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1 Million Homes In Foreclosure — by Catherine Morgan (cross-posted at The Care2 Election Blog)

If you are a homeowner with a mortgage, these numbers may be very scary to you…Nearly 1 in 10 Homeowners Face Loan Problems, and More Than A Million Homes Are In Foreclosure.From The Associated Press…

The foreclosure hammer is hitting ever harder. People lost their homes at the highest rate on record in the first three months of the year, and late payments soared to a new high, too — an alarming sign that the housing crisis and its damage to the national economy may only get worse.

Dumping more empty homes on an already glutted market also is likely to put a further drag on home prices — extending a vicious cycle.

Slumping home values are being blamed in large part for the rising tide of foreclosures. Troubled borrowers are left owing more to the bank than their homes are worth. They can’t sell without taking a huge financial hit, so they just walk away.

In fact, Americans’ equity in their homes — usually their single biggest asset — now has dropped to the lowest level on record in figures going back to the end of World War II.

CNN’s Cafferty File asked the question - What does it mean when more than a million homes are now in foreclosure? So far there are over 200 responses to the question. Here are just a few…

Rick writes:
It means maybe, maybe, Washington will begin to realize just how much the American people are hurting. From the mortgage crisis to gas prices, our leaders still have their blinders on. At some point, they’ll have to stop paying lip service to these problems and actually start addressing them. We can only hope.

Linda writes:
People can’t afford gas to get to work or look for work, high unemployment rates, high cost of health care to name a few. How can one make a mortgage payment when they can’t even afford a few gallons of gas?

Rick from West Hollywood, Calif. writes:
1 million homes in foreclosure and a recession “longer and deeper” than anyone realizes mean one thing: George Bush and the GOP’s chickens are coming home to roost. And we are the newspaper lining the chicken coop floor.

Also See:

Video of Ed McMahon - talking about his possible foreclosure.

More Million Dollar Foreclosures

The Housing Crisis Is NOT Over

For Those Of You Counting

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Can Ibuprofen Reduce Alzheimer’s Risk? — by Catherine Morgan (cross-posted at BlogHer)

I guess most of us either know or have known someone with Alzheimer’s, maybe that person was even a relative. Like many other diseases, Alzheimer’s is thought to run in families. That is why when I read that there was a new study linking the long-term use of ibuprofen to a decrease in risk for Alzheimer’s, I had to learn more.

Don’t go out and buy a bottle of Motrin just yet. Although this study seems promising, there is no recommendations that anyone should take ibuprofen for the purpose of preventing Alzheimer’s. Much more needs to be studied in order to determine whether the benefits of ibuprofen outweigh the risk of long-term use.

From WebMD…

The long-term use of ibuprofen and possibly other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory pain relievers may help protect against Alzheimer’s disease, but it is still not clear if the risks outweigh the potential benefits.

Use of ibuprofen pain relievers like Advil and Motrin for more than five years reduced Alzheimer’s risk by 44% in a study reported in the May issue of Neurology.

Long-term users of several other types of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) also had a lower than expected risk of Alzheimer’s.

Ibuprofen users seemed to derive the most protection after five years of use, but researcher Steven C. Vlad, MD, of Boston University School of Medicine, says it is far too soon to recommend the use of this or any other NSAID to lower Alzheimer’s risk.

“I would not advise patients to start taking an NSAID to prevent Alzheimer’s,” Vlad tells WebMD. “There are too many known risks associated with this class of medications, and we would need a lot more research to figure out the risk-benefit ratio.”

In researching this ibuprofen study, I came across another recent study. This study seems to link Diabetes to an increased risk for Alzheimer’s.

From A Weight Lifted: Diabetes and Alzheimer’s Linked

Did you know that people with type 1 or type 2 diabetes have a 30 to 65 percent greater risk for Alzheimer’s? Until now, researchers have been mystified as to the reason behind the link, but a recent study (published in the current online issue of Neurobiology of Aging by the Salk Institute for Biological Studies) has pinpointed the molecular connection.

Here are some more Alzheimer’s related blogs…

Rust-Tex: Help End Alzheimer’s Disease

This quilt is up for auction now through May 10 to raise money for the the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI), which is an Internet-driven, grassroots, totally volunteer effort to raise awareness and fund research through art. Ami Simms founded the AAQI in January 2006 because her mother has Alzheimer’s disease. All profit is donated to Alzheimer’s research.

My quilt uses rust dyed fabric, seed beads, plastic beads, metal leaves, cotton boucle. It is machine pieced, machine quilted, couched, and free motion machine embroidered. The cat is made of ultra suede and colored with water soluble colored pencils. The entire piece is 8.875″ x 8.875″.

Mine is not the only one up for auction. You can see them all here. Your generous bid is appreciated by the artists who made these beautiful quilts and by everyone struggling to end this disease.

From ask allison: the middle-aged woman’s go to girl: Alzheimer’s and Caregiving

One of my fellow mid-life lady bloggers, Karen over at Mid-life’s a Trip, has some excellent blog posts related to caregiving and Alzheimer’s. As caregiver to her mother who has Alzheimer’s, and dear friend to a 50 something woman with the disease, she holds the subject close to her heart.

A great informational resource as Karen points out is a recent article in the NY Times. This excellent guide provides information on causes, treatments, exams and tests, and more.

I found this video on Alzheimer’s and Caregivers at Alzheimer’s Notes…

Also See:

Mondays With Mother: An Alzheimer’s Story — In 2002 my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. It is a hard road, and we live it one day at a time. This is a chronicle of her disease and my Monday visits with her.

BlogHer Contributing Editor Laurie wrote - Alzheimer’s and Another Love: How Spouses Cope

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How old is your heart? Did you know smoking can add twenty years to the age of your heart? That seems like a pretty good reason to stop. What about stress? Stress can cause as much damage to your heart as smoking. Could you quit stressing?

ALSO SEE MY BlogHer POST ON THIS ISSUE

and Healthcare For All (except the sick)? at The Political Voices of Women

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Lasik Eye Surgery. Is it worth the risk? — by Catherine Morgan (cross-posted at BlogHer)

I have 20/20 vision…Just as long as my contacts are in my eyes, or my glasses are on my face. So I can totally understand why people are getting Lasik surgery. If I could afford it, I would be jumping on the Lasik surgery bandwagon along with everyone else.

There is nothing worse than waking up in the morning and not being able to find your glasses. Did they get knocked off the bedside table? Did you put them in a different spot? Then you blindly feel around the room until you finally find them. Those are the days I wish I could have Lasik surgery.

Everyone I know who has had this surgery has been happy with it, so I was I little surprised to read this article from the Associated Press…

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Why Is Life Expectancy For Women Going Down In America? - by Catherine Morgan (cross-posted at BlogHer)

A new study has found that the life expectancy for women in the United States is on the decline. But don’t worry, this is not something that will affect ALL women in our country - just the poor women.

Even more troubling, is that the study doesn’t include any statistics after 1999. What that means is, the Bush years have not been figured into these statistics. I can only imagine how the last eight years of the Bush administration have impacted the reality of these numbers.

It seems like it wasn’t that long ago, that I heard how the US life expectancy had slipped in ranking from 11th to 42nd, behind most European countries.

John Edwards was absolutely right when he talked about two Americas. Try to picture America on one side, and a third-world country on the other. Now picture that third-world country within the United States. Thanks to a failing economy and a serious health care crisis, that is exactly what we face today. It’s really not surprising at all. Very sad, but not surprising.


From The New York Times…

Life expectancy has long been growing steadily for most Americans. But it has not for a significant minority, according to a new study, which finds a growing disparity in mortality depending on race, income and geography.

The study, published Monday in the online journal PLoS, analyzed life expectancy in all 3,141 counties in the United States from 1961 to 1999, the latest year for which complete data have been released by the National Center for Health Statistics. Although life span has generally increased since 1961, the authors reported, it began to level off or even decline in the 1980s for 4 percent of men and 19 percent of women.

“It’s very troubling that there are parts of the wealthiest country in the world, with the highest health spending in the world, where health is getting worse,” said Majid Ezzati, the lead author and an associate professor of international health at Harvard. It is a phenomenon, he added, “unheard of in any other developed country.”

Listen to an interview on NPR…

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Health News: DASH Diet Saves Lives, Healthcare Crisis Affecting Prescription Co-Pays, Breast Cancer Screening.

Are you interested in lowering your blood pressure? Reducing your risk of heart disease? If so, you may want to consider the DASH Diet.

When compared to a typical America diet, women following a DASH diet were 24 percent less likely to have a heart attack, and 18 percent less likely to have a stroke. This is a pretty big deal, especially considering that the number one cause of death in women is heart disease.

Diet Reduces Heart Attacks, Strokes.

A large study offers the strongest evidence yet that a diet the government recommends for lowering blood pressure can save people from heart attack and stroke.

Researchers followed more than 88,000 healthy women for almost 25 years. They examined their food choices and looked at how many had heart attacks and strokes. Those who fared best had eating habits similar to those recommended by the government to stop high blood pressure.

The plan, called the DASH diet, favors fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat milk and plant-based protein over meat.

Women with those eating habits were 24 percent less likely to have a heart attack and 18 percent less likely to have a stroke than women with more typical American diets.

From WebMD

A healthy diet rich in fruits and vegetables and low in fat has long been touted as heart smart. Now, increasing evidence suggests that a similar diet reduces blood pressure and decreases a woman’s risk for heart attack and stroke.

Scientists reporting in the April 14 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine have found that healthy, middle-aged women who closely followed the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet have lower rates of cardiovascular disease (CVD) than women who do not follow such diets.

“Our study provides, to our knowledge, the strongest evidence to date on the long-term benefits of the DASH diet in the primary prevention of CVD among healthy subjects,” writes Teresa T. Fung, ScD, of Simmons College, Boston.

National dietary guidelines promote the DASH diet as an example of a healthy eating pattern. The diet comprises plenty of fruits, vegetables, and plant proteins from legumes and nuts, and moderate servings of low-fat dairy products. It is low in meat.

Also See:

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Is This Post About Hillary Clinton, Women’s Health, Ellen DeGeneres, or Breast Cancer? All of the above? - by Catherine Morgan (cross-posted at BlogHer)

Hillary Clinton was a guest on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on Monday. I didn’t actually see it, but I did see several reports of it on the cable news channels. The media was very thorough and quick to compare Clinton’s mock bowling with Ellen, to Obama’s gutter ball of last week. [Personally, up until that moment I had been undecided, but after seeing the riveting side by side bowling comparison, I’m now totally committed to one candidate.]

Anyway, one station was even observant enough to report on the differences between Barack’s “Ellen Show” strategy and Hillary’s…It seems Hillary didn’t do a jig with Ellen, but Barack did. So thanks to Hillary’s appearance on Ellen yesterday, the evening news programs had a lot of great election news to cover. The level of journalistic integrity on this important election coverage was nonexistent. I even continued to see the same coverage several times today, so I could only assume nothing politically relevant happened during Hillary’s appearance on Ellen. However, it wouldn’t actually be safe to assume that.

To my surprise I happened upon this blog post from Shakesville: Hillary and Ellen…

Hillary Clinton was a guest on Ellen yesterday, and, although I haven’t generally been in the habit of posting talk show appearances of the various candidates, I watch all of them (even John McCain—grumble), and I thought this one was worth posting because the two Dem candidates’ positions on gay rights have been the subject of much debate around here recently, and Hillary spoke to Ellen about gay rights and told a very personal story about people who influenced her support of equality and fairness (love that framing!). She also spoke about an objective that I thought would be of interest to a lot of Shakers: Making breast cancer curable in the next decade.

Hillary said what? She wants to make breast cancer curable? That seems like a pretty big deal, but all I had heard was that she couldn’t hit more than one plastic pin down with a plastic ball.

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Lisa Stone of BlogHer is asking…

How many women’s lives can we save with donations from the BlogHer community, between now and Mother’s Day, May 11, 2008? — CLICK HERE TO DONATE

If you will download this widget today and encourage your readers to donate, we can find out. Won’t you join us?

Here’s what we’re up to: As part of our BlogHers Act commitment to make a difference on the issue of maternal health, BlogHer has joined forces with Global Giving to help save women’s lives and we need your help.

* Every year, 529,000 women die from pregnancy-related causes.
* Children who have lost their mothers are up to 10 more times more likely to die prematurely than those who haven’t.
* More than 80 per cent of maternal deaths worldwide are due to five direct causes: haemorrhage, sepsis, unsafe abortion, obstructed labour and hypertensive disease of pregnancy.
* Most maternal deaths (61 per cent) take place during labour, delivery or in the immediate post-partum period. Some 3.4 million newborns die within the first week of life.
UNFPA

By harnessing the power of women online, our contributions will improve maternal health and save women’s lives. Your donation to one or more of these projects can save women’s lives by supplying health care, birthing kits, education, trained birthing attendants, meals, and much, much more.

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What Women Need To Know About Environmental Causes of Cancer — by Catherine Morgan (cross-posted at BlogHer)

Last week the Breast Cancer Fund released it’s State of the Evidence Report for 2008. The 2008 report, provides the most comprehensive listing to-date of chemicals linked to breast cancer. It also provides a much more complex picture of breast cancer causation than traditionally accepted, one in which timing, mixtures and dose of environmental exposures interact with genes and lifestyle factors.

In conjunction with the release of this report, they also held a blogger-only telephone conference to discuss the report. The informative conference featured Janet Gray, Ph.D., and Breast Cancer Fund Executive Director Jeanne Rizzo, R.N., and for an hour they took questions from bloggers on the latest studies linking environmental exposures to breast cancer.

Findings…

While each study, chemical and exposure source alone doesn’t tell the whole story, looking at them together allows us to better understand how to prevent the disease. Learn more about major emerging themes in breast cancer causation through the links below.

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What’s up in health news? — by Catherine Morgan (cross-posted at BlogHer)

Well, there are new studies on living to be 100, and the health risks of diet soda. It also seems that doctors aren’t addressing the problem of depression with patients suffering with rheumatoid arthritis.

Do you hope to live to be 100?

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A Tour Around Health and Political Blogs, that are taking on the issue of healthcare reform. — by Catherine Morgan (cross posted at BlogHer)

With more and more people becoming uninsured in our country, healthcare reform is becoming an increasingly important issue.

Voters are interested in knowing where the candidates stand on the issue of healthcare. Now you can find health bloggers and political bloggers addressing healtcare reform. Here is a quick tour around some of these bloggers talking about the issue of healthcare and healthcare reform.

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I think we probably have all suffered from some degree of emotional health issues in our lives.

Whenever someone talks to me about feeling depressed or anxious, the first thing I say to them is…you are not alone. We’ve all been there in some way or another. I also think that acknowledging you have a problem is half the battle. And that doesn’t make you “insane” or “crazy”. Really…How many “crazy” people realize they’re crazy? I think the most sane thing a person can do is admit they are feeling depressed or anxious, and reach out for help.

The Internet is a great place to get information, and there are a lot of sites with articles on dealing with stress and anxiety.

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Why are so many kids overweight? And, how can we help them? (cross-posted at BlogHer)

I just came across this new study about Why Poor Kids are Heavy, and I decided to do my post on it. It seems that so many more children are overweight today, than I remember were overweight when I was growing up. Childhood obesity has become an epidemic. Why is that? Could it be too much television? Video games? Fast food? Well, there are a lot of theories, and this new study only suggests that more studies need to be done. Typical.

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Healthy Living and The Great American Health Challenge — by Catherine Morgan (cross-posted at BlogHer)

We’ve been talking a lot about making healthy lifestyle changes since the New Year. If you are one of the millions that wants to become healthier in 2008, you may be interested in this program…

The American Cancer Society is introducing an exciting new program on Thursday, it’s called The Great American Health Challenge. The campaign is designed as a comprehensive prevention and early detection program. It’s a simple program with four interactive tools to provide information and encourage healthy lifestyles.

The Great American Health Challenge is based on four simple things…

1) Check — Take a quick quiz that screens you for potential risk factors, and promotes early detection and treatment.

2) Move — Encouraging exercise by finding activities that are best suited for your lifestyle.

3) Nourish — Maintain a healthy weight, learn about healthy eating and get tips on diet and nutrition.

4) Quit — Information and tools to help you quit smoking.

So that’s it, four easy steps that could help you prevent cancer and heart disease.

You can also participate in BlogHer’s Good Health-A-Thon.

BlogHer’s Good Health-a-thon is all about what we can do, little by little, day by day, week by week and month by month to live healthier. It’s not a matter of saying “I’m going to go to the gym more this year” and then reviewing your progress in January of 2009, only to discover you haven’t actually used your gym card since mid-February.

Instead, the point of the Good Health-a-thon is to have each of us set simple, attainable, health-related goals for ourselves throughout the year. Our goals can be anything we want, but with the idea of broadening our definition of “health” well beyond calorie counting.

See: Week One

Other recent BlogHer Health and Wellness posts you might be interested in…

Body Image, Dieting, and Your New Years Resolution

Weighing In on the New Years Dieting Frenzy

Four Tips That Could Prolong Your Life

Ten Random Tips For Weight Loss

Journey To Physical Fitness and More

Fitness: It Changed My Life

Curvy Moms Are Brainier

Beans Are A Great Choice For Good Health

Online Diet and Fitness Tools

How Do You Choose To Diet?

Contributing Editor Catherine Morgan
also at CatherineBlogs.com and The Political Voices of Women

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Top 10 Hot Topics From Health and Wellness in 2007 — by Catherine Morgan (cross-posted at BlogHer)

It’s the last day of 2007, and I thought I would do this post on some of the hot topics from BlogHer Health and Wellness. So, in no particular order, here is what I think are the top ten.

1. A big issue for both BlogHer and women, has been body image. And recently I did this post…”Body Image, Dieting, and Your New Years Resolution“, here are a few others.

Maria Niles had “Learning the Lessons of Ugly Betty“.

Suzanne Reisman did a this great post “The Swimsuit Brigade for Honest Photos“.

Iainad did “Black Women and Body Image“.

Jennifer Satterwhite did “Moms, you are beautiful“.

2. In a related story, this year the world was introduced to a dieting product called “Alli”. But names can really be deceiving, and that sure is true with this product. Here is my post from July…Alli: “The Diarrhea Diet“.

Denise also posted on Alli, “Alli Has Allies“.

3. Another controversial drug was Gardasil, I did two posts on this topic here and here. But the Gardasil story started before my two posts.

Denise began the story with “Gardasil - for HPV - for Cervical Cancer“.

Mir Kamin did a follow-up to Denise’s post “More thoughts on Gardasil“.

Amanda Shaffer posted on “The People vs. Perry: Fallout of the Texas Gardasil Decision“.

4. Vaccines in general have always been somewhat controversial, and with all the new ones that are being developed (and mandated), this has been a hot topic. My posts were on the Chicken Pox vaccine being mandated and also, Are the Cures Becoming the Cause,.

Denise did this post on “Immunization Awareness“.

5. At the BlogHer Convention this year, I met many women who blog about Autism. Just before the convention I did this post on Autism, here are a few others.

Mary Tsao did “New Autism Study Points Finger at Moms” and “Autism: The Parent’s Perspective“.

Jennifer Satterwhite did “Children with invisible special needs“.

6. Then there is the Healthcare Crisis and SCHIP, I also did “Univeral Health Care: The Health and Wellness of Our Entire Counry Is At Stake“.

Rita Arens did “SCHIP: We’re All One Horrendous Medical Bill Away From Needing Government Aid“.

Morra Aarons did “SCHIP Childrens’ Helath Insurance: Bush Uses Executive Power to Harm America’s Children“.

7. The issue of Reproductive Rights has gotten a lot of attention…I’ve done, Man Spikes a Womens drink with RU-486, Letting Our Voices Be Heard, Battle Over the Aurora Planned Parenthood, and Is It Now A Crime To Have a Miscarriage?

Suzanne Reiman did “When Pro-Life Mean Terrorist” and “More Contraceptive Use, Fewer Abortions“.

8. Stem Cell research is another controversial issue, and I posted on it here.

Dana Tuszke did “Bush Promises to Veto Senate Stem Cell Bill“.

9. Breast Cancer a big issue at BlogHer, my posts are here and here.

Suzanne Reiman did “Pink Ribbon Madness“

10. The issue members of BlogHer have chosen for BlogHer’s Act…Is Maternal Health.

Cooper and Emily — Important Facts on Maternal Health

Well, that’s it. Happy New Year! See ya in 2008.

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