Daily Rounds: Obama Presses Insurers; Paralysis Progress; Housework And Hormones; Shaq's Apnea; Maine Hantavirus

Insurers Told to Justify Rate Increases Over 10 Percent - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON — Alarmed at soaring premiums and profits in the health insurance industry, the Obama administration demanded on Thursday that insurers justify proposed rate increases of more than 10 percent, starting in September. (nytimes.com)

Spinal Implant Spurs Motion In Paralyzed Man - NPR
Rob Summers was a 20-year-old college baseball pitcher when a hit-and-run driver ran him down, paralyzing him from the chest down. But that was five years ago. Summers can now move his legs, feet and toes, and he can even stand up. That's because of an experimental treatment that combines intensive physical therapy with electrical stimulation of the spinal cord.

Irreconcilable differences: men, women and housework - latimes.com Their findings: Lots of time spent in household chores at the end of the day keep both husbands’ and wives’ cortisol levels high—no surprise here. But on closer inspection, the researchers observed that a married mother's cortisol levels will decline most steeply at the end of the day when her husband pitches in with the housework. Unfortunately, a working man's end-of-day cortisol levels won't likely dip to recovery levels unless he spends more of his end-of-the-day time relaxing and his female partner spends less time relaxing. “The second shift is alive and well and it has a cost for women,” said Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, an Ohio State University psychologist who studies the effect of relationship on immune function. The second shift, she added is “certainly not” the same for men, much as things have changed in American society. “Women are still picking up the load,” she added, with possible longterm effects on their health. (Los Angeles Times) Shaq discusses his sleep apnea on Harvard video - Daily Dose - Boston.com
Think it's not cool to wear a breathing mask for chronic snoring? Well, Boston Celtics star Shaquille O'Neal recently got one, and he says — in a video produced by Harvard Medical School's Division of Sleep Medicine — that he intends to wear it every night.

Man stricken by lethal, mouse-borne virus - The Boston Globe Maine health officials say the first case of a potentially fatal respiratory condition spread by the common house mouse has been diagnosed in the state. Officials say the case reported last month in Somerset County was in a man in his 70s. He is recovering. Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome comes on quickly, and there is no effective vaccine or cure, officials say. It has a fatality rate of 30 percent to 40 percent. (boston.com)