Obesity rates will reach 42 percent: study

Americans will keep growing fatter until 42 percent of the nation is considered obese, and having fat friends is part of the problem, researchers said on Thursday. The prediction by a team of researchers at Harvard University contradicts other experts who say the nation's obesity rate has peaked at 34 percent of the U.S. population.

The finding is from the same group, led by Nicholas Christakis, that reported in 2007 that if someone's friend becomes obese, that person's chances of becoming obese increase by more than half. They now think this same phenomenon is driving the obesity epidemic, which will climb slowly but steadily for the next 40 years.

Alison Hill, a graduate student at Harvard and the Harvard-Massachusetts Institute of Technology Division of Health Sciences and Technology, said the study is based on the idea that obesity can spread like an infectious disease and people can catch it from their friends.

For the study, she and colleagues applied a mathematical model to four decades of data from the long-running Framingham study -- a study of the health and habits of nearly an entire town in Massachusetts.

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Free Discount Prescription Drug Cards Offered In Memphis

Want to save money on prescription drugs? Your MLGW bill could offer help. The utility company put thousands of free prescription drug discount cards in the mail along with utility bills. Those discount cards knock as much as 20 percent off the price of prescription drugs.

“We want more people to be aware of these cards,” said Memphis City Councilman Myron Lowery. “We want more people to save money."

The discount cards are free, with no restrictions based on age or income. They’re available through the National League of Cities. Lowery sits on that group’s Board of Directors. He said the savings on prescription drugs add up. “So far in the last year, more than 3,500 in Shelby county have saved more than $740,000 by using this card,” he said.

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Republicans to Take On U.S. Health Law's Taxes, Rules

Congressional Republicans pledged to repeal the health-care overhaul President Barack Obama signed into law in March. Once they consolidate power, the strategy will more likely resemble death by a thousand cuts.

House and Senate Republicans already have written at least 30 bills to roll back provisions in the law. The success of some efforts would mean WellPoint Inc. and competing health insurers may escape regulations to set their patient-care spending, while Boston Scientific Corp. and other medical-device makers dodge $20 billion in tax increases in the next decade.

With networks projecting that Republicans have won the seats needed for control of the House, the party also plans to target budgets of agencies implementing the health-care law. “You can literally open the bill and point your finger to a page and say, ‘Here’s something we should go after,’” said Representative Michael C. Burgess of Texas, a Republican on the House Energy and Commerce health subcommittee. “It’s all bad.”

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