http://well.blogs.nytimes.com

In an unusual move that may prompt millions of women to rethink their use of popular bone-building drugs, the Food and Drug Administration published an analysis that suggested caution about long-term use of the drugs, but fell short of issuing specific recommendations.

The F.D.A. review, published in The New England Journal of Medicine online on Wednesday, was prompted by a growing debate over how long women should continue using the drugs, known as bisphosphonates, which are sold as generic versions of brands like Fosamax and Boniva, as well as Novartis’s Reclast.

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This is an interesting article from the NY Times that looks at injuries from yoga.  It is written by William J. Broad who is himself a yoga practitioner.  Here's the link and a selected quote below:

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/magazine/how-yoga-can-wreck-your-body.html...

After class, I asked Black about his approach to teaching yoga — the emphasis on holding only a few simple poses, the absence of common inversions like headstands and shoulder stands. He gave me the kind of answer you’d expect from any yoga teacher: that awareness is more important than rushing through a series of postures just to say you’d done them. But then he said something more radical. Black has come to believe that “the vast majority of people” should give up yoga altogether. It’s simply too likely to cause harm.

[__] Excellent
[__] Very good
[__] Good
[__] Fair
[__] Poor

The answer to this simple question is a powerful predictor of your future health and mortality. People who indicate that they have "Fair-Poor" health are twice as likely to die during the next 10 years as those who rate their health as "Good-Excellent." 

While it is a simple question, research has shown it to be good for prediction of future health and mortality in large groups.

One study included 358,338 people who responded to this question. After 11 years of follow-up, researchers observed that those who felt they had "Fair-Poor" health were 2.88 times more likely to have a heart attack or stroke, 3.18 times more likely to die from respiratory diseases, 2.13 times more likely to die from cancer, and 3.34 times more likely to die from other causes. This relationship continued even after adjusting for possible confounders such as age, gender, BMI, existing disease, functional status, depression, and country of origin.

Another study of over 750,000 people from various countries showed similar results. Those who reported "Poor" health were about twice as likely to die during the next 25 years. Follow-up varied from 4 to 25 years. [Self-Health Rating in the box below needs a hyphen. Move comma to inside quotes. ("Poor,")

If you find your own response is not "Good," "Very Good," or "Excellent," you may want to give serious consideration to making lifestyle changes that will improve your health. If you are a healthcare planner, you can also use this simple question as an effective tool to identify high-risk individuals. Then, invite them to participate in health improvement programs to enhance their future prognosis for a longer, healthier life.

Sources: Wellsource.com
International Journal of Epidemiology. 2007.
Journal of General Internal Medicine. 2005.

To start the New Year, here is a terrific article from the NY Times called the "Fat Trap".  In general, there are genetic and environmental components to weight gain.  Once weight is gained, those same genetic components make it very difficult to reverse and maintain.  Read more below (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/magazine/tara-parker-pope-fat-trap.html?ref...) 

Here are just a few quotes:

If anything, the emerging science of weight loss teaches us that perhaps we should rethink our biases about people who are overweight. It is true that people who are overweight, including myself, get that way because they eat too many calories relative to what their bodies need. But a number of biological and genetic factors can play a role in determining exactly how much food is too much for any given individual. Clearly, weight loss is an intense struggle, one in which we are not fighting simply hunger or cravings for sweets, but our own bodies.

There is no consistent pattern to how people in the registry lost weight — some did it on Weight Watchers, others with Jenny Craig, some by cutting carbs on the Atkins diet and a very small number lost weight through surgery. But their eating and exercise habits appear to reflect what researchers find in the lab: to lose weight and keep it off, a person must eat fewer calories and exercise far more than a person who maintains the same weight naturally. Registry members exercise about an hour or more each day — the average weight-loser puts in the equivalent of a four-mile daily walk, seven days a week. They get on a scale every day in order to keep their weight within a narrow range. They eat breakfast regularly. Most watch less than half as much television as the overall population. They eat the same foods and in the same patterns consistently each day and don’t “cheat” on weekends or holidays. They also appear to eat less than most people, with estimates ranging from 50 to 300 fewer daily calories.

The research shows that the changes that occur after weight loss translate to a huge caloric disadvantage of about 250 to 400 calories. For instance, one woman who entered the Columbia studies at 230 pounds was eating about 3,000 calories to maintain that weight. Once she dropped to 190 pounds, losing 17 percent of her body weight, metabolic studies determined that she needed about 2,300 daily calories to maintain the new lower weight. That may sound like plenty, but the typical 30-year-old 190-pound woman can consume about 2,600 calories to maintain her weight — 300 more calories than the woman who dieted to get there.

“After you’ve lost weight, your brain has a greater emotional response to food,” Rosenbaum says. “You want it more, but the areas of the brain involved in restraint are less active.” Combine that with a body that is now burning fewer calories than expected, he says, “and you’ve created the perfect storm for weight regain.” How long this state lasts isn’t known, but preliminary research at Columbia suggests that for as many as six years after weight loss, the body continues to defend the old, higher weight by burning off far fewer calories than would be expected. The problem could persist indefinitely. (The same phenomenon occurs when a thin person tries to drop about 10 percent of his or her body weight — the body defends the higher weight.) This doesn’t mean it’s impossible to lose weight and keep it off; it just means it’s really, really difficult.