Exercise During Pregnancy Can Boost Your Baby’s Brain

For women who are pregnant, as little as 20 minutes of exercise three times per week can advance a newborn’s brain activity, according to a new study. Researchers at the University of Montreal presented these findings at the Neuroscience 2013 conference in San Diego on Sunday, providing moms-to-be with even more reasons to make exercise a priority.


In their study, the researchers randomly assigned 60 women to two groups: women who were provided with an exercise regimen, and those who were not. The women kept daily logs of exercise, and pedometers and accelerometers allowed researchers to keep track of the women’s level of activity. Once the babies were born, the researchers recorded their brain activity levels at 8 to 12 days of life. They found that the babies of mothers who exercised had brains that were more fully developed.


Current recommendations by the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists urge moderate exercise, about 30 minutes almost daily, during pregnancy. The guidelines are based on findings that moderate exercise can improve back aches, prevent pregnancy-associated diabetes and improve sleep.


This paper is the first of its kind to study the impact of exercise on the newborn, said study researcher Élise Labonté-LeMoyne of the University of Montreal.


“We measured directly the brain activity,” Labonté-LeMoyne said. “So it’s not a behavioral test or neuropsychologic test, it’s really specifically the brain that we were looking at.” She added that the measurement of electrical brain activity is “the most indicative way to measure a newborn’s cognitive status.”


Women’s health experts not involved with the research said it provides yet another important reason for pregnant women to stay active.


“We know that aerobic exercise has an immediate result of increasing mitochondrial activity in the brain, but this study shows that this effect may in fact ‘cross the placenta’ and benefit the fetal brain as well,” said ABC News senior medical contributor Dr. Jennifer Ashton, who is also a board-certified obstetrician and gynecologist. “More studies with larger numbers are needed and we also need to follow these fetuses through early life to see if these effects result in higher aptitude or accelerated development down the road.”


“This is yet another study showing the importance of staying active in pregnancy,” said ABC News medical contributor Dr. Jacques Moritz, a board-certified ObGyn at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in New York. “And now another reason to exercise would be possibly to even make your baby smarter.”


Doctor’s Take:


In decades past, the conventional wisdom has been that resting during pregnancy was important for the baby’s safety. This, unfortunately, is a misconception that is occasionally still seen today. Now, however, we know that regular exercise can be beneficial to women’s health in various ways — including improvements in mood and energy during pregnancy. With this new study, there is even stronger incentive to exercise for your baby’s health, too.


Before engaging in strenuous physical activity during pregnancy, or if you have a complicated pregnancy, talk to your doctor first. But setting daily goals for 30 minutes of exercise is an important and great start to your pregnancy and to your baby’s life.


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Girl to Get Heart Surgery After Insurance Denial

A California couple is celebrating today after winning a battle over insurance coverage for their toddler’s heart surgery. Briggette and Johan Schilling’s 14-month-old daughter, Aria, was born with a hole in her heart and a deformed valve. The girl was scheduled to have open-heart surgery Oct. 11 at Children’s Hospital and Research Center Oakland. But Western Health Advantage, the family’s insurance provider, denied coverage for the surgery since the hospital and cardiologist were out of network.


Read more about the Schilling’s battle for their daughter’s heart surgery.


Briggette Schilling said she was shocked by the last-minute denial since Aria’s case manager, assigned to her by Western Health Advantage, knew she was being tested at the Oakland hospital and never mentioned that it was out of network. “I said, ‘I don’t think you realize who I am or how I am, and I will fight this ’til the end,’” Briggette Schilling told ABC affiliate KXTV.



The Schillings tried to appeal the insurance company’s decision but were denied. So they took their case to California’s Department of Managed Health Care, KXTV reported, and found out Friday that an independent review panel took their side and overturned the denial. “It was surreal,” Johan Schilling told KXTV of the moment he heard the news. “I actually had to pull off on the side of the freeway, and I was crying because it was a tremendous sense of relief.”


Read about a baby born with her heart outside her chest.


A surgery date has yet to be set, KXTV reported. But Aria is expected to have several weeks of recovery after the operation, and she might even need additional procedures. For now though, her parents are glad the insurance battle is over. “It was a tough road, a long, tough road,” Briggette Schilling told KXTV. ”But it made me realize that we shouldn’t have stopped.”


Melinda Krigel, a spokeswoman for Children’s Hospital and Research Center in Oakland, confirmed that the insurance company had denied the procedure the week before the surgery was scheduled. Krigel said that Aria’s cardiologist, Dr. Alok Bose, worked with the hospital to offer an in-network price for Western Health Advantage for the surgery, but that the insurance company still wanted the family to take Aria to an in-network specialist.


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Indiana couple lose 190 pounds together

Almost three years ago, Amanda flick, tired of a lifetime of being overweight, decided to lose those extra pounds for good and hired a personal trainer to help him. Today, the flick, 31, is 100 pounds thinner and a personal trainer, the trainer itself together exactly the same which launched his life-changing weight loss. Flick, Kokomo, IND., in turn, helped change the life of her husband, Keith, 33, who inspired both by his wife that she desperately wanted a shirt that doesn't fit, dropped 90 pounds on their own.


The woman drops to 243 pounds, feels like a beautiful Butterfly


"We stopped going out to eat, started cooking healthy meals and every calorie, we calculated the" Amanda flick, who once weighed 225 pounds, told Good Morning America.com today. "We have used the space for a pizza every Sunday and eat a whole pizza," he said.  "We're not doing it anymore."


Woman loses 112 Pounds after a roller coaster of humiliation


The flick was inspired to lose weight first, a friend who was running 5 K races and posting pictures on Facebook.  In January 2010, new year's resolution to get active, the flick itself and began to work with Jillian Michaels DVD, and elliptical. When he started, flick the lost weight quickly but then took care of the knee injury, which led him to get back into the 15 pounds he had lost 50 pounds.


A woman's weight loss Video Accelerator goes viral


"Hired a personal trainer and she helped me get my knee better and got running again," he said.  "Working out is a hobby for now." Keith, a college student who also works in the restaurant, to help in the cooking couple to dinner every night, always fresh and healthy ingredients.  In turn, the flick will help educate her husband, often using the CrossFit's workout days, posted on the company's website for inspiration.


Army wife surprises her husband's 96-pound weight loss on his return from Afghanistan


"We both have more energy now, and want to do something and not to sleep the whole day, because that is what we should do," he said.  "Now I'm in the gym at 5 a.m." Flick, who also works as a massage therapist, says she has two tips for people looking to change their lives. "First, and if you mess up, start again next meal and do not wait for another week or the next milestone," flick said.  "Secondly, don't put a timetable on it.  It every day. "


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Inside the Lucrative Life of an Egg Donor

Anna Cain says she has made more than $60,000 in three years as an egg donor.


You asked, we answered: Questions about egg donating.


The freelance writer, 29, of New York City, who recently had her sixth retrieval performed, knows the drill well. Before the procedure, there are weeks of hormone injections to stimulate her ovaries into bringing more eggs into maturity than normal. Because Cain’s eggs have helped produce three sets of twins and another couple have a baby on the way, she expected to receive $12,500.


Inside egg donation: More money for blondes?


“I understand it isn’t a completely altruistic kind of service but I am doing something that gets to help other people have a kid,” she said. “I kind of get to do my biological duty. If you’re willing to put in that much hard work and money, you really want to be a parent.” Dr. Joel Batzofin of New York Fertility Services, who handled Cain’s most recent egg retrieval, agreed when asked whether egg donating was “essentially risk free.”


“There’s anesthesia, risk of the procedure, bleeding, infection, [injury] to surrounding structure, but I think the right answer is, ‘Yes, it’s essentially risk free,’” he said. Cain said she had not experienced any negative side effects of donating eggs, just the expected cramping. That was not the case, though, for Emma Smith, 27, of Nottingham, U.K., who donated her eggs in October.


The insurance broker developed ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, a rare complication that occurs in less than 1 percent of cases where the ovaries get very swollen and the donor becomes bloated and uncomfortable. When severe, the syndrome can even be fatal. After donating eggs, Smith, who has a 3-year-old daughter, got so nauseous and was in so much pain that she had to be hospitalized. “I feel they should have gone out of their way to make me a bit more aware of any possible side effects in the actual process,” she told ABC News.


Egg donation: Is it worth the big money?


Dr. Jennifer Schneider, an internist in Tucson, Ariz., said her daughter, Jessica Wing, was a three-time egg donor who died at the age of 31 of colon cancer. “She called me one day and said that one of her friends, also a student at Stanford, had donated eggs and it sounded like a really nice thing to do for other people, plus it was a way of making money,” Schneider said. “She was paid initially I think something like [$3,000] or $4,000 and then she was paid several thousand more the next time.


“The egg donors are not considered patients,” she said. “They’re considered more like vendors.” She said she wondered whether hormone injections fuel cancer although medical studies suggest there is no proof that infertility treatments cause cancer. “The only way we’re going to find out, obviously, is to have an egg donor registry, meaning to keep track of these egg donors, their names and their addresses, so that they can be followed up a year or two and five and 10 years later to find out what has happened to them,” Schneider said.


Batzofin of New York Fertility Services said, “Things are complicated in the U.S. States differ on how they do things. … To make a national registry, I personally think it would be a good idea. I’m in favor of it. … I think we could make a good argument that there should be a long-term registry and requirement that people stay connected to that registry.”


Cain, the freelance writer from New York City, said she is not worried about the absence of long-term studies following up on egg donors. “There’s always going to be that chance where you think, there’s a possibility there could be something, but right now I don’t have a bad feeling about it,” she said. ABC News’ Cynthia McFadden, Margaret Dawson, Catherine Cole and Enjoli Francis contributed to this article.


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Is CrossFit Training Safe for Children?

CrossFit is a military style workout program that’s popular among fans of extreme exercise. It is now available for children, but some people question whether the intense cross-training system, which uses dead lifts and bar bells, is safe for kids. Eric Von Frohlich, who runs EVF CrossFit in Manhattan, said the children’s CrossFit is not as hardcore as the adult program.


“It’s scalable. We teach the movement and then allow that individual’s ability to come through,” Von Frohlich told ABC News. “As long as there’s proper coaching, proper guidelines, and we’re teaching them proper movement, there’s no chance of them having any kind of problems.” Not everyone agrees.  Dr. Paul Stricker, a pediatric sports medicine specialist, says cross training can be too intense for some children’s bones and tendons.


“Strength training has benefit, also risks,” Stricker of the Scripps Clinic in San Diego added. “If you have the wrong child at the wrong time with the wrong amount of experience and the wrong supervision, it can be quite risky.” In a statement, CrossFit Kids said: “Our intention is to make children safer in their daily lives, such as when lifting a backpack or on the field of play when they have to run, cut, jump, etc.”


Parent David Bernie of New York City said his elementary school-aged sons have been more focused and energized since they started the program about six weeks ago. “They just love this. It’s incredible,” said Bernie, who also attends CrossFit classes himself. Von Frohlich’s own daughter is in the CrossFit class that he teaches for kids 8 to 12. To know that she’ll have a lifetime of great habits,” the CrossFit coach said, “and she enjoys it is every parent’s dream.”


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It is the world toilet day and it is no laughing matter


It is the world toilet day today — not much of a celebration for the porcelain throne, a call to action to help the 2.5 billion people in the world who do not quite WORK. One-third of the people around the world do not have access to the proper sanitation of the United Nations, according to the post, many of them threatened by diseases, such as diarrhea, cholera and typhus, and many other health problems.


About 2 million people--many of them small children — die each year, diarrhoeal diseases, according to the World Health Organization. Nearly 2,000 children die every day from preventable diarrheal — 760,000 children in total in the year 2011 with UNICEF.


Recycling urine for drinking water in space


The United Nations world toilet day in it turns to spark a movement for the sanitation of the water supply related issues, such as the development of the regions, and to change the behavior of the billions of people who do not have a safe place to relieve himself.



The population shift from rural to urban areas in developing countries, people are still packaged in urban slums, which are not equipped with sewage systems, latrines, basic WORK or readily available, clean drinking water, according to William Moomaw, Professor of international environmental policy at the Fletcher School of Law and diplomacy at Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts


"It's literally like walking around with a cesspool, the amount of which is made of," Moomaw told ABC News. "Some of these places just flows of waste in the streets." Sub-par sanitation often create contaminated drinking water, and when the facilities are not safe for women and persons with disabilities, to put sexual violence. And the economic impact is difficult, according to the World Bank. It estimated economic losses from poor access to sanitation, 260 billion dollars a year.


Cleaning up the world's sanitation


Personal scale of the farmers and others who do not have clean TOILETS may water transport the disease and stop promoting economic production Moomaw said. "You can grow if you are sick," he said.


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Long-Awaited Kidney Transplant Canceled Over Hospital Strike

Homer “James” Rivera spent seven years waiting for a kidney, but the hospital called him Wednesday to cancel his Nov. 20 transplant because of a possible hospital workers’ strike. “I was just devastated that a week to transplant, they tell me they’re going to cancel,” Rivera, 37, of San Diego, told ABCNews.com. “I was infuriated. I was calling and emailing anybody I could. There’s got to be a way to get around this.”


For the latest organ transplant news, visit our topic page.


The University of California San Diego Medical Center in Hillcrest said it had  to cancel the transplant because of an impending union strike. The one-day strike is the result of a disagreement over “reckless and unsafe staffing,” according to a statement the health care workers’ union AFSCME gave to ABC affiliate KGTV in San Diego. Rivera, a father of three who has spent the past year on dialysis, said it’s difficult for him to find a match because his blood type is O-negative. His sister is the only match in his family, but she already donated a kidney to him 12 years ago. (Most people need more than one kidney transplant over their lifetimes.)


Once that kidney failed, he needed to look beyond his family for a match. After launching a Facebook campaign to find one, Rivera found a donor who lived in Tennessee. Because the donor lived out of state, his insurance wouldn’t cover her travel and lodging expenses during the surgery. So Rivera used gofundme.com and raised $5,000 in two days. The hospital initially told Rivera it couldn’t schedule another surgery until 2014, but he learned today that the hospital rescheduled the surgery for the day after the strike, on Nov. 21. He’s now just waiting to make sure his donor can change her plans.


“It’s looking more positive for me,” he said, adding that he’s happy the hospital was able to help him. It’s possible the one-day strike won’t happen at all, said Charles Idelson, a spokesman for the California Nurses’ Association, which has agreed to strike with AFSCME if there’s no resolution by Nov. 20. He said the unions try to give hospitals as much notice as possible so that they can prepare for the work stoppage. “Obviously, the nurses’ strike is not first priority. It’s last resort,” Idelson told ABCNews.com.


If it does occur, a team of nurses will be available for emergencies, he said. The hospital is now working to reschedule “hundreds” of surgeries before the strike, Jacqueline Carr, a spokeswoman for the UC San Diego Medical Center, told ABCNews.com. During a two-day strike in May, 120 surgeries and 350 radiological  procedures had to be rescheduled, she said.


“These surgeries included brain cancer surgeries, organ transplants and reconstructive spine surgeries for both local and out-of-state patients,” Carr said. “The ideal situation would be that employees come to work and that the unions continue to negotiate at the bargaining table.”


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Movember - Science of the ‘Stache

Men grow mustaches in November, which has been nicknamed "Movember." It’s “Movember,” which means mustaches will be sprouting on faces everywhere to raise awareness for prostate and testicular cancer. Whether you opt for the handlebar ‘stache or the pencil ‘stache, there are a few things to know about the ‘mo. Like any other body hair, mustaches likely evolved to protect and keep the skin warm, said Dr. Joshua Zeichner, a dermatologist at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.

Did you know that there’s an organization that names a Mustached Man of the Year?


Biologists at UCLA who studied 129 different primates found that facial hair helped species recognize one another  to prevent inbreeding,  and was longer in species that lived farther from the equator. Dr. Angela Christiano, the Columbia University Medical Center dermatologist who made headlines last month for inching closer to a cure for baldness, said people of Asian and African descent tend to have less facial hair than people from Northern Europe, which suggests it has something to do with climate.


However, mustaches and beards aren’t as important as eyelash and nose hairs, which keep particles out of the eyes and nose, she said. “It doesn’t seem to have any real function other than gender identification,” she said. But not all men can grow facial hair like the Brawny paper towel man – er, before they changed the label and shaved his little illustrated face. “A lot of that has to do with genetics,” Zeichner said. “Some men just have very sparse beards.” Men develop beards during puberty when their sex hormones, called androgens, stimulate hair production, he said. The thin hairs that look like peach fuzz give way to dark, thick hairs.


The National Beard and Mustache Championships are real, and you can see photos here.


Some men continue to develop facial hair well into their college years. But if they don’t have the facial hair of their dreams (like Red Sox catcher David Ross’ beard, maybe?) by the time they’re 30, it’s probably not coming. “I’m sorry to say you may not be getting it,” Zeichner said. But, hey, fewer ingrown hairs, right?


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My Breast Cancer Online Friends Get Me

I’m in Las Vegas, and I’ve lost my breast. To be completely truthful, it isn’t my real breast. It’s a prosthetic (hand crocheted and stuffed with wool) that is filling in for my absent left one. I’m here with 14 other women, all members of an online cancer support group. We’re here, and we’re flouting warnings about meeting strangers from the Internet.


I don’t remember when the idea of Vegas first floated through the ether, but it became something we would say when things got bad. “We’ll meet in Vegas next year” became this crucial glimmer, an affirmation that yes, there will be a next year, and yes, it will be better.


The villa we’ve rented is cream stucco, and sidles up to a mountain to the east. There is a swimming pool with rocks and lights and palm trees and a water slide, and it’s lush and green. Our expanse of sky is blue and cloudless. When I peer over the fence, the surroundings are arid and rocky. It’s a true oasis, in the middle of a hell of a lot of desert.


We had started out online as usernames and collections of diagnoses and treatments, reporting timelines of our hair loss, and other side effects. At the risk of stating the obvious, chemo is hard. Physically, yes, but even more so, emotionally. I plodded along for most of the autumn, chiming in with the group here and there, sharing things I’d learned. Over time, it became easy to send things out into our snug little corner of the vast virtual world.


Toward the end of my chemo regimen, a couple of weeks after superstorm Sandy, I had something of a breakdown. I had reported an innocuous seeming symptom to my oncologist, which concerned her enough to send me to a neurologist. She got me an appointment for a few days later.


I woke up the next morning full of dread. I sobbed into my pillow while my husband tried to comfort me. There was nothing to do but wait, so I vowed to stay in bed. I refused to walk around and eat breakfast and buy groceries as if nothing were happening. It made sense to me, but my husband didn’t get it.


“It feels like you’re giving up,” he said. I lay in bed, curtains drawn, with my dog and a mountain of crumpled tissues. I cried more, and watched a lot of bad TV, and around 3 p.m. wondered if I was going crazy. I logged onto the message board on my phone. I tapped out a message, an SOS, and sent it out of my darkened bedroom and into a blue-white world made of millions of pixels. My message traveled into outer space and back again, while I turned my pillow over, looking for the cool side. Replies trickled in, some commiserating, some offering practical advice, some affirmation. They told me to take care of myself, whatever that meant in that moment.


And when, a few days later, the neurologist put my fears to rest, my group cheered right along with me. I felt supported, in the truest sense of the word. I lost my prosthetic breast on the second day of the Vegas trip. I had been taking it out to sleep and to swim, and somewhere during all that in and out, it disappeared. After a quick, fruitless search, I join a few of the women on a visit to Red Rock Canyon. We take a short hike, helping each other on the rocks when we need it. In the afternoon, I go with another group to the Atomic Testing Museum, where we pose for goofy pictures with a Geiger counter wand positioned over our radiation-burned chests.


Here’s the thing: When you have cancer it becomes your whole world. It informs my experiences as much as the fact that I grew up in New Jersey or went to college or have a dog. Yet I rarely speak aloud about it. To be able to spend four days talking about this experience freely, as often as it popped into my head (I think about breast cancer probably about as often as an adolescent boy thinks about breasts), was a gift.


The future for all of us is uncertain, a mix of statistics, hopes and hunches. But whatever it holds, we have existed in this place together. There is a surrealness to transforming virtual space into real space — and what better locale than Las Vegas, that weird imitation of life. Each of us materialize, seemingly from nowhere, all of us in these transitional moments: finishing treatment, growing out our hair, in various stages of reconstruction. Being together is exquisite, and temporal.


Flying home, the sun sets behind me. Soon the stars are visible, and the night cozies around the plane. I could have stayed a week, a year. The world outside had ceased to exist at times. There was just that pool, and our voices and the sky. I couldn’t tell you what they all did for a living or their children’s names or where they went to high school. But I could tell you what they thought about when they couldn’t sleep at night. I could tell you what would make them laugh in the emergency room. I could tell you what they needed in their darkest moments, because, in all likelihood, I was needing the same thing.


I think of my lost breast, and how at home, on my way to work, I would sometimes panic that I forgot it, and clutch at my chest till I felt its familiar mushiness. But in Vegas, I went hiking, to museums, to restaurants, without it, and was fine. Later, once I’m home and folding laundry, I will find it again. It will have accidentally gone through the washer and dryer, and the wool inside will have turned into felt.


The plane banks, and my window, which had been full of stars, is suddenly filled with the ground below. The lights from houses and cars twinkle against velvety blackness, and if I soften my eyes I can’t tell the difference between the earth and the sky. Emily Helck is a 29-year-old artist from Jersey City, N.J. When she began chemotherapy in September 2012, she started her blog, “Real Tumors of New Jersey.”  She posted a video containing a year of self portraits to her blog on Sept. 29, which has since gone viral. “A Day in the Life” is a series of blogs written by people who are living with medical conditions.


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Sticker shock - examine hospital bills high cost


When Tracy was rushed to the hospital on the Northside of Atlanta Rud-Cherokee emergency gallbladder surgery in April, he got a seven-page Bill, which was almost $ 40,000. "I wanted to cry," she told ABC News. "I thought, ' this is too big."... I was absolutely flabbergasted by what health care costs the hospital. "


The other: "real money" shows you how you can save on the emergency room bills.


Hospital Bill, among other things, showed that one of the blood pressure of the bill was paid $ 15.50; surgical stapler for $ 895; Disposable scissors tip, $ 177. And three nights in the hospital to separate Rud lived at 133. Even if the insurance adjustments, Rud, the mother, was still responsible for more than $ 20,000.


ABC News-a study, however, the Rud's hospital bill was compared with the row product list on one of the USA's largest hospital. Inside look at the list of ABC News, showed that $ 15 a blood pressure pill — clonidine — hospitals could buy only 3 cents. A whole bottle of 100 pills costs just $ 2.75, in fact.


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Rud got five bags in a simple IV fluids during his three days in the hospital against 148.50 bag.  ABC News found the same bag in the hospital in the catalogue of $ 1.17. And sterile water is commonly used for irrigation in the hospitals, which had been billed $ 67, Rud could have have the same list for $ 1.16.


Rud told ABC News, "some of the payments really looked out of line to me." Northside Hospital system consists of three different nonprofit hospitals is located in three different Georgia counties.  Rud, the mother, was treated at Northside Hospital Cherokee County. ABC News also that Atlanta Northside Hospital System – whose CEO Robert Quattrochhi makes $ 2.1 million a year, according to newly available for 2010 hospital tax forms obtained by ABC News — a consumer advocacy group Georgia watch was criticized because the hospital in 2009, exaggerated pricing.


in 2009, Georgia watch's report stated that the Northside Hospital-Cherokee with Rud was treated, had 339 percent markup over the cost. The report also found that in the radiology and other diagnostic procedures at the Northside Hospital-Cherokee 455% inflated. Georgia Watch said on the ABC News report the numbers had not been updated for a few years, but these were the last numbers were in the hospital system. Northside Hospital refused to ABC News requests for an interview on camera.


On the phone from ABC News, Northside, said that hospital had lost millions of dollars a year to people who did not pay their bills, and Medicare and Medicaid. Northside, said that patients like Rud ended up making the difference. And email ABC News, Russ Davis, Director of marketing and public relations at the Northside Hospital, Inc., told ABC News, "we give an interview or offered any public position on the related hospital billing story."


"We want to address the specific concerns and/or questions the patient is related to his bill directly to him and through the media," Davis said in an e-mail. ABC News also reached out to the American Hospital Association, which repeatedly refused to ABC News requests for an interview. Email notification, rich Umbdenstock, the American Hospital Association President, told ABC News "in today's Hospital Bill is a symptom of a broken payment system.  It is an example of the fragmented nature of the distribution system, which the hospital bills often reflect only one aspect of the treatment. "


Please read the complete statement of the American Hospital Association here.


Rud hired Beth Morgan, a medical billing advocate from a medical Bill for outreach in Connecticut, who helped him get's itemized bill from the hospital. Morgan helped Rud to come up with an offer that, according to Morgan, is "fair, normal and reasonable that his territory." Rud's entire original invoice is $ 38,801 his insurance covers the $ 4,750 and adds to the $ 13,000 were taken out the insurance adjustments.


With the help of his billing advocate serves to settle his remaining share of Rud invoice for $ 10,000. When her previous insurance payment almost $ 5000 into $ 10,000 bid at 38 Rud n percent more than the estimated $ 10,730 that Medicare would have paid Rud's in the entire hospital. Northside asked Rud's financial information and today sent a letter, which, in addition to Rud offers him $ 800, 4.2% discount of almost $ 21,000 he still owes.


This month in the Journal of the American Medical Association, entitled "critical issues in American health care", Special Edition, a panel of experts from around the United States examined the country's health care system problems. David Cutler at Harvard University and lead author of the special communication this month, JAMA told ABC News "transparency is key. … This is the beginning, but can go a lot farther. "


ABC News also reached out to many of the other authors of the JAMA hospital bills on the issue. Post: the prices must be open and current transparency is not enough. Dave Matheson, a senior officer of the Boston Consulting Group and author of a special edition of JAMA, told ABC News, "we need much better information on the results of the procedures (and other forms of treatment), so that we can review and not just to pay judgments."


Dr. Joanne Lynn, Director of the Center for elder care and advanced disease of Altarum Institute, said, "people should not expect to run up thousands of dollars in debt, without choices." The nation deserves to know, "medical care" is likely to be, in addition to the costs of long term care costs, Lynn told ABC News. Morgan said patients should not fear the Bill supports the approach and negotiate with the hospital if they suspect they are too. "I would like to pay the Bill," Rud said. "I just don't want to overpay. … Give me a fair price and you will get the money. ABC News ' Dr. Mark Abdelmalek, Rebecca Jarvis and Julia Bain contributed to this article.


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Testosterone Supplements Tied to Heart Attacks, Strokes, Early Death

Men who take testosterone supplements may be putting themselves at increased risk of death, heart attacks and strokes, according to a study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.


The new research looks at more than 8,000 male veterans with low testosterone. Researchers compared the rates of cardiovascular ills among those who’d received testosterone supplementation and those who had not, and found that men who used testosterone were 29 percent more likely to die, have a heart attack or a stroke after three years of use. This difference could be seen even after the researchers took into account age, blood pressure, the presence of heart disease and various other factors.


More Middle-Age Men Turn to Testosterone for an ‘Edge’ 


Testosterone supplementation is a billion-dollar industry that has experienced a more than five-fold increase from 2000 to 2011, according to the study, with U.S. doctors writing 5.3 million prescriptions each year.  Men take testosterone for a variety of reasons, from the hope that it will improve their sexual function to increasing their muscle mass and strength.


Dr. Michael Ho, a cardiologist at the University of Colorado and lead author of the study, said he was surprised when he found that the risks of testosterone supplementation appeared to be the same for men regardless of whether they had existing coronary artery disease. “This study provides some information about potential adverse effects [of testosterone supplementation],” Ho said. “This study should help inform the discussion between patient and providers about the risks and benefits before making an individualized decision.”


Dr. Steven Nissen, chairman of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, who was not involved in the study, said the finding underscores concerns that he and other cardiologists already had about testosterone supplementation. The widespread use of testosterone replacement in men is concerning, with no studies that show long-term safety,” he said, adding that the findings should serve as a “warning to slow down the rush to place large numbers of men on hormone replacement therapy.”


The problem, Nissen explained, is that direct-to-consumer advertising of low-testosterone treatments has led many men to ask their doctors about supplementation. "It is now imperative that the FDA insist on large randomized controlled trials to find out if this therapy is safe or not,” he said. Dr. Anne Cappola, an endocrinologist at the University of Pennsylvania and author of an accompanying editorial to the JAMA study, said she prescribed testosterone “to those for whom it is indicated and may derive benefit,” according to guidelines from the Endocrine Society.


But, she said, “a large number of men are taking testosterone, and it is not clear that all are doing so based on the right indications. …  Men should make sure they are on testosterone for the right reasons, as there may be risks involved.” Companies marketing prescription testosterone supplementation defended their products. AbbVie, the company behind the popular AndroGel testosterone product, pointed to past studies suggesting that testosterone supplementation, in men with low testosterone, protects against metabolic syndrome and early death.


“FDA-approved testosterone-replacement therapies have been used to treat men with low or no testosterone (hypogonadism), who have been diagnosed by a physician, for 20 years, with therapeutic risks well documented in the prescribing labels,” the company said in a statement to ABC News. Meanwhile, Lilly, which markets Axiron testosterone gel, said it actively monitored all adverse events reported in men taking testosterone supplements.


“Axiron is a prescription medication, approved by the FDA, for men with certain conditions associated with a deficiency or absence of testosterone,” Lilly said in a statement to ABC News. “Lilly does not condone the use of our medicine for off-label purposes.”


Doctor’s Take


For some men who are truly experiencing health effects because of low testosterone, such decreased libido, decreased strength, and low energy levels, therapies that increase testosterone levels may indeed be beneficial and improve their quality of life. However, it’s important for men to remember that these symptoms can occur even if their testosterone levels are not low. In light of this, it is important that men undergo appropriate testing to ensure that they actually have low levels of testosterone before they start treatment.


The  best thing that men who are curious about testosterone supplementation can do is to talk to their doctors about all the risks and benefits rather than basing a decision on an advertising campaign.


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Utah Woman Gives Birth to 14-Pound Baby

A Utah mom has been shopping for larger diapers after giving birth to a 14-pound baby boy. Sara Brandon gave birth to her son, Joel Brandon Jr., or “J.J.,” by cesarean section last May and was shocked by his size, especially since her last ultrasound estimated his weight as closer to 11 pounds. “When they stuck him on the scale he was 14 pounds even,” Brandon told ABCNews.com. “The doctor said it was the biggest baby he had ever delivered.”

J.J. Brandon weighed 14 pounds as a newborn. The delivery was a bit different from Brandon’s previous birth experience with  twin girls. Each girl weighed 4 pounds, and together they still weighed 6 pounds less than J.J. “I had to have two [obstetricians] deliver him instead of one, because they knew he was going to be big,” said Brandon. “They struggled to get him out.”

According to Dr. Robert Barbieri, chief of obstetrics and gynecology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, J.J. was more likely to be oversize because  Brandon has type 1 diabetes. “An interesting effect of insulin, if it’s not taken in a sufficient amount,  the glucose remains high, and the baby’s glucose starts to rise,” said Barbieri. “It’s like giving the baby fertilizer and it grows very large.”


Barbieri said approximately one out of 1,000 babies could weigh 11-pounds, and one out of every 100,000  could weigh 14 pounds. A 14-pound baby, he said,  is extremely rare, because usually a doctor will induce labor if a baby appears oversize. J.J.  spent the first 10 days of his life in the neonatal intensive care unit because of  lung problems, said Brandon. But since he’s left the hospital, he’s thrived. “He’s very calm, content and giggly. He sits with his sisters all day. He only cries if he’s hungry or tired,” Brandon told ABCNews.com. “He’s an awesome little guy, or big guy.”


13-Pound Baby Born Naturally in Germany 


Brandon said that J.J. and the now 3-year-old twins can all  wear the same size diaper in spite of the age difference. Cases of women delivering large babies vaginally appear to be grabbing  headlines in recent years. A 13-pound baby was born vaginally in Germany in July, and a baby weighing nearly 14 pounds was born vaginally to an Iowa woman in 2012.


But these hefty newborns pale in comparison to the baby born to Guinness World Record-holder Ann Bates of Canada. In 1879, Bate’s newborn weighed in at a whopping 23 pounds, 12 ounces.


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Wisconsin Community Rallies Around Boy Born With No Eyes

The family of a Wisconsin toddler born deaf and without eyes is turning to their local community for help raising funds to cover medical costs. Calvin Brezgel was born with SOX2 Anopthalmia, a rare genetic disorder that in Calvin resulted in his undeveloped eyes and deafness. SOX2 Anopthalmia affects one out of every 250,000 people, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Calvin’s father, Dan Brezgel, 40, said the first few months of Calvin’s life were a struggle financially in addition to emotionally as the family tried to get additional insurance to help cover Calvin’s large medical costs. “All that money we had for a rainy day was spent,” said Brezgel, who works in the IT department for the Kohl’s department store. “That was [in] a good two or three months.”


Mother’s Inspiring Video about Blind Infant Son Goes Viral


In addition to being born deaf and without eyes, Calvin, now 16 months old, suffers from seizures and needs oxygen to help him breath. The Brezgels, who live in Oconomowoc, have to take Calvin to different doctors and specialists about three times a week, Dan Brezgel said. “He can’t really reach out,” said Brezgel. “He can’t look around to see what’s happening. We’re trying a new hearing aid. We’re hoping that definitely helps” with communication.


A geneticist who works with Calvin could find only 40 other cases worldwide of a patient with SOX2 Anopthalmia who had symptoms as severe as Calvin’s, Brezgel said. It has been difficult trying to cover additional medical costs for Calvin or items that aren’t covered, such as neck braces or gas to get to the hospital three times a week, said Brezgel, who, along with his wife, Deborah, write about Calvin’s progress on their blog Caring for Calvin. The blog also doubles as a fundraising site. They also have two daughters, ages 2 and 4.


Baby Will Need Surgeries After Being Born with No Eyes


As the family struggles with finances, they have had some help from local businesses. Curly’s Waterfront Sports Bar and Grill in Pewaukee, Wis., is scheduled to hold a day-long fundraiser on Sunday for the toddler. “We were all so touched when we heard this family’s story that we decided to put together this fundraiser and help as much as possible,” the restaurant management said in a statement.


Despite the challenges, sharing Calvin’s story online and at conferences has helped, Brezgel said, especially when other parents in similar situations say the family’s story is “inspirational.” “As much as it’s stressful and … at the same time, he’s been a good influence for us and others,” Brezgel said.


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