wellness

Walk into any Whole Foods Market and you are met with an array of vibrantly colored vegetables, leafy greens and barrels of fruit: The store is an emporium to healthy eating. Now, the company is wading deeper into the preventative health care market with member's only Wellness Clubs.

Sam's Club, the discount warehouse owned by Walmart, has begun selling a basic health package called the Prevention Plan this month. But the $99 plan isn't actual health insurance: It's a personalized health management program that gives consumers access to tools to help evaluate their health.

Health care costs will increase between 10.5% and 11% over the next year, marginally higher than last year's rise, consulting firm Aon said Wednesday. Aon pins the increase on factors such as rising prescription drug costs and the effects of the health care reform law passed this spring.

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey's plan to give employees breaks on health insurance for lower blood pressure and body mass index is ruffling feathers. Has this notorious "right-wing hippie" gone too far?

A new study declares that vitamins are a waste of time and money. Researchers, Marian Neuhouser of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle, who led the study published in Archives of Internal Medicine, said: "To our surprise we found that multivitamins did not lower the risk of the...

Employers are beginning to see the results of wellness and fitness programs and the sound is Kah-Chink in their coffers. In a time of annual double-digit health care cost increases, many companies have found wellness programs are an inexpensive and effective way to stabilize costs. It is estimated...

Employers everywhere are tightening their belts in response to the current financial crisis. A good deal of employers are already past cutting travel and other expenses and are looking at payroll to keep costs in check. This complicates matters for any employee who is up for a raise right now,...