Nutrients can lift your spirits

You are what you eat --

10 nutrients that can lift your spirits - The Washington Post: "If you want some pep in your step or a dash of good cheer, look no further than the grocery store’s shelves. Not only are foods rich in vitamins, minerals and fatty acids healthful, but studies show they can also increase happiness, lessen symptoms of depression and quell anxiety...." (read more at link above)

more news below

Follow @nothinnormal

Sleep, the Mind, Creativity

Are you a creator? Better get your sleep --

BBC - Future - Health - How sleep makes your mind more creative: "... The experiment illustrates that combining what we know to generate new insights requires time, something that many might have guessed. Perhaps more revealingly it also shows the power of sleep in building remote associations. Making the links between pieces of information that our daytime rational minds see as separate seems to be easiest when we're offline, drifting through the dreamworld ..."

more news below

Follow @nothinnormal

Bare-Bones Health Plans

The more things change, the more they stay the same?

Bare-Bones Health Plans - WSJ.com: "What makes it possible under the health law: As long as companies offer at least one plan that complies with the law's requirements, they are free to keep offering ones that don't. That has enabled companies to find ways to comply with the law while minimizing increases in their health-care costs. The result has been an increase in lean insurance offerings such as "fixed-indemnity" plans." Starting in 2015, companies with 50 or more full-time workers must offer insurance plans that meet basic coverage requirements or face a penalty of $2,000 per employee. Other rules penalize companies for only offering plans that are too skimpy or too costly. Individuals, meanwhile, are required to have adequate health coverage as defined by the law or face penalties of up to 1% of their annual income, with a minimum of $95.

more news below

Follow @nothinnormal

Obamacare may increase emergency room use

Expanded health insurance coverage for poor people may place a bigger burden on hospital emergency rooms--

"... The study’s authors report that in 2008, Oregon initiated a limited expansion of a Medicaid program for uninsured, low-income adults, drawing names from a waiting list by lottery. According to the report, “This lottery created a rare opportunity to study the effects of Medicaid coverage using a randomized controlled design. Using the randomization provided by the lottery and emergency-department records from Portland-area hospitals, we study the emergency-department use of about 25,000 lottery participants over approximately 18 months after the lottery. “We find that Medicaid coverage significantly increases overall emergency use by 0.41 visits per person, or 40 percent relative to an average of 1.02 visits per person in the control group. We find increases in emergency-department visits across a broad range of types of visits, conditions, and subgroups, including increases in visits for conditions that may be most readily treatable in primary care settings.” The New York Times reports that the study contradicts what President Obama said during a town hall meeting in Albuquerque in 2009..." source: ACA may increase emergency room use - South Florida Business Journal

more news below

Follow @nothinnormal

High Blood Pressure Guidelines Eased

High Blood Pressure = Hypertension

Hypertension Guidelines Can Be Eased, Panel Says - NYTimes.com: "... Until now, people were told to strive for blood pressures below 140/90, with some taking multiple drugs to achieve that goal. But the guidelines committee, which spent five years reviewing evidence, concluded that the goal for people over 60 should be a systolic pressure of less than 150. And the diastolic goal should remain less than 90..." (read more at link above)

more news below

Follow @nothinnormal