The BBC article says that the report is based on ‘self-reports’ from participants - is it possible that as a nation (stereotypically at least) more concerned with mortality (and perhaps thus life-threatening health conditions), those in the US are more likely to report symptoms than their UK counterparts? Could there be a bigger mistrust of medicine in the UK, or less concern for diagnosis in the UK which would mean that the level of disparity between US and UK illness is partly down to reporting?
[QUOTE=Malodorous]
Again, the study claims to have controled for differences in exercise. That’s why it’s so interesting, they isolated out all the obvious reasons for there to be differences in health (exercise, wealth, healthcare, race, etc.) and still got a measurable difference.
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The exercise part is probably based on self-reporting. Your average Brit probably doesn’t consider walking the quarter-mile to the corner store, or walking to the bus stop, to be the same as an aerobic workout. You can have an American who’ll say they work out 30 minutes a day 4 times a week, and a Brit who says, “Uhh, yeah, I go walking on weekends for two hours”, but the Brit will wind up with a lot more exercise.
Also Americans aren’t really aware of how many calories they eat in their foods. For Og’s sake, there’s high-fructose corn syrup in hot dogs. It’d also be equally silly to compare an American & Brit who each say they have a hot dog once a week, when the American portion will likely be far bigger and far more loaded with sugar.
[QUOTE=levdrakon]
If they controlled for exercise, then I’d go with Askia’s idea that Americans tend to be under more stress. We go to the gym, but then we stress about not getting fired, or finding a better job and making enough money to afford the expensive gym membership, etc.
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Or we don’t go to the gym but tell ourselves we gotta, then stress about that, or how long it’s going to take to get to your fitness goals, or or or or or geez I really could use a nice big sammich and a lie down after lunch.
It’s both too important to us, and not important enough.
[QUOTE=dre2xl]
For Og’s sake, there’s high-fructose corn syrup in hot dogs.
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That’s something I was wondering about. Over here, we have more corn than we know what to do with, and so it gets turned into high-fructose corn syrup and put into almost everything–hot dogs, bread, even vinegar. If it’s not quite as pervasive in Britain, that could be a major contributing factor.
[QUOTE=Szlater]
Err..
StEnts can certainly be removed by nurses, I’ve had them on a number of occasions and they are not that painful. Uncomfortable, sure, they make your toes curl a little, but no more painful than having a urethral catheter removed (which again isn’t really painful, just unusual). The nastiest thing about stents is how long they are, you think they’re almost all out and then they just seem to go on forever.
I’ve never had a single tube, stitch, clip, staple, dressing or canula removed by a doctor, and it’s not like I’ve not given them the chance.
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That might be why it costs more over here. Trying to imagine a nurse coming at me with an endoscopic do-hickey and fishing around in my bladder for a stint that’s hanging from my kidney. Not that its out of the realm of nursing care given what they do in surgery but our doctor-to-patient ratio is nothing compared to our lawyer-to-patient ratio. Insurance dictates a lot of preventive medicine and procedures.
From the word go the doctor was in and out in less than 60 seconds. Not sure how to rate the pain. Not as bad as hitting a raw nerve during a root canal but worse than getting a filling. Part of that is the unknown. This is going to hurt, ow. Coming up on the bend, OW. Stint is coming out, HELLO. Next time I’m thinking painkillers beforehand.
[QUOTE=Szlater]
My rant:
The thing about the NHS is the bad stories in the press are anomalies, there’s no money in writing about the 18million admissions that go smoothly every year, it’s the single horror story that sells papers. So one person has to wait 18 months for an elective surgery is a story, but the baby who is born with the rare heart condition gets surgery the next day is conveniently ignored.
Spend some time in Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children, or one of the other world-class specialist centres (there are quite a few), and then tell me that medicine in the UK is backward (which seems to be the common perception amongst right-leaning americans).
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If I implied things are backward in the UK then I’ve mis-represented my position. Not sure what the press is reporting there but the perceived difference reported here is the waiting period, not the care.
I did look at a British private insurance site to see how kidney stones are treated and this is what I found:
How kidney stones are diagnosedDoctors can usually diagnose kidney stones by asking about symptoms and doing a physical examination. Further tests may be done to confirm the diagnosis, reveal the size, location and identity of the stone. These include:
Blood tests: to identify excess amounts of certain chemicals related to the formation of stones.
Urine analysis: patients are asked to give a urine sample for testing, and may be asked to collect urine over 24 hours to analyse it for the chemicals that cause stones.
X-rays: stones that contain calcium show up white on the X-ray.
Intravenous urogram (IVU): an X-ray involving an injection of special dye to show up stones that can’t be seen with X-rays alone.
Ultrasound scan: this uses high frequency sound waves to produce an image of the internal organs.
Not sure how that squares with the public insurance. Having problems finding a good site. It does sound kinda slow. Maybe the amount of pain speeds things up.