Quotations on Gratitude

In anticipation of the Thanksgiving Holiday… We can complain that rose bushes have thorns or we can rejoice that thorn bushes have roses.” Abraham Lincoln For me every hour is grace. And I feel gratitude in my heart every time I can meet someone and look at his or her smile.” Elie Wiesel Gratitude is…

Pollution is a big deal

You may know that pollution is bad for your health, but how bad is it? Patrick Collison has a nice blog post summarizing the evidence. Chess players make more mistakes on polluted days.  – Künn et al 2019. An increase in pollution is associated with increased risk of Alzheimers (Fu et al 2019) and dementia…

Transparency and hospital prices

Health care costs are high in the U.S., making up 17.9% of the U.S. economy. The Economist reports on recent key drivers of US health care cost…and the answer isn’t drugs. Mr Trump has correctly identified a big villain behind health-care cost inflation, and it is not Big Pharma. Hospitals account for over 30% of…

Never enough

I recently finish a very interesting book on drugs and addiction titled Never Enough: The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction. The book was written by Judith Grisel, who is a not only a professor and neuroscientist, but also a former drug addict. The book describes the process of addiction, and how different types of illicit…

Antibiotics Awareness Week

This week is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Antibiotics Awareness Week. Although antibiotics are inexpensive, but are among the most valuable treatments around for fighting infection. Unfortunately, antibiotic resistance is on the rise. While antibiotic resistance has existed since ancient times, in the modern world antibiotic resistance may costs the world economy…

Healthcare Economist in the Wall Street Journal

How do you measure the value of new drugs? An organization known as the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review relies almost exclusively on Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALY)-based framework. While that is a good start, many new treatments may have impacts beyond directly on health including on educational outcomes, productivity, caregiver burden. Further, society is…

Why is wellness gaining ground?

In the past I have written about the limited evidence that wellness program work. So we should see that employers are abandoning these programs or at least scaling back? According to one recent study, however employers are actually increasing investments in wellness programs. The study surveys employers from over 500 companies with more than 100…