Lunch at the Labs

Health Matters

• The U.S. spends more on health care than any other country

  Here's what we're buying.

  A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association reveals what patients and their insurers are spending that money on, breaking it down by 155 diseases, patient age and category -- such as pharmaceuticals or hospitalizations. Among its findings:

  • Chronic -- and often preventable -- diseases are a huge driver of personal health spending. The three most expensive diseases in 2013: diabetes ($101 billion), the most common form of heart disease ($88 billion) and back and neck pain ($88 billion).
  • Yearly spending increases aren't uniform: Over a nearly two-decade period, diabetes and low back and neck pain grew at more than 6 percent per year -- much faster than overall spending. Meanwhile, heart disease spending grew at 0.2 percent.
  • Medical spending increases with age -- with the exception of newborns. About 38 percent of personal health spending in 2013 was for people over age 65. Annual spending for girls between 1 and 4 years old averaged $2,000 per person; older women 70 to 74 years old averaged $16,000.

• What's Pushing Down U.S. Life Expectancy?

  Drug overdoses and flu may have been key drivers behind the latest death toll numbers

  For the first time in a decade our death rate increased from the year before; 2015 saw roughly 86,000 more deaths than 2014, according to the new report. The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), which released the numbers this week, found that in 2015 the death rate jumped 1.2 percent from 724.6 deaths per 100,000 people in 2014 to 733.1. The agency calculated that this spike pushed life expectancy down, too. Standard life expectancy at birth dropped to 78.8 years from 78.9 just a year earlier. Preliminary analysis suggests the increase in deaths may have been driven by drug overdoses and an unusually severe flu season in early 2015, which may have exacerbated potentially fatal conditions such as heart disease.
  ...
  Cancer mortality continued to decline, which is good.

• Study Tied to Food Industry Tries to Discredit Sugar Guidelines

  The review was paid for by the International Life Sciences Institute, a scientific group that is based in Washington, D.C., and is funded by multinational food and agrochemical companies including Coca-Cola, General Mills, Hershey's, Kellogg's, Kraft Foods and Monsanto. One of the authors is a member of the scientific advisory board of Tate & Lyle, one of the world's largest suppliers of high-fructose corn syrup.
  ...
  Dr. Johnston said he recognized that his paper would be criticized because of its ties to industry funding. But he said he hoped people would not "throw the baby out with the bathwater" by dismissing the conclusion that sugar guidelines should be developed with greater rigor. He also emphasized that he was not suggesting that people eat more sugar. The review article, he said, questions specific recommendations about sugar but "should not be used to justify higher intake of sugary foods and beverages."
  ...
  But Barry Popkin, a professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said he was stunned that the paper was even published at all because its authors "ignored the hundreds of randomized controlled trials" that have documented the harms of sugar.

• Gestational vitamin D deficiency and autism-related traits: the Generation R Study

  There is a growing body of evidence linking gestational vitamin D deficiency with neurodevelopmental disorders such as schizophrenia and ASD (Autism-spectrum disorder). Birth cohort studies have provided evidence that gestational vitamin D deficiency (based on prenatal maternal sera) is associated with impairment on a range of cognitive outcomes related to language, motor development and general intelligence.

• Chickenizing Farms and Food

  C-Span Video Interview After Words with Ellen Silbergeld

  Professor Ellen Silbergeld talked about her book Chickenizing Farms and Food: How Industrial Meat Production Endangers Workers, Animals, and Consumers, in which she looks at new farming methods and technology and their impact on consumers, the environment, and workers.

  Seems to me to be a fairly balanced overview of the good and bad of current farming methods.