Monday, August 25, 2008

Future Medical Insurance Premiums Lowered If We Look After Our Hea

Medical Health Insurance

Medical insurance companies are often paying out for treatment for heart conditions. In fact, it is up there at the top with cancers in being one of the biggest factors that will bring down British people. Without medical insurance, sufferers are often subjected to lengthy waits for treatment on the National Health Service.

However, there is good news. Scientists have discovered a drug which cuts death from a common heart problem by almost a third. Atrial fibrillation is a disorder of the heart rhythm but 'Multaq' has been shown to reduce the incidents of this claiming lives by up to thirty per cent.

This medical condition affects 700,000 Britons but the recent advancement in its treatment is the first in twenty years. The fast and erratic heartbeat of patients needs stabilising to avoid angina and heart failure. It is the upper chambers of the heart that are out of rhythm and causes the heart to beat up to twice its normal speed.

Another complication of this condition is the fact that it causes tiny blood clots to form and these can lead to strokes, another topper on the medical insurance claims. At best, previous treatments involved the use of digoxin which successfully slows the heart beat but cannot regulate it and death rates remained the same. Drugs to thin the blood followed by minor electric shocks to restore normal rhythm are also used.

This drug is considered a huge breakthrough because it is having positive effects on all those that are trialling it, without side effects. More than 4,500 patients from 33 countries have trialled the effectiveness of Multaq over a year and this is when it was discovered that cardiovascular deaths were greatly reduced among the group. Quality of life is greatly improved for all those taking the drug and life time expectancy is greatly increased. It is hoped there will be a license for using this drug as early as next year.

If this is something of a warning to those who are concerned about their heart health, or for those who would like to keep the cost of their medical insurance premiums down, there is even more good news as to how we can look after ourselves. Drink red wine.

A chemical found in the skin of red grapes contains resveratrol, an anti-aging compound. This has been captured and put into pill form and has received the backing of the UK's largest pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline. In fact, GSK bought out the company that made the drug for £361 million.

The drug was tried in lengthy tests on mice and it was found that they lived longer, were almost immune to the effects of obesity and rarely get diabetes, cancer or Alzheimer's. It was also found that if the rodents were subject to starvation diets they could even extend their life by up to thirty per cent. It is believed this is because starving the body activates a gene known as sirtuin, a survival gene.

These discoveries are hoped to bring about more treatment for diseases such as cancer and Alzheimers. The same scientists have also found that flavanoids in blueberries and other fresh fruit interact with nerve cells and stimulates the re-growth of brain cells.

So, it would seem that while scientists are doing their best to find the elixir of life, it will always pay to look after our bodies to enable them to continue working as long as possible. And if this includes eating tasty food with the occasional glass of red wine then who am I to argue?

About the Author:Medical Expert, Simon Smith, takes a look at health and fitness and how it can affect private health insurance

Medical Health Insurance

Friday, June 13, 2008

Medical Health Insurance - How To Get The Cheapest Policy

One of the largest expenses in today's modern society is the cost of medical health insurance. Over the last hundred years, the population has increased so dramatically that any country would have difficulty providing universal health care, especially with all of the modern advances that we have today and the large sums of money that most medical doctors and hospitals make. Here are a few tips on how to get the cheapest medical health insurance policy available today without racking your brain too much.

Before you go on a long winded tour of the Internet or your local Yellow Pages in order to find out where in the world you're going to get medical health insurance coverage, there are few things that you ought to run by your frontal lobe in order to determine exactly what pathway you wish to take when searching for this inevitable necessity that all adults and children must or should have in our ever-changing society. Health insurance is very important and you won't really understand how important until you are in a situation where you are with out it and end up in the hospital and receive a bill for 50 or even $100,000 that you have to pay out of your own pocket because you did not decide to get any coverage at all.

One of the first things you must consider is how many people are in your family. If you are a single person then your premium each month will be very small in comparison to what it would be for a family of say 10 people. If you are single then you have many other choices available to you that most people do not. However, if you are a family person and you need to have coverage for your many loved ones, then there are a few more considerations that you need to take into account.

Most families are not consistent of one age group but multiple age groups with multiple variations of problems that may occur. For instance, if you have many infants, then you must take into account how many different problems come when raising a child from the years of one to two years of age. If you have children in elementary school, those problems will be different than those of your teen children and so on.

Once you have taking into account how many people you will need to put on your policy, then you need to consider what kind of a policy that you should have. There are many policies that have and exceptional amount of coverage that costs a lot of money. If you do go to the doctor regularly, then this medical health insurance will be very beneficial because you will be saving money in the long run. However, if you do not go to the doctor very frequently and are typically a healthy person and the members of your household are also healthy, then you may be better off with a premium that is lower that offers fewer benefits because you will not need them on a regular basis.

The next thing to consider is the premium itself. If you're lucky enough to find a company that will give you a medical health insurance policy that is affordable and gives you almost if not full coverage for all of your medical, dental, and even vision care needs, then you should pay a premium that you can afford that will give you these kinds of benefits. However, most companies are not out there to give you the best policy for less and therefore you must pick and choose between what they have to offer and what you can afford. When doing so, always take into account what you think your family will need or if you are an individual than take into account how many times you think you will be going to the doctor and choose your policy accordingly.

The last thing to consider is why you need a policy. If you are relatively healthy all of the time, then you should go ahead and get a policy that is a bottom level policy in price and in benefits. At least then you would have coverage. If you have more people to consider, I would consider getting the middle ground policy which will cost a marginal amount yet cover everyone in the family. If your family is habitually going to the doctor or the dentist, and it is probably your best bet to choose a higher and policy with the most benefits in order to save your family money in the long run as they make those frequent trips to the doctor. It is up to you to make a good decision and you will do so after reading this when choosing your next medical health insurance policy.