Get Heart Healthy - Stay Healthy Heart

One important way to control heart disease and maintaining heart health, make healthy lifestyle. Heart disease is one of the most serious issues affecting the health of American men and women today. As we get older it becomes increasingly difficult to remain in good health. We consider these changes in lifestyle that will help you maintain good heart health:
Control of blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol levels. High blood sugar can cause damage to vital organs including the heart. High blood pressure makes your heart to work properly and bad cholesterol can clog blood vessels.
on Eat more fruits, vegetables, legumes and whole grains.
Be proactive about. Assembly to exercise for 30-60 minutes several times a week.
Maintain a healthy weight on.
DASH to good health ~ blood pressure controlHigh blood pressure is common in people with heart disease. Centers National Institutes of Health created the DASH (Dietary Approach to Stop Hypertention). This is a diet that helps lower blood pressure with a healthy diet and lifestyle changes. The plan includes what foods are healthy heart recipes to make delicious and nutritious meals and exercise tips for any age and fitness level. The plan can be evaluated
HelpExercise is another important part of heart-healthy lifestyle. When you exercise, your body produces endorphins, which help reduce stress and promote well-being. Exercise can also help reduce "bad" cholesterol and raise "good" cholesterol, improves blood sugar control and lower blood pressure. Here are some ways to get more active during the day:
Leave a lift and make more trips up and down the stairs.Click on parking, which is more than usual.Walk on with a friend.Ø use of your lunch break at work to walk for 10 minutes.about Play active games with your children or grandchildren.
Heart health for the whole familyWhen it comes to heart health, good for you, what's good for the whole family including the youngest members. Teaching their children, grandchildren and other young family members the importance of proper nutrition and regular physical activity, you will help them develop healthy habits for life.
Let them see you eating healthy nutritious snacks, and enjoying the outdoors. Invite them to join you. Show young children how to clean fruits and vegetables, and combine them into salads. Teens can learn to make simple healthy dishes such as pasta, vegetables and baked or fried chicken and fish.
Try to engage in activities that they like, so I do not think the exercises as a chore. Back to nature, such as horseback riding hiking, swimming or biking.
Heart Health for lifeIt does not matter how young or old you are. Regardless of age, must take steps to protect your heart. Do not forget to consult your doctor before starting any diet or exercise program.

Breaking Up Is Like Defeating an Addiction

We have heard the song “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do”, and scientist at Stony Brook University think they have found out why. A team of researchers including Arthur Aron, Ph.D., professor of social and health psychology and former graduate students Greg Strong and Debra Mashek, researched subjects who had a recent breakup and found that the pain and anguish they feel may be linked to activation of parts of the brain associated with motivation, reward and addiction cravings.
“This brain imaging study of individuals who were still ‘in love’ with their rejecter supplies further evidence that the passion of ‘romantic love’ is a goal-oriented motivation state rather than a specific emotion,” the researchers concluded, noting that brain imaging showed some similarities between romantic rejection and cocaine craving.
The study can also possibly explain why feelings and behaviors related to romantic rejection are difficult to control and why extreme behaviors associated with romantic rejection such as stalking, homicide, suicide, and clinical depression occur.
“Romantic rejection is a major cause of suicides and depression. We have known very little about it. Understanding the neural systems involved is extremely important both for advancing our basic knowledge of intense romantic love in general and of response to rejection in particular,” said Dr. Aron.
The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to record brain activity in 15 college age people who had recently gone through a breakup. Participants were shown a photograph of their former partner, then completed a simple math exercise to distract them from their romantic thoughts. They then viewed a photograph of a familiar “neutral” person.
The researchers found that viewing photographs of their former partners stimulated areas of the brains to a greater degree than when they looked at photos of neutral persons.
“It shows that intense romantic love seems to function much like an addiction,” Dr. Aron said. “But that does not tell us one way or the other whether the desire to be in love in general is an addiction.” Dr. Aron noted that some of what has been learned over the years in this area may be useful in helping people attempting to recover from drug addiction.

Hip Replacement Improves Function, Saves Money

Seniors with osteoarthritis who undergo total hip replacement are twice as likely as those who do not to show improvements in physical functioning and increased ability to care for themselves, according to researchers at Duke University Medical Center. The study, which is the largest of its kind conducted to date, found that there is no age limit on the benefits of hip replacement for patients.
Researchers found that total hip replacements provide a cost savings to the health care system because reimbursement for the procedure (averaging $4,000 – $6,000) proves less costly than the long-term cost of health care for the disabled.
In addition to improved quality of life, health economists estimate savings associated with a year of a disability-free life at approximately $50,000, including all related health-care costs incurred by disabled patients such as hospital stays, nursing homes and home health care.
"We found that total hip arthroplasty improves everyday life for patients and is as beneficial to people in their 80s or 90s as it is for someone in their 60s," said Linda George, Ph.D., professor of Sociology and associate director of the Duke Center for the Study of Aging. "While the number of surgeries conducted in the U.S. has increased dramatically over the last decade, fewer than 25 percent of patients who could benefit from the procedure elect to receive it."
Osteoarthritis of the hip is a progressive type of arthritis closely associated with aging and obesity. It affects about 10 million Americans, causing pain, decreased mobility and increased risk of falls and fractures. Generally, non-surgical treatment is first recommended to reduce joint pain and inflammation and improve joint function. Hip replacements are performed when less invasive forms of treatment — medications and physical therapy — have failed.
"Osteoarthritis of the hip has a devastating impact on a patient’s quality and length of life. Our study aimed to understand how total hip replacements affect tasks people do in their everyday lives, such as bathing, dressing, walking a few blocks, shopping and preparing meals," George said.
Patients who were disabled at the time of surgery had transitioned out of disability within one year of the procedure.
Total hip replacement is an invasive treatment with a long rehabilitation period. According to Dr. George, this may help explain why physicians are less likely to present surgery as an option to those patients 85 years of age and older, and why there may be some reluctance among patients to choose the procedure.
"Physicians are less likely to present this option to the very old," George said, "but they should feel confident in recommending this procedure to those who are eligible for it."
"We know that hip replacements are relatively safe and reports have shown a very high rate of patient satisfaction due to reduced pain and increased range of motion," she added.

TV Viewing Distorts Health Perceptions

A new study from the University of Rhode Island is showing that medical dramas on TV and news can lead individuals to be overly concerned with personal health and may reduce a person’s satisfaction with life.
Yinjiao Ye, assistant professor of communications studies found that TV viewing affects young adult’s awareness of health risks and may lead to misinformed beliefs regarding personal health and can lead individuals to be overly concerned with personal health.
Millions of TV viewers watch certain medical shows such as “Grey’s Anatomy,” and “House,” and there is now evidence that the mass media is very powerful in disseminating health knowledge and changing health attitudes and behaviors through such programming.
Many people gain important information and knowledge about health risks from the mass media and this creates a double-edged sword as it appears as people become more knowledgeable, they enjoy life less.
Researchers feel that because of this knowledge, it tends to lead people to think they are more likely to suffer from the maladies presented on TV. Researchers also noted that life dissatisfaction is the reason why people watch so much television and they feel it is not the best solution for coping with being unhappy. They suggest socializing and exercise as healthier options.
The URI professor surveyed 274 students in the College of Communications at the University of Alabama about their TV viewing and life satisfaction. The students were not told the purpose of the survey. The surveyed students ranged in age from 18 to 31, a youthful group associated with good health and vitality. “While this surveyed group shows dissatisfaction, I suspect that if I surveyed a more general population the dissatisfaction would be even higher,” says the researcher.
It seems like we are literally living ourselves sick, and television plays a large role in this downward spiral. The study was conducted on a small group of students at just one university so the study’s results should be considered tentative at this time, until confirmed by a larger and more diverse future study.

Swine flu vaccine recall no cause for alarm, experts say

Like lead-painted Thomas the Tank Engine toys or ground beef contaminated with E. coli bacteria, the swine flu vaccine is now the subject of a mass recall.
Nearly 1 million H1N1 children’s shots that were part of Tuesday’s nationwide recall had diminished in potency but were still safe for use, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
On Wednesday, Sacramento health care providers scrambled to see if they had administered any of the recalled vaccine so they could notify parents – even though the parents won’t be asked to take any action in response.
Given the urgent calls from health officials in recent months to get children vaccinated, parents might be left wondering how so many shots could have been recalled.
Experts say anything being produced in the millions will have flukes. In the past decade, a handful of vaccines have been recalled because of problems with their effectiveness.
“It’s not unlike making a soufflé,” said Dr. Robert Schooley, chief of the division of infectious diseases at the UC San Diego School of Medicine. “Most come out right, and sometimes they don’t.”
Made by French pharmaceutical firm Sanofi Pasteur, the recalled H1N1 shots are single-dose, prefilled syringes for children ages 6 months to 35 months.
The shots met clinical standards when they were shipped in November, but subsequent testing showed four batches – 47,800 doses of which made their way to California – were about 12 percent below the threshold of recommended potency. The shots account for 9 percent of California’s total number of prefilled syringes for young children.
Children under age 10 are urged to get two doses of the vaccine spaced one month apart. Young children who received the recalled vaccine won’t need to get additional doses beyond those two, the CDC said.
Sanofi Pasteur would not elaborate on why the vaccine had lost some of its potency.
“At this time, we don’t have all the answers,” said spokesman Len Lavenda.
But experts said there could be multiple reasons for the degradation.
All flu shots are made by growing strains of the virus in eggs, then killing it, mixing dead virus particles with other ingredients and putting it all into bottles or syringes.
When injected, the dead virus particles stimulate the body’s immune response without sickening the patient, since the virus lacks all the pieces it needs to make a person sick. The next time the virus appears, the body “remembers” it and can destroy it.
Testing determines the concentration of dead virus needed to achieve an optimal immune system response, said Schooley, the UC San Diego professor.
“Sometimes the proteins unfold in a way that make them noneffective, or there is precipitation of them in clumps,” he said.
“These things happen with medications, and with vaccines you usually don’t hear about them. In this case everybody is worried about it because it’s a high-profile disease with a vaccine we wish we had more of.”
The problem with the recalled vaccine was that it degraded at a faster rate than expected, said Dr. Neal Halsey, director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
“All vaccines have a certain time before expiration,” he said. “These four lots changed a little bit faster.”
Halsey said the recall is actually evidence that the government and vaccine manufacturers are acting responsibly and testing regularly.
Other recent vaccine recalls:
• In February, Novartis recalled five lots of seasonal flu vaccine in prefilled syringes.
• In December 2007, Merck recalled 1 million Hib vaccines used to protect against meningitis, because of sterility concerns.

Do Doctors Have Pharmaceutical Best Interest in Mind

Does your doctor have you or the pharmaceutical company’s best interest in mind? Well according to reports from a joint investigation by news agencies and non-profit groups; found that more than 380 of the health care workers took in more than $100,000 in 2009 and 2010.
The report showed than 17,000 healthcare providers, including doctors, have received money from several major drug companies to talk to other doctors about their products.
The payments are not illegal showed that doctors were sometimes urged to recommend “off-label” prescriptions, meaning using them for conditions they are not approved for showing that some doctors have something else in mind besides patients best interest.
The report also calls into question the impact that drug company payments might have on doctors when they prescribe medications. Several lawsuits have accused drug companies of paying doctors to prescribe certain drugs. In a recent New York Times there was a story about those lawsuits, specifically ones focusing on anti-psychotic drugs.
Thousands and thousands of US physicians are paid by pharmaceutical companies to spread the word about their “favored pills and to advise the companies about research and marketing,” the group said in the report.
The investigation included information from seven drug makers -- AstraZeneca, Cephalon, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, Merck and Pfizer. Consumer Reports said the information was released voluntarily by some of the companies, while some “were forced to disclose this information as a result of legal settlements.”
This is becoming such a problem that in the 2nd annual prescription drug survey conducted by Consumer Reports National Research Center they found that after they surveyed more than 1,150 adults who currently take prescription drugs, that 69 percent of those polled think drug companies have too much influence on medications doctors prescribe.
Dr. John Santa, director of the Consumer Reports Health Ratings Center, said in a statement that “the amount of money involved is astounding, and the ProPublica report's account of the background of some of the physicians is disturbing.”
It is important to note that not all doctors have received money from several major drug companies to talk to other doctors about their products.