Why your doctor should measure blood pressure in both arms

 

Your blood pressure offers an important glimpse into your health, but you could get even more clues by making a small change when you get it checked.

Ask to have your blood pressure taken in both arms, not just one. It’s standard procedure in cardiologists’ offices, but not a usual practice in primary care.

Healthy people can have slightly different numbers between arms, but a substantial difference in the readings could signal a blockage or an abnormality, said Dr. Sharonne Hayes, director of the Women’s Heart Clinic at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

“Probably the biggest thing I see in day-to-day practice is somebody who always gets their blood pressure checked in a given arm and they’re told over and over again it’s great,” Hayes told TODAY. But when her office checks the other arm, it reveals uncontrolled high blood pressure that has gone undetected, which can potentially damage the brain and kidneys.

http://on.today.com/2ms8zI6

Bad Diet in Teen Years Could Raise Later Breast Cancer Risk

Here’s a good reason to check what your kids are eating: women who remember having eaten poorly as teenagers were more likely to develop early breast cancer, researchers reported Wednesday.

They found women who ate the most inflammatory diet – heavy in red meat, sodas, sweet foods and white flour – were up to a third more likely to develop breast cancer in their 20s, 30s or 40s compared to women who thrived on salads and whole grains.

http://nbcnews.to/2mSVT90

Latest advice for a healthy heart

Maintaining a healthy heart is an essential part of overall health and well-being. But heart disease is still the leading cause of death for both men and women in the United States, accounting for about 1 in every 4 deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

How can you improve your odds? Here’s a roundup of some of the latest research about what makes and keeps hearts healthy.

http://cbsn.ws/2kZmX6L

Almost every employee in a new study faces increased risk of heart disease, stroke

A new study found that nearly all of about 400,000 employees at large companies nationwide face increased risk of heart disease and stroke from obesity, high blood pressure, poor diet and other risk factors.

The findings, published Tuesday in the journal Health Affairs, illustrate the need for more workplace health initiatives grounded in science and evidence to inspire employee health and reduce employer costs, study authors said.

“We Americans spend more than half of our waking hours at work. When they think about health, they don’t think of workplace as a place to get healthy,” said author Ron Goetzel, Ph.D., senior scientist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, director of the Institute for Health and Productivity Studies and vice president at IBM Watson Health. “There are a lot of things employers could be doing to encourage healthy habits in the workplace.”

http://bit.ly/2k6Alsx

Red meat: Good or bad for health?

Red meat contains numerous vitamins and minerals that are essential for a healthful, balanced diet. In recent years, however, its reputation has been severely blemished, with studies suggesting that red meat intake can increase the risk of cancer and other diseases. But is it really that bad for us? We investigate.

Intake of red meat in the U.S. has fallen dramatically over the past 4 decades.

Red meat is defined as any meat that comes from mammalian muscle. This includes beef, lamb, pork, goat, veal, and mutton.

For many households, red meat is considered a food staple, with some of us consuming beef, lamb, and pork in different variations on a daily basis.

Last year, the average person in the United States is estimated to have consumed around 106.6 pounds of red meat. Although this might appear a high intake, it is a significant reduction from the average 145.8 pounds consumed per capita in 1970.

http://bit.ly/2kN8gpR

 

January Cervical Health Awareness Month

What Is Cervical Cancer?

Cervical cancer occurs when abnormal cells develop and spread in the cervix, the lower part of the uterus. More than 12,000 new cases are diagnosed each year in the U.S. A unique fact about cervical cancer is that most cases are triggered by a type of virus. When found early, cervical cancer is highly curable.

Here’s Exactly How Stress Can Cause a Heart Attack

What’s going on in your mind can spark body-wide consequences

Stressing too much can be a real killer. Now, scientists have discovered what exactly it may about the mental tension that can cause you to croak well before your time.

Researchers from Harvard Medical School tested activity in the amygdala—a region of the brain associated with stress—bone-marrow activity, and amount of inflammation in the arteries for about 300 people. They discovered that those with the most activity in the amygdala had the highest risk of developing heart disease over a follow up of nearly four years.

http://bit.ly/2jGuk4K

 

Why happiness is healthy

(CNN) Happiness — you know it when you see it, but it’s hard to define.

You might call it a sense of well-being, of optimism or of meaningfulness in life, although those could also be treated as separate entities. But whatever happiness is, we know that we want it, and that is just somehow good.

We also know that we don’t always have control over our happiness. Research suggests that genetics may play a big role in our normal level of subjective well-being, so some of us may start out at a disadvantage. On top of that, between unexpected tragedies and daily habitual stress, environmental factors can bring down mood and dry up our thirst for living.

http://cnn.it/2k6Kbdk

Health trends not worth keeping in 2017

Health trends come and go — some helpful, some not so helpful, and some downright dangerous. CBS News asked medical experts about some of the popular trends they recommend ditching in 2017.

Trend: Cooking with coconut oil

“People seem to be eating it and drinking it with everything — adding it to coffee, cooking their vegetables with it — and it’s giving them large quantities of fat. I wish this trend would go away,” said Dr. Andrew Freeman, a cardiologist and director of Cardiovascular Prevention and Wellness at National Jewish Health in Denver, Colorado.

The latest guidelines from the American College of Cardiology recommend against tropical oils, he said. Freeman is the chair of the American College of Cardiology’s nutrition and lifestyle working group.

Coconut oil, a tropical oil, is not recommended because it’s likely to be artery clogging.

“Years ago, it was fed to lab animals to induce atherosclerosis,” said Freeman.

“It’s not a recommended oil by any of the guidelines that I know of. In general, it can contribute to cardiovascular disease risk because of its very high saturated fat content. The standard American diet most people already eat is already high-fat and full of a lot of processed meats and cheese, and now everyone’s adding coconut oil and we’re going in the wrong direction,” he said.

People who already have cardiovascular risk factors should definitely avoid it, he advised.

“Coconut oil is not a ‘superfood.’ Coconut meat by itself is probably not a bad thing to eat, but it’s when you start extracting the oil out of a plant — that’s when you get into trouble. I’m not entirely sure why it’s caught on the way it has,” Freeman said.

http://cbsn.ws/2j8Q9Gr

5 Myths About Fat — Debunked

1. Myth: Fat on my plate equals fat on my body.

Reality: Even though this myth is the basis for low-fat diets and food products, it’s far from the truth. Eating fat won’t make you fat. Completely eliminating or limiting fat from your diet can actually make you gain weight, often because it leaves you feeling so deprived. Conversely, some studies have found that fatty foods can aid in weight loss.

“The problem with most diets is that they lack the key ingredient that makes food taste good and cuts your hunger,” says Dr. Hyman. And you guessed it, that’s fat. “Healthy fats are the best source of energy for your body, and they keep your metabolism and fat-burning mechanisms running as they’re meant to,” Dr. Hyman explains.

Research supports this, showing that a low-fat diet could slow down metabolism. So now you have permission to enjoy a spoonful of nut butter with an apple before your next workout or a satiating piece of steak for dinner every once in a while.

http://cnn.it/2j9ni5d