Kentucky ranks next to last, Fifth Congressional District dead last in national healthiness and happiness survey

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Kentucky was again next to last among the states in happiness and healthiness of its residents in 2011, ranking above only West Virginia, though precise rankings are uncertain. Eastern Kentucky's Fifth Congressional District ranked at the very bottom of the 436 districts — falling in last place in the categories of life evaluation, emotional health and physical health.

The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index is based on a continuing national survey that asks respondents about their overall sense of well-being, physical health, happiness, job satisfaction and other factors related to quality of life.

Of the 190 cities ranked, Lexington was 95th and Louisville 152nd. Kentucky's well-being score was 63.3 out of a possible 100 points. Hawaii again ranked first, at 70.2. West Virginia's score was 62.3. Because there were fewer than 10 points between first and last place, the rankings are not precise.Kentucky ranked lowest in the country in emotional health, which is based on feelings of happiness and sadness. Respondents were also asked about "physical health (chronic health conditions, obesity); lifestyle behaviors (smoking, diet and exercise); emotional health (feelings of happiness, sadness); work environment (relationship with supervisors); basic access (health care, food); and life evaluation (how they rate their lives)," reports Nanci Hellmich of USA Today.

Results were based on telephone interviews conducted between Jan. 2 and Dec. 29, 2011, producing a random sample of 353,492 adults. The margin of sampling error for most states is plus or minus 1 to 2 percentage points, but as high as plus or minus 4 points for states with small populations such as Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Delaware and Hawaii. (Read more)

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Tips for maintaining your weight this holiday season

The average American gains five to seven pounds between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day, but maintaining healthful eating habits can help them avoid packing on the weight, diabetes nutrition educator Sheri Setser-Legg, right, writes in the Lexington Herald-Leader.

In the face of overwhelming cheese balls, eggnog and shortbread, she advises you:

• Be realistic. "Don't expect to lose weight during the holiday season," Setser-Legg writes. "Simply maintaining your weight is a sign of success."

• Build in time for exercise, which can also help reduce stress. "Chances are that you have time off work, so develop a regular exercise program or pick up the pace of your current exercise schedule."

• Incorporate healthy dishes into your holiday meal.

• Don't skip meals. "For parties, don't starve yourself in anticipation. You'll likely arrive ravenous and eat everything ... By eating regularly, you are less likely to overindulge."

• Eat only until you are satisfied, not stuffed.

• Have a healthy snack before you attend a holiday party, and keep healthy snacks like fruit, vegetables and cereal bars handy.

• Watch alcohol intake. "Alcohol contains many empty calories and lowers inhibitions, leading to overeating."

• Tell your friends and family you are trying to stay healthy when pressed to try their dishes.

Ultimately, the time is now to start "working toward a happy, healthy 2012," Setser-Legg concludes. (Read more)

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Smokers should pay more for health insurance, but obese should not, national poll finds

Nearly 60 percent of people in October's Thomson Reuters-NPR Health Poll said smokers should pay more for their health insurance than those who don't smoke, but 69 percent said "no" when asked if people who are overweight or obese should pay more.

Support for punishing smokers was greatest among groups less likely to smoke. Almost three-fourths of people in households with an annual income of $100,000 or more felt smokers should pay more than nonsmokers, Sarah Kliff of The Washington Post reports. There was nearly as much support — 70 percent — among people asked with at least a college degree.

But when it came to the weight-related question, the majority of people, regardless of education or household income, did not support having people who are overweight or obese pay more. Just 31 percent supported the idea.

Overwhelmingly, nearly 85 percent of respondents felt people who eat right and do not smoke should receive a discount on their health insurance premiums.

Each month, the poll surveys 3,000 Americans to gauge opinions on a variety of health-care topics. The poll, which is independently funded, has a margin of error of 1.8 percent. (Read more)

The poll results were released at a time when many mid- and large-scale companies are asking their smoking, obese employees to pay higher premiums than their more healthy colleagues. In 2012, almost 40 percent of these companies, including Walmart, will start using penalties to control unhealthy behavior. That's up from 19 percent this year and just 8 percent in 2009. (Read more)

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Haven't quit smoking, lost weight? Pay more for health insurance, more companies say

In an effort to keep health-care costs down, companies across the country, including Walmart, are opting to charge workers who smoke or are obese higher premiums than their more healthy colleagues. (Reuters photo by Lucas Jackson)

The move is the follow-up to a strategy many companies have already tried: to encourage workers to take better care of their health by offering benefits like weight-loss programs or smoking-cessation classes. But with few signs of the health-care landscape changing, "They're replacing the carrot with a stick and raising costs for workers who can't seem to lower their cholesterol or tackle obesity," reports Jillian Mincer of Reuters.

One example is Walmart, which in 2012 will start charging its smoking workers higher premiums. It will also offer cessation classes. A company spokesman said people who use tobacco use about 25 percent more health-care services than people who don't: "These decisions aren't easy, but we need to balance costs and provide quality coverage."

Critics say the move will limiting people's freedoms, create employee resentment and hut the lowest-paid workers hardest. "It's not inherently wrong to hold people responsible," said Lewis Maltby, president of the National Workrights Institute. "But it's a dangerous precedent."

Though well-intentioned, these policies can create bitterness. Mark A. Rothstein, a lawyer and professor at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, said having a colleague call to ask about a person's weight loss can be seen as intrusive. That's part of the reason why the janitors at the school participate, but "the professors on campus consider it a privacy tax, so we don't get some stranger calling us about how much we weigh."

Nevertheless, many companies are moving forward with the option. In 2012, almost 40 percent of large and mid-size companies will start using penalties to control unhealthy behavior. That's up from 19 percent this year and just 8 percent in 2009, an October survey by consulting firm Towers Watson and the National Business Group on Health shows. "Nothing else has worked to control health trends," said NBGH Vice President LuAnn Heinen. "A financial incentive reduces that procrastination."

Cleveland Clinic, with a staff of 40,000, has implemented a comprehensive program and seen its health-care costs grown just 2 percent this year. "The effort began several years ago when it banned smoking at the medical center and then refused to hire smokers," Mincer writes. "It later recognized that having a gym and weight -oss classes wasn't enough to get people to participate. It made these facilities and programs free and provided lower premiums to workers who maintained their health or improved it." Paul Terpeluk, medical director of occupational health at the clinic, said employers have to develop a program and change the culture: "You don't do this overnight." (Read more)

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Lexington council turns to wellness center to cut insurance costs

Following a national trend to improve employee health so companies can cut health-insurance costs, the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council agreed Tuesday to set up a wellness center for city employees.

The center will "be voluntary and free for employees, retirees and dependents covered by the city's health insurance plan," reports Beverly Fortune of the Lexington Herald-Leader. Acute and primary care, chronic-disease management and preventive screenings will be among the services provided at the center, the location of which has not yet been chosen. It is estimated to cost $1.3 million.

Chattanooga opened a similar center in 2006. Its health insurance costs were increasing about 20 percent annually, with health benefits costing the city $16 million that year. Today, the city is saving about $5 million a year, said Madeline Green, director of risk management and incentives for the city. (Read more)

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Four state agencies give employees time to exercise at work

Update, Sept. 2: A new study has shown giving employees time to exercise during their work day could lead to increased productivity, as reported in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. The study involved employees at a large public dental health organization in Sweden. On group of employees was required to do 2.5 hours of exercise per week during regular hours. "Another group received the same reduction in work hours, but with no exercise program," research-reporting service Newswise reports. Employees assigned to the exercise program said they felt productive while at work and were absent less often due to illness. (Read more)

Four state agencies allow their employees to take time to exercise as part of their work day, part of an effort to improve morale and productivity. The Department of Financial Institutions, Department of Military Affairs, Department of Veterans Affairs and the Personnel Cabinet have instituted the policies with varying degrees of participation.

"Some workers are limited to 90 minutes of paid exercise per week, while others can exercise up to five hours while on the clock," reports Valarie Honeycutt Spears of the Lexington Herald-Leader. "On any given day, employees can exercise from 30 to 60 minutes, depending on which agency they work for." (Photo of state employee Lisa Clark by H-L's David Perry)

It is unclear how many state employees take advantage of the policies, but officials feels it is cost effective. "A wellness break is just like any other break time," said Crystal Pryor, spokeswoman for the Personnel Cabinet. "The difference is that this break results in reduced absenteeism, increased productivity, higher employee morale and lower health care costs for the Kentucky Employees' Health Plan, the state's self-funded insurance program."

One 2010 Harvard University study showed medical costs fall about $3.27 for every dollar spent on wellness programs. Absentee day expenses drop by $2.73 per dollar spent. Despite the savings, Kentucky is one of the only states to have such exercise policies in place. Montana also does, allowing employees two 15-minutes exercise breaks a day.

"Often these employees are discussing work issues while they are exercising so we really don't see this as cutting back on productivity," said Dick Brown, spokesman for the Department of Financial Institutions. "There are no hard facts around the impact of the program on reduction of sick leave, but certainly that is one of the benefits and trade-offs we hope to see over time." (Read more)

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Medicaid matters, and makes people healthier, study finds, contradicting argument that it's worse than no coverage

Though the overhaul of Kentucky's Medicaid program has its critics and could potentially be confusing to patients, the program itself is very important, acording to a new study. It found that people on Medicaid, compared to those with no insurance, "had better access to and used more health care; they were less likely to experience unpaid medical bills; they were more likely to report being in good health; and they were less likely to report feeling depressed," National Public Radio's Julie Rovner reports.

"What we found in a nutshell is that having Medicaid makes a big difference in people's lives," said Amy Finkelstein, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist and one of the study's main researchers. "We report almost a one-third increase in the probability that you report yourself as being happy."

The study also concluded that Medicaid recipients got outpatient care 35 percent more often than those who don't have insurance. They also responded their had own doctor 55 percent more often and a regular office or clinic they went to 70 percent more often than people without Medicaid coverage.

The findings run counter to arguments by critics of Medicaid, including Scott Gottlieb, who wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal headlined, "Medicaid Is Worse Than No Coverage At All."

While conservatives have long been critical of the program and liberals supportive of it, the study, being published as a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research, seems above political gaming; one of its researchers was an economic advisor to President George W. Bush and another an advisor to the Obama administration. (Read more)

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How to improve your health naturally

Getting rid of body toxins is essential for your health. If it can be done the natural way so much the better. I found this article which I am sure will produce better health.

Bathing is as essential as anything we do as humans, yet baths frequently get overlooked in any list of healing habits. When prepared for and taken properly, a bath can relieve your toxic load -- as well as mental and emotional stress -- easily and at very little expense. The bath is your missing tool to better health.
As a longtime practitioner in the field of wellness and longevity medicine, I've found that empowering people to take conscious care of their physical bodies helps to ensure that their health care program succeeds. Yet there is one area, as essential as anything we do as humans, which frequently gets overlooked in any list of healing habits: bathing. I don't mean merely washing your face, underarms and private areas; but more specifically the act -- and the art -- of total cleansing, by soaking and renewing the skin in the bath.
I come to the wisdom of bathing culturally as well as medically. I am Korean by birth. In Asia, the bath has an ancient heritage as a purification rite that is both practical and remedial. Growing up in Korea, my first experiences of bathing were of going with my grandmother to the local communal bath house. She had no bathroom of her own, and wouldn't have thought that she needed one. I learned about bathing and hygienic skills from her at two years of age, with all the ritual attached to that journey: carrying my own bucket, towel and scrubbing cloths; the stages of cleansing; and the beautiful act of generations coming together, without vanity or inhibition, helping to take care of each other.
The key steps of traditional Korean bathing are easy to adopt, but they change the bath completely. The norm today, or at least the standard, in many Western countries, is to wash our bodies a lot -- and not in the bath at all, but in the shower. Past the age of childhood, taking a bath is typically seen in terms of indulgence more than hygiene. A bath is virtually a psychological act. It is about stealing time away from the daily rush, for the sake of relaxation, solitude, sensuality, retreat or luxury. Still, a really phenomenal amount of health benefit gets lost in the migration from bath to shower, and from the spirit of cleansing to the behavior of clean.
The medical truth is that bathing is one of the most systemically corrective things that you can do for your body. When prepared for and taken properly, a bath can reduce real toxic as well as mental and emotional stress. The warm water in which you submerge gently stimulates detoxification through the skin and other organs of elimination (the kidneys, liver, colon and lungs) by inducing lymphatic flow, improving circulation, calming inflammation and encouraging sweating. Add scrubbing to the process as your dead skin layers naturally slough off in water, and you remove innumerable pollutants and metabolic waste products that have been collected there. Remember, the skin is the largest organ for detoxification and therefore a first line of defense for your body.
And we need to purify our skin more than ever in modern life. Toxins that are found in the skin include, but are not limited to: benzene, toluene, formaldehyde, styrene, deodorant, car exhaust, hydrocarbons, smog, household chemicals, perfumes, cosmetics, heavy metals including mercury, cadmium, aluminum, arsenic, lead, and nickel, dust mites, dust mite droppings, fungus, mold, bacteria, virus, parasites, pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, and hormones. It makes sense to rid the body of these elements as regularly as possible, in order to manage the toxic load we all carry to varying degrees.
Bathing has always helped our bodies do that, easily and at very little expense. In effect, a proactive bath once a week can replace certain types of doctor's treatments, spa visits or other more invasive detox modalities.
I'd like to share some basic principles to help you transform bathing into a healing resource. All you need at home is a bathtub, a scrubbing mitt or cloth, a bucket and gentle, organic soap. Another option would be to find a local Korean sauna/bath house to visit on a regular basis, where you can soak and be scrubbed by an expert in the traditional manner. I've visited wonderful Korean bath saunas in many cities, and many offer hot rooms and pools of different temperatures, to intensify the ritual of cleansing. Following custom, these are communal places where you will have to let go of modesty. Most offer different sessions for men and women. Check your local city guide for information, or, you can visit my website for a list of reputable, classical Korean bath saunas across the country that I personally have experienced and highly recommend.
One note of caution: Bathing in this way is a form of mild detoxification, which involves raising your body temperature and increasing your metabolic rate through the steps of skin purification. For any bath or detoxifying regimen, get your doctor's approval first if you have a physical condition or you are in a weak state. Contraindications may include, but are not limited to, diabetes, low or high blood pressure, heart disease, kidney or liver disease, adrenal exhaustion, recent illness, pregnancy, nervous system deficiencies and severe fatigue. Also, if you have just been out in the sun and gotten a burn or even a tan, scrubbing is not recommended.
1. Wash your body first. This is when to take that shower! It doesn't make sense to enter a clean bath with dirty feet and a sweaty body. The bath is not for washing, but for soaking in fresh pure water in order to open the systems of the body and exfoliate old layers of skin. Plus, in order to exfoliate properly in your bath, all oils and creams need to be completely removed from your skin first. Washing first can also reduce contamination and prevent possible bladder infections when in the bath. Not cleaning before bathing is a major omission in the Western concept of the bath.
As part of a general skin care regimen, I recommend that my patients use a probiotic soap for best cleansing. Like oral probiotics and cultured foods for your digestion such as Korean kimchi or yogurt, this type of soap is naturally anti-microbial and works on the skin in a similar way: The presence of good bacteria helps to diminish the ill effects of the bad. In his book, "Life on Man," bacteriologist Theodor Rosebury estimates that 50 million individual bacteria live on the average square centimeter (5x107/cm2) of human skin! Probiotic soap will optimize healthy skin flora and help remove harmful pathogens as well as dirt and sweat.
2. Make sure your bathtub has been cleaned with natural, nontoxic products. Draw your bath at a comfortably hot, but not scalding temperature. You want to feel very warm, to the point that you may be perspiring from your face, but not so hot that you want to get out of the tub to cool off. If you have a Jacuzzi tub with jets, you can use them for soothing muscles.
3. Stay in the bath for at least 20-30 minutes. You can stop here after your soak, and still derive beneficial, passive healing from the bath. Dry yourself vigorously with a clean towel to add a light amount of lymphatic stimulation.
Do not scrub after 8 or 9 p.m., as it may keep you awake. If you do choose to exfoliate, check your skin after about 15 minutes of soaking. Can you feel some debris sloughing off? If so, your skin will be ready soon to be scrubbed, to remove all the toxins which are embedded in the dead outer layers. Sweating also brings these toxins to the surface.
4. To begin exfoliating, finish your bath and jump back in the shower. Keep your body wet; the room should still be warm enough from your bath that you should not feel chilled or uncomfortable. If you do not have a separate shower, drain your bathtub and sit inside the tub to scrub there. It is best if you have a stool to sit on. You should have your small plastic pail or shallow bucket to fill with fresh hot water, a scrubbing mitt or cloth, and your mild or probiotic soap at hand.
5. Scrub each section of your body and then fill the bucket with hot water and splash it clean. However, do not scrub: all genital and rectal areas, eyelids and lips, or your whole face if you have sensitive skin. You can start from your feet and go up or from the arms and work down. Use linear strokes, back and forth: do not make circles. Practicing will show you how much pressure you need to use. Notice areas where you will always find dead skin, such as the back or inside of your forearms. Be aware that rinsing in the traditional way with a bucket is gentler on your skin and body than using a shower spray. Never use cold water before or during scrubbing. This will cause the skin to tighten so that it will not slough off, and may cause pain. You may be perspiring during the scrubbing process, or you might feel a bit of energy releasing. This is all normal. It just means your body is at an elevated metabolic state to aid in the detoxification process.
6. After one sweep over the entire body, you can go over any area again with a lighter touch to ensure you have removed all the dead skin. Your skin should feel baby soft, slightly pink with color, and vitalized. Wash your body one more time with soap, and rinse. Dry yourself well, and liberally apply a nourishing moisturizer to both body and face.
7. Lay down if you can for 15 minutes to relax and return to your regular temperature and heart rate. You will feel invigorated, clean, fresh and ready to go!
I often prescribe additional types of bath therapies for specific health conditions, using different medicinal salts, herbs and detoxifying agents. In future articles, I will discuss how to create bath programs for healthy and preventive skin care, chronic illness, injury, heavy metal toxicity and other ailments, as well as ways to assure that your bath water itself is pure and clean.
Happy bathing!




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