PAST PICKS JANUARY 2010

Over the past 15 years, patients in the U.S. have been getting heavier and at the same time fewer have been smokers.  Obesity has become a greater contributor to the burden of disease than smoking.  Smoking has a bigger impact on mortality; smokers die at a much younger age.  An obese person, although at an increased risk to die, does so at an older age, but with higher medical bills for chronic medications and expensive treatments, greater dependence on caretakers for mobility and a lower quality of life.  If you are overweight, wny not make a commitment to NOT begin the new year the same way you began and ended the old one?