Importance of naps

One sleep expert said naps "should have the status of daily exercise."








Catching a few extra winks, even in nontraditional places, can have its benefits.









A television cameraman takes a nap at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.
















July 30, 2009
A Look at Who Naps
By Sam Roberts

Wake up, America! Fully one in three adults admit that on any typical day they take a nap, according to a national survey released Wednesday.

I try to nap every day.

The proportion of self-proclaimed nappers was even higher among adults who had trouble sleeping the night before and who had exercised within the past 24 hours. It was also disproportionately higher among people who are poorer, black, men older than 50, men and women over 80 and among people who are not happy.

I am an adult, do not often have trouble sleeping, do exercise, am not poor or black, am a man, and I'll leave it at that.

The Pew Research Center Social and Demographic Trends survey of daily activities found that people who were unemployed were more likely to nap during the week than on weekends and that those with jobs were only slightly more likely to nap on weekends.

The survey also asked whether people had trouble sleeping, presumably at night. Women were more likely to, as were people who make less than $20,000 a year and those who, regardless of their income, were dissatisfied with their personal financial situation.

The survey did not precisely define what constitutes a nap. Some people claim they are just resting their eyes when they are really snoozing. Others may doze momentarily when reading articles about demographic trends. Still others are driven to nod off briefly by the swaying of their bus or commuter train.

“Are we accurate reporters of our own habits?” said Paul Taylor, the Pew center’s director. “If you asked my grown children whether I nap, their answer is yes. Their defining image of me is in an easy chair with a newspaper in my lap, dozing off. If you ask me, my answer is no. That’s my story, and I’m sticking with it.”

Napping is still often stigmatized, for example by being associated with illness or a lack of ambition.

But many people, and experts, praise the benefits of a siesta or a power snooze. Confessed nappers include Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Thomas Edison and Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.

Napping, writes James B. Maas, a Cornell University sleep expert, “should have the status of daily exercise.”

Mammals that divide their day between two distinct periods — sleep and wakefulness — are in the minority, according to the National Sleep Foundation, which pointed out on its Web site: “While naps do not necessarily make up for inadequate or poor quality nighttime sleep, a short nap of 20-30 minutes can help to improve mood, alertness and performance.”

More drug industry cost cuts sought

Some of the biggest impediments to health reform and cost containment are drug industry profits and costs. Wall Street presses companies to show increased profits every quarter, punishes them when the profits are disappointing, and thus fuels the cycle of climbing costs.

The pharmaceutical industry has remained relatively unscathed so far in Washington’s effort to overhaul the nation’s health care system. But it is too soon for drug makers to declare victory — especially now that the cost of health care has become a central issue in the debate.

Despite the much publicized 10-year, $80 billion cost-saving promise the drug industry made to President Obama and the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee last month, some House leaders do not think the drug makers have given enough.

This time the industry coöperated from the get-go, surely, for seeing that it could not pull a "Harry and Louise" campaign, as it did during the early days of the Clinton administration.

It is not remarkable that a top Democrat like Mr. Waxman would be taking a hard line against drug makers. After all, the pharmaceuticals industry has long been a target of attack by the Democrats who now rule Washington.

What is more notable is that on many other issues in the health care debate, the drug industry seems to have staved off some of the measures it most feared. None of the legislative packages now favored by the Democratic leadership, for example, include long-simmering proposals to let Americans buy cheaper drugs from Canada. Nor is there a push to end the tax breaks for drug advertising that some critics say promote the unnecessary use of costly pills.

And seemingly off the table is any talk of giving the federal government new powers to negotiate drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry.

The debate certainly has shifted in focus. The head of the pharmaceutical lobby is Billy Tauzin, a former Representative from Louisiana (1980-2005). He certainly knows his way around the legislative arena, and still has friends and contacts on the Hill.

As a trade-off for opening that market to generic competitors for the first time, the Senate health committee last week voted 16 to 7 to give the name-brand drug companies 12 years of exclusive marketing rights before a copycat biologic drug could go on the market. “That was a huge vote,” Mr. Tauzin said.

The President wants the term to be 7 years, Waxman wants 5; Billy says 12 years was a "huge" victory for his new employer.

“PhRMA’s biggest worry is price negotiation,” said Steven Findlay, a health policy analyst at Consumers Union, using the nickname for the drug industry group. “They would like to keep that totally off the table — this year and forever.”

That way their profits are protected. Giving some concessions is preferable to having their profitability limited for the longer term.

John Rother, executive vice president of AARP, the lobby for older Americans and a longtime critic of the drug industry, described PhRMA as “one of the big winners so far in health care reform.

Tauzin has to be only one of its protectors.

Drug companies have invested nearly $1 billion in lobbying over the last decade, more than any other industry, according to the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics, and more than $100 million in campaign donations, increasingly to Democrats. And the drug industry in the last three months has increased its spending, according to reports filed Tuesday: PhRMA spent $6.2 million during that period and 10 drug companies each spent more than $1 million.

A billion, well deployed, builds an effective defense. A hundred million buys a lot of influence.

A crucial moment for the industry came a month ago when Mr. Obama and Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, announced that PhRMA had agreed to come up with $80 billion in drug savings for seniors and federal health programs over the next decade. About $36 billion of that would come from a 50 percent discount on name-brand drugs when people using the Medicare Part D drug program enter the so-called doughnut hole — a built-in gap in the federally subsidized coverage when enrollees must pay for their drugs out of their own pockets.

Seems good.

A Deutsche Bank stock analyst termed the 50 percent offer “a palatable form of concession” since it would also raise new revenue from people who would otherwise stop buying the drugs or switch to lower-price generics. A Barclays Capital analyst called the offer “less than what meets the eye.”

But perhaps not that good. A "palatable" concession is not what is seems; it was willingly made to fend off more significant ones.


On July 7, Rahm Emanuel, Mr. Obama’s chief of staff, and Mr. Baucus assured at least five pharmaceutical companies during a White House meeting that there would be no provision in the final health care package to allow the reimportation of cheaper drugs from Canada or elsewhere, according to Mr. Tauzin. The industry’s message, Mr. Tauzin said, was, “Don’t put us in a big negative fight over this issue while we’re trying to help you pass something that would be good for the American public.” The meeting included chief executives from Pfizer, Merck, Amgen, AstraZeneca and Abbott Laboratories.

Quid pro quo: something for something; that which a party receives (or is promised) in return for something.

How in hell could McCain and other Republicans call Obama a socialist? Rhetoric. Bullshit. Lies. The President is a capitalist, a moderate, and will work with pharma to get his legislation passed. To speak of government control is nonsense.

The details [of how to cut more costs] are expected to emerge from Mr. Baucus’s bill, which is still under cloak as he negotiates concessions from other industries.

“We’ll do it in a way they want,” Mr. Tauzin said.

I'm sure of that.

Headlines

Sinopec Offers $7.22 Billion for Oil Firm - The takeover of Addax Petroleum would give the Chinese company access to oil fields in Iraq and West Africa.

Deep in Bedrock, Clean Energy and Quake Fears

O.E.C.D. Improves Outlook for Economy - The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has revised its forecasts for developed countries upward for the first time in two years.

DealBook Blog: KKR Revises Deal for Affiliate, Postpones NYSE Debut - The giant private equity firm said Wednesday that it is seeking to revise a merger with a publicly listed European affiliate that would give it an Amsterdam listing.

Citigroup Has a Plan to Fatten Salaries - The plan is a test for the Obama administration, which wants to limit compensation at companies that have received federal bailouts. These bozos simply refuse to understand what in damnation is going on.

Baucus Grabs Pacesetter Role on Health Bill

Today in News

Minnesota Justices Are Skeptical in Senate Case A lawyer for Norm Coleman, who is fighting a recount battle with Al Franken for a Senate seat, faced sharp questioning in the state Supreme Court.

U.S. Effort to Reshape Schools Faces Challenges Education Secretary Arne Duncan wants to take school turnaround efforts nationwide, but the process is expensive and fraught with problems.

Obama’s Test: Restoring G.M. With a Limited U.S. Role The longer the government holds on to its stake in General Motors, the more the pressures will build to intervene in its business.

• Obama Speech: Video | Text
• Judge in Case Is Known for His Brisk Approach

Senators Set to Visit White House to Discuss Health Care Overhaul Democrats on two Senate committees that are drafting health legislation have been invited to the White House to meet with President Obama.

South Carolina Stimulus Case Is Given to State Court A federal judge said two lawsuits seeking to require the governor of South Carolina to accept $700 million in federal stimulus money should be heard in state court.

Insurers Offer to End Prices Tied to Illness

The climate for health reform is quite different now than in 1993.

The health-insurance industry said it would be willing to stop charging sick people more for coverage if all Americans were required to buy insurance.

Tuesday's proposal, included in a letter to Senate leaders by the industry's two main trade groups, is the latest move by health insurers to position themselves as constructive participants, rather than obstacles, in the debate over how to overhaul the U.S. health-care system.

To not seem as obstructionists, as are the Republicans.

Insurers hope to prove the private sector can fix problems on its own. Most urgently, the industry wants to head off momentum for a government-run program that would compete with private carriers.

Health care reform is gathering momentum.

Obama Wants Journalist Gupta for Surgeon General

A very good choice. This is witness to Obama's great team-building. Found this story in the Washington Post's website.

In a scene from CNN's "Planet in Peril," Dr. Sanjay Gupta stands in a body of water in Africa

By Howard Kurtz

President-elect Barack Obama has offered the job of surgeon general to Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the neurosurgeon and correspondent for CNN and CBS, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation.

Gupta has told administration officials that he wants the job, and the final vetting process is under way. He has asked for a few days to figure out the financial and logistical details of moving his family from Atlanta to Washington but is expected to accept the offer.

When reached for comment today, Gupta did not deny the account but declined to comment.

The offer followed a two-hour Chicago meeting in November with Obama, who said that Gupta could be the highest-profile surgeon general in history and would have an expanded role in providing health policy advice, the sources said. Gupta later spoke with Tom Daschle, Obama's White House health czar and nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, and other advisers to the president-elect.

The Michigan-born son of Indian and Pakistani parents, Gupta has always been drawn to health policy. He was a White House fellow in the late 1990s, writing speeches and crafting policy for Hillary Clinton. His appointment would give the administration a prominent official of Southwest Asian descent and a skilled television spokesman.

Gupta, who hosts "House Call" on CNN, has discussed the job offer with his bosses at CBS and CNN to make sure he could be released from his contractual obligations, the sources said.

His role as journalist and physician have sometimes overlapped. During the 2003 Iraq invasion, Gupta was embedded with a Navy unit called Devil Docs and, while covering its mission, performed brain surgery five times, the first of which was on a 2-year-old Iraqi boy.

Gupta's only hesitation in taking the post is said to involve the financial impact on his pregnant wife and two children if he gives up his lucrative medical and journalistic careers. But he is expected to accept the position within days.

Defending Against Disease – With Vitamin D

Finally, a good thing for being a fair-complexioned white.

It's long been known that D is crucial for strong bones. But new research suggests that it also protects against a wide variety of diseases. A study in the Archives of Internal Medicine last month found that men with low D had a higher risk for heart attacks. Other studies have linked low D with cancer of the breast, ovary, prostate, stomach, bladder, esophagus, kidney and lung. Low levels of D also have been associated with high blood pressure, stroke, diabetes, periodontal disease, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, macular degeneration, mental illness and chronic pain.

Milk is fortified with Vitamin D. Cow's milk sold in markets in cardboard packages.

The strongest source, by far, is ultraviolet B rays from the sun, which convert a form of cholesterol into vitamin D in the skin. A person sitting outside in a bathing suit in New York City gets more vitamin D in 20 minutes than from drinking 200 glasses of milk.

Good old, fee, sunlight is significantly more effective than cow's milk, then.

Dark-skinned and elderly people don't process vitamin D from the sun as efficiently as younger, fair-skinned people. UVB rays also don't penetrate glass or sunscreen with a factor of 8 or more.

I know I burn under the sun; now I maybe should think of it as overdosing on Vitamin D<

Warning: Habits May Be Good for You

A fascinating illustration of using an idea from another market for a specific good.

A FEW years ago, a self-described “militant liberal” named Val Curtis decided that it was time to save millions of children from death and disease. So Dr. Curtis, an anthropologist then living in the African nation of Burkina Faso, contacted some of the largest multinational corporations and asked them, in effect, to teach her how to manipulate consumer habits worldwide.

Branding healthy habits; a novel twist.

A few decades ago, many people didn’t drink water outside of a meal. Then beverage companies started bottling the production of far-off springs, and now office workers unthinkingly sip bottled water all day long. Chewing gum, once bought primarily by adolescent boys, is now featured in commercials as a breath freshener and teeth cleanser for use after a meal. Skin moisturizers — which are effective even if applied at high noon — are advertised as part of morning beauty rituals, slipped in between hair brushing and putting on makeup.

Not just water; premium water, oxygenated, and all sorts of things.

“OUR products succeed when they become part of daily or weekly patterns,” said Carol Berning, a consumer psychologist who recently retired from Procter & Gamble, the company that sold $76 billion of Tide, Crest and other products last year. “Creating positive habits is a huge part of improving our consumers’ lives, and it’s essential to making new products commercially viable.”

Translated: our products make lots of money when consumers become repeat customers.