The Obesity Paradox: While overweight people are more prone to heart failure, patients with heart failure have lower mortality rates if they are obese.

MIT scientists are trying to enable Type I diabetes patients to test their blood sugar levels with light. It beats using a needle.

New York female/male life expectancy gap is wider than in the rest of the country. Reason: New York women have healthier lifestyles.

Guess whose medical bills the federal government is paying? General Motors, General Electric, Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo, Alcoa, Intel, and Pfizer.

Nebraska Governor to educators: Help repeal ObamaCare or face spending cuts.

Robert Barro: Unemployment insurance has increased the unemployment rate by 2.7 percentage points.

Hewitt on ObamaCare: 90% of companies said they anticipate losing grandfathered status by 2014, with the majority expecting to do so in the next two years.

Do you know the religion of your doctor?  It may affect your end-of-life care.

Only 11.9% of U.S. hospitals have adopted at least basic electronic medical records, and only about 2% meet government standards.

Does skim milk lower blood pressure? Apparently.

Can patients be “nudged” into signing up for auto-refill prescriptions? Yes.

Do text message reminders get women to take their birth control pills? No.

Did the stimulus package cost more than the Iraq War? One researcher says “yes.”

Steve Wynn: China is more friendly to capitalism than the United States. (Great video interview with CNBC.)

More EMRs mean loss of privacy. “More than five million people have been affected by breaches of medical information in the last 18 months.”

Britain’s comparative effectiveness agency (NICE): £21,000 is too much to spend for an extra 6 weeks of life.

Are superheroes bad role models for young boys? “Today’s superhero is too much like an action hero who participates in non-stop violence; he’s aggressive, sarcastic and rarely speaks to the virtue of doing good for humanity.”

Coming to a classroom near you: Robot teachers.

What kills more people than car crashes and suicides? In Wisconsin, it’s falls. (HT to Health Business Blog.)

Coming to their senses or just concerned about costs? The new risk pools will allow HSA plans.

One way to spend stimulus money: on signs that tell people how wonderful stimulus money is.

Results we like: Moderate drinking, especially wine, associated with better cognitive function.

UK is way ahead of U.S. on allowing the elderly and the disabled more control over their health care money: “Exotic holidays, internet dating subscriptions and adventure breaks, as well as visits to sex workers and lap dancing clubs have been permitted under the system.”

Palliative care adds 3 months of life for terminal lung cancer patients. Also, there is more happiness and mobility and less pain.

An eye for an eye: A Saudi judge has asked several hospitals in the country whether they could damage a man’s spinal cord as punishment after he was convicted of attacking another man with a cleaver and paralyzing him.

This is the Cost of Government Day: The average American has now earned enough gross income to pay off his or her share of this year’s spending and regulatory burdens imposed by government at the federal, state, and local levels.

Whooping cough is back. “Highly contagious, spread by coughs and sneezes, pertussis is now epidemic in California.”

British scientists endorse MacStatins. Should fast food restaurants offer a cholesterol-lowering pill with their food?

Dark chocolate reduces blood pressure. But is it better than pills?

For every 1,000 patients on calcium supplements, an additional 14 heart attacks and 10 strokes would occur. But 26 fractures would be prevented.

One more good thing about global warming. Cold weather increases heart attacks.

Florida docs vote “no confidence” in the AMA. Finally, the doctors get some backbone.

Can exercise make you less angry? Apparently.

Congress already has the power to deny citizenship to the children of illegal aliens. No other developed country gives citizenship to “anchor babies — children born after a mother briefly crosses the border to give birth.”

Projected nursing shortage could be worse than doctor shortage. So where will the newly insured get their care?