10 Ways The iPad Is Changing Healthcare

ObamaCare

The Scary Truth About Healthcare Reform: If It Doesn't Work, We'll Be Much Worse Off

Stamp-Sized Paper “Chip” Diagnoses Diseases For Just a Penny

As far as mobile, ad-hoc medical labs for developing countries go, you can’t get any more mobile or ad-hoc than something the size of a postage stamp. One Harvard University chemist has developed an ultraportable “paper” chip that can diagnose killer diseases like malaria, HIV, hepatitis, and tuberculosis for just a penny at a time. A finger prick’s worth of blood on one side of the paper, according to inventor George Whitesides, produces a colorful, tree-like pattern on the other that indicates what ails you. The surprisingly low-tech secret? Water-repellant comic-book ink.





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How Is Your Thyroid?

"SARA was deeply grieved over the loss of her baby during her first trimester. About a year later, she lost another baby. Several medical tests failed to reveal the cause. As the years went by, Sara started to gain weight, even though she monitored her food intake and exercised regularly. She also developed cramps in her legs and an increased sensitivity to cold. Finally, blood tests and an ultrasound of her thyroid gland revealed that Sara had a disease called Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, a possible cause of her miscarriages.*

Like most people, Sara had rarely given thought to her thyroid. But her deteriorating health revealed just how important that gland is.

The thyroid is a small, butterfly-shaped gland situated in the front of the neck just below the Adam’s apple. The thyroid has two lobes that wrap around the trachea, or windpipe, and the whole gland weighs a little under an ounce. It is part of the body’s endocrine system, a group of organs and tissues that produce, store, and secrete hormones—chemical messengers—directly into the bloodstream."

Read the full story of How Is Your Thyroid?

Vitamin D & You

You may know Steve Gibson from the excellent Security Now! podcast and of the Gibson Research Corporation recently spoke about the importance of Vitamin D in Security Now 209: The Vitamin D Story. If your interested in your health then do visit the links above.

Why Cigarettes Should Cost $10 a Pack

As the U.S. government throws tax money on the banking bonfire, you have to wonder how many billion-dollar notes are left in the Washington ATM machine for health-care reform. If an income-tax hike isn’t in the cards for 95% of Americans, there will surely be a revenue hunt elsewhere. Why not cigarettes?

Why pick on tobacco even more?
According to data from R.J. Reynolds, total tobacco taxes in 2007 were $22.4 billion. The company is outraged about that, but consider this November 13 statement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): “Smoking in the United States causes 443,000 deaths annually and costs $193 billion.”

Now 443,000 is one of those hideous death counts that numbs the mind. But I’m betting we’re all a bit better these days at processing numbers like $193 billion. And if that’s what smokers are costing the economy, shouldn’t they—so to speak—help bail out health care?

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