Washington — While the national health spending growth rate increased slightly in 2006, the percentage rise in expenditures on physician services slowed markedly, due largely to a small Medicare pay increase and its private-sector fallout, according to a new report by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

At the same time, the start of Medicare Part D had a major impact in the prescription drug sector.

Overall national health spending reached $2.1 trillion, up 6.7% from $1.97 trillion in 2005, states the CMS report, published in the January/February Health Affairs. The 2005 growth rate was 6.5%.

This moderate increase was possible because of a broad-based slowdown in spending growth in many categories, including physicians and clinical services. These expenditures increased by 5.9% in 2006, down from 7.4% in 2005, found the report, “National Health Spending in 2006: A Year of Change for Prescription Drugs.” For the first time since 1999, physician spending increased more slowly than the gross domestic product.

Article continued here: Health spending outlay tops $2 trillion, but spending growth on doctors declines …

by Warren Matthews of Xtend-Life

Counterfeit products are not just limited to CD’s, clothes and other common consumables. They are also widespread amongst food and drink.

Is it not easy to determine what may be counterfeit as the inferior quality may not become apparent until some time later, for example in the case of ‘designer’ clothing. (I don’t have that problem as I never buy designer clothing anyway.)

On the other hand if you are a whisky drinker the chances are you would pick up a counterfeit product on the first sip.

Of more concern is the amount of counterfeit baby formulas on the market. Some of these formulas are bad enough without having the added risk of a possible cheap imitation which may have contaminated ingredients.

Remember that these counterfeit products can look identical in appearance to the real thing. The difference is in the unseen details which are very important if you are consuming it, such as in the case of baby formulas.  Read more...

Here are some facts (website reference at bottom):

* In the sleep-deprived, says Harris Lieberman, PhD, a leading caffeine researcher, caffeine improves scores on a range of cognitive tasks, such as decision making, memory, learning, and attention.

* A tall latte may keep you out of the dentist’s chair. In lab tests, researchers in Italy recently found that coffee’s antibacterials slow the growth of Streptococcus mutans, the culprit in tooth decay. Coffee also contains compounds that keep bacteria from sticking to tooth enamel.

* It’s no secret that coffee makes your bladder more active. While that can be bothersome, it can also help reduce the risk of kidney stones, according to the Nurses Health Study. Women who drank the most coffee had the lowest risks. Caffeine increases the flow of more diluted urine, which lowers the chance of a kidney stone forming. Prefer decaf? No problem: It was shown to have similar effects. [Drink water processed decaf]  Read more...

by Warren Matthews of Xtend-Life

The UK Food Standards Agency warns that Salmonella has been found in some batches of shark cartilage capsules originating from the US.

The capsules which are popular for joint health have been recalled from the US distribution firm after they said is discovered the ‘issue’ during routine testing of the product.

Wow…salmonella is bad stuff! This is shocking and there is NO excuse for it. ALL batches of supplements should be tested for basic microbiological contamination of which salmonella is a standard test, and the tests should be done PRIOR to the product leaving the factory.

This should be standard procedure for ALL manufacturers. It is something that we do automatically for all batches of all products and always have done.

It highlights the problem of contract manufacturers which I have raised many times. These companies are under pressure from their Corporate Customers to produce products at the lowest possible cost so as a result shortcuts are taken and these basic tests are simply not done.  Read more...

by Warren Matthews of Xtend-Life

This time it is folic acid. In a new study named “Folic Acid for the Prevention of Colorectal Adenomas,” which was published this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association it was found that high doses of folic acid did little to reduce precancerous colon polyps in those prone to them and may actually increase the risk of developing such growths.

Once again, like so many other studies the name of this study is misleading due to the inclusion of one word. ‘Prevention’. The participants in the study already had the condition that folic acid was supposed to prevent! How can you have a study about prevention when you are using people who are not representative of the general population?

This ‘principle’ is quite common in many studies in which the authors have already determined in advance what they want the results to be. Almost all the negative studies about natural products are as a result of using the specific ingredient on subjects who already have a disease or condition.  Read more...

by Warren Matthews of Xtend-Life

I guess that it is unlikely that many of the officials in the US FDA will be queuing up to apply to fill the vacancy!

Last week a Chinese court sentenced to death the former head of the Chinese FDA for accepting bribes and allowing the approval of faulty medicines including an antibiotic that was responsible for killing six people. Imagine, if the same form of justice was applied to those officials in the US FDA and other western FDA’s who have over the last 20 years approved drugs that subsequently were found to have serious side effects in many cases and were directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent patients.

It would thin out the management somewhat wouldn’t it?

Pretty tough justice by the Chinese…but, a pretty good deterrent as well. For the full article about this have a look at the article in the Washington Post – http://www.washingt...l?hpid=moreheadlines