Very hard for me to add anything to this video, that isn’t already expressed.

Desire to breath = desire to succeed

Go get it.

Another awesome step towards a healthier U (as in University).

It may only be a baby step, but it’s still a step forward and not backward. Or better yet standing still watching.

Editor’s note: Dr. Ford Vox is a medical writer and neuro-rehabilitation physician. He is the medical director of Brain Injury Rehabilitation at New England Rehabilitation Hospital and clinical assistant professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Tufts University School of Medicine.

Boston (CNN) — A man born without functioning legs ran the 400 meters in 45.07 seconds on July 19, 2011, the fastest time recorded by an amputee. The ripple effects of this historic achievement may initiate a paradigm shift in how we view our bodies.

That’s because any time under 45.25 seconds is good enough to earn a spot in the London Olympics next summer, and the July race qualified 24-year-old Oscar Pistorius to represent the South African track team in the World Championships in Athletics starting Sunday with the 400 meter heats in Daegu, South Korea.

Pistorius will need to run one more time under 45.25 seconds in the first half of 2012 before finally earning his spot in the Olympics, and at this point most observers believe he will make it.
…

This was a great conversation about society’s views of prosthetic athleticism. Interesting and thought provoking to say the least.

PARIS — Compared with warfarin treatment, atrial fibrillation patients treated with the investigational factor Xa inhibitor apixaban had fewer strokes or embolic events, fewer major bleeding events, and were less likely to die during an average of almost two years of treatment, researchers said.

Those results emerged from the 18,201-patient ARISTOTLE study, which was published online today by the New England Journal of Medicine.

It seems promising, but the adherence monitoring is still an issue. And of course the $.

Ergo why Warfarin is still the ‘standard’.

If the current “obesity epidemic” continues unchecked, 50% of the U.S. adult population will be obese — with body mass index values of 30 or higher — by 2030, researchers said.

Drawing on data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) series from 1988 to 2008, Y. Claire Wang, MD, of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, and colleagues projected that, compared with 2010, there will be “as many as 65 million more obese adults” in the U.S. by that year. …
An important finding was the rising burden of obesity among people 60 and older, the researchers emphasized. Of the 65 million additional obese people projected in the U.S. in 2030, 24 million would be in this age range. This population — already the sickest and most expensive in terms of medical costs — is the fastest-growing in the U.S. and Britain. Therefore, the overall disease burden and economic effects of obesity may be magnified. In addition to their caveat about extrapolating trends into the future, Wang and colleagues cited other limitations to the study: methodological issues related to the NHANES and HSE surveys; uncertainties in the relationships between obesity, other diseases, and economic impacts; and the study’s 20-year timeframe, which may underestimate future impacts of pediatric obesity.

While thee actual definition of ‘obese’ is still under scrutiny, the alarming relationship between our overall health and our weight is not something we can simply keep ignoring.

We are getting more sick. What is disheartening is that it is almost all preventable.