David Garrard is the man.

18 touchdowns this season = $180,000 for Crohn’s and Colitis. Awesome.

Check it out here: crohnsinthezone.com and ccfa.org
And more about Garrard here: The Real Superman

Protecting a broken system.

Check out this sweet and short article from a small business owner in the midwest (US): Small business desperate for healthcare reform

A simple look at how protecting a system that discriminates is not only senseless—but cruel.

“I have had to watch two of my best employees suffer from illness — one from diabetes, the other from Crohn’s disease. I was sadly unable to provide these hard-working men with health care, leading them to refuse critical medical services.”

More here: southbendtribune.com

I still have hope (and still want healthcare for all).

Want to live longer?

Turn off your TV. Seriously.

A recent study which appeared in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation found that people “who watched television four hours or more per day were 80 percent more likely to die of cardiovascular disease than those who watched two hours or less, and 46 percent more likely to die of any cause.”

Yikes. Time to go for a run.

More here: circ.ahajournals.org
And here: nytimes.com/health

Image from Liam Shy

Get help to Haiti.

Wondering what to do for Haiti? The best thing you can do is donate money—no matter how small the amount—right now.* And there are lots of ways to do that.

—Partners In Health (PIH) has been working in Haiti for over 20 years. Visit their site to donate and for instant updates from Port-Au-Prince.
—The Red Cross is, of course, always on the front lines and has many donation options that will directly aid Haitian earthquake victims.
—Engineers Without Borders has several projects already underway throughout Haiti.
—The Road to Fondwa is currently donating 100% of DVD sales toward relief efforts in Haiti.
—Heath Ceramics (who I love) is currently donating 25% of all of their online and in-store sales to Haiti relief through Architecture for Humanity.

Imagine if this happened in your village, town, city, and/or country. Haiti is an incredible place — see Justin’s fantastic film for details — and only 681 miles from my home state of Florida.

*Additionally, orthopedic surgeons, trauma surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses, nurse anesthetists, post-op nurses, and surgical technicians with trauma experience are desperately needed in Haiti. If your qualifications match any of these needs, please fill out the form here: standwithhaiti.org

Photo courtesy of United Nations Development Programme

Still confused about the health care bill(s)?

Me too. But thankfully Jonathan Cohn, author of Sick: The Untold Story of America's Health Care Crisis — and the People Who Pay the Price and the incredibly insightful health care reform blog The Treatment, cleared up quite a bit for me the other day.

Get the facts behind the combined bill and check out his interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air: “Turning Two Health Care Bills Into One”

Photo / Listener42

A Noble prize.

Remember Michael Noble? He found a kidney donor—his Uncle Rich—and 7 months later he is back to snowboarding and, for the most part, his normal life.

Check in on him here: Gazette.com

Congrats Michael!

What's in your soda?

I don’t drink soda as a rule, and haven’t really since high school, but I can definitely remember loving a nice fountain soda back in the day. If I’d known this however—soda fountains contained fecal bacteria, study found—I would have quit long before high school even.

Yuck. I’ll stick to tap water thanks.

More reasons to give up your soda here: themedguru.com

A painless way to help fight Crohn's.

Check out this piece about the Genetic, Environmental, and Microbial (GEM) project: Medical Pioneers Wanted for Crohn’s Study

“CHEO* is looking for anyone between the ages of six and 35 who has a sibling or parent with Crohn’s. By tracking these people for at least five years, researchers hope to identify what triggers the disease, which causes chronic abdominal pain, constant fatigue and nagging nausea.”

If I were Canadian, I’d be all over this. More on the study here: gemproject.ca

*Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario

Magic fingers.

What if you could edit the DNA of someone suffering from AIDS or Leukemia to make the disease magically disappear? With Zinc fingers, it may be possible sooner than anyone expected.

More here: “In New Way to Edit DNA, Hope for Treating Disease”

The diagnosis challenge.

No one knows like I do how tough it can periodically be for even the best doctors to form a proper diagnosis. Humans, and particularly their immune systems, are innately and highly complex beings. Toss in environment, diet, genetics, evolution, and more — and you’re dealing with numerous unknowns.

With Crohn’s disease, I was not fully diagnosed until 2+ years into the madness. Similarly, as an ANCA-negative Wegener’s sufferer, it took over 6 months of intense treatment to get a proper diagnosis. (And even still there are times when I’m convinced that I don’t have Wegener’s...that could be the optimism talking though.)

Perhaps this is why I was so intrigued by the following Q&A from the Mayo Clinic’s Medical Edge column:

DEAR MAYO CLINIC: I've read that vasculitis is a rare disease, but I'm beginning to wonder if it is rare or if doctors just don't understand it. My husband has this condition, but the routine blood tests performed come back negative. How can we know for sure if vasculitis is the correct diagnosis? If it is vasculitis, what are his treatment options?

Read the answer here: courant.com
And get more info here: mayoclinic.org/medical-edge

(Here’s to a healthy and happy new year!)

Image from funnytimes.com