The Pulse – July 10, 2015

Yoga during lunch and nutrition counseling right in your office sound like a good deal. But as workplace wellness programs become more popular, some people are having second thoughts about the bargain they’ve made. We hear one woman’s story of having to participate in mandatory health coaching through her work and talk with experts about whether or not workplace wellness is hitting the mark.

So much of staying healthy sounds like a total drag, right? Chris McDougall, author of the best seller “Born to Run” wants to return the fun and joy into fitness and exercising. His new book “Natural Born Heroes” explores what we can learn from everyday super humans and we invited him into the studio to explain.

The medical field has been notoriously slow to embrace technology when it comes to patients’ health records. The Affordable Care Act brought a $30 billion cash infusion from the federal government that has helped move things along. Now, about 70 percent of Americans’ medical files are digitized, which has posed many new questions – among them, what should providers do with people’s mental health records? Should they be part of the equation? Kept separately? Maiken Scott looked for answers. 

It’s in your shampoo, your deodorant, your granola, your cookies and Nutella. Palm oil is made from the pulp of the fruit of the oil palm and it’s come under fire for being a bad actor in terms of the environment. Calen May-Tobin leads the palm oil campaign for the advocacy organization Union for Concerned Scientists and we asked him to explain some of the issues around palm oil.

For our series Patient Files, your stories of illness, healing and coping, we meet a 10-year-old girl whose family went seven years before receiving a diagnosis for her rare genetic disorder. Carolyn Beeler visited her and her mom in their suburban Philadelphia home and recorded their story.

Also on the show, emerging emergency technology, sharing brainpower among wasps and combining neuroscience with art and light.