References:

“Healthy Without Health Insurance”

Preface

How you get a new heart in three days: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/science/06cell.html?pagewanted=all

Fareed Zakaria discussing Nobelist Kenneth Arrow arguments on why markets don’t work well in health care, and how different countries do what the U.S. does more effectively for far less money:

http://www.fareedzakaria.com/home/Articles/Entries/2012/3/19_Health_Insurance_Is_for_Everyone.html

Real costs of the top ten ten illnesses, many of which are preventable (Subtext – how Alzheimer’s will bankrupt us):

http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/18/10183578-11-trillion-what-the-10-leading-causes-of-death-cost-the-economy

For the comprehensive changes and science spanning effects of information theory please see:

“Decoding Reality” by Vlatko Vedral Oxford University Press, 2010 –http://www.amazon.com/Decoding-Reality-Universe-Quantum-Information/dp/0199237697

For 1930’s origins of regeneration studies in people see Rudolph Schoenheimer’s 1941 Dunham Lectures “The Dynamic State of Body Constitutents”, Harvard University Press, 1942

Chapter 1 Healthy Without Health Insurance

Though changing fast, here is information on who may soon be eligible for Medicaid:

http://vitals.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/22/10795538-health-care-overhaul-year-2-whats-here-whats-coming

Original Eight Americas Study showing differences between eight groups of ethnic/population groups; survival variation is over 35 years:

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/review/winter07/8americas.pdf

This excellent graphic from the Harvard School of Public Health and the Eight Americas Study depicting how lifestyle variation accounts for most of the lifespan differences in the U.S. population, culminating with the longest lived group – Asian American women in Suffolk County:

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/review/winter07/8americas.pdf

Material from the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report showing the vast decrease in infectious disease deaths well before the advent of effective antibiotics:

http://longevity.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ&zTi=1&sdn=longevity&cdn=health&tm=16&f=10&su=p1026.33.342.ip_&tt=3&bt=0&bts=1&zu=http%3A//www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4829a1.htm

The fifth largest economy in the world – comparative World Health Care Costs: size of U.S. health care versus GDP of nations based on IMF and World Bank data. These numbers will shift with currency rates, but as of 2010 France’s GDP was 2.56 trillion dollars, and has not grown anywhere as fast as American health care expenditures, health care is bigger than France’s entire output. Our costs are still rising quickly enough that our national health care expenditures will soon be reaching towards Germany for “four position” rank in the world – if American health care were a single national economy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)

More World Bank data on this issue:

http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&idim=country:FRA&dl=en&hl=en&q=gdp+of+france

Health expenditures were 17.6% of GDP in 2009; present estimates are it’s closer to 18% now:

https://www.cms.gov/NationalHealthExpendData/25_NHE_Fact_Sheet.asp

Per capita health care costs in the US were $356 in 1970.

Yet by 2008 it was $7538 as reported by the Kaiser Foundation; other countries cost less than half as much as us with the exceptions of Norway and Switzerland:

http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/oecd042111.cfm

CIA Data showing U.S. ranks 50^th in life expectancy worldwide:

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html

Medical pricing in the U.S. makes the surreal into the real. Here are data showing 120 fold differences in simple surgical procedures costs in the same locality:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/23/the-confusion-of-hospital-pricing/?hpw

Here is a critique of some present day thinking on health care, and how we need to first consider health, and its economic and environmental benefits and costs:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-power-rest/201203/why-we-wont-see-the-end-illness

Chapter 2 – Why We Get Sick

The human evolutionary bottleneck of 75,000 years ago has a complicated literature:

http://discovermagazine.com/2011/evolution/23-how-we-won-the-hominid-wars

More human bottleneck issues:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory#Evidence_for_a_population_bottleneck

Here is Richard Dawkins on the evolutionary bottleneck:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory#cite_note-Ancestors_Tale1-37

Or you can read Richard Dawkins more comprehensively in the Ancestor’s Tale:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Ancestors-Tale-Pilgrimage-Evolution/dp/0618005838

Exercise, electronics and sleep in adolescents:

http://www.dnaindia.com/health/report_daily-exercise-less-computer-time-improves-sleep-in-teens_1611223

On cellular senescence and its effect on longevity and sickness:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senescence

Chapter 3

How fatty foods hit the same reward centers in the brain as cocaine, and why animals can’t get enough sugar:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-02/fatty-foods-addictive-as-cocaine-in-growing-body-of-science.html

Salt and processed food; sodium blamed for 348,000 US yearly deaths according to CDC data (biggest source of salt – bread):

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm61e0207a1.htm?s_cid=mm61e0207a1_w

What fruit and vegetables consumptions does to overall health:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46765233/ns/health-diabetes/#.T28kt-xWrtJ

Why you want to drink water, not soda:

http://vitals.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/12/10656108-soda-drinking-men-at-higher-risk-for-heart-attack

Diet soda and what it does to increase heart attack and stroke risk:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46431225/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/t/daily-diet-soda-tied-heart-attack-stroke/#.T28qLOxWrtJ

Fish consumption as potentially preventing Alzheimer’s:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45491605/ns/health-aging/#.T283gOxWrtJ

Red Meat appears to cause increased mortality – across the board:

http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/archinternmed.2011.2287

Processed meat’s relation to pancreatic and bowel cancers:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16526695

Michael Pollan’s Food Rules:

http://www.amazon.com/Food-Rules-An-Eaters-Manual/dp/1594203083/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333200924&sr=1-4

And his more comprehensive argument “In Defense of Food”:

http://www.amazon.com/In-Defense-Food-Eaters-Manifesto/dp/0143114964/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333200924&sr=1-1

Food really is information, particularly when it interacts with what may be up to nine million unique bacterial genes:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0006074

It’s amazing what bugs live and fight inside the human gut microbial ecosystem:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/microbes-may-play-crucial-role-in-human-health-researchers-discovering/2011/09/24/gIQAH5lFYL_story.html

Perhaps there are more than 1000 bacterial species in the gut:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v464/n7285/full/nature08821.html

Lactobacilli really do change mammalian mood and stress levels:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0006074

Understanding what the gut tells your brain is just beginning:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-power-rest/201109/what-your-gut-tells-your-brain-0

There’s lot of research showing caffeine as useful in preventing diabetes and Parkinsonism; here’s an example of green tea consumption lowering disability in older Japanese:

http://www.ajcn.org/content/early/2012/01/24/ajcn.111.023200.full.pdf+html

A thoughtful take on MicroRNAs and gene expression:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2011/09/21/what-you-eat-affects-your-genes-rna-from-rice-can-survive-digestion-and-alter-gene-expression/

Thin on the Outside, Fat on the Inside – TOFI and young women:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45194344/ns/health-diabetes/#.T284aOxWrtJ

Snacking and time of day clearly affect weight gain:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45468536/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/#.T283suxWrtJ

Alcohol’s vast affects have public health experts calling for drug holidays in its use:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15415713

Sugar as pro-inflammatory – the UC Berkeley group’s Nature articles:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16822533

HFCS compared to glucose sweetened beverages changes visceral fat and lipids in obese people:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2673878/

Vitamins can do some strange things, like vitamin E increasing prostate cancer risk:

http://vitals.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/11/8273189-more-bad-supplement-news-vitamin-e-may-be-risky-for-prostate

Vitamins and survival in heart patients (sadly, it does not even decrease mortality with this group): http://news.health.com/2012/02/13/no-cancer-benefit-from-vitamin-b-omega-3-supplements-in-heart-patients/

And with no improvement in cancer deaths:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/14/us-vitamin-b-fish-oil-idUSTRE81D1TT20120214

The Iowa Women’s Health Study provided reasons why at least middle-aged women might not want to take vitamins and supplements:

http://www.lbknews.com/2011/10/28/are-vitamins-too-much-of-a-good-thing/

Cancer risks may decrease with fiber intake:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15674998

Cancer certainly changes with diet, as seen in an extensive series of studies carried by Parkin et al. in the U.K.:

http://www.nature.com/bjc/journal/v105/n2s/full/bjc2011477a.html#Methods

Better memory and mental performance appears to occur when diets have more fruit and vegetables plus fish:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16344228

Lack of sleep and diabetes:

http://news.healingwell.com/index.php?p=news1&id=525386

Other causes of diabetes – from sleep loss, shift work to snoring and fruit juice:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2084385/Lack-sleep-skipping-breakfast-The-known-factors-diabetes.html

Chapter 4 Exercise

There is a very large literature on the health effects of exercise. One popular place to start is:

“Spark: the Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain” by John Ratey Little, Brown 2008 http://www.amazon.com/Spark-Revolutionary-Science-Exercise-Brain/dp/0316113506

On how exercise involves standing and fidgeting and virtually all voluntary muscle activity:

http://thyroid.about.com/od/loseweightsuccessfully/a/neatmetabolism.htm

On the prevalence and fate of overweight truck drivers: http://www.michiganautolaw.com/auto-lawyers-blog/2011/11/25/new-york-times-overweight-truck-drivers-account-for-13-percent-of-fatal-truck-accidents/

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/health/a-hard-turn-truck-drivers-try-steering-from-bad-diets.html?_r=1

American Cancer Society study of sitting showing increased mortality past 6 hours:

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/sitting_gets_you_an_early_grave_rqfNxVYUAUd1JmzkHtMsEP

Americans may be fatter than we believe, especially women, if internal DEXA fat scans are used to determine obesity:

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2012/04/02/us-women-could-be-more-obese-than-believed

Below are articles on walking and longevity:

http://vitals.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/15/9476122-walk-3-mph-or-faster-to-outpace-the-grim-reaper-scientists-say

Faster walking and survival:

http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/305/1/50.short

Dijon Study of Walking and survival:

http://www.bmj.com/content/339/bmj.b4460.full

Growing new brain cells and other feats brought by exercise recounted in the excellent book “Brain Rules” by John Medina:

http://www.amazon.com/Brain-Rules-Principles-Surviving-Thriving/dp/0979777747/ref=pd_sim_b_2

How lifestyle can transform diabetes:

http://notme.com/dpca/files/NEJMoa012512.pdf

How exercise can change the rate and severity of colds:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11664660

According to the British Cancer Society studies near 50% of cancers are secondary to lifestyle:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16031149

How exercise can shift white fat to brown fat:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/health/brown-fat-burns-ordinary-fat-study-finds.html

Sadly, there’s still plenty of hunger in America:

http://www.npr.org/series/5023829/hunger-in-america

Heart attacks and TV watching:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8250281/Watching-television-damages-the-heart.html

Exercise endurance changes with rhythm and music:

http://www.science20.com/news_releases/does_music_really_increase_exercise_endurance_yes_by_15_percent

Why the National Transportation Safety Board wants to ban cell phone use in transport except for emergencies – and yes, that means texting:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16171889

Distraction caused by electronic devices is powerful – even among medical personnel in the OR:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/15/health/as-doctors-use-more-devices-potential-for-distraction-grows.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

Survival of New Yorkers is better than the rest of the US:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/27/68675/

What factors do kill New Yorkers:

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/27/new-yorkers-life-expectancy-reaches-80-6-years-higher-than-national-rate/?ref=nyregion

Health benefits of pets include lower blood pressure, better mood, better lipids. Dogs do really walk you:

http://www.cdc.gov/healthypets/health_benefits.htm

http://consensus.nih.gov/1987/1987HealthBenefitsPetsta003html.htm

Dogs engage with us through a very different social and cognitive system, as explained in “Dog Sense” by anthrozoologist John Bradshaw

http://www.economist.com/node/21525353

Chapter 5 Exciting Rest

Energy drinks may better be described as “anti-relaxation” drinks:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-edlund-md/coffee-versus-energy-drin_b_698532.html

For what happens to skin during sleep see:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2055423/Sleeping-beauty-Want-glow-You-need-special-night-time-skincare-regime.html

There are numerous effects of sleep loss varying from accidents, to heart failure, stroke, DM, depression, skin, sex drive, weight gain and mortality:

http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/excessive-sleepiness-10/10-surprising-results?page=3

Insomnia increased heart attack in a large Norwegian trial:

http://www.webmd.boots.com/sleep-disorders/news/20111027/people-with-insomnia-may-have-a-higher-risk-of-heart-attacks

On money, sleep loss, and stress:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/12/09/f-money-worries-stress-sleep.html

Medical bills, credit and bankruptcy:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46620350/ns/business-personal_finance/#.T28nkOxWrtJ

Sleep in women is quite different from men; here’s a useful National Sleep Foundation poll:

http://www.sleepfoundation.org/sites/default/files/Summary_Of_Findings%20-%20FINAL.pdf

Lack of sleep and diabetes:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2093482/People-struggle-sleep-times-likely-develop-diabetes.html

Sleep loss and diabetes interacts in many ways:

http://news.healingwell.com/index.php?p=news1&id=525386

Other causes of diabetes – from sleep loss, shift work to snoring and fruit juice:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2084385/Lack-sleep-skipping-breakfast-The-known-factors-diabetes.html

There’s plenty of metabolic disturbance with many kinds of sleep problems: http://www.doctorslounge.com/index.php/news/pb/26181

Poor sleep defines with will get prostate cancer in elderly Icelanders:

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/225070.html

Sleep dramatically changes emotional reactivity and memory:

http://www.doctorslounge.com/index.php/news/pb/26122

People fall asleep all the time (except they often don’t remember that):

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21095768

You get hungry without sleep:

http://health.msn.com/healthy-living/nutrition/lack-of-zzzs-may-fuel-appetite

Sleep and obesity in kids:

http://republicanherald.com/news/solid-sleep-helps-kids-stay-leaner-1.1239694

Teen sleep deprivation and weight gain:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-10/acoc-tsd101011.php

Sleep and breakfast in adolescents:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2012/mar/05/pupils-sleep-learning?newsfeed=true

For different ways to take a nap, see the Sleep chapter in “The Power of Rest” by Matthew Edlund, Harper One, 2010

For another view of how to do paradoxical relaxation, see

http://www.amazon.com/Paradoxical-Relaxation-Practice-Dissolving-Accepting/dp/0972775587

It can be quite normal to wake up in the middle of the night:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/new-health/conditions/health-sleep/is-bi-modal-sleep-as-good-as-eight-straight-hours/article2365028/page2/in

More on sleep may be naturally “bimodal” or even trimodal:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16964783

Sleeping pills don’t just not produce normal sleep, but increase mortality for some:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17177005

What sleeping pills really do to sleep:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/01/science/01conv.html?scp=10&sq=michael%20jackson%20and%20propofol&st=cse

Sleep and light: circadian changes:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2084385/Lack-sleep-skipping-breakfast-The-known-factors-diabetes.html

Chapter 6 Only Connect – Socializing for Health

Primates and social genes:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/20/science/genes-play-major-role-in-primate-social-behavior-study-finds.html

Fecal transplants from relatives can cure clostridium difficile infections:

http://vitals.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/20/8419332-sounds-gross-works-great-fecal-transplants-cure-nasty-c-diff-infections

On the social connectedness of religious practice, see:

Religion and Health – Andre Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman: How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist. Ballantine Books, 2009

Jane Brody from her own experience has some useful things to say about social support:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/26/forging-social-connections-for-longer-life/?scp=3&sq=march%2027%20jane%20brody&st=cse

The original Berkman-Syme Alameda County Study, which led to much research on social support:

http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/109/2/186.abstract

The many year Okinawa Study also demonstrated the longevity aiding elements of social support:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Okinawa-Program-Longest-Lived-Everlasting/dp/0609807501

John Bradshaw’s look on social support from dogs is worth another look:

Dogs and social engagement, comparison of different social systems –

http://www.economist.com/node/21525353

How Facebook changes brains:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15353397

Internet effects on the human brain are described elegantly by Nicholas Carr in “The Shallows”:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Shallows-Internet-Doing-Brains/dp/0393072223

The internet changes bodies as well as brains:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-edlund-md/add-symptoms_b_656590.html#s119834&title=Broken_Attention_

A different take on handshakes: http://bodyodd.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/19/10688544-what-your-handshake-says-about-your-health

Holidays and eating can also lead to “social” weight gain:

http://www.ajcn.org/content/95/3/726.abstract

Chapter 7 The Promise of Regeneration

On overcoming heart disease genes with fruits and vegetables:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15254471

How autophagy keeps us going:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/science/06cell.html?pagewanted=all

On autophagy, immunity, and inflammation:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21248839

How autophagy is induced by exercise:

http://www.nature.com/nrm/journal/v13/n3/full/nrm3287.html

Bill Bryson is very compelling on the speed of life:

http://www.amazon.com/A-Short-History-Nearly-Everything/dp/0767908171 pages 376-380.

Life indeed is fast; the half-life of proteins in human cells, at least in the liver, varies from 45 minutes to 22 hours:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21233346

Better memory and mental performance when foods have more fruit and vegetables plus fish:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16344228

How to go FAR is covered in my book “Designed to Last,” Circadian Press, 2010;

http://www.amazon.com/Designed-To-Last-ebook/dp/B003ZDO8FM

Here is one of the reasons it works, via food intake:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15254471

How information informs regeneration and health:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-power-rest/201203/why-we-wont-see-the-end-illness

We can’t escape our evolutionary roots; Proietto’s study at the University of Melbourne shows people who lose weight still are hungry – hormonally – even after “controlling” their weight:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-checkup/post/hormones-make-it-hard-for-dieters-to-stay-thin-study-indicates/2011/10/26/gIQAG9jhJM_blog.html

Chapter 8 Finding Health Care – Monitoring Your Health

Debt collectors now come to you in the ER – and you better pay up before treatment:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/25/business/debt-collector-is-faulted-for-tough-tactics-in-hospitals.html?ref=hospitals

The upcoming International Classification of Diseases contains 140,000 codes, including nine for injuries caused by parrots:

https://3mhealthinformation.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/icd-10-needs-a-spin-doctor/

Teeth really are important – starting from birth:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-power-rest/201203/why-more-kids-are-undergoing-adult-dental-proceduresDental Health – Psychology Today

For some summaries of unconventional treatments of depression see “Unstuck” by James S. Gordon, Penguin Press, 2008 http://www.amazon.com/Unstuck-Guide-Seven-Stage-Journey-Depression/dp/0143115510

For the real risks and benefits of medical testing, please see

“Overdiagnosed” by H. Gilbert Welch, Lisa Schwartz and Steve Woloshin Beacon Press, 2011

http://www.amazon.com/Overdiagnosed-Making-People-Pursuit-Health/dp/0807022004