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High blood pressure: Why me?
“I go to the gym, and I never add salt. So why do I have high blood pressure?” Despite its astonishing prevalence of one in three Americans, many people struggle with the diagnosis of high blood pressure, or hypertension. It’s worth exploring why, because being an active participant in your care is crucial for optimal blood pressure control. Certain features make any diagnosis easier to accept: First, people are more likely to accept a diagnosis if they have symptoms. A person with cough and fever will believe a diagnosis of pneumonia. But someone who feels fine would not. Next, people more readily accept a diagnosi...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - May 2, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Naomi D. L. Fisher, MD Tags: Behavioral Health Health care Heart Health Hypertension and Stroke Prevention Screening high blood pressure Source Type: news

For the good of your heart: Keep holding the salt
Your doctor has probably told you to cut back on salt, especially if you have high blood pressure. For years we’ve understood that excess salt raises blood pressure and increases deaths from heart disease. The guilty element is sodium, which pairs with chloride to form common salt. So when the journal Lancet recently published a study reporting that low dietary sodium was associated with an increased risk of heart disease and death, controversy was predictable. A wealth of rigorous scientific studies supports a link between excess sodium intake and high blood pressure, heart attacks, and strokes. Yet the Lancet paper rep...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - July 11, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Naomi D. L. Fisher, MD Tags: Healthy Eating Heart Health Hypertension and Stroke Prevention Source Type: news

Sauna use linked to longer life, fewer fatal heart problems
After shoveling for days, breaking up ice dams, and now shivering in this week’s frigid temperatures, I wouldn’t mind sitting in a sauna for a bit. A new report in JAMA Internal Medicine makes this pastime even more appealing: regularly spending time in a sauna may help keep the heart healthy and extend life. Researchers from the University of Eastern Finland tracked 2,300 middle-aged men for an average of 20 years. They categorized the men into three groups according to how often they used a sauna each week. The men spent an average of 14 minutes per visit baking in 175° F heat. Over the course of the study, ...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - February 25, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Beverly Merz Tags: Complementary and alternative medicine Heart Health sauna Source Type: news

Precision medicine is coming, but not anytime soon
President Obama’s announcement of a Precision Medicine Initiative was one of the few items in this year’s State of the Union address to garner bipartisan support. And for good reason. Precision medicine, also known as personalized medicine, offers the promise of health care — from prevention to diagnosis to treatment — based on your unique DNA profile. Who wouldn’t want that? We’ve already had a taste of precision medicine. Relatively low-tech therapies like eyeglasses, orthotic devices, allergy treatments, and blood transfusions have long been personalized for the individual. Genetic analysis o...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - March 26, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Beverly Merz Tags: Health care personalized health care precision medicine Source Type: news

A twist on the genetic link between Alzheimer’s and heart disease
Alzheimer’s disease often strikes fear in people’s hearts because it gradually erodes a person’s ability to remember, think, and learn. There is no cure, and available treatments alleviate symptoms only temporarily. An estimated 5.3 million Americans currently have Alzheimer’s disease, yet this brain disorder is far less common than heart disease. More than 85 million people in the United States are living with some form of cardiovascular disease or the after-effects of stroke, which also affects brain function. Many people don’t realize that Alzheimer’s and heart disease share a genetic link: the apolipoprotei...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - March 25, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Julie Corliss Tags: Alzheimer's Disease Behavioral Health Brain and cognitive health Genes Healthy Aging Heart Health Memory Mental Health Source Type: news

Tossing flossing?
The burning question in the news last week was this: should you bother flossing? The answer for decades has been “of course.” And it’s likely you’ve heard something similar from your dentist. I know I have. But, while the importance of flossing may have been widely accepted, the evidence supporting it turns out to be surprisingly thin. At least that’s the conclusion of health experts who developed the recently released Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2015-2020. These guidelines are issued every five years by the U.S. Department of Health and Humans Services and the U.S. Department of Agriculture “…to reflec...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - August 14, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Robert H. Shmerling, MD Tags: Dental Health Prevention Source Type: news