Welcome to April, which is also Stress Awareness Month. For many of us, every month feels like stress awareness month. You don’t need one more article that says “stress is bad,” and that “you should go for a walk.” Or do you? Ask yourself this question: Do you think that stress is just a feeling? Maybe you think stress is...
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COVID-19 and Endothelial Inflammation
In May, the Journal of Clinical Medicine published an article titled “Hypertension, Thrombosis, Kidney Failure, and Diabetes: Is COVID-19 an Endothelial Disease? A Comprehensive Evaluation of Clinical and Basic Evidence.” The authors put forward a hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 infects the lining of the body’s blood vessels. The lining...
Read MoreNo Salt, Please
A recent commentary in the New England Journal of Medicine describes what is really happening with the US food supply. In 2010, a report by the Institute of Medicine (IOM–now called the National Academy of Medicine) stated that, salt intake is actually a factor that is out of our personal control. This is because only 5% of sodium is coming from the...
Read MoreI Keep Getting Up At Night To Go to the Bathroom: Nocturia and Nocturnal Polyuria
By Professor Steven Kaplan, MD “I never get a full night’s sleep…I’ve got to get up two or three times a night.” “As soon as I lie down, I feel like I need to GO!” “When it was just once a night, I could handle it. Now it’s once every hour!” If any of these statements describe your experience,...
Read MoreAccurate Blood Pressure Readings Are More Important Than Ever Before
These new goals are based on a significant number of research studies but especially the SPRINT study. This was a large investigation with more than 9000 patients over the age of 50 whose blood pressure measured higher than 130 mm Hg. Participants also had at least one of these risk facts: 1) “Presence of clinical or subclinical cardiovascular...
Read MoreTake A Daytime Sleepiness Quiz
In a previous post, Why do we sleep? we puzzled through the purpose of sleep for our bodies. In a recent TED talk, neuroscientist Lisa Genova (see her talk below) connects the dots explaining how good sleep clears out the toxic amyloids that are associated with Alzheimer’s. (learn more about Alzheimer’s here) “In slow-wave deep sleep, our...
Read MoreWhat Are Blood Pressure Numbers? What’s High Blood Pressure? [Infographic]
Your Heart Your heart is an incredible organ. It is responsible for getting oxygen and nutrients to every cell in the body by pushing blood throughout the body. Beating around 100,000 times a day, it pumps blood over the 60,000 miles of blood vessels. Blood Pressure Explained A heartbeat is a two part process that takes about a second. During the first...
Read MoreLiving On Through Organ Donation
The Wisdom of Youth When he turned 16, Carey Hughley III showed his brand new driver’s license to his sister Alisa. “You’re an organ donor?” she asked. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m not gonna need ‘em when I’m dead,” In high school Carey was part of the swim team that set the NC state record in the 200-meter freestyle relay. ...
Read More16 Insights From WorldWide Chat on Health Information Seeking
The world is flat guys, Twitter is awesome! #doctors20 — Ángel González (@angel189) February 2, 2015 Worldwide Conversation Only on Twitter can people around the world chat with each other in real-time about an issue that impacts so many. Monday February 2nd, a group of 114 people from places as different as South Africa, Belgium, Australia,...
Read MoreOnline Support for Hypertension
We’ve been asked by our subscribers to help them find online support groups/forums for their medical conditions. Therefore, from time to time, we’ll review a medical condition, and the online support forums and groups for this specific condition. We’re starting with hypertension / high blood pressure. The main reason we’re beginning...
Read More4 BIG Reasons Blood Pressure Matters
Blood pressure measurement history Before the first sphygmomanometer, doctors put tubes in arteries to measure systolic blood pressure. Happily, in 1881 Samuel Siegfried Karl Ritter von Basch figured out a way to measure blood pressure in a less invasive way, using a rubber ball that restricted blood flow to the artery and attaching that to a column of...
Read More“I’d Never Heard of Melanoma”
Growing up, Colleen Bronstein spent all summer at her family’s summer home at the beach and when she married they had a pool and visited the beach house twice a year. Fair skinned, freckled and Irish she loved the outdoors. Knowing the Signs “I had an itchy spot on my back for a year or so and when I went to see my family doctor about something...
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