Spring Health Roundup: New Issue Plus More Health News

By Seattle Mag May 24, 2013

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The Spring/Summer issue of Seattle Health is here! Check out the digital edition to read about weight management for better health, new oral treatments for MS and new research on early addiction intervention—plus local companies that are making doctor consultations easier than ever, allergists’ most unusual patient cases, and much more.

Meanwhile, we’ve got awards on the brain: Seattle Magazine’s Top Doctors listings are nearly wrapped for their July publication and we’re feeling awfully lucky to live in a place with so many excellent doctors, clinics and hospitals. So the news that Overlake Hospital and University of Washington Medical Center won the Food-Climate-Health Connection Award from Health Care Without Harm piqued our interest. Twenty-three Washington hospitals have signed the Healthy Food in Health Care Pledge, part of a seeming trend in health care facilities and hospitals moving towards advancing sustainable food system development—a far cry from the canned beets of my childhood tonsillectomy memories—see the full list of participating hospitals.

Gluten-free toothpaste and makeup? Lest you think May is over (say it ain’t so!) this story comes just in the nick of time for Celiac Awareness Month, about the non-food products that can also carry risks for those with celiac disease: Everyday Products May Pose Gluten Risks

Finally, whether or not you follow celeb/pop culture, Angelina Jolie’s surprising preventative mastectomy announcement has spotlighted breast cancer prevention in a big way—as the opportunity to enroll in the Affordable Care Act’s health exchanges comes this fall, questions abound about the preventative procedures, like the mastectomy, being covered. Turns out BRCA genetic counseling, at least, will be covered under the ACA. Insurance coverage is particularly important for cancer patients; according to new research from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, the economics of having a cancer diagnosis can be extremely difficult and people diagnosed are more than two-and-a-half times more likely to declare bankruptcy than those without cancer with young, female, nonwhite patients being hit the hardest.

 

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