Maoist China during the period between 1958 and 1976 was one of the world’s widest users of public health posters and announcements. It was almost impossible to go anywhere in the country without seeing some form of health poster telling citizens to do a certain thing or not do a certain thing in the interest of public health. Then, unlike now, China had a nationalized health care system. Today, China relies on a variety of health care options, including employer provided coverage (known in China as laobao yiliao) and individual health insurance policies.

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Last year was quite the roller coaster of a year. Even if your personal life was a bit of a snooze-fest, there was enough happening with the rest of the world to keep things interesting. We elected a new President, the country’s finances came crashing down around us, the auto companies took a swim and the Philadelphia Phillies won the World Series. Jaw-dropping things weren’t just occurring in the stock and housing markets-they were happening in medicine and health as well. From ravings about running to BDNF, read on to find out what healthy happenings occurred in this past year.

A Healthy Thyroid Equals a Happy Human

If your thyroid is out of whack, it can throw the rest of your body into a tailspin as well. You may only associate thyroid problems with people who are obese, but people at a healthy weight can have their thyroid act up as well. Some thyroid problems can be treated with medicine, but if you are experiencing thyroid issues stemming from lifestyle stimuli (i.e. pollution, what you are eating, emotional stress…) then you may have some work ahead of you.

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It is no secret that I am a huge proponent of a universal health care system being instituted in the United States. If you have followed my blogs on medhealthinsurance.com at all, I somehow often manage to slip in a little blip about universal health care and all its glory, even if I’m talking about something as seemingly mundane as doctor’s visits. It is also no secret that this country is slipping deeper and deeper into a financial maelstrom. Experts may still be calling it a recession, but we are just a hop, skip and a jump away from a full-blown depression.

If we want to avoid an economic situation similar to that in the 1930’s, the government needs to do something, and fast. Obviously, the economic stimulus packages didn’t do what they were supposed to do, though I did enjoy having the extra money to fly home and see family in California. Borrowing more money and throwing it at the American consumers in hopes of “shoring up the economy” is a plan that just doesn’t seem to be working, and another path needs to be taken. And as you will see in the rest of this post, a universal health care plan might just be that path we need to sprint down.

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If you’re anything like me, and many other HBO-loving Americans, you have seen a few episodes of “The Sopranos.” Ok, if you’re anything like me you’ve sat down and watched marathons of the show on DVD for weeks at a time, but that’s besides the point. There are a few of the mobster’s mothers who have to be cared for in assisted living and nursing home, and they are not shy about mentioning how much that type of care is costing them to pay for. Even if you’ve never seen a minute of this show and don’t have anyone in your life who needs long term care, it can’t be hard to imagine that it costs an arm and a leg.

Factor in the cost of the room combined with availability of medical services and round-the-clock attention and you can understand why a year’s worth of care in a private room back in 2007 cost $74,806. If you are looking into long term care insurance to help cover these astronomical costs for a member of your family, there are a lot of things to know and consider.

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Over the course of time, human beings have developed some wonderful medical advances and answers to some of science’s greatest mysteries. The medical practices that have been discovered and put into place have helped save hundreds of thousands of lives, but what about the theories that have proved unhelpful and downright crazy? Read on for some of the most off-the-wall and bizarre things that doctors and scientists have dreamed up.

Bizarre Medical Practice #1: Urine Therapy

You may be wishing you misread that title, but you haven’t. Urine therapy really did involve pee, and usually your own. This practice has been popular in multiple eras throughout time, including the Renaissance and in different cultures around the world like Rome, China, India and France. Urine supposedly aids in whitening teeth, protecting the skin, getting rid of acne, strep throat (can you imagine gargling with pee instead of a salt rinse?), and healing broken bones. I’m really not sure how that last one is supposed to work. Sometimes doctors have suggested that urine be ingested, and others have thought that a paste put directly onto the skin would help. This is one bizarre medical practice that actually hasn’t been debunked, as some cultures around the world really do believe that drinking your own pee can be good for you.

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Yersinia Pestis virus under an electron microscope – the source of Bubonic and Pneumonic Plague

Last October, biologist Eric York stumbled upon the carcass of a female mountain lion in the picturesque Grand Canyon. She was a female he had been tracking for years, so her seemingly mysterious death was a concern to him. The mountain lion showed no outward signs of harm, only sporting a bloody nose.

Being curious about the cause of the lion’s death prompted York to haul the lion back to his garage to perform the autopsy (apparently, the Grand Canyon lacks a mammalian forensics lab). On November 2, York was found dead on his couch by a roommate. Experts can only guess that York cut the lion open and inhaled plague fumes, and that was what lead to his death. The plague, a mass killer in the Middle ages in Europe, usually lives in rodents, so York would have no reason to suspect the lion had encountered one, as lions usually stalk bigger game. But is there a risk for the United States to experience plague, and where do experts think the next plague will derive from?

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