I've got that Joy Joy Joy Joy Down in my Heart

Recent research seems to show that happiness is good for one's heart. If that is true, then Christians ought to be the healthiest people around!

Don’t Worry, Be Happy
Research into happiness and how it impacts health, known as positive psychology, is a relatively new.

It was long believed that most people are hardwired to be either naturally happy or not, regardless of life events.

But this view has changed in recent years as more becomes known about the science of happiness, University of Michigan professor of medicine Bertram Pitt, MD, tells WebMD.

In an editorial published with the study, Pitt writes that interventions that focus on improving social skills and decreasing social anxiety may lower heart disease risk.

Both the study and editorial appear in the European Heart Journal.

Pitt cites numerous strategies that could help naturally negative people become happier, including:

Express gratitude on a regular basis.
Practice being optimistic.
Engage in frequent acts of kindness.
Visualize one's best self.
Savor joyful events.
Practice forgiveness.

How healthy is your county?

How healthy is the county you live in? A new database allows you to compare your county against others in your state.

The report — released Wednesday at http://www.countyhealthrankings.org
— isn't the first to examine county-level health. Cancer and access to health care, for example, have long been studied that way. But the new database ties standard measures — general health and the rate of premature death — with more factors that play a role in those outcomes, from smoking, obesity and binge drinking to the unemployment rate, childhood poverty, air pollution and access to grocery stores

Here are some statistics for Lane County, here in Oregon:

• 21% of those under age 65 do not have health insurance
• 17% of our children under age 18 live in poverty.
• 9% of all households are single-parent households.
• 15% of adults reported binge drinking in the last 30 days.

God bless those who have been called to parish nursing ministry!

Giant Microbes--plush toys

Joanna has a wonderful biology teacher, Ms. B. She describes herself as ADD, and from open house I believe it must be true. She is in constant motion, speaking in a stream of conscious that not only communicates the lesson, but lots of other fun facts and random connections.

Today Joanna told me about Ms. B's plush e-coli microbe, and how she someday wants to get the ebola. This led me to the Giant Microbes website. What a hoot!
For those of you who like to do your Christmas shopping early, here's a few of the items you might want to check out:

The Flu, The Common Cold,
Stomach Ache, Sore Throat,
Ear Ache, Cough
Bad Breath, Kissing Disease,
Athlete's Foot, Ulcer
Pimple, Giardia
Martian Life,
Beer & Bread (Yeast),
T4, Penicillin


Black Death, Ebola,
Flesh Eating, Mad Cow,
Typhoid Fever, Anthrax
Dust Mite, Bed Bug,
Bookworm, Louse,
Flea, Maggot,
Black Ant, Red Ant
Algae, Scum,
Sea Sparkle, Red Tide,
Krill


The Clap - Gonorrhea,
The Pox - Syphilis
Herpes, Chlamydia
E. coli, Cavity,
Salmonella
Brain Cell, Fat Cell,
Red Blood Cell,
White Blood Cell,
Sperm Cell, Egg Cell


House Fly, Mosquito
Heartworm, Mange,
Rabies, Toxoplasmosis
Malaria, Gangrene,
West Nile, Sleeping Sickness,


Lyme Disease
Hat, Display Box,
Coffee Mug, T-Shirts,
Keychain
Staph, Pneumonia,
Chicken Pox, MRSA,
Toxic Mold, C. Diff

Feast Day of St. Luke: Sirach on Physicians

Our daughter Susan goes to an Anglican church in Toronto. Today was the feast day of St. Luke, and she passed on this reading to us. It is from the book of Sirach, a book that was part of the Septuagint, the Bible that was used by the early Christians. Ben Sirah, a Jewish scribe who had been living in Jerusalem, may have authored the work in Alexandria, Egypt circa 180-175 BC. Catholics, Anglicans and Eastern Orthodox still read Sirach, considering it a "deuterocanonical" work.

Here is the reading:

Honor physicians for their services, for the Lord created them;
for their gift of healing comes from the Most High,
and they are rewarded by the king.
The skill of physicians makes them distinguished,
and in the presence of the great they are admired.
The Lord created medicines out of the earth,
and the sensible will not despise them.
Was not water made sweet with a tree in order that its power might be known?
And he gave skill to human beings that he might be glorified in his marvelous works.
By them the physician heals and takes away pain;
the pharmacist makes a mixture from them. God's works will never be finished;
and from him health spreads over all the earth.

My child, when you are ill, do not delay, but pray to the Lord, and he will heal you.
Give up your faults and direct your hands rightly, and cleanse your heart from all sin.
Offer a sweet-smelling sacrifice, and a memorial portion of choice flour, and pour oil on your offering, as much as you can afford.
Then give the physician his place, for the Lord created him;
do not let him leave you, for you need him.
There may come a time when recovery lies in the hands of physicians,
for they too pray to the Lord that he grant them success in diagnosis and in healing, for the sake of preserving life.
He who sins against his Maker,

will be defiant toward the physician.

(Sirach 38:1-15).

Health Care Debate in Eugene: Two Physicians Face Off

Two local physicians have had a debate on the opinion page of the Eugene Register Guard. I reproduce it here for your
interest, because it seems to me to capture two possible pure positions

Doctors take an oath to serve, not a vow of poverty

By I. Howard Fine. M.D.
For The Register-Guard
Appeared in print: Sunday, Jul 26, 2009
http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/opinion/17388970-47/story.csp

Health care reform is a hot topic today. To most people, reform means reducing the cost of health care. There is much in our current health care delivery system that could be improved, but ultimately with only a relatively marginal reduction in costs.

The only way to dramatically reduce health care costs is to dramatically reduce health care — and that means allowing people to suffer and die early from treatable diseases. Unacceptable, you say. And I agree.

This forces us to recognize how much we value good health, without which much of the joy is taken from our lives. What else that we look upon as valuable do we believe to be our right at a very low cost? Food? Shelter? Clothing? Cosmetics? (Americans spend more on cosmetics each year than on medications).

We all look forward to the availability of a cure for cancer and heart disease, our biggest killers, but that can come only at a huge cost — a cost in which, one way or the other, we must all participate. If we remove or significantly reduce profits from manufacturers of medical devices and pharmaceuticals, their research budgets will disappear. How much medical innovation is created in Great Britain or Canada?

Physicians take an oath to serve, but they do not take a vow of poverty. Like almost everyone else, they wish to achieve financial security for themselves and their families. If we devalue the worth of their long training, hard work, expertise and responsibility, their numbers and their productivity will decline.

In spite of the very high taxes that the Swedish people pay for universal health care, there was recently a five-year wait after diagnosis for cataract surgery in the first eye and an additional seven-year wait for surgery in the second eye. That is a 12-year wait for bilateral visual rehabilitation. Those who could left the country for their cataract surgery. A law was passed in Sweden allowing privately paid cataract surgery in ambulatory surgery centers, and within a very short time the 12 year wait was reduced to about six months. That happened without an increase in the number of surgeons. It’s not surprising.

An emphasis on preventive care is a cornerstone of our impending health care reform: Smoking, obesity, substance abuse, auto accidents and emotionally undisciplined living extract a huge amount of precious health care resources and are totally unrelated to the availability of health care professionals or facilities. This is not new, and it is totally preventable. It depends on voluntary behavior modification by our citizens, which thus far has not been forthcoming.

When we cure cancer and heart disease, people will live longer and be more free of symptoms.

But more people will need more medical care for a longer time to address the chronic infirmities of increasing age — increasing the overall cost of health care. Like global warming, this is an inconvenient truth.

We all want the best of health care. When President Obama and the U.S. Congress say we can save billions of health care dollars each year over the next decade, we should also all want to know how.

Health care is already rationed

By Todd Huffman. M.D.
For The Register-Guard
Appeared in print: Saturday, Aug. 1, 2009
http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/opinion/17196580-47/story.csp

How tiresome it is that the backers of for-profit health care continue to use FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) to maintain the unjust and unjustifiable status quo.
Even esteemed colleagues are not above attempting to frighten the public with anecdotes of rationing of care and long waits. Of course, what is neglected to be mentioned is that this is exactly the situation we have now under our current “system.” Right now, right here in the United States, health care is indeed being rationed, by CEOs behind the closed doors of corporate board rooms.

Wouldn’t it be wiser, fairer and more justly American to take the tough decisions about health care out of the boardrooms and shareholder meetings and put them in the hands of professionals, patients and the public?

The truth is that the U.S. rations care more harshly than any other country. We ration care by wealth, by employment, and by age. Conservative estimates are that nearly 20,000 Americans die every year due to lack of insurance, while millions more go without needed care every day because of cost. Now that’s rationing!

Health care should be guided not by unregulated profit motives but rather by science, compassion and rational policy. It should be rationed, yes, by outcome and not by income. We must ignore when profiteers and fear mongers raise the specter of rationing when their pocketbooks feel threatened.

And as for vows, mine were “to come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice.”

Divorce and health

Is this evidence for the biblical doctrine of "One Flesh?"

Divorce takes health toll that remarriage can't heal, study says
Story Highlights:

• Divorced or widowed people found to have 20 percent more chronic health conditions
• Marriage is believed to have protective physical and mental health benefits
• Traumas of divorce could be detrimental and difficult for people to rebound from
  

If the article is accurate, in many cases it will be difficult to argue that divorce is good for you emotionally, without acknowledging that it is bad for you physicially.

Just Wondering: Faithfulness and Health

I'm wondering....

Is being "healthy" the same as being "faithful?"
Is being "faithful" the same as being "healthy?"
Is "faithfulness" a component of "health?"
Is "health" a component of "faithfulness?"
Or are they both components of something bigger?

Of course, it depends on how we define our terms...
what does it mean to be "healthy?"
what does it mean to be "faithful?"
Where do we look for our definitions?
Which term is more accessible for us? Why?

I wonder...
can we be faithful without being healthy?
Can we be healthy without being faithful?
Do these terms refer to two necessary but individually insufficient conditions?

I did a Bible Gateway search for "faith" and "faithful" and for "health" and "healthy". Guess which one had more references?

I wonder what that means.

When the master says, "well done, good and faithful servant," is that different from saying "well done, good and healthy servant?"

There's lots that's been written about being a "healthy church," but when I google "faithful church" I get stuff like "Soul-winning, King James Bible Only, independent Baptist Church." Why it that? When did the term "faithful" develop such rigidity?

Is it because faithfulness has connections to truth, and we live in a time when truth is an res non grata?

Do we need to re-discover faithfulness?

Are we able to re-discover faithfulness, or is health what should now be our focus?
What do you think?

SICKO

Steve and I finally watched Michael Moore's Sicko. While it's a typical Moore film, playing fast and loose with representative samplings, it is worthwhile, sobering, and even sickening. NPR's Bob Mondello and Joanne Silberner rate it as entertainment and expose here where you can also find this "Snapshot of America's Uninsured" by Joanne Silberner:

— Nearly 47 million Americans, or 16 percent of the population, were without health insurance at some point in 2005.

— The number of uninsured rose 1.3 million between 2004 and 2005 and has increased by almost 7 million people since 2000.

— In 2005, nearly 15 percent of employees had no employer-sponsored health coverage available to them, either through their own job or through a family member.

— Young adults (18 to 24 years old) remained the least likely of any age group to have health insurance in 2005 – 30.6 percent of this group did not have health insurance.

— Nearly 40 percent of the uninsured population reside in households that earn $50,000 or more. A growing number of middle-income families cannot afford health insurance payments even when coverage is offered by their employers.

Source: National Coalition Health Care

Snapshot of America's Insured

Sicko focuses on people who do have insurance, but insurance that doesn't serve them well. Statistics show that health insurance is becoming more expensive and fewer insurers are offering it.

— Fewer employers are offering coverage to workers, down from 69 percent of employers in 2000 to 60 percent in 2005. The drop stems almost entirely from fewer small businesses offering health benefits.

— Insurance premiums increased an average of 9.2 percent in 2005.

— Annual premiums for family coverage reached $10,880 in 2005, eclipsing the gross earnings for a full-time minimum-wage worker ($10,712).

— 61 percent of all employees with health coverage in 2005 were enrolled in a PPO (up from 55 percent in 2004). Enrollment in HMOs, which generally cost less than PPOs, fell to 21 percent of people with insurance in 2005.

Source: 2006 Kaiser Family Foundation Survey of Employer Health Benefits

Where the U.S. Ranks in the World

After painting a bleak picture of American health care, Moore looks at the health care systems of the United Kingdom, France and Cuba. The World Health Organization did an international survey back in 2000, with some surprising results.

The survey looked at the health care systems of 191 countries based on factors such as the general level of population health, patient satisfaction, equality of access, and health care financing.

And while the U.S. health system spends a higher portion of its gross domestic product than any other country, it ranked 37. The United Kingdom, which spends just 6 percent of GDP on health services, ranked 18. France ranked first. And Cuba, which Moore describes as a great place to get health care, ranked 39.

Other findings:

— A key recommendation from the report is for countries to extend health insurance to as large a percentage of the population as possible, whether in the form of insurance or taxes.

— The United States ranked highest on patient satisfaction, followed by Switzerland, Luxembourg, Denmark, Germany, Japan, Canada, Norway, Netherlands and Sweden.

— On the consumer affordability of health care, Colombia ranked No. 1, followed by Luxembourg, Belgium, Djibouti, Denmark, Ireland, Germany, Norway, Japan and Finland. The United States ranked 54.