20 Reasons to get excited about 2012!

After years of talking about it 2012 has finally rolled round and the London Olympic and Paralympic Games are within sight.

We’re getting very excited about seeing our Welsh athletes perform, on home soil, in the biggest sporting event on the planet! So we thought we’d share the excitement and highlight some of the things we’re looking forward to most.

Let us know what you’re looking forward to most about London 2012 – for example your favourite athlete (hopefully!) winning gold - by tweeting us your highlights, using our hash tag #alliwant2012.

1. Getting closer now; with just a 200-day dash for the start line on 9 January for the Olympic Games and 11 February for the Paralympic Games. Look out for events happening right across Wales to mark this latest milestone.

2. It’s the home straight! In just a few short months Welsh athletes will join up with Team GB to take part in the biggest sporting event to hit our shores since we last hosted the Games in 1948. Look out for 18 April and 21 May as we mark 100 days until the Olympic and Paralympic Games respectively.

Geraint Thomas and Young Ambassador
Ainsley Richards with the Olympic Torch

3. The Olympic flame will pass through more than 1,000 cities on a 70-day tour across the UK, travelling within 10 miles of 95% of the population. Welcoming the Olympic Flame evening events take place in Cardiff (Friday 25 May), Swansea (Saturday 26 May), Aberystwyth (Sunday 27 May) and Bangor (Monday 28 May). But the flame will also be passing through many other Welsh towns and villages en route. Visit www.london2012.com/olympic-torch-relay to see the full route.

4. The London 2012 Paralympic Torch Relay will take place from 24–29 August 2012, after the Closing Ceremony of the Olympic Games. It visits Cardiff, during its tour of home capitals, before reaching London for the opening ceremony.

5. The Millennium Stadium has the honour of hosting the very first event of the Olympic Games, with women's Football matches starting on 25 July. It will also host the men's bronze medal match.

6. The Opening Ceremonies will focus the eyes of the world on London on 27 July 2012 for the start of the 2012 Olympic Games and again on 29 August for the fourteenth Paralympic Games.

7. Nicole Cooke, the first woman cyclist to hold the Olympic and World Road Race titles in the same year, should saddle up to sprint down the Mall for the Women’s Road Race on 29 July.

Swimmer Jazz Carlin

8. Jazz Carlin, silver and bronze medallist at the Delhi Commonwealth Games, could make a big splash at the Aquatics Centre with possible finals appearances in the Women’s 400m Freestyle on 29 July, the 200m Freestyle on 30 July and 4 x 200m Freestyle Relay on 1 August.

9. Jemma Lowe, the British record holder and 2010 World Short Course silver medallist swimmer, will hopefully line up for finals of the Women’s 100m Butterfly on 29 July, the 200m Butterfly on 1 August, and the 4 x 100m Medley Relay on 4 August. Both swimmers will be aiming for GB berths in the March trials in London.

10. Wrexham’s 2011 World Rowing Championships bronze medallists Chris Bartley and Victoria Thornley hope to take to the water to race in the finals of the Men’s Lightweight Fours and the Women’s Eights on 2 August.

Geraint Thomas, Nicole Cooke
and Tom James

11. Geraint Thomas, another Olympic and World Champion cyclist of the same year, hopes to put the pedal to the medal in the Men’s Team Pursuit final at the Olympic Park Velodrome on 3 August.

12. Tom James, Coedpoeth’s Beijing gold medallist and 2011 World Rowing Champion, will hopefully stroke for gold again in the final of the Men’s Four, at Eton Dorney, Buckinghamshire on 4 August.

13. Helen Jenkins, Double Triathlon World Champion, will aim to add Olympic gold to her impressive medal haul at Hyde Park on 4 August.

14. Dai Greene, the unstoppable medal machine who currently holds the European, Commonwealth and World titles, will stride out in pursuit of the final jigsaw piece in the 400m Hurdles at the Olympic Stadium on 6 August.

Taekwondo star Jade Jones

15. Jade Jones, the Youth Olympic Games champion and 2011 World silver medallist, will hope to land a few of her favourite head kicks on her way to fulfil her dream of winning GB Taekwondo’s first ever Olympic gold medal at the ExCel Centre on 9 August.

16. Hannah Mills, a silver medallist at the 2011 Sailing World Championships, hopes to make waves in the 470 Class with Saskia Clark at Weymouth and Portland on 10 August.

17. Boxers Fred Evans (welterweight) and Andrew Selby (flyweight) will hope to box their way to some silverware (or goldware!) at ExCel on 12 August.

18. Steve Thomas, silver medallist at the 2011 IFDS Disabled Sailing World Championships, will hope to go one better and clinch gold in the Sonar class at Weymouth and Portland on 6 September.

19. Nathan Stephens, the current F57 Javelin World Champion and world record holder, will hope to land Paralympic Gold at the Olympic Stadium on 8 September.

20. Closing ceremonies, on 12 August for the Olympics and 9 September for the Paralympics, both of which involve the march of the athletes – without any grouping of nationality – the hoisting of the national flag of the next hosting nation (Brazil) and the symbolic extinguishing of the respective Flames.

New York - Presbyterian Hospital Trustee Advocated Novel Cardiac Procedure - "Reach In, Rip Out Their Heart, and Eat It Before They Die"

The dominant theme of Health Care Renewal has been how problems with the leadership of health care organizations have lead to our current state of health care dysfunction.  We have discussed examples of ill-informed, mission-hostile leadership rewarded with excess compensation, exhibiting impunity in the face of alleged misbehavior, and at times descending into corruption.  The cause of these problems is doubtless multi factorial.  However, one possible cause is that rather than exercise stewardship and hold leadership accountable, those in charge of governance of health care organizations, that is, boards of directors or trustees, have instead infected the organizations with the amoral culture now dominant in much of the business world, especially finance.  We have discussed, most recently here and here, how the boards of health care corporations often include heavy representation of leaders of finance, including many of those who seemed responsible for the global financial collapse, great recession, or whatever we will end up calling it. 

I recently stumbled upon a particularly graphic example of the sort of predatory culture that now exists on the boards of health care organizations.  (More on how I did so later.)  Below is an embedded YouTube video of a speech made by a current Trustee of New York - Presbyterian Hospital (who has been on the board since 2007).  He is Richard Fuld, the former CEO of Lehman Brothers, whose continuing role on the hospital board, despite his failed leadership of one of the financial firms whose bankruptcy ushered in the global financial collapse, we discussed first here.



Just to underline it once more, Mr Fuld, referring to short sellers of his company's stock, said he "what I really want to do is I want to reach in, rip out their heart, and eat it before they die." 

Can there be a more stark reminder of what has gone wrong with the governance of health care?  Can anyone watch this video and argue that Mr Fuld ought to be on the board of a hospital system?  Why is he still on the board in January, 2012, when this video was released in October, 2011?

While I suspect not many other hospital system board members have been videographed displaying equally brutal sentiments, there are likely others with similarly barbaric tendencies.

So, on a more positive note.... The boards of hospitals, hospital systems, medical schools, and their parent universities ought to be populated with people who take their stewardship roles seriously.  They ought to be people who understand, agree with, and support the organizations' mission, and their dedication to patient care and teaching.  They ought to understand what good leadership of health care organizations entail.  Needless to say, they ought to be of good character and above any ethical reproach.  In short, they ought to be the opposite of the sort of person displayed in the video above.

It should now be obvious that grievous problems with the leadership and governance of health care organizations are principle causes of the dysfunction in our health care system.  True health care reform will require wholesale changes in health care leadership and governance.

PS - In case the video above seems too short on context, see the one below:

just in case you need some motivation.....

mine was knowing that my husband was running while i tried to sleep longer in bed.  it hurt but it's done.

*images courtesy of life's a journal, katie ridder, savvy home

High-Fat Diets, Obesity and Brain Damage

Many of you have probably heard the news this week:

High-fat diet may damage the brain
Eating a high-fat diet may rapidly injure brain cells
High fat diet injures the brain
Brain injury from high-fat foods

Your brain cells are exploding with every bite of butter!  Just kidding.  The study in question is titled "Obesity is Associated with Hypothalamic Injury in Rodents and Humans", by Dr. Josh Thaler and colleagues, with my mentor Dr. Mike Schwartz as senior author (1).  We collaborated with the labs of Drs. Tamas Horvath and Matthias Tschop.  I'm fourth author on the paper, so let me explain what we found and why it's important.  

The Questions

Among the many questions that interest obesity researchers, two stand out:

1. What causes obesity?
2. Once obesity is established, why is it so difficult to treat?

Our study expands on the efforts of many other labs to answer the first question, and takes a stab at the second one as well.  Dr. Licio Velloso and collaborators were the first to show in 2005 that inflammation in a part of the brain called the hypothalamus contributes to the development of obesity in rodents (2), and this has been independently confirmed several times since then.  The hypothalamus is an important brain region for the regulation of body fatness, and inflammation keeps it from doing its job correctly.

The Findings

Read more »

one more day before my husband goes back to work and the kids are back in school....
hope y'all enjoyed your new years and are having a wonderful start to 2012!

*images courtesy of once in a little while, gold and gray, viva full house, style essentials