Jawbone's fitness-obsessed wristband appears to be closing in on the retail finish line. The Up pairs with what appears to be an iOS app, (no news on whether an Android version is in the pipeline), and will pile on the guilt about your disgustingly sedentary lifestyle. You can have the luxury of feeling like a weight loss reality show contestant by scheduling "get up and move" reminders when you've succumbed to watching back-to-back mediocre sitcoms with a Doritos family bag chaser. There's also a sleep tracker and a challenge tab to plot your amazing weight loss journey (or descent to an early demise) against friends and family. It'll monitor what you eat, and even tell you which foods "help you feel your best." (We think it's cake.) No word on price or arrival date just yet, so you'll just have to put up with Autom until we hear more.

[Thanks, Luke]

Jawbone's Up wristband warms up at AT&T store, wants you faster, stronger originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Oct 2011 16:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Last week, House Republicans released their draft version of the 2012 budget for labor, health and human services, and education, which, if enacted, would slash job training programs, gut key worker protections, and eliminate Pell Grants for 1 million students. The Center for American Progress’ Donna Cooper and Melissa Boteach put together showing that while the budget bill cuts these vital programs, House Republicans insist on protecting special interest tax breaks for oil companies and the wealthy:

Extreme exercise programs like P90X, CrossFit, and Insanity will without a doubt kick you into the best shape of your life in a very short amount of time—but only if you stick with their crazy-for-most routines. The majority of people (trainers I've spoken with say something like 9 out of 10) give up on these workouts because they're really intense and require an hour almost every day to do them. More »

Every other week, new research claims one food is better than another, or that some ingredient yields incredible new health benefits. Couple that with a few old wives' tales passed down from your parents, and each time you fire up your stove or sit down to eat a healthy meal, it can be difficult separating food fact from fiction. We talked to a group of nutritionists and asked them to share the food myths they find most irritating and explain why people cling to them. Here's what they said. More »

I had the opportunity to use a Fitbit Ultra, the successor to a glorified pedometer that has become oddly popular and addictive to a certain subset of non-torpid technophiles. To be clear, the desire to measure your days in terms of steps taken is an old one (there is heard tell of an old Chinese tradition of walking 10,000 steps a day to reach health and prosperity), but the Fitbit does this in a decidedly 21st century fashion.

The device connects wirelessly to a small base-station/charger and records the steps taken as well as, when the device is strapped to your wrist, a fairly spotty rendition of your sleep patterns. A small OLED readout tells you current stats including calories burned, distance travelled, and steps taken. It snaps to your clothing like a clothespin and lasts about a week on a single charge. When you approach the base station the device sends its stats to the Internet where they are compiled and presented as handsome charts and graphs of current activity.

I gave the Fitbit a try early on in its creation and found it slightly lacking, especially in that it broke in half after a bit of use. I found the thought of measuring my every step as slightly disconcerting, a sort Prufrockian measure of one’s day, existence reduced to blue numbers on a little piece of plastic. However, as I began testing the $99 Fitbit Ultra, a slightly upgraded version that adds a stopwatch and altimeter for measuring stair climbs, I began to warm to the device’s charms.

This is why I’m fat

Call me a sucker for simplicity, but the thought I could improve my fitness by strapping a little thinger to my pants and walking around is fairly compelling. Wearing it for a while I noticed that I was decidedly sedentary and even my bursts of exercise that I attempt of an evening barely pushed me past the 5,000 mark. I also saw that some folks I knew were literally walking circles around me, hitting the high 20Ks while I was piddling around in 3K by the time I went to bed. I turned off Fitbit’s automatic Twitter notifications because they were quite embarrassing.

The new Fitbit is slightly more accurate than the old version and seemed to measure other exercises better including more aerobic activities like floor workouts and running. You can feasibly trick the thing into counting biking as an exercise (a process that delightfully pads the stats) but that’s not why this product exists. In short, it’s there to tell you you need to get off your butt and walk.

You can then track your progress using the online dashboard (here is mine so you can follow my exploits). If you’re really into it, you can add food consumed as well as blood glucose levels. The dashboard also tracks your sleep by telling how much you toss and turn at night.

I have a few beefs with Fitbit, though. First, I’ve not been able to trust the device after it cracked oh so long ago. To be fair, the first versions were made of chromed plastic and could have suffered some structural problems but I’ve been overly careful with this new model. Second, if you’re not careful, you will lose the little thing. The Fitbit slipped off my pants just as I was totally getting into a long run and it now remains, unloved, pining away for my hips in the dark and cold of the Brooklyn streets. To avoid this, they recommend women attach them to their sports bras, an option that while potentially possible given my pectoral girth was not applicable in my current attire. The best place to put it – on a pocket – is also the most potentially lossy. Also the Fitbit is quite small so once it’s gone it’s gone.

If you’re willing to accept that your Fitbit may disappear on you and that you’re essentially measuring out the steps until your imminent demise, this may by the statistical-gathering tool for you. If you’re a hardcore runner, biker, luger, or anything else, this is probably not the best device. A sports watch with GPS and heart-rate monitor would be far superior. However, if you’re just now realizing you spent most of the 2000s playing WoW and reading ebooks, you may want to pick one of these up if only because you can treat your daily walks like dungeon runs and your daily records like wizardly achievements.

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That tingling feeling when your hand or foot falls asleep (a condition known as paresthesia) sure is aggravating. You can wake your hand up in under a minute, however, just by rocking your head side to side. More »

If you're trying to lose weight and find that all of the sudden it seems impossible to shed more pounds than it was at the beginning, you may have hit a plateau. Nutrition Diva suggests one way to overcome the hurdle is calorie cycling. More »

In Dunn County, North Dakota, the roads can kill you. In fact, anything you do to disturb rocks in the area, like driving or even sweeping, can kick up naturally-occurring particles that lodge in your body and give you a rare kind of lung cancer up to 30 years later. Dunn County, you see, is home to a lot of rocks containing erionite, an asbestos-like substance that's highly toxic. Unfortunately, nobody knew that until very recently. And so at least 300 miles of roads in North Dakota are paved with the stuff. More »

If you've cut yourself but don't have a bandage nearby, clinical nutritionist Stephan Dorlandt says you can stop the bleeding with a bit of cayenne pepper. More »

John Boehner’s debt ceiling proposal would add $1 trillion to the current $14.3 trillion debt limit (which would be expected to allow the government to continue borrowing into April of 2012), reduce spending immediately and cap future spending to save $1.2 trillion over 10 years, and establish a 12-member joint committee of Congress charged with reporting back to both chambers by Nov. 23 with recommendations to reduce the deficit by an additional $1.8 trillion over 10 years. The plan also calls for a vote on a constitutional balanced budget amendment before the end of 2011.

It’s a plan that the usually “mild-mannered” Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) is describing as “tantamount to a form of ‘class warfare’” that “if enacted, it could well produce the greatest increase in poverty and hardship produced by any law in modern U.S. history.” Since Boehner’s blueprint contains no tax increases and his first round of cuts targets discretionary spending, the joint committee will have no choice but to achieve its $1.8 trillion in budget reductions by cutting entitlement spending, Greenstein explains:

– As a result, virtually all of that $1.8 trillion would come from entitlement programs. They would have to be cut more than $1.5 trillion in order to produce sufficient interest savings to achieve $1.8 trillion in total savings.

– To secure $1.5 trillion in entitlement savings over the next ten years would require draconian policy changes. Policymakers would essentially have three choices: 1) cut Social Security and Medicare benefits heavily for current retirees, something that all budget plans from both parties (including House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s plan) have ruled out; 2) repeal the Affordable Care Act’s coverage expansions while retaining its measures that cut Medicare payments and raise tax revenues, even though Republicans seek to repeal many of those measures as well; or 3) eviscerate the safety net for low-income children, parents, senior citizens, and people with disabilities. There is no other plausible way to get $1.5 trillion in entitlement cuts in the next ten years. [...]

In short, the Boehner plan would force policymakers to choose among cutting the incomes and health benefits of ordinary retirees, repealing the guts of health reform and leaving an estimated 34 million more Americans uninsured, and savaging the safety net for the poor. It would do so even as it shielded all tax breaks, including the many lucrative tax breaks for the wealthiest and most powerful individuals and corporations.

Congressional Quarterly’s Richard E. Cohen also reports that Boehner’s powerful panel has “no precise parallel” and will have to overcome severe logistical hurdles. “The panel would then be required to complete its work before Thanksgiving — a period of less than four months that includes the monthlong congressional August recess, two additional weeks of scheduled House breaks and three other weeks when the Senate is slated to be gone.”

It would also “have to work with existing House and Senate committees with longstanding jurisdictional claims on the issues in play and build majority support in both chambers of a divided Congress. The GOP has already cautioned that it “will not appoint any members who will approve tax hikes,” a selection criterion that “Reid and Pelosi would most certainly not follow.” The committee’s recommendations would then face up-or-down floor votes in the House and Senate without additional amendments.

You probably know whether or not you're near-sighted, but some people get so used to seeing things a certain way that they ignore a vision problem, squint a lot, and end up with unnecessary eye strain at the computer. The double-image above cuts straight to the point: If you see Albert Einstein while sitting a normal distance from your computer, you're seeing things as you should. If you see Marilyn Monroe, you should probably be wearing glasses or contacts. More »

Salt has been the enemy of everyone concerned about heart attacks and heart disease for decades now, but the relationship between high salt intake and heart disease is tenuous, Scientific American says. More »

Getting enough sleep is critical for good health, but the old advice about needing eight hours of sleep can vary by person. A better way to find your optimal bedtime is to conduct an experiment to find when you naturally wake up. Here's how. More »

Verone chose prison over pain.
James Richard Verone of North Carolina spent his whole life playing by the rules and staying out of trouble. Having worked as a delivery man for Coca Cola for 17 years, Verone was known as a hard worker and honest man.
Yet when he was laid off from Coca Cola three years ago, Verone was desperate to find work. He eventually found employment as a convenience clerk, yet he began to notice a protrusion in his chest. He developed arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome, and soon the pain became too much for him to bear. He filed for disability, but he was denied any sort of coverage by the federal government.

So earlier this month, Verone drove to a local RBC Bank and told the teller he was robbing them for a dollar. He said he wanted to rob the bank in order to go to jail and get medical coverage:

Verone didn’t want to scare anyone. He executed the robbery the most passive way he knew how. He handed the teller a note demanding one dollar, and medical attention. “I didn’t have any fears,” said Verone. “I told the teller that I would sit over here and wait for police.” [...]
Verone says he’s not a political man. But he has a lot to say on the subject of socialized medical care. He suspects he wouldn’t be talking to a reporter through a metal screen wearing an orange jumpsuit if such an option were available in the U.S. “If you don’t have your health you don’t have anything,” said Verone. The man has high hopes with his recent incarceration. He has seen several nurses and has an appointment with a doctor Friday.The ideal scenario would include back and foot surgery and a diagnosis and treatment of the protrusion on his chest, he said.

Verone told the local press he would like to serve in prison long enough to be able to get out in time to collect Social Security benefits that he paid into his entire life. He also hopes to be able to retire along a beach some day. Verone says that he doesn’t regret landing behind bars and that he had no choice. Between continuing a life in pain and choosing prison, he is happy with his decision. “If I had not exercised all the alternatives I would be sitting here saying, ‘Man I feel bad about it,’” he said. “I picked jail.” The United States is the only wealthy country that does not offer comprehensive universal health care to every citizen; in no other rich country would anyone be faced with such a choice.

Making a commitment to losing weight usually involves making a serious commitment to change your lifestyle permanently. Most of us immediately tackle diet and exercise, but there's another area often overlooked that many of us need to adjust to live healthier lives: sleep. More »

The seven Republicans who took part in yesterday’s presidential debate in New Hampshire all promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act without offering alternatives for expanding access to insurance or lowering health care costs. Instead, the GOP fudged the facts of the law and stood by Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) proposal to privatize the Medicare program. Below is a one minute compilation of the GOP’s top six health care myths and the facts that undermine their claims:

– CLAIM 1 FROM BACHMANN: The Congressional Budget Office said the Affordable Care Act will kill 800,000 jobs. FACT: The CBO actually found that some people would leave the workforce or work less because they can find affordable health coverage elsewhere. This is a reduction in the supply of labor, not a reduction in the supply of jobs.

– CLAIM 2 FROM BACHMANN: Obamacare took $500 billion out of Medicare, shifted it to build a new entitlement for young people. FACT: The health law does not cut the current Medicare budget; it slows the growth in the program by removing $500 billion from future spending over the next 10 years. The cuts help stabilize Medicare by eliminating overpayments and slowly phasing in payment adjustments that encourage greater efficiency. As a result, the law extends the life of the Medicare trust fund by nine years and allows seniors to retain all of their guaranteed Medicare benefits.

– CLAIM 3 FROM ROMNEY: I would issue an executive order paving the way for Obamacare waivers to all 50 states. FACT: The executive branch and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) don’t have the authority to grant blanket waivers — those powers are reserved for Congress.

– CLAIM 4 FROM PAWLENTY: Medicare is not financially solvent. FACT: Medicare is fully solvent until 2024. After 2024, the hospital fund will still be able to meet “90 percent” of its commitments.

– CLAIM 5 FROM SANTORUM: Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan is “identical to what seniors already have” — Medicare Part D. FACT: It’s not. The government pays 74 percent of costs in Medicare Part D and grows that support at the rate of program costs. “Ryan’s plan covers about a third of beneficiary costs, and that support grows at the rate of inflation — so much more slowly than the rest of the program, or than Medicare Part D.”

– CLAIM 6 FROM SANTORUM: The Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) will ration care to seniors beginning in 2014. FACT: The IPAB kicks in if health care spending goes beyond a certain threshold and is statutorily prohibited from rationing benefits or increasing co-pays. In fact, Paul Ryan even supported a more aggressive IPAB-type reform in 2009.

Most of us have done it at least once, you see the smallest spot of mold on the crust of a loaf of bread, and you figure that if you just cut that little part off then there'll be nothing to worry about. The problem here is that the mold we see on food is really just surface spores. Like plants, mold has roots and branches—and they travel deep. More »

Pour grandma a pint and give Uncle Teddy his martini back! A new study says moderate drinking of alcohol over the age of 75 could help prevent the development of dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

The Telegraph cites the scientists bearing the good (for those who like to imbibe, of course) news that a glass of wine or a pint a day is a health benefit for seniors. Those who toss a few back are 30% less likely to develop dementia and 40% less likely to suffer from Alzheimer's disease than those who abstain, says the research.

The study, published in the journal Age and Aging, was conducted among over 3,200 Germans aged 75+ who had no preexisting dementia conditions. They were tracked over three years.

While there were no significant differences noted between types of booze, this doesn't mean you should hitch up your grandpa into position for a keg stand or line up a row of shots for your elderly neighbor, however.

"People should be aware that we are talking about mild/moderate consumption of alcohol," said Professor Siegfried Weyerer from the Central Institute of Mental Health in Mannheim, Germany. "There is no doubt that long-term alcohol abuse is detrimental to memory function and can cause neurodegenerative disease."

Moderate drinking in old protects against dementia [Telegraph]

The good news is that after having two procedures on her spine last fall, Jackie is able to walk again. The bad news is that even though the two procedures were identitcal, United is only paying for the first one and not the second, and won't actually explain why. She has appealed the decision, but things don't look promising.

I had two identical procedures performed on my spine. One 10/28/10 and the second 11/28/10. United Healthcare covered the SECOND one but denied the first one and is sticking me with the bill. Remember, these were identical procedures. I got the run around that my doctor didn't code correctly, then there was the 'not enough medical proof', then the 'not deemed necessary', etc. There were many many excuses.

United Healthcare has a 36 page medical chart that is mine that they claim they don't have, yet I have proof that they received it. HIPPA violation anyone? Yet they still say they don't have enough information. My doctor requested a peer to peer review and United Healthcare won't call them back if it was to save a life. Ridiculous.

Today they told me it has been denied and my only recourse is to appeal, which I am doing. But if they decide to say no AGAIN, I will be stuck with a $1400.00 bill because United Healthcare decided what was best for my health.

Thanks to the procedures though, I am able to walk again.

Health insurers are large, terrifying bureaucracies with great power over our lives and our money. Oher readers have been able to put a human face on United and get help by calling the consumer advocate hotline at 1-800-842-2656. Other readers have been successful with an executive e-mail carpet bomb, if you need to take your case to a higher authority.

RELATED:
EECB Scores Direct Hit On United Health Care
EECB Gets United Healthcare To Cough Up $1,100

Sitting is killing you. Numerous studies have pointed to the health risks of sitting all day, but here you have in one illustration how prolonged sitting affects our bodies and reminders to interrupt sitting time whenever possible. More »

A standing desk can help you avoid the health risks of sitting at a desk all day and also burn more calories while you're at it. This calorie-burn calculator from Just Stand reveals just how many extra calories. More »

Moving anytime soon? If you enjoy living, you may want to consult a natural disaster map. The United States is full of places to live that are both high and low risk—they just might not be where you think they are. More »

A compound found in chocolate outperforms over-the-counter and codeine-based cough-suppressants in clinical trials. The compound, theobromine, was written up in the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology Journal following a small placebo-controlled study at Imperial College London. Our GP told us that the best thing for a cough was a spoonful of honey, and it's pretty much all we use around our house (well, that and the vile, repulsive, disgusting, incredibly effective Buckley's Mixture -- but that's a last resort).

The researchers believe theobromine acts on the sensory nerve endings of the vagus nerve, which runs through the airways in the lungs to the brain. Capsaicin stimulates these endings to provoke coughing.

The team explored their hypothesis by looking at theobromine's action on the vagus nerve in separate experiments involving guinea pigs and excised human trachea tissue.

Their results confirmed that theobromine does indeed inhibit the capsaicin-induced sensory nerve depolarisation in the vagus nerve.

Persistent coughs melt away with chocolate

(via Amanda Palmer)

(Image: Chocolate, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from 26149290@N02's photostream)

We've sung the praises of standing desks many times before, but if you aren't quite ready to replace your desk completely, you can try it out with this simple trick. More »

If you don't use the gym as much as you should, there might be another reason besides time-constraints or laziness: Gyms are designed to be boring. The fitness fellas at Men's Journal share some "secrets" about how gyms operate, and how to use that knowledge to improve your fitness program. More »

What if a computer algorithm could predict, based on patient profiles and low-level symptoms, who would need hospital care within the next year? The Heritage Health Prize thinks that just such an algorithm would save both lives and money, and they're starting up a contest aimed at developing it. There's a $3 million prize on the line, as well as $230,000 in progress prizes.