Like a lot of senior citizens, my mother relies on Medicare coverage. She was also recently diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer.

The infuriating part? My mother is a retired oncology nurse — she spent 27 years caring for cancer patients, and so she’d been fanatic about keeping up with her own physicals, cancer screenings and routine colonoscopies. Last July she’d had her gallbladder removed, and two months previously she’d had her appendix removed.

The “slow-growing” tumor was located precisely beneath where her appendix used to be. The doctor who missed it says he doesn’t know why he didn’t see the lemon-sized tumor during either surgery.

But, if today’s NY Times is to be believed, the failure to diagnose her cancer may be tied to her health insurance.

Previous studies have shown a correlation between insurance status and the stage of diagnosis for particular cancers. The new research is the first to examine a dozen major cancer types and to do so nationally with the most current data. It mined the National Cancer Data Base, which began collecting information about insurance in the late 1990s, to analyze 3.7 million patients who received diagnoses from 1998 to 2004.

The widest disparities were noted in cancers that could be detected early through standard screening or assessment of symptoms, like breast cancer, lung cancer, colon cancer and melanoma. For each, uninsured patients were two to three times more likely to be diagnosed in Stage III or Stage IV rather than Stage I. Smaller disparities were found for non-Hodgkins lymphoma and cancers of the bladder, kidney, prostate, thyroid, uterus, ovary and pancreas.

The study concludes that people without private health insurance are less likely to received routine screenings and timely diagnosis, and there’s a suggestion that such omissions are due to efforts to control health care costs. Ironically enough, a late stage diagnosis requires more aggressive treatment and critical care, ultimately increasing overall costs anyway.

Some time ago, I read that Courtney Love installed a lock on her refrigerator to keep herself from snacking. At the time I thought, “Gee, woman, just get some willpower!” But now?

Now I’m a lot more sympathetic. I’m also of the mind that locking my fridge wouldn’t simply prevent me from snacking and thereby ruining my diet. It would prevent my husband and son from snacking, too, and thereby ruining my diet.

What, you think that sounds like I’m blaming them for my eating habits? Well, yes, I suppose I am. But I’m not completely off-base here. Turns out, watching someone snack can lead you to snack, too. And not just any snack, either, mind you.

A study at Duke University observed how undergraduates reacted when someone was talking to them while dipping into one of two bowls of snack items. One bowl contained goldfish crackers (yum!) while the other contained animal crackers (okay, also yum). Both the speaker and the observer had access to the same two things, but the speaker only dipped into one of the two.

So what happened?

The observer dipped into the same bowl as the speaker most of the time even if they’d previously stated they preferred the other kind of snack.

“A person who views someone else’s snacking behavior will come to exhibit a similar snack selection pattern,” the researchers from Duke University, University of Maryland and the University of Amsterdam said in a statement.

“This suggests that preferences may shift as a result of unintentionally mimicking another person’s consumption behavior.”

I pointed this study out to my husband this morning as he stood in the kitchen frying bacon. Fortunately, I’d just filled up on All Bran (not so “yum”) and couldn’t think of eating another bite. But, oh, that bacon smelled goooood.

“You know what this means,” I asked him.

“Yeah,” he responded. “It means that you’re going to blame me if you suddenly decide you just have to eat a piece of bacon.”

“No, silly,” I assured him. “It means that when you drop dead of heart disease from all of that fried food I’m going to have to marry me a vegetarian.”

Oddly enough, he didn’t think it was nearly as funny as I did.

Ever since the news broke that your diet soda may be making you fat, pop-addicts have been anguishing over how to get their fizzy fix. (For Mad William it’s all about a caffeine delivery system.)

The good news? There may be a solution, but you won’t find it in the beverage aisle. Marketed by Virgil’s and Zevia, there are diet drinks containing stevia, an herb in the sunflower family. When concentrated, stevia (which is also known as sweetleaf) is 300 times sweeter than sugar, although it can have a licorice-like aftertaste in high concentrations. It has a negative effect on glucose levels, meaning that it can actually enhance glucose tolerance – a fact that’s made it popular among diabetics.

The FDA, however, has refused to approve it as a food additive and requires it be labeled as a “dietary supplement”, a fact that many big-name manufacturers including Coca-Cola are now trying to change. Its been used widely throughout Japan for over 30 years, and to date there are no conclusive reports linking it with health complications. In fact, a 2006 World Health Organization (WHO) study found that it has no carcinogenic effects whatsoever.

So why isn’t it approved for use here in the U.S. where our “war on obesity” would ordinarily prompt us to look at such alternatives? The answer, unfortunately, appears to be purely political. Keep in mind what I said earlier about the fast-tracking of aspartame at the request of Donald Rumsfeld, who was then the COO of the company which discovered and marketed Equal.

Now, note this:

In 1991, at the request of an anonymous complaint, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) labeled stevia as an “unsafe food additive” and restricted its import. The FDA’s stated reason was “toxicological information on stevia is inadequate to demonstrate its safety.”[33] This ruling was controversial, as stevia proponents pointed out that this designation violated the FDA’s own guidelines under which any natural substance used prior to 1958 with no reported adverse effects should be generally recognized as safe (GRAS)….

The FDA requires proof of safety before recognizing a food additive as safe. A similar burden of proof is required for the FDA to ban a substance or label it unsafe. Nevertheless, stevia remained banned until after the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act forced the FDA in 1995 to revise its stance to permit stevia to be used as a dietary supplement, although not as a food additive — a position that stevia proponents regard as contradictory because it simultaneously labels stevia as safe and unsafe, depending on how it is sold.[35]

While all that wrangling is going on, stevia continues to be more closely regulated by the FDA than most medical supplies. However, since it’s been categorized as a “dietary supplement” you can still buy it… you just have to go to the health food section of your grocery store. (I’ve been buying it for years.) Now, you can also buy stevia-sweetened pop, which means that Mad William can now get his caffeine fix again.

Interesting news today for those who believe switching to diet soda is a way to cut calories: you may actually be increasing your chances for “metabolic syndrome”.

Researchers tracked 9,500 men and women for a period of nine years and found that the risk of developing Syndrome X — as metabolic syndrome is sometimes called — was 34 percent higher for those drinking even one can of diet soda daily than for those who didn’t drink diet soda at all. (For contrast, people eating diets high in fried foods only experienced a 25% risk.)

Metabolic syndrome is believed to affect 50 million Americans. Its symptoms include abdominal fat, high blood pressure, insulin resistance, decreased HDL cholesterol (the good one) and elevated triglycerides. It’s associated with non-alcoholic fatty liver syndrome, polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) and iron overload, along with making weight loss darn near impossible.

Maybe it’s a good thing I can no longer find my beloved TaB soda in the store anymore.

Back in the 80s, when women actually believed we could have it all and anorexia was something only fading singers and women on SNL endured, there was a saying that “You can never be too rich or too thin”. Naturally, we’ve all since learned otherwise. Which is not to say that most of us wouldn’t still mind being rich. Or thin.

But, if you had to pick one of them, which would you choose: a million dollars or a having Jennifer Aniston’s bikini body?

A recent survey asked 6,095 women that exact question. The results? Seventy-eight percent of them would rather be rich. That statistic might actually reflect a bit of practicality, according to one of the survey authors:

“They’re probably thinking, ‘I’ll take the million dollars, I’ll use part of it to pay a trainer to get me into shape, and I’ll have some money left over,’ ” she said.

That’s exactly what I figure, too. Oh, sure, I’d like to suddenly wake up one morning and find myself thin. Who wouldn’t? But I know darned well it wouldn’t last long. Between working at the computer all day long and trying to throw together dinner every evening before collapsing on the sofa in exhaustion, those pounds would pile back on in a heartbeat.

Meanwhile, that million bucks would buy a lot of liposuction and Lean Cuisines, while also ensuring that I didn’t find myself desk-bound (and relatively immobile) all day long. Which means I’d probably get thin again in relatively short time.

How about you? Which would you choose, and why?

Carson Kressley, formerly of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, has a new TV series, How to Look Good Naked. His mission: to help overweight women stop hating themselves and feel beautiful in their own skin.

And that has ticked off the folks members of the National Action Against Obesity who feel that the show’s message is really that “obesity is beautiful”.

It’s no more logical to compliment the aesthetics of obesity than the beauty of cigarette-stained teeth or track marks on a junkie’s arm,” said NAAO President MeMe Roth. “A dangerous characteristic of obesity is denial.”

In other words, ladies and gentlemen, NAAO says that if you’re fat you’ve got no business wearing clothes that make you feel pretty, nor in looking for anything to actually like about yourself. In their view, you’re a self-abusing addict who should hate everything about yourself, including every inch of your body and everything you see in the mirror.

As far as they’re concerned, whether you’re 20 pounds overweight or the size of one of those Branson hotels, you don’t deserve to feel good at all about your body until the scale says you’re thin.

I guess it’s never dawned on NAAO that feeling crappy about one’s self is the leading cause of overeating in the first place.

I ran across an article this morning which really sent my blood pressure spiking. Doctors, it turns out, commonly prescribe placebos to patients, with over half the doctors in a Chicago study admitting that they’d done so in the past.

Sure, there are valid uses for placebos. Take, for instance, the recent study that put haloperidol and risperidone, two longstanding Johnson & Johnson drugs, to the test. The study found that placebos were more effective than the two antipsychotic drugs commonly prescribed to treat aggression in mentally disabled people. The results proved that the medications were ineffective and, since they both have significant side effects, shouldn’t be prescribed in most cases.

But surely the practice raises questions about medical ethics and maybe even contributes to the rising cost of individual health insurance? After all, thanks to this practice, both patients and insurance companies wind up paying prescription prices for what’s essentially sugar capsules, all because some doctor decided to go with his/her hunch that a patient wasn’t really sick to begin with.

That’s a bad thing, right?

Then I ran across a study about the placebo effect, exercise and obesity that blew my mind. In it, psychologists studied a group of hotel maids and found that those who believe their job involved little to no exercise were heavier and had higher blood pressure and hip-to-waist ratios than maids who believed their jobs were physically demanding.

But, wait. It gets better!

The experts, led by Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer, split the maids into two groups. One group was educated about how many calories they burned walking, lifting, carrying things, etc., in the course of their daily work. The other group was left in the dark.

One month later, Langer and her team returned to take physical measurements of the women and were surprised by what they found. In the group that had been educated, there was a decrease in their systolic blood pressure, weight, and waist-to-hip ratio — and a 10 percent drop in blood pressure.

That’s right: the only change they made was believing they were getting more exercise and — voila! — their weight and blood pressure improved. Those are actual physical changes brought on by nothing more than changing a person’s perception of themselves and their activities.

For those of us struggling to lose weight, this study emphasizes just how much our mental outlook can work for or against us in the process.

If your mental tape constantly plays a message in your mind that says you’re a lazy slug, that you don’t get any exercise, that you’re fat because all you do is go to work and come home to sit around all evening, perhaps it’s time to swap it for one that recognizes the activity you do get. Walking from your car to your desk, spending your day on your feet giving presentations or running after children, folding clothes, lugging briefcases or groceries or laundry baskets: those things add up.

Giving yourself a pat on the back for the activity you do naturally fit into your day isn’t just a great way to stretch those triceps and deltoid muscles. It might also be the key to whittling your waistline, too.

Next time you need a colonoscopy, you’d better pray you aren’t insured by Aetna. The insurance company just announced that it won’t be covering the use of propofol, an anesthetic used to make the procedure less painful for patients.

According to Aetna, the medication is “medically unnecessary,” a claim which colonoscopy patients in New York area last year might not agree. Seventy-seven percent of them were given propofol, which requires the presence of an anesthetist in addition to the doctor performing the actual colonoscopy. According to Aetna, the presence of both medical care providers represents an unnecessary expense.

I had my first colonoscopy earlier this year, although thanks to the propofol I was unconscious the entire time. If my aching buttocks are any indication of what went on while I was out cold, I feel pretty comfortable saying that there is NO way on God’s green earth that I would EVER undergo that procedure conscious. Nuh-uh. No chance. Not even after a lobster dinner and a bottle of Moët & Chandon. No. Way.

So, anyone want to place a bet on whether Aetna sees a spike in patient claims for colon cancer treatments in, say, the next 10 years?

Ever notice how after a few days of burgers, nachos and pizza you’re suddenly tired all the time? Or how much more difficult it is to resist those late-night munchies, particularly when there’s half of a cold pizza calling to you from the fridge?

It’s not your imagination. It’s the fat.

Scientists have known for a while that a screwy internal clock — known as circadian rhythm — can raise the risk of obesity and diabetes, but they’ve never been quite certain about the cause. Now it looks like they may have discovered what causes the circadian rhythms to go wacky: High-fat intake apparently disrupts the body’s cycles.

The study, conducted with two groups of mice, began with all of the mice eating the same healthy diet. After two weeks, one group remained on the healthy program while the other was given high-fat food. All of the mice remained in the dark so that day/night cycles would not provide them with external clues about when they should or shouldn’t be eating. After two weeks, the high-fat mice began to change. They slept longer, and they ate at times they would ordinarily be sleeping. The mice on the healthy diet remained unchanged, eating a normal amount and sleeping at appropriate times.

Certainly it’s something to think about when you’re low on energy, as I always seem to be. On the other hand, I’m not sure that I could really blame that burger I had last night (I know: shame on me!) for how exhausted I’ve felt this past week.

I think it has more to do with the fact that with Daylight Saving Time the sun’s starting to set at, what, noon now?

I’ve never been a big fan of milk, though I do love cheese. Until recently, when I went on a dairy-free diet, I’d relied on my rather generous cheese intake to meet my calcium needs from day-to-day. An article I read in Discover Magazine over the weekend (which, unfortunately, is only available in their print version) has given me reason to think about adding a calcium supplement to my diet, too.

It’s all due to a report covered in the article which explains that researchers from Columbia University’s Medical Center have found that a hormone released from bone may actually help regulate blood glucose. That makes the skeleton more than a mere structure holding the organs in place: it turns it into part of our endocrine systems.

Previously, researchers had shown that fat itself produces hormones that affect bone metabolism. Now, they’re beginning to establish that the process works in reverse, too, with our skeletal structure affecting how we metabolize fat.

Working with mice, the research team determined that osteocalcin (a substance produced by bone) actually signals fat cells as well as the pancreas, which means it impacts the secretion and handling of insulin. That’s not just news for folks with diabetes, though: everyone’s body uses insulin to move glucose from the bloodstream into muscle and liver cells, where it’s turned into fat if not used for energy.

So, does this explain why increased dairy consumption purportedly improves weight loss? Calcium enhances bone density, and it only makes sense that the denser the bone, the more capable it is of releasing this hormone they’re talking about.

Given how much my dairy-free diet has improved my allergies and general sense of well-being, I’m as likely to abandon it now as I am to, say, blow money on whole life insurance.

What I am planning on doing, though, is adding more calcium-rich fruits (oranges, blackberries, tomatoes), veggies (artichoke, peas, summer squash, broccoli) and seeds (almond, Brazil nut and pistachios) to my diet.

Hey, it couldn’t hurt!