Obesity Linked to Several Cancers.

A report issued by the National Cancer Institute and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concludes that obesity plays a role in at least thirteen types of cancer, which accounts for about 40% of all cancer diagnoses in a given year. These cancers include brain cancer; multiple myeloma; esophageal cancer; postmenopausal breast cancer; thyroid…

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Heart Attack Raises Vascular Dementia Risk.

Vascular dementia is characterized by a decline in thinking skills due to reduced or impaired blood flow to the brain. Using 35 years of data concerning nearly 1.9 million adults, researchers found that myocardial infarction survivors have an elevated risk for developing vascular dementia, and the risk rises dramatically if they also sustain a stroke…

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Calcium in Arteries May Predict Risk of Heart Attack.

Individuals without calcium buildup in their arteries appear to have a significantly lower risk for heart attack and stroke. Researchers looked at CT scans of nearly 6,200 people and found that those whose arteries were free of calcium deposits had a less than a 3% chance for a heart attack or stroke over the next…

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Impact Sports Improve Bone Health.

Teenagers who engage in impact sports—basketball, baseball, football, and soccer, for example—appear to have greater bone density than adolescents who participate in non-impact sports, like swimming, or who refrain from athletics. Additionally, impact sport athletes also have a reduced risk for sustaining a stress fracture compared with non-athletes. Journal of Sports Sciences, December 2017

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Breakfast Tips for Parents.

Studies show that children who eat breakfast tend to be healthier and perform better in school than those who skip what’s considered to be the most important meal of the day. The United States Food and Drug Administration offers these suggestions for choosing a good breakfast for your child: offer healthy foods that your child…

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Are Young Adults Ignoring Their High Blood Pressure?

A survey of more than 41,000 Americans suggests that only half of the 6.7 million young adults with high blood pressure received treatment for it in 2013 and 2014. Senior study author Dr. Andrew Moran writes, “While hypertension awareness, treatment, and control have improved overall since the early 2000s, all three remain worse in young…

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Antioxidants May Reduce Parkinson’s Risk.

A fifteen-year study that followed over 80,000 adults found that those with a diet high in the antioxidants beta-carotene and vitamin E had a 9-13% reduced risk for developing Parkinson’s disease during that time. Movement Disorders, September 2017

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Check Your Car for Recalls.

The National Safety Council reports that drivers of cars manufactured before 2012 are about half as likely to bring their automobile in for service in the event of a recall (44% compliance rate vs. 83% for newer cars). Experts from the council add that there are about 53 million vehicles on the road with unresolved…

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Vitamin D levels May Be Associated with Low Back Pain.

Blood samples taken from 600 participants with either chronic low back pain, sub-acute low back pain, or no history of back pain showed no significant difference in the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency among the three groups. However, the researchers did observe that the men and women in both of the back pain groups were…

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