USA Today /Kaiser Health News (4/2, Appleby) reports, “Now, more employees are being asked to roll up their sleeves for medical tests – and to exercise, participate in disease-management programs and quit smoking to qualify for hundreds, even thousands of dollars’ worth of premium or deductible discounts.” Those supporting medical tests “say such plans offer people a financial incentive to make healthier choices and manage chronic conditions such as obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes, which are driving up health care costs in the USA” even though “studies of the effect of such policies on lifestyle changes are inconclusive.” However, “advocates for people with chronic health conditions, such as heart disease and diabetes, fear that tying premium costs directly to test results could lead to discrimination.”

 HealthDay (3/30) reports, “Doctors may fail to detect precancerous growths if patients’ colons aren’t adequately cleansed before having a colonoscopy,” according to a study published in the journal Gastrointestinal Endoscopy. “Researchers identified 373 patients who underwent a colonoscopy between 2004 and 2009, and had inadequate bowel preparation. Of the 133 patients who later had a second colonoscopy, nearly 34 percent had at least one precancerous growth detected in the repeat screening.” Medscape (3/30, Barber) also covers the story.

A study linking red meat to a higher risk of early death generated significant coverage online and in print, and was also featured on ABC World News (3/12, story 6, 2:10, Sawyer), which reported that a “major medical study from the Harvard School of Public Health” is “raising a giant red flag about eating red meat.”
The Los Angeles Times (3/13, Brown) reports, “Eating red meat – any amount and any type – appears to significantly increase the risk of premature death, according to” the study.
USA Today (3/13, Hellmich) reports that investigators “analyzed the diet, health and death data on 37,698 men and 83,644 women. Participants completed questionnaires about their diets every four years.” Over a “follow-up period of more than two decades, almost 24,000 of the participants died, including 5,910 from heart disease and 9,464 from cancer.”
Bloomberg News (3/13, Ostrow) reports, “The researchers found that those who increased consumption of unprocessed red meat by one serving each day had an 18 percent higher risk of dying from heart disease and a 10 percent greater risk of dying from cancer, while those who ate one more daily serving of processed red meat had a 21 percent higher risk of dying from heart disease and a 16 percent increased risk of dying from cancer.”
The New York Times (3/13, Bakalar, Subscription Publication) reports, “The increased risks linked to processed meat, like bacon, were even greater: 20 percent over all, 21 percent for cardiovascular disease and 16 percent for cancer.”
Also covering the story were NPR (3/13, Aubrey) “The Salt” blog, HeartWire (3/13, O’Riordan), BBC News (3/13), the UK’s Press Association (3/13), CNN /Health.com (3/13, Harding), HealthDay (3/13, Reinberg), WebMD (3/13, Goodman), MedPage Today (3/13, Neale), and the UK’s Telegraph (3/13, Smith)