Heart Disease: Missed my chance to alert you about National Wear Red Day yesterday. The event brings attention to the number one killer of Americans; heart disease. Heart disease is most often associated with lifestyle and is therefore preventable. The first indicators of trouble are high LDL cholesterol, hypertension and low HDL cholesterol. What you can control is the type and amount of food you consume, the amount and type of exercise you engage in, your weight (YES you can), and your time spent being still or sedentary. For many people, salt should also be monitored and limited. You have the power to prevent an illness, use that power.
Aging: Aging, as it is, beats the alternative, in my book. Still there are ways to age gracefully and ways to age actively. Neither is the result of cosmetic lotions, drugs or surgery. The way to most safely and effectively reduce or slow the effects of getting older i.e. physical and mental decline, is exercise. As much as being sedentary increases heart disease and obesity risk, it also adversely affects your body on a cellular level. This is news from a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. The qualification from the study author is as always, duplication is needed but also, that those who do exercise and have the healthier cells, if you will, should be studied as a group.
Diabetes: A Medicare review on diabetes prevalence was reported by Reuters and the report was confusing. Well, maybe the headline was the problem. It stated that more elderly develop diabetes. Though the number of persons over age 65 who have type two diabetes has risen 10 percent, the doctors quoted in the story didn’t associate it with new cases but an increase in prevalence. (more people are alive with the illness at the time of the review than at a time of a previous review) The rise in incidence as we know is in the young. The concern expressed by researcher Frank Sloan of Duke University is that persons do not manage their illness and have complications such as heart disease, neuropathy, blindness, and kidney problems. This cascade of diabetes related illness can lead to premature aging and death.
Guidelines: The following info is exactly why I write this newsletter and advocate for health education to the general public. A study in the Journal of Preventative Medicine reports on the risk of obesity since US Dietary Guidelines suggested a low fat diet. The science is correct, the message is insufficient. Replacing saturated fat with high sugar snacks has caused the epidemic. The study authors are spot on when advising that persons be given complete information instead of sound bites! Giving the consumer complete scientific info may be too much and my passion is actually providing people with sufficient info. This research also makes me more confident about Walter Willett’s food guide pyramid and recommendations. http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/
Germs: Oh My, got that one wrong didn’t they. A recent push by the CDC and the accreditation agency for hospitals is hand washing. The main reason for hospital acquired infections, it has been asserted, is lack of hand hygiene. Yup, doctors and nurses, ok and social workers and other health care professionals, not washing their hands between patients has been a real issue in hospitals. In recent years hospital initiatives have included mandated staff training (how to wash your hands videos), people spying on doctors and reporting them for not washing their hands and putting alcohol hand sanitizer stations up all over the place. The recent research contradicted earlier research and intuitive thinking that increased use of the gels would cut down on infections. However, that is no reason for anyone to stop washing their hands!
Wishing you Wellness!
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