<p>
So we should eat Oreos on our toast instead of Gnutella? Confused… :D</p>
<p>Sounds like a Chelm story, NRE. ;)</p>
<p>Thank you, NRE!</p>
<p>Thanks, NRE. That fitness calculator isn’t even remotely accurate, then. After smoking fo 38 years, I’m sure my VO2max is horrible.</p>
<p>Using V02max as the sole proxy for fitness age is the same thinking that makes “cardio” a synonym for “exercise”.</p>
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<p>I’m thinking about Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups on toast for breakfast. I think that will be better than Oreos.</p>
<p>Wow. The TV show that Australian doctors wanted to get pulled off the air.</p>
<p>It started with the first of a two part series on Australian TV on saturated fat, cholesterol, and statins.</p>
<p>The first part, on diet, aired a couple weeks ago:</p>
<p>[Heart</a> of the Matter Part 1 - Dietary Villains - YouTube](<a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube)</p>
<p>Then, the effort began to block the airing of the second episode, on statin drugs:</p>
<p>[Doctors</a> want cholesterol drugs story on ABC Catalyst program pulled | News.com.au](<a href=“http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/television/doctors-want-cholesterol-drugs-story-on-abc-catalyst-program-pulled/story-e6frfmyi-1226749171466]Doctors”>http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/television/doctors-want-cholesterol-drugs-story-on-abc-catalyst-program-pulled/story-e6frfmyi-1226749171466)</p>
<p>The show on statins aired last week. Ouch:</p>
<p>[Heart</a> of the Matter Part 2 - Cholesterol Drug War - YouTube](<a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube)</p>
<p>Walked 5 miles today (didn’t go as fast as I did earlier this week) and then went to a training session afterwards. Rather than working with the TRX, which we usually do, my trainer had me working with free weights, kettle bells, and ending with big ropes. It was a nice change of pace. I get bored easily, so it’s good for me to do different kinds of fitness activities</p>
<p>Idad: can you post the link to the lab you used to get additional information for cholesterol/cardio testing. I was comparing my recent blood work with earlier blood work and saw that my new PCP didn’t ask for Cardio CRP (a measure of cardiovascular risk) nor Homocysteine level (another measure of cardiovascular risk). I’d like to compare those as well. I’m supposed to go for a follow up in two weeks, so I could ask her if she’d do those additional tests. I wonder if my health insurance doesn’t cover them?</p>
<p>
My insurance will cover testing my CRP level, but no longer covers my testing homocysteine level. They claim it is “experimental” and “unproven”.</p>
<p>Sounds like your old doc ordered what LabCorp calls their CardioPlus +CRP, hc package. You can find it by scrolling down this list of cardiovascular tests from an online vendor (that uses LabCorp locations for taking blood samples and testing). </p>
<p><a href=“Direct Access Laboratory Testing, Discount Blood Tests”>Direct Access Laboratory Testing, Discount Blood Tests;
<p>It’s a $79 package that includes most everything your doc would order for an annual physical. I know that Anthem insurance pricing for any test ordered from LabCorp by your doc is significantly cheaper than these prices, whether insurance covers it or not. So, you can use these as a worst case scenario, even if you eventually got billed for a test you want to run. Any test on their website is a standard LabCorp test or package of tests that can be ordered. They have a stand-alone CRP test as their monthly special for $29, so billed through you insurance, it’s not going to be very expensive, even if you had to pay.</p>
<p>I got the NMR LipoProfile test:</p>
<p>[The</a> Particle Test | More than a cholesterol test](<a href=“http://www.theparticletest.com/home-heathcare.html]The”>http://www.theparticletest.com/home-heathcare.html)</p>
<p>It just gives amounts of LDL, HDL, Triglycerides, particle counts for each, particle counts for each, and an “insulin resistance score” based on all of those.</p>
<p>The NMR Particle test is a standard test offered by Labcorp and Mayo Lab locations. This link gives both labs’ test number:</p>
<p>[Order</a> the Test | LDL particles cause plaque](<a href=“http://www.theparticletest.com/ordering-the-test.html#how-to-order]Order”>http://www.theparticletest.com/ordering-the-test.html#how-to-order)</p>
<p>I know that Quest Diagnostics (the other big national chain) locations can also order the test, but I was never able to find their test number (I think it is S50671). My doc uses a local Quest office and a local LabCorp office, so I just had him order everything thru LabCorp. My old doc (a large regional practice) had their own lab. I suspect that it might have been more difficult to navigate that. I don’t know.</p>
<p>To give you an idea, the online price for the NMR LipoProfile test is $127. Ordered from LabCorp from my doc, with billing thru Anthem (I paid because of my deductable), my price was $48.</p>
<p>The Vitamin D, 25 test that is $59 online was $32 when it was billed at the Anthem price (plus $2.34 for drawing the blood sample).</p>
<p>My attitude now is that, if I want a test, I just get my doc to order it when along with whatever else. Based on the online prices, I know the worst case out-of-pocket cost. That’s what I did with the Vitamin D test, when I wanted to see how it stood after three months of taking Vitamin D supplements.</p>
<p>BTW, the way it works with LabCorp is that they send a bill to Anthem with everything billed at Anthem’s approved prices. Anthem pays whatever they will cover and I get a bill directly from LabCorp for the “patient responsibility” part, i.e. the test that Anthem doesn’t pay (my deductible). Actually, they take a credit card and automatically charge my card for up to $50, so I don’t even have to pay a bill unless it’s more than that.</p>
<p>LabCorp has an arrangement with MicroSoft’s Health Vault. I can log on and get an archive all of my blood test results to view online or download as a PDF. The last time, I got my blood drawn on the Friday afternoon. At 8:30 am on Monday morning, I got the e-mail saying the results were available online.</p>
<p>This is great, because I get the results before my doctor does so I have a chance to look at them and figure out what I need to ask or discuss or whatever when I talk to him.</p>
<p>
It doesn’t always work that way.</p>
<p>I got burned on the homocysteine test - the first year my insurance company stopped paying for it, the lab billed me $200. It was the full inflated list price that insurers then negotiate 80% off or whatever. </p>
<p>Insurance company wouldn’t budge, the lab wouldn’t budge.</p>
<p>It wasn’t Anthem, it was some other insurance company. I don’t remember the lab.</p>
<p>I’ve also had a lab call me up and say, " <xyz> test costs $500 if we bill it through your insurance, and your insurance won’t cover it, so you will have to pay $500. But if you pay us directly it will only cost $79."</xyz></p>
<p>That’s frustrating. Especially because you can’t get anyone to tell you how much something will cost until after you’ve had the test. The lab won’t tell you. The insurance company won’t tell you. You doctor has no earthly idea. Don’t get me started…</p>
<p>Brisk evening here but had enough daylight for a 3.3 mile run. Cold and windy. The snow word is in the forecast. A gym upgrade might be in my future.</p>
<p>I miss running in the snow. Nothing better.</p>
<p>Day off from exercise for me. I’m trying an every other day schedule while I navigate this little cold. I did, however, find a nice bright yellow long sleeve tech t shirt at TJ MAXX.</p>
<p>They also have some more Marmot Zeus down jackets (in a nice blue color) for $99. If anyone is Christmas shopping, I can’t imagine any guy not wearing the heck out of one of these light down jackets:</p>
<p><a href=“https://d2hauqq2vokw5i.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/images/product/hires/72380_2059_f.jpg?$display$”>https://d2hauqq2vokw5i.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/images/product/hires/72380_2059_f.jpg?$display$</a></p>
<p>Speaking of clothing, my Canadian pals are ticked with Lululemon, whose founder just tried to blame inferior fabric on “some women’s bodies.” 
Here’s the link [Lululemon</a> founder Chip Wilson says yoga pants don’t work with ‘some women’s bodies’ | CTV News](<a href=“Lululemon founder Chip Wilson says yoga pants don't work with 'some women's bodies' | CTV News”>Lululemon founder Chip Wilson says yoga pants don't work with 'some women's bodies' | CTV News)</p>
<p>Watched he first of those links, idad. Great program that put a lot in context. Thanks for th link!</p>
<p>kmcmom:</p>
<p>I’m reading the book by the Harvard Public Health professor doc in the TV show, John Abrahamson:</p>
<p>[Amazon.com:</a> Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine: John Abramson](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Overdosed-America-Promise-American-Medicine-ebook/dp/B00B72CFNA/ref=tmm_kin_title_0]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Overdosed-America-Promise-American-Medicine-ebook/dp/B00B72CFNA/ref=tmm_kin_title_0)</p>
<p>He lays out a stunning case that the drug companies have undermined our entire health care system by taking over medical research, medical journals, and the medical panels that establish treatment guidelines. Through marketing of selective, misleading research, they steer treatment to very expensive drugs that sometimes are no better than the old cheap drugs, sometimes no better than nothing at all, and sometimes much worse than nothing (Vioxx, Hormone Replacement Therapy, etc.).</p>
<p>It is easy to see that the marketing of statins (by making cholesterol the villain of all villains in the medical literature) has been part and parcel of the low-fat jihad in nutrition. Despite the fact that there has never been much evidence that eating a low fat diet or lowering cholesterol improves life expectancy. To the contrary, dating back to the original “cholesterol” study, the Framingham study, people over 50 with high cholesterol lived longer than people over 50 with low cholesterol. A perfect storm for the drug companies (statins are the biggest selling drugs of all time) and the food companies (who get to put faux-healthy low cholesterol labels on a bunch of junk food products like cereals, breads, and snacks). All promoted by official guideline writing panels of experts who get hefty consulting fees from the pharma and food companies to do research paid for by the pharma and food companies to be published in respected medical journals who rely on the pharma and food companies for advertising.</p>
<p>I thought he was maybe a little over the top in the TV show when he called it “criminal”, but when you think of the damage and cost to individuals and to the health care system as a whole from the spending on crazy expensive and largely ineffective treatment, “criminal” may not be too strong. Think of what the billions spent annually on statins could do if spent on health insurance for the uninsured or effective smoking cessation programs or effective exercise programs. He makes the case that the entire medical system has been corrupted and this is why it is broken from the double whammy of out of control price increases and declining health.</p>
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</p>
<p>He probably could have figured that out long before now if he had spent a little time walking around my local grocery store! :)</p>
<p>5.7 mi run</p>
<p>Have a good weekend everyone.</p>
<p>idad- LOL. Yeah— LuLu is getting a lot of flack lately- starting with the sheer yoga pants.</p>
<p>I had a really nice run this morning. I was trying to take a different route (in Charleston) but missed a turn so went out along the waterfront like I did yesterday. I came back the way I intended to go out, and got to see some gorgeous homes. I expected Pat Conroy to step out to get his newspaper any minute! I also ran through the College of Charleston campus, which is gorgeous and RIGHT in town near all the neat shops and restaurants. I hope the students have lots of money! It was 49 with more wind than I like, but clear and pretty. It made me glad to be a runner, which I haven’t been feeling yesterday. Tomorrow morning is the “must do” run here over the big bridge. It will be about 8 1/2 for me.</p>