Review the top stories of 2016.
EpiPen, future of Obamacare among
1: This Oct. 24 photo shows the HealthCare.gov 2017 website home page on display in Washington. 2: Former President Jimmy Carter delivers a lecture Feb. 3 on the eradication of the Guinea worm, at the House of Lords in London. 3: This 2006 file photo shows a female Aedes aegypti mosquito in the process of acquiring a blood meal from a human host. The Zika virus is transmitted to people primarily through the bite of an infected Aedes aegypti species mosquito.
4: A study of contestants from TV’s “The Biggest Loser” found that when people lost large amounts of weight, their bodies burned calories at a significantly slower rate than others their size.
I hope Santa was good to you. For a guy who doesn’t seem to care much about working out, he has a discerning eye for high-tech fitness gadgets; I found a GPS running watch in my stocking!
With Christmas in the rearview mirror, the new year is almost upon us. But before the ball drops, how about sharing your take on five — nah, make that seven — big health stories from 2016?
Dr. Prescott prescribes
7. The soda tax man cometh: When Michael Bloomberg, then the mayor of New York City, proposed a limit of 16 ounces on sugary soft drinks in 2012, he was savaged by opponents and ridiculed by late-night comedians. But in 2016, voters in Philadelphia, San Francisco and four other communities across the country passed taxes on the sugary soft drinks. So what’s changed? Although we’ve long known that sodas are major culprits behind obesity and diabetes, cash-strapped cities are increasingly looking for new sources of revenue. Going forward, expect to see more communities levying taxes aimed at “Big Soda.” Indeed, earlier this month, a study from Harvard projected that if Oklahoma City adopted a soda tax, it would generate $26 million in annual revenues.
6. EpiPen outrage: When Mylan raised the price of epinephrine injectors to $600 for a pair, the public outrage was swift and deafening. “It’s not OKto put profits over people,” said one EpiPen user, who gathered with others in New York this summer to protest the sixfold increase in the cost of the lifesaving drug since 2007. Mylan, which controls roughly 90 percent of the market, recently introduced a generic version of the EpiPen that will sell for half the price. But until we make real reforms for how we price medications, drug prices will continue to soar.
5. Rethinking cholesterol: You know that portion of the food label that lists how much cholesterol what you’re about to eat contains? According to revised guidelines issued by the government last year, you’re now free to ignore it. The guidelines are based on extensive studies showing that in most people, dietary intake of cholesterol doesn’t affect the levels of cholesterol in our blood. Similarly, in most people, cholesterol intake doesn’t impact health outcomes (such as the chances of suffering a heart attack). So if you’ve been religiously controlling your cholesterol intake, go ahead and celebrate with a few eggs.
4. Battle of the bulge: We all knew that keeping weight off was hard. Watershed research from 2016 helped explain why. A study of contestants from TV’s “The Biggest Loser” found that when people lost large amounts of weight, their bodies burned calories at a significantly slower rate than others their size. It’s part of the body’s wiring, which tries at all costs to keep us from starving to death. And that’s exactly what it thinks is happening when we go on a diet. While this may sound depressing, those of us who have tried and failed to shed weight should take some solace. It’s not that we lack willpower; it’s just that
5: Recent studies show that in most people, dietary intake of cholesterol doesn’t affect the levels of cholesterol in their blood. 6: On July 8, a pharmacist holds a package of EpiPens epinephrine auto-injector, a Mylan product, in Sacramento, California. 7: This Sept. 15, 2011, photo shows the nutrition label on a can of soda with the ingredient high fructose corn syrup, in Philadelphia, which passed a tax on sugary drinks. [AP FILE PHOTOS]