plan. “This arrangement will continue to provide our members with access to quality health care at the Hospital Santa Elena at fair and competitive rates.”
“We believe the new contract is fair, and recognizes and reflects each organization’s commitment to this community, the patients we are both privileged to serve, and our collective commitment to quality-driven, efficient and cost-effective care,” The agreement we have forged strengthens our mission to provide the advanced technology, top-level staff and comprehensive services that patients and physicians have come to expect when choosing Santa Elena”
About SimpleCare Health Plan International
SimpleCare Health Plan names and symbols are registered marks of SimpleCare Health Plan. Additional information about SimpleCare is available at www.simplecarehealthplan.com.
About Hospital Santa Elena
Hospital Santa Elena is a state of the art community hospital. A leader in orthopedic, spine, cardiac and lung cancer surgery. For more information, visit http://www.csantaelena.com/
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