Tag Archives: Mayo Clinic

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Getting Paid to Lose Weight Really Works

Leave a comment

By Michele Lerner

Saturn's Ring 'Rain'

Filed under:

Alamy

Before you take another bite of that doughnut, think about this: If someone paid you $20 to put it down, would you?

A recent study by the Mayo Clinic found that weight-loss study participants who received financial incentives were more likely to stick with a weight-loss program and lost more weight than study participants who received no incentives.

In other words, getting paid to lose pounds really works.

Money as Carrot and Stick

The Mayo Clinic researchers worked for a year with 100 participants, ages 18 to 63, each of whom had a body mass index of 30 or higher, which is considered obese. The goal for each participant was to lose four pounds per month, up to a predetermined target.

The participants were assigned to one of four groups. Two groups got no financial incentives. People in the other two groups earned $20 per month if they met their weight goals. Then there was this twist: Participants in the incentivized group who did not meet their monthly goals had to fork over $20 per month to put in a pool. Those in the incentivized groups who stuck with the study for the entire year were eligible for a lottery to win the cash.

The results were significant: 62 percent of those in the incentivized group lost weight, compared with 26 percent in the non-incentivized group. Even those who had to pay money into the pool had a higher level of complete participation in the study than those who had no financial incentive to continue.

“The take-home message is that sustained weight loss can be achieved by financial incentives,” said Steven Driver, MD, lead author of the study and an internal medicine resident at the Mayo Clinic.

How to Try This At Home

Consumers don’t have to participate in an academic study to see if some cold hard cash convinces them to shed pounds.

HealthyWage.com has run weight-loss challenges tied to financial incentives for more than 100,000 individuals since 2009, according to the company. It has three programs that are structured similarly to the Mayo study, though joining will cost you:

  • The 10 percent challenge: Lose 10 percent of your body weight in six months and your $150 fee will be refunded, plus you’ll earn another $150.
  • The BMI challenge: You can earn up to $1,000 if you move from a BMI of over 30 to one lower than 25 within one year.
  • The Matchup: Teams of five compete to earn cash prizes for weight loss, with a first prize of $10,000.

Of course, there’s always the DIY approach — ask someone you know play “banker” while you work to whittle down your waist. You just have to be sure to choose a person who is stern enough to make you pay up for every gained pound.

%Gallery-163223%

<a target=_blank href="http://www.dailyfinance.com/on/financial-incentives-weight-loss-mayo-clinic/" rel="bookmark"

Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Get Paid to Lose Weight

Leave a comment

By Brian Orelli, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

A report from the Mayo Clinic at this month’s American College of Cardiology scientific meeting suggest that patients given a financial incentive to lose weight are more likely shed pounds than those that weren’t given the option.

Participants in the study were paid $20 for every month they met their goal of losing four pounds per month up to their predetermined goal weight. Participants who didn’t meet the goal had to pay $20 to a bonus pool for each month they didn’t meet their goal. The bonus pool was then raffled off at the end of the study.

The financial incentive encouraged participants to stick with their weight loss program. 62% of participants offered the financial incentive completed the study compared to 26% in the control group that weren’t offered incentives.

Naturally sticking with it caused patients to lose more weight over the one-year study: 9.08 pounds for those given the incentive, compared with 2.34 pounds for the non-incentive group.

That’s great, but….
I know what you’re thinking: It sounds great, but who’s going to pay people to lose weight? Hopefully the people that would benefit indirectly from the weight loss.

Health insurers usually pass along higher medical costs incurred by obese patients. If 25% of members are obese and they add $2,000 in medical costs, everyone’s premiums have to go up by $500.

There are some employers that self-insure. They’re large enough that they can form their own health insurance pool, paying more for some employees and less for others, but averaging out to less than they’d have to pay for traditional health insurance.

Other employers cover all or some of a traditional health insurance, but the cost they negotiate is someone dependent on the expected medical costs the health insurers calculate they’ll have to pay out. A company with an older work force, for instance, will be quoted higher premiums than a company made up of primarily younger workers who don’t get sick as often.

For employers paying medical bills — either directly or through insurance premiums — there would seem to be a very good incentive to get employees healthier, saving them money in the long run. Healthier employees could also be more productive. To save that money, companies might be willing to shell out some cash to help encourage employees to shed pounds and get healthier.

Provisions in the Obamacare law allow employers to charge employees who have a high body mass index or other negative health indicators like smokers more than their healthy counterparts. That sounds a lot like the $20 that participants in the study had to pay to the bonus pool when they didn’t reach their goal, although the increase could be a lot more than $240 per year.

This is good news for obesity drugmakers
If companies are willing to pay employees to lose weight, it seems reasonable to assume they might also be willing to shell out cash to pay for obesity drugs. What was once …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Automobiles

Relax, electric-drive vehicles play nice with pacemakers, defibrillators

Leave a comment

By Danny King

2012 Toyota Prius

Filed under:

For out there who’s freaked out that the electromagnetic waves from a hybrid or plug-in vehicle will throw off pacemakers and cause heart attacks, go ahead and breathe easy: that ain’t gonna happen.

No less of an authority than the Mayo Clinic took it upon itself to test whether pacemakers or defibrillators are affected by electric-drive vehicles, and presented results of the study “Hybrid Cars and Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators: Is It Safe?” at a San Francisco conference earlier this month. It is true that implanted devices can misconstrue signals from outside sources as coming from a person’s heart, but hybrids don’t cause this reaction. In short, Mayo used 30 participants to test implanted devices from three different manufacturers, and measured electric and magnetic fields in various positions inside and outside a 2012 Toyota Prius. The upshot: hybrids do not pose a threat because the recorded electromagnetic interference levels were low, though Mayo Clinic says more tests will be conducted.

Check out the Mayo Clinic‘s press release below.

Continue reading Relax, electric-drive vehicles play nice with pacemakers, defibrillators

Relax, electric-drive vehicles play nice with pacemakers, defibrillators originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Wed, 20 Mar 2013 13:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Autoblog

Business, Finance, Occupation & Industry

Duff &amp; Phelps Partners With Cristie Kerr to Mentor LPGA Rookies and Raise Money for Breast Cancer Ch

Leave a comment

By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool

Filed under:

Duff & Phelps Partners With Cristie Kerr to Mentor LPGA Rookies and Raise Money for Breast Cancer Charity

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Duff & Phelps Corporation (NYS: DUF) , a leading independent financial advisory and investment banking firm, has formed a partnership with LPGA Tour golfer Cristie Kerr to mentor a group of LPGA rookies and raise money for Kerr’s Birdies for Breast Cancer charity. As part of the partnership, Duff & Phelps will extend its ongoing sponsorship of Kerr to include rookie LPGA golfers Kathleen Ekey, Victoria Elizabeth and Taylore Karle. In addition to bringing the four golfers together to establish “Team Duff & Phelps,” the company will make a donation to Birdies for Breast Cancer for every birdie scored by the team during 2013 tournament play.

LPGA golfer Cristie Kerr, who has been sponsored by financial advisory and investment banking firm Duff & Phelps since January 2011, wears the Duff & Phelps logo on the front of her hat during competitions. (Photo: Business Wire)

The mentorship aspect of the program marks the first time that an established LPGA golfer and a corporate sponsor will provide formal guidance on and off the course to junior LPGA colleagues. Ekey, Elizabeth and Karle will benefit from career guidance, professional advice and collaboration on charitable endeavors such as the Birdies for Breast Cancer program throughout the course of the partnership. This announcement follows Duff & Phelps’ recent launch of its internal Network of Women (NOW), which aims to attract, develop and promote women at the firm while also supporting broader causes of interest to women. NOW offers special resources in such areas as recruitment, training, marketing, business development, networking and communications.

“Duff & Phelps established the Network of Women to encourage the personal and professional growth of women at our firm. As we expand our focus, we are very excited to join forces with Cristie and Birdies for Breast Cancer,” said Elyse Bluth, co-chair of the Duff & Phelps Network of Women and a managing director in the firm’s investment banking practice. “The partnership is a natural extension of Duff & Phelps’ commitment to its female employees and causes in which our clients, and women in general, take interest.”

Birdies for Breast Cancer has raised money for other foundations and research institutions, such as Susan G. Komen for the Cure and the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona. However, its greatest beneficiary is the Cristie Kerr Women’s Health Center in Jersey City, New Jersey. Part of …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

News, Politics, Government

Cash can bribe dieters to lose weight, study finds

Leave a comment

Researchers are reporting success with using cash incentives to help people lose weight.

In a yearlong study, people were offered a chance to win or lose $20 a month if they met certain diet goals. They lost an average of 9 pounds compared to just over 2 pounds for other study participants who were not offered the chance to win money if they shed pounds.

The diet study involved 100 obese employees at the Mayo Clinic.

Offering incentives is a tactic that many employers, insurers and Internet programs use to entice people to change bad habits like smoking or not exercising. Mayo researchers say it is important to keep the incentives going to maintain healthy changes.

The study will be discussed this weekend at a medical conference in San Francisco.

…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News

Health

New Saliva Gland Test For Parkinson's Promising

Leave a comment

Testing a part of a person’s saliva gland may be a way to diagnose Parkinson’s disease, according to new research by the Mayo Clinic that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s annual meeting in March. Parkinson’s disease is a difficult disease to diagnose. Currently the only way to pinpoint the disease is to do a clinical exam to analyze a person’s symptoms…
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Medical News Today

Health

Enzyme Helps Drive Aggressive Prostate Cancer

Leave a comment

Researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Florida have discovered that an enzyme called PRSS3, or mesotrypsin, may help drive aggressive prostate cancer. Although they don’t believe it is the only factor, they suggest it offers a new target for treatment, and have themselves developed a prototype compound that inhibits the enzyme’s ability to promote the metastatic spread of the disease…
Source: Medical News Today