Wellness Weekly

Youth Behavior: The CDC does a telephone survey of both youth and adults in two year intervals. Recently the report on youth behavior was released and though the news is that many health risk behaviors are trending down, the numbers can be startling to those not used to reviewing the literature. For example, less high school students report having sex now than they did in 1991. However, 48 percent are having sex and have had multiple partners. Less youth smoke, but on average the rate is 20%. Youth continue to drink and do drugs but on a positive note, they ARE using condoms!

Health Disparities: In reading about a grant program for certain geographical areas I was not surprised to find another correlation. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is hoping to address the needs of the medically underserved. ( race or regional disparities). Some points noted were under treatment of vascular disease and diabetes in black Medicare patients in Memphis or lack of screening tests for some women in Mississippi. In fact, the AP article by Kevin Freking noted that some states are particularly challenged by hospitalizations for heart failure and diabetes related exacerbations. These illnesses can be controlled with proper health care. These illnesses are also especially hard to control in smokers. The article doesn’t mention smoking, but out of curiosity I compared the super ill to the super healthy states, in this article to the rate of smoking in them. True enough, the states with poor outcomes in the research are West Virginia, Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi. The lowest complications for these illnesses are found in Washington, Hawaii and Utah. For the record then, the average rate of smoking is 19%. The lowest state is Utah, Hawaii is ranked 43 and Washington is 46. The number one highest rate of smoking goes to Kentucky, second is West Virginia, Mississippi is seventh and Louisiana 10th.

Vitamin D: The last few years have been good to this vitamin. If it were a stock it would be BUY BUY BUY. Vitamin D is needed for strong bones, both in development and integrity. It is also associated with prevention of many diseases. I take extra vitamin D along with my calcium and MVI and I choose a few minutes of sun a day to create that vitamin D. In America, we fortify many products with vitamin D including milk. Surprisingly then, Catherine Gordon, MD of Children’s Hospital in Boston reports a 40% deficiency rate in children ages 8 months to 2 years. One cause could be that breast milk, which is absolutely the better choice for an infant, does not have vitamin D. Vitamins seem to be recommended in the article and being overweight is not. In fact one cause of vitamin d deficiency may be excess fat because the vitamin will dissolve in it and perhaps not be absorbed.

Baby Boomer Demise: Well I did not like this article out of a meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine at ALL. At this meeting a podiatrist, a runner, spoke and had a few things to tell Reuters (M. Rauscher). He cautions that as we age and even in our FORTIES we might consider sports and physical activity that is less stressful on joints. He recommends less marathons if you run them and attention to flexibility as well. He notes wear and tear, biomechanics, and again, inflexibility as reasons for muscularskeletal problems that he sees in his practice. However, he also cautions us on the effects that intense sports, like tennis, soccer, baseball and ballet have on children. I know my family is wondering what I am going to do with his advice to slow it down, and well, I don’t know, I am letting it sink in. Anyways, I don’t run marathons!


Wishing you wellness