Health Buzz: Nearly 1 in 4 Californians Lacks Health Insurance Coverage

March 17, 2010 RSS Feed Print

Nearly 1 out of 4 Californians Goes Without Health Insurance

A new study by researchers at the University of California–Los Angeles found that the number of people in California who went without health coverage jumped 25 percent between 2007 and 2009, Reuters reports. In 2009, 24.3 percent of Californians under age 65 lacked health insurance for at least part of the year, up from 19.5 percent in 2007. That's higher than the national average, which was 17 percent in 2008. High levels of unemployment most likely led to the spike in California's uninsured, according to the study.

[Read Lost Your Health Insurance? Some Resources and Don't Get Short-Changed by Short-Term Medical Insurance.]

To Cut Diabetes Heart Risks, Diet and Exercise May Beat Drugs

More than 1 in 10 American adults have diabetes, and many of them successfully keep their blood sugar levels under control with various medications, U.S. News's Deborah Kotz writes. Unfortunately, these multibillion-dollar blockbuster drugs haven't proved to be so successful against the biggest cause of death related to diabetes: heart disease.

Four new studies published in this week's New England Journal of Medicine bring nothing but disappointing news for diabetics who rely on drugs to lower their risk of heart attacks and strokes. One found that using antihypertensives to lower systolic (the top number) blood pressure below a healthful measurement of 120 mm Hg does nothing to lower a diabetic's risk of heart complications; another found no benefit to adding a drug to raise HDL "good" cholesterol levels in diabetics who were already taking a statin to lower the bad kind. And no heart benefits were associated with two drugs given to lower high blood sugar levels, according to the two other studies.

What all this new evidence suggests is that more may not always be better when it comes to finding ways to prevent heart disease in diabetics. "It's not enough to show that a drug lowers high blood sugar levels or other risky biomarkers," says Steven Nissen, chairman of the department of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, whose research linked the diabetes drug Avandia with an increased rate of heart attacks. "Does it actually improve clinical outcomes? Does it cause more benefits than risks?" Read more.

[Read Salsalate as a Type 2 Diabetes Treatment? It Looks Promising and 6 Common Myths and Misconceptions About Diabetes.]

How Much Calcium Do Americans Need?

Calcium is an essential nutrient, but the optimal intake is an unsettled issue. For adults over 50, the definition of adequate intake in the United States is 1,200 milligrams per day; in the United Kingdom, this is 700 milligrams per day; and the World Health Organization, looking at the same data, concluded that 500 milligrams per day is adequate. The primary justification for high consumption of calcium has been prevention of osteoporosis and fractures, and much of the disagreement is due to the use in the United States of short-term studies of calcium deposition in bones to set the value for adequate calcium intake.

But long-term studies do not support benefits of high intake of calcium or milk in preventing fracture risk, writes Walter Willett, U.S. News's Health Advice expert in nutrition. The WHO conclusions were influenced by the observation that most adults worldwide consume little or no dairy products, have calcium intakes below 500 milligrams per day, and tend to have lower rates of fractures than we do in America and Europe, where calcium and milk intake are relatively high. Read more.

[Read Milk Benefits: Can It Beat PMS, Shine Hair, and Help You Live Happily Ever After? and 5 Nutrition Facts About Milk and Healthy Kids.]

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