MILWAUKEE, WI - Thanksgiving is filled with good food, company, and gratitude.  For many people, it's also the source of weight gain and anxiety.  This season, don't let the holidays derail your healthy habits.  TOPS Club, Inc. (Take Off Pounds Sensibly), the nonprofit weight-loss support organization, offers tips to eat right, stay active, and reduce stress.

Eat without Regret

• Watch portion sizes. You don't need to fill your plate with everything that's offered.  Sample your favorite foods and use a smaller plate to "trick" yourself into thinking you have consumed more.

• Slow down. Take time to enjoy your food and stop eating before you feel full.

• Change the focus to family at the table. Food and drinks are a large part of the holidays, but they don't have to be the focus.  Instead, go around the table and have everyone say why they are thankful, share favorite holiday memories, and reconnect.

• Don't forget about breakfast. Approaching the Thanksgiving meal on an empty stomach can be a recipe for disaster.  A nutritious breakfast helps control appetite, so you aren't as inclined to overindulge during dinner.  Breakfast can also keep energy levels up.

• Send off leftovers. Don't fill your refrigerator with leftovers; send extra food home with guests.  This will help avoid temptation to dip back into high-calorie treats.

Stay Active

• Take a hike or go for a walk. Make time to get moving on Thanksgiving Day.  Take a walk or hike in the morning or head outside after dinner.  Many communities offer "Turkey Trots," a 5K walk/run, which can be an invigorating way to kick off the day.

• Plan an activity. The day doesn't need to revolve around the Thanksgiving meal.  Go for a family bike ride, play football, or have a relay race for the kids.

Say Goodbye to Holiday Stress

• Take time for yourself. During the holidays, there can be a lot of togetherness.  It's important to spend a few minutes alone periodically to give yourself time to recharge.  Take a nap, listen to music, or simply sneak off to a quiet room in the house to clear your mind.

• Be thankful. Feeling stressed or tired?  Find yourself complaining?  Take time to think about or write down the things you're thankful for, big or small.  Being grateful can decrease stress, boost the immune system, and improve sleep patterns.

• Share the load. There's no reason only one person should plan, cook, and entertain.  If guests offer to prepare a dish, let them bring it to your Thanksgiving celebration.  Also, have the kids help with household chores.  This will decrease your workload and make the holiday more pleasant.

• Help those less fortunate. Forget about your troubles for the day and spend time volunteering at a local soup kitchen or food pantry.  Spread cheer by giving back, taking the focus off of your own stress and helping others in need.

• Breathe! It may seem simple, but people tend to forget to breathe when they're stressed.  Take deep breaths to increase your oxygen intake.  Find a comfortable place to rest and consciously slow the rate of your breathing.  You'll be amazed how good you will feel.

• Keep it simple. Make a few fancy dishes and keep the others easy.  It's okay to scale back the meal and festivities, so you enjoy the holiday rather than spend all of your time preparing.

To successfully employ these tips, make sure to plan ahead and practice an attitude of gratitude.  The holidays are a time to focus on the people in your life, so make an effort to take the emphasis off of sweet treats and creating the perfect meal and be thankful for friends, family, and good health.

TOPS Club Inc. (Take Off Pounds Sensibly) is the original weight-loss support and wellness education organization.  Founded more than 63 years ago, TOPS is the only nonprofit, noncommercial weight-loss organization of its kind.  TOPS promotes successful weight management with a "Real People. Real Weight Loss." philosophy that combines support from others at weekly chapter meetings, healthy eating, regular exercise, and wellness information.  TOPS has about 170,000 members - male and female, age seven and older - in nearly 10,000 chapters throughout the United States and Canada.

Visitors are welcome to attend their first TOPS meeting free of charge.  Membership is affordable at just $26 per year, plus nominal chapter fees.  To find a local chapter, view www.tops.org or call (800) 932-8677.

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How Americans Rate Their Diet Quality

A new TV feature is available on the USDA FTP site. The new feature can also be seen on USDA's YouTube channel and downloaded as a video podcast. See below for details.

FTP Download instructions:

The host: ftp://ocbmtcmedia.download.akamai.com

User name: usdanews

Password:  Newscontent1

Filename: diet perception feature

The new file is in QuickTime Movie (H.264 ), MPEG 4, MPEG2 and HDV.

YouTube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXY9mbpgXHg&feature=channel_video_title

video podcast: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/usda-down-to-earth-video-podcast/id461819504?uo=4

RSS feed: http://downtoearth.usda.libsynpro.com/rss

Please email bob.ellison@usda.gov if you have problems or suggestions.

Also, use this free ftp client if you have problems.

http://filezilla-project.org/download.php?type+client

FEATURE - How Americans Rate Their Diet Quality

INTRO: Are people learning the healthy eating information being directed at them? A U-S-D-A study aimed to find out. The U-S-D-A's Bob Ellison has more. (1:30)

 

A NEW U-S DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE STUDY SAYS AMERICANS KNOW THEY SHOULD BE EATING HEALTHIER EVEN IF THEY DON'T THINK THEY ARE. THE U-S-D-A'S ECONOMIC RESEARCH SERVICE COMPARED DIET PERCEPTION SURVEYS FROM NINETEEN NINETY ONE AND FROM TWO THOUSAND SIX AND FOUND THAT PEOPLE IN THE OH-SIX SURVEY WERE MORE FAMILIAR WITH FEDERAL DIETARY ADVICE.

 

Christian Gregory, USDA ERS: People are really starting to comprehend that education programs and information in the media and from physicians is really starting to kind of click with people.

 

AND WHILE THOSE SURVEYED DON'T BELIEVE THEIR DIETS HAVE CHANGED, THEIR UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT A HEALTHY DIET IS HAS CHANGED.

 

Gregory: The healthfulness of the diet hasn't changed much. So we really think that there is some suggestive evidence that it's the information environment and people's comprehension of that information that's really changing. But all of this information basically has kind of gotten through and you basically evaluate your diet today and say, "Hmm...that might not be that great".

 

GREGORY SAYS THE NEXT STEP WILL BE TO STUDY IF HEALTHY EATING INFORMATION IS AFFECTING PEOPLE'S ACTUAL DIETS AND NOT JUST THEIR PERCEPTIONS.

 

Gregory: We need to know more about how effective nutrition education programs, especially those that are funded by and sponsored by the USDA.

 

MORE DIET PERCEPTION STUDY INFORMATION CAN BE FOUND AT E-R-S DOT U-S-D-A DOT GOV AND HEALTY EATING GUIDELINES CAN BE FOUND AT CHOOSE MY PLATE DOT GOV. FOR THE U-S DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE I'M BOB ELLISON.

Kohl-Grassley Generic Drug Bill Would Save Taxpayers Nearly $4.8 Billion, Congressional Budget Office Says

 

WASHINGTON - A new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimate finds that a bipartisan bill aimed at cutting costs by encouraging competition from generic drugs would save taxpayers nearly $4.8 billion over the next decade.

CBO anticipates that enacting the Preserve Access to Affordable Generic Drugs Act (S. 27) would accelerate the availability of lower-priced generic drugs and generate $4.785 billion in budget savings between fiscal years 2012 and 2021. CBO also estimates that earlier entry of generic drugs affected by the bill would reduce total drug expenditures in the U.S. by roughly $11 billion over the decade.

The CBO estimate can be found here.

The bill would deter "pay-for-delay" settlements in which brand name drug companies settle patent disputes by paying generic drug manufacturers in exchange for the promise of delaying the release of the generic version into the market. Under the legislation, these anti-consumer pay-off agreements would be presumed illegal and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) would be provided the authority to stop the agreements.

"Generic drugs are essential to making medicine affordable and holding down costs for taxpayers," Kohl said. "As CBO's new cost estimate shows, backroom pay-for-delay deals are keeping generic drugs off the shelves at a great cost to consumers and taxpayers. Congress and the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction should take this opportunity to fix this problem."

"CBO estimates that there would be significant savings to both the federal government and consumers if our legislation were to be enacted. When people across the country are having a hard time making ends meet, this could be a real boost to their bottom line," Grassley said.  "I urge the deficit reduction committee to include this legislation in their efforts to make the necessary reductions in the federal budget."

Last month, Kohl and Grassley urged the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction to include the bill as part of its budget-cutting effort. The letter can be found here.

The Federal Trade Commission also released a report last month that found that drug companies entered into 28 potential pay-for-delay deals in FY 2011, nearly matching the previous fiscal year's record of 31 deals. Overall, the agreements reached in the latest fiscal year involved 25 different brand-name pharmaceutical products with combined annual U.S. sales of more than $9 billion.

In July, the Senate Judiciary Committee favorably reported the Preserve Access to Affordable Generic Drugs Act.

Previously, CBO estimated that the bill would save the federal government - which pays approximately one-third of all prescription costs - $2.68 billion over ten years. The president included a provision to end pay-for-delay settlements in his FY 2012 budget and estimated it would save the federal government $8 billion over ten years.

-30-

WASHINGTON - Senator Chuck Grassley is continuing his effort to restore public access to data on malpractice payouts, hospital discipline and regulatory sanctions against doctors and other health professionals and to hold accountable the federal government official who shut down access to this information.

In a letter sent to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Grassley said the department's response to his inquiry of October 7 was incomplete even while revealing that the Health Research and Services Administration (HRSA) prematurely jumped to conclusions regarding a reporter who used publicly available information to track down the identity of a doctor with a record of malpractice cases.  Grassley said that in doing so, the federal government undermined its own mandate to "enhance the quality of healthcare, encourage greater efforts in professional peer review and restrict the ability of incompetent healthcare practitioners to relocate without discovery of previous substandard performance or unprofessional conduct."  Instead, Grassley said it looks like HRSA was trying to protect a single physician who had a malpractice suit and disciplinary action filed against him.

Grassley said whoever made this decision needs to be held accountable and that the Public Use File in question should be fully restored on the HRSA website.  "Department officials are misguided if they think they can make this issue go away with the response sent to my first letter of inquiry," Grassley said.  "This database contains information intended for public consumption, and efforts to shutter access will be fought by those of us committed to transparency where public dollars and the public interest are at stake."

Click here to read Grassley's November 3 letter.  Click here to read Grassley's October 7 letter.  Click here to read Grassley's October 17 letter.  Click here to read the response from the HRSA Administrator to Grassley's October 7 letter and attachments one, two and three.

 

In addition, below is the text of Grassley's November 3 letter.

November 3, 2011

 

The Honorable Kathleen Sebelius

Secretary

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

200 Independence Avenue, SW

Washington, D.C., 20201

 

Dear Secretary Sebelius:

On October 7, 2011, I wrote to the Health Research and Services Administration (HRSA) regarding its decision to remove the publically available National Practitioner Data Bank's (NPDB) Public Use File (PUF) from its website.  For years the PUF has served as the backbone in providing transparency for bad acting healthcare practitioners and has been used by researchers and consumer groups to calculate trends in disciplinary actions by state medical boards.

On November 1, 2011, HRSA responded to my letter and provided a set of heavily redacted documents.  However, HRSA failed to respond fully, and the information provided raises additional concerns.  For example, question 4 asked who was responsible for the decision to remove public access to the PUF and the response merely said it was made by HRSA leadership.

Question 1 asks HRSA how it reconciles the claim in the letter to Mr. Bavley that "information reported to the NPDB is confidential and it's not to be disclosed or redisclosed outside of HHS except in furtherance of professional review activities" with the fact that the statute clearly contemplates that the data will be public in a de-identified form. HRSA responded by stating:

The initial information HRSA received did not indicate Mr. Bavley had used the Public Use File (PUF).  . . . HRSA's letters related to use of confidential data from NPDB itself-not from the Public Use File.  Mr. Bavley subsequently informed HRSA that he had not used the NPDB, but had instead conducted research using data from the PUF.

HRSA's response makes it apparent that HRSA simply accepted the complaint of the physician involved at face value and jumped to conclusions about how Mr. Bavley obtained the information.  Once HRSA learned of its mistake, it then compounded the error by shutting down access to information that Congress intended to be public through the PUF.  All Mr. Bavley did was use publicly available data, and HRSA's response to that was to shut down access to that data for everyone.  Moreover, HRSA has still failed to restore the PUF to its website.

Perhaps more puzzling is why HRSA was going against its mandate with respect to the NPDB PUF.  The intent of the legislation that created the PUF was to enhance the quality of healthcare, encourage greater efforts in professional peer review and restrict the ability of incompetent healthcare practitioners to relocate without discovery of previous substandard performance or unprofessional conduct.  However, from the documents provided by HRSA it appears that instead of protecting the interest of public health, its purpose was to protect a single physician who had a malpractice suit and disciplinary action filed against him.

Instead of conducting its own research into the professional conduct of Dr. Tenny, HRSA appears to have over reacted to the complaint of a single physician based on no evidence other than that he received a call from the press.   This action, and the subsequent action of removing public access to the PUF, flies in the face of HRSA's mandate to enhance the quality of healthcare.

In light of all these circumstances, full public access to the PUF should be restored to HRSA's website immediately.  Additionally, I request that the individual at HRSA responsible for the decision to remove the public access to the PUF come in and brief my staff immediately.  As part of this briefing, please bring the unredacted copies of all documents HRSA supplied as part of my initial inquiry.

Should you have any questions regarding this letter, please contact Erika Smith of the Senate Judiciary Committee staff at (202) 224-5225.  Thank you for your immediate attention to this important matter.

Sincerely,

Charles E. Grassley

Ranking Member