“Diabetic care also would improve if patients received a rebate check from their insurance company for reaching annual guidelines, much the same way good drivers receive discounts on car insurance.”

According to Swarna Varma, MD, quite simply, prevention is much cheaper than treatment. In fact, this Bridgeville, PA endocrinologist has developed a plan to cut the nation’s price tag for diabetic care by as much as $18 billion per year according to a recent article, Doctor Aims to Teach Better Care to Diabetics, in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.

This isn’t just idle speculation because, in her practice, patients are up to three times as likely to be in control of their diabetes than the national average. The key is closely working with them to reach specific health goals. She reasons that if her patients' numbers (395 patients tracked over five years) were applied nationwide, it would cut the annual bill for diabetic complications in half from $72 billion to $36 billion (based on 2002 figures). Subtract $18 billion in costs and you have huge savings. . But persuading health insurance companies to pay doctors additional money to properly train patients is a huge challenge.

To read the entire article, go to: www.post-gazette.com/

“[AOL’s] Steve Case, who brought the Internet into millions of homes is wagering tens of millions of dollars that consumers will eventually pay about $100 a year to subscribe to premium [health] services on his Web site.”

In launching RevolutionHealth.com, Steve Case says he is trying to transform a "broken industry by putting health care back into the hands of the consumer." Even though skeptics say that a fragmented and entrenched system can’t be changed, he has bet $100 million of his own money that it can.

The Wall Street Journal article, The Doctor’s Office Gets Crowded on the Web, relates that people are generally reluctant to pay for Internet-based subscriber services, but Revolution’s strategy will be to offer telephone consulting and digital record services free for one year to draw people in. Referring to the early days of AOL, he says, “In 1985, no one believed people wanted interactive computer services. Most people thought we were crazy. Crazy ideas over time become mainstream."

To read the entire article, go to: www.healthdecisions.org/HealthIT/News/

"Be aware that the FDA allows food manufacturers to label any product that has less than half a gram of trans fat per serving as zero,"

In a recent WebMD article, Top 10 Trans Fat Foods Revisited, the director of nutrition therapy at The Cleveland Clinic, Cindy Moore, MS, RD, says, "You could be getting up to 0.49 grams of trans fat in a serving and not know it. It quickly adds up." Even though trans fats are now on food labels, caution and a little scrutiny may be in order. One red flag is “partially hydrogenated vegetable oils” listed in the ingredients label. And despite public pressure, fast food restaurants are still among the biggest culprits. A deluxe breakfast at McDonalds has a whopping 11 grams of trans fats and who’s checking labels there?

To read the entire article, go to: www.webmd.com/diet/features/