Hot MedFax

Great.  Now that the world knows, thanks to the Web, that I fill my prescriptions at Walgreen's, buy my running shoes at New Balance, and order my Christmas flank steak from QVC, it's going to help me lose weight on Facebook. That's right.  According to Health Works Collective, Johnson & Johnson  will use Facebook to "monitor obesity prevalence." Now no one I know would call me obese, so why am I getting this?  Most likely because I visit Weight Watchers' sites, but come on! Quoting a recent study from PLOS ONE, J&J graduate fellow Stephen Shie writes that public health workers can use Facebook to survey the pervasiveness of obesity. Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health "found that higher proportion of the population with activity-related interests on Facebook was associated with a significant lower predicted prevalence of obese and overweight people across the United States metro areas as well as across New York City neig...

Here's a horrifying fact.  You're far more likely to get the flu from your doctor and his staff than you are the public.  That's because, according to Judith Graham, posting at nytimes.com/newoldage, only 60 percent of healthcare workers get the vaccine. This includes my husband, a dentist, who's cavalier about getting sick (though a recent cold made him whimper like a baby and he wound up giving strep to our son).  All I know is, he better not bring it home to me! http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/11/as-flu-rages-caregiving-suffers/