Talking About Health; Why Health Communication Matters
A BLOG to support my book, Talking About Health; Why Health Communication Matters
How communicating about health contributes to the ways we answer the question, “Who am I?”
February 10, 2012
Why do we talk in “either” “or” terms when we know better?
It is not “either” we drill for Marcellus shale “or” we will remain energy dependent.
It is not “either” we quit drilling for Marcellus shale “or” we will destroy the environment.
As long as we keep talking and thinking that way, here is the story…
February 8, 2012
I am reading some research about how math anxiety leads us to avoid doing things that might have math or numbers included. I read one study where it all came rushing back to me. I was a freshman at the University of Michigan and taking the first of three classes in calculus. I didn’t quite understand some of the homework, so I visited the graduate teaching assistant’s office and was told, “If you don’t understand this, you better get out while you can ‘cuz it only gets harder.” I wasn’t feeling anxious about math until that meeting. In fact, I have always loved math and have a high aptitude for math. But worry and anxiety washed over me. There was no one to ask about this that I knew. It was my second week at a huge university with 10s of thousands of students. The TA must know what he was talking about. I dropped the class. Only to pick it up again and complete the three calculus courses with success later.
Still, I read the research conducted by Jackson and colleagues and that experience came flooding back, as the researchers found that at the college level, especially freshman year, “Students were told to leave class if they did not understand the material.”
Perhaps such experiences and our own love for math and science leads us to spend time with our granddaughter and grandson doing math. Making it a game more often than not, with me playing with my grandson–who will be 4 years old in the next week–counting and arranging and rearranging. 
February 4, 2012
April 1982, my friend had an article about the birth of her twins in baby talk: THE FIRST BABY MAGAZINE where she described her experience and mentions me, her “second childbirth coach, a close friend”… Her other coach was her husband. As her labor progressed, my friend tells the story about how the nurse put an I.V. in her arm ‘just in case’ and how her two coaches looked away, leading the nurse to remark, “If you can’t watch this, how do you expect to watch these babies get delivered?” But we did. And the babies were beautiful.
I persist in believing that such classes are beneficial. Here is someone who says just what I would say about how such classes help with the process http://www.parents.com/pregnancy/giving-birth/preparing-for-labor/childbirth-classes/
But here, too, is one of those videos… http://www.parents.com/videos/m/32086618/birthing-101.htm
And another…
One more with Jimmy Kimmel’s spin…
February 1, 2012
January 31, 2012
I wrote about my own diagnosis with Lyme disease in this forum in the past. This is one of those conditions that is too often undiagnosed. It is one of the most commmon causes of peripheral neuropathy. Dad are you reading this?
It is a common cause of tiredness, exhaustion, and fatigue. It is a common cause of joint pain.
But don’t take my word for it. The Insitute of Medicine has recognized the frightening scope of this condition in the U.S. and held a workshop to get some conversation going. They are currently getting ready to conduct a fuller study. For now, you can read the workshop report for free online. Go here: http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13134#toc
Health communication’s role is highlighted on p. 36: “One participant highlighted the current gap in communications, noting that how information is provided on the Internet can vary, with implications for how those to whom it is disseminated (e.g., schools, insurance companies) will respond to the disease. The same participant called for a centralized source of information on the latest research to facilitate patient/family efforts to obtain such information. Another participant called for better communication between patients and their physicians, noting the damaging effect of this disconnection between two groups who have worked together on other illnesses. By working together in creative ways, physicians and patients may help to advance the science and understanding of the disease processes and chronic manifestations to permit earlier diagnosis and better treatment outcomes.”
On p. 31, there is a summary about conditions that often occur together with Lyme disease and need to be considered by patients and doctors as well, “Completing this community of patients are the coinfected: those with babesiosis, anaplasmosis, ehrlichiosis, or some other tick-borne infection. Surveys around the country report that ticks can transmit these well-known human diseases, yet primary care physicians almost never consider or test for them, even if they seriously consider Lyme disease.”
January 30, 2012
So I have been trying low sodium soups. When I have time, I love to make soup from scratch. But I often don’t have time. So, enter the effort to find canned soups that taste good and are good for me. My favorite when I was growing up was tomato soup. It was the simple can of Campbells. I didn’t know there was any other kind. My mom made it with milk. Probably whole milk. I have no idea when all the low fat and skim varieties of milk became available. When they did, she started to use them.
And grilled cheese. Recently, I have started to put a sliced fresh tomato on my grilled cheese sandwich before grilling it. Yummm. But I digress.
The amount of sodium in Campbell’s tomato soup sent me on a search for something healthier. 530 mg of sodium in a half cup. Sorry but I usually have a cup of soup and so — half the day’s salt for a cup of coup. Yikes. [http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-campbells-tomato-soup-i81752]
I tried a couple of different kinds of reduced sodium canned tomato soup. I didn’t like them. I tried tomato basil reduced sodium hoping that the basil would help. I didn’t like them. Until yesterday. Progresso vegetable classics tomato basil soup. 580 mg sodium in one cup compared to 1,60 in one cup of the Campbells. There was just one problem.
When I took the first bite, I knew there was sugar added. I could taste it. I got up and flipped the can over and sure enough — under the Ingredients list — sugar is the 3rd ingredient. Why? You have to be kidding me. So I went on a search of the other soups. You guessed it. Sugar. High fructose corn syrup. It’s there. You just have to look for it.
So back on the hunt I went for a homemade recipe. I found one I like. But it has V-8 juice in it. And v-8 juice, well, it has a lot of salt in it… Sigh. There is a low sodium version [http://www.v8juice.com/FAQ.aspx]
January 27, 2012
In case you missed the comment on yesterday’s post, here is a link to a shared video:
January 26, 2012
I was talking with one of my former graduate students yesterday, catching him up on the excitement we all feel as we look ahead to our grandchild’s birth. He in turn shared with me that his sister is pregnant.
I asked if they knew whether it would be a boy or a girl, and he told me that in India, there is a law that forbids doctors from telling the mother the sex of the baby. It was passed in an effort to help prevent the killing of an unborn female fetus. Apparently, boys are preferred over girls. I was shocked to learn that a country would have to adopt a law to try to prevent such acts. Are there other countries with such laws?
January 25, 2012
Yes, I have been traveling. And you may remember my story in my book, ‘Talking about health…’ where I was on spring break at the beach and got such a pain in my neck that I thought I would die. Well, this is what I know. First, physical therapy and exercises brought me back from that episode and keep me in shape for the most part. But I need a good pillow as well. For me, that turns out to be a memory foam pillow. No, I am not being paid to advertise this pillow. But it is worth telling you about it anyway. Just based on my personal experience. During my travels this past week, I started to feel that familiar neck twinge. I quickly decided to purchase a memory foam pillow to sleep on and — wallah! — no more neck pain. Here is a bit of info about how these pillows work:
January 18, 2012
I have been meaning to look up the research linked to ads about high fructose corn syrup for awhile. You know the ones. They says that the two are the same and that your body doesn’t know the difference. What they don’t every explicitly say in any of the ads I have seen is: they are both high calorie carbohydrates that should be eaten in moderation, err on the side of less rather than more.
Turns out that the Corn Refiners Association started the ad campaign to clear up misconceptions about corn syrup versus cane sugar. You can see the original ad here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scHpZ10ok0c&feature=related
I cannot embed it because the Corn Refiners have disabled embedding. After a bit of surfing, I did find one of the ads from the campaign because someone else is using it along with their personal conclusions about why corn syrup is bad. I thought it would be worth checking to see if I could find any research.
A review of the science [found here: http://ajl.sagepub.com/content/4/6/515.full.pdf+html] supports several conclusions. Of course, the broadest conclusion is that more research is needed. But that being said, here goes. On p. 519, the authors conclude,
“From a compositional standpoint, high-fructose corn syrup, sucrose, invert sugar, honey, and concentrated fruit juices are all virtually interchangeable. All of these nutritive sweeteners are composed of approximately 50% glucose and 50% fructose. All are absorbed similarly, have similar sweetness, and have the same number of calories per gram.”
