Free Republic

President Joe Biden’s response to Sesame Street Muppet Elmo’s viral online wellness check backfired as Americans blamed the 46th president for their depression. “Elmo is just checking in! How is everybody doing?” Elmo asked in a Monday X/Twitter post. Elmo is just checking in! How is everybody doing? — Elmo (@elmo) January 29, 2024 The comment section of Elmo’s post received thousands of replies from X/Twitter users who expressed dread and despair while living under the Biden administration. Biden himself also replied to the Sesame Street Muppet, writing, “I know how hard it is some days to sweep the clouds...

Mayor Eric Adams’ medical team is ramping up a program to bolster wellness in public housing by recruiting “health coaches” to work with residents inside the city’s major public housing projects. The Health Department is accepting bids to fund the expansion of the Health Advocacy Partnership program in the New York City Housing Authority-run Marcy Houses in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, Butler Houses in the Morrisania neighborhood of The Bronx and the Queensbridge Houses in Long Island City, Queens. The program offers tenants screening and workshops to help them better control chronic diseases such as asthma, hypertension, diabetes, and...

Dr Brad Stanfield notes that metabolism goes into steep decline after about age 60. Simultaneously age related disease go straight up in the other direction. He therefor surmises that supplements that improve metabolism have the best chance of improving defensive mechanisms against age related diseases. His top five list consists of 1. NR nicotinamide riboside 2. Melatonin 3. Glutathione precurer L cysteine OR NAC 4. Glutathione precurser L serine (which converts to glycine) 5. Hyerleronic Acid. He mentions that L carnitine may have a role in treating non alcholic fatty liver disease. (If you have a big gut--then likely you...

We’ve heard a lot about washing hands and other hygienic practices to help stem the Coronavirus outbreak. Believe me, this is welcome, as the amount of people you see failing to wash their hands after using a public restroom is downright disgusting. But there are other weapons that I believe are at least as important in fighting infectious diseases. In my experience, just about anytime I come down with a cold, flu, or other illness, I can trace it back to a lack of sleep. When I do get adequate sleep, I either don’t get sick at all, or develop...

Food for thought — while the industry does have positive attributes, it also leads to disordered eating, promotes unrealistic body types and is highly exclusive The wellness industry has been a smashing success the past few years with a $4.2 trillion market in 2017. Wellness is defined as “the state of being in good health,” but has been marred by the industry’s commercialization of avocado toast, the elimination of dairy and gluten, intermittent fasting, replacing every grain with cauliflower, using expensive skin care products — the list goes on.

Growing up, Kelly Pietkiwicz, 29, wasn’t a runner. Sprints were her least favorite form of exercise, and she gravitated to swimming and competitive cheerleading instead. But while she was preparing to move to Nashville, Tennessee, from Memphis after college, she wanted to find a way to keep connected to Memphis. The answer? The St. Jude’s Half Marathon. “St. Jude’s Research Hospital is located in Memphis, and I had volunteered there,” she told Runner’s World. “My sister Micky was also leaving Memphis, and we both felt like we needed a way to keep Memphis a part of our lives.” So when...

BOSTON — For some, it’s the best four years of their lives. For others, it’s a period of constant struggle, whether academically, socially, or both. College brings about new experiences and challenges for young adults that can be difficult to adapt to and overcome, so perhaps it’s no surprise that a new study reports high rates of stress and mental health conditions among students.

The idea that spending more on preventive care will reduce overall health care spending is widely believed and often promoted as a reason to support reform. It’s thought that too many people with chronic illnesses wait until they are truly ill before seeking care, often in emergency rooms, where it costs more. It should follow then that treating diseases earlier, or screening for them before they become more serious, would wind up saving money in the long run. Unfortunately, almost none of this is true. Let’s begin with emergency rooms, which many people believed would get less use after passage...

House GOP would let employers demand workers' genetic test results https://www.statnews.com/2017/03/10/workplace-wellness-genetic-testing/ House Republicans would let employers demand workers’ genetic test results By Sharon Begley @sxbegle March 10, 2017 A little-noticed bill moving through Congress would allow companies to require employees to undergo genetic testing or risk paying a penalty of thousands of dollars, and would let employers see that genetic and other health information. Giving employers such power is now prohibited by legislation including the 2008 genetic privacy and nondiscrimination law known as GINA. The new bill gets around that landmark law by stating explicitly that GINA and other protections do...

(CNSNews.com) – The 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA) allowed corporations to reduce their health care costs by rewarding employees for voluntarily participating in workplace “wellness” programs to help them lose weight or stop smoking. But now three of those programs are the target of discrimination lawsuits by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which says they are neither voluntary nor legal. EEOC recently filed its third wellness lawsuit, claiming that Honeywell International, Inc.’s ACA-approved wellness program violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Honeywell recently informed employees and their spouses who were enrolled in the company’s health benefits plan that...

* Many CEOs are angry with the Obama administration thanks to three new cases challenging parts of his 'wellness program' * In order to participate in the 'wellness program' and receive a low health care rate under Obamacare, employees must take a physical * Now it is being argued in three cases that forcing someone to take a physical for work violates the Americans with Disabilities Act * The CEOs now have a number of ways they can undermine Obama because of this developmentLeading U.S. CEOs, angered by the Obama administration's challenge to certain 'workplace wellness' programs, are threatening to...

"...That's why we're modernizing our unique system. Under the new approach—made possible by the Affordable Care Act and approved by the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services—Maryland will implement a groundbreaking new system of health care delivery. Using the rate setting structure, the state will set global budgets and other alternative approaches to payment that reward clinical systems of care for providing improved outcomes at lower costs. Support for this new demonstration has come from a coalition of the hospitals, the insurance companies and the state all working together with a common vision....Under the new model, our hospitals have committed...

On Memorial Day weekend, 2 million people marched in protests against seed giant Monsanto for the purpose of bringing awareness to hazards from genetically modified food, which it and other companies manufacture. Organizer Tami Canal said protests were held in 436 cities in 52 countries. Genetically modified plants are grown from genetically modified, or engineered, seeds, which are created to resist insecticides and herbicides so that crops can be grown to withstand a weed-killing pesticide or integrate a bacterial toxin that can ward off pests. The Chicago Tribune reported that because genetically modified organisms are not listed on food or...

Now that obamacare is law of the land, I have a different legal issue with it. The law has "wellness plans" that allows insurance companies to charge more for certain risky behaviors like smoking or being obese. I would think that under equal protection, if they're going to "tax" risky behavior at all, then they need to charge more for ALL risky behavior. For example, if you participate in sports, especially contact sports, you are more likely to incur injury, some of which is life long and debilitating, such as with Christopher Reeve or Charles Krauthamer. Many concussive and spinal...

A Canadian gym has banned slim gym rats -- and it's not the only one to do so. As anybody with a gym ID mouldering in their wallet, purse or glove compartment can tell you, there are a lot of obstacles to going to the gym regularly. There’s just not enough time in the day. Gyms are just too expensive. There’s that Real Housewives marathon on Bravo. And then there’s one of the hardest reasons to admit: what if your gym just has too many skinny, healthy people in it? For some gymgoers, a plethora of thin, peppy gym rats...

As reported in this publication, Democrats have been quick to defend Donald Berwick's dead of night inclusion of advanced directive and end of life planning into what is called the Annual Wellness Visit (what most of us call a checkup). They claim it's purely voluntary and that Medicare already covers advanced directive discussions. But the inclusion of the advanced directive and end of life planning is not voluntary, only the patient's discussion is. Doctors are required to bring it up year after year. What's more, noting that Medicare added the discussion of advance directives to the initial physical exam begs...

"5 Simple Wellness Strategies Sometimes Simple is Best" Posted: Tuesday, March 9, 2010 BRYAN FASS Fitness Contributor Officer.com SNIPPET: "This month, as we rapidly roll into the holiday season I thought it would be a good idea to start thinking about our wellness. As the weather got colder and most of us became less active out doors the pounds slowly began to sneak on and we slowly become more sedentary. As I have been fond of saying year after year, now that it is officially spring, SUMMER IS COMING. So instead of going into a tirade on fitness and nutrition,...

Wellness has become the new buzzword in the health care world of the 21st century. Everyone wants to talk about wellness, especially insurance companies and major employers. With wellness programs we can cure the common cause of large butts and employees who are listed as MIA.

Ideal health risk indices — from BMI, blood pressure, blood sugars to cholesterol — are mostly euphemisms for thin and young. Those who believe that their own good health is because they eat “right,” exercise and have perfect numbers are often young and upper-income and not old enough to experience age-related changes. Their genetic good fortune is not evidence of good behavior, either. Evidence-based research to date has shown these health indices are primarily measures of aging, genetics and social stresses, and not significantly malleable with “healthful” diets and lifestyles. With aging, the “ideal” numbers of healthy 20-year olds cannot...

A new battlefront in the war to erase politically incorrect civil liberties is taking place across corporate America under the innocuous-sounding banner of "Wellness."  Wellness certainly sounds nice; what kind of person is against wellness?  That sounds as crazy as being anti-hope, or standing in the way of change.  Obviously we all want to be well, but now it appears you won't have much choice in the matter.  Be well or face consequences beyond the state of one's health. But always remember: We're doing this for your own good. The latest thing that's in our best interest is a renewed...