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Title: Healthy Living News: Health Updates

Author: Mellanie True Hills, The Health & Productivity
Revitalizer (SM)

Category: Health, Women's Health
Copyright: © 2005 by Mellanie True Hills
Line Length: 60 characters

E-mail: mhills @ mellaniehills.com (remove spaces)
URL: http://www.mellaniehills.com

Article URL:
http://www.mellaniehills.com/healthylivingv2-2.htm

Find other articles that you may reprint at
http://www.mellaniehills.com/healthylivingnews.htm
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ARTICLE

Healthy Living News, v. 2, no. 2, January 20, 2005

In this issue you'll find the following health updates:

1. Cancer Surpasses Heart Disease--Don't Let This Fool You!
2. C-Reactive Protein (CRP), Statins, and Heart Disease
3. Statin Drugs Over-the-counter?
4. New 2005 Dietary Guidelines
5. Red Wine and Your Heart
6. Shocking, Yet Not So Surprising
7. Wear Red
8. What Are Your Health Goals for 2005?

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1. Cancer Surpasses Heart Disease--Don't Let This Fool You!

According to new numbers from the American Cancer Society
(ACS), in 2005 more people under the age of 85 will die
of cancer than of heart disease. While the death rate from
many cancers is decreasing due to decreased smoking and
progress in treating those cancers, the number of cases for
other cancers is growing due to our increasingly unhealthy
diets and our overweight epidemic.

Does this mean that you should forget about heart disease
and just start focusing on fighting cancer? Not at all, as
both are very serious issues. However, the American Heart
Association notes that the ACS estimate only compares cancer
deaths to the number of heart disease deaths, and excludes
the other closely-related cardiovascular diseases. Heart
disease, stroke, and the other cardiovascular diseases
together still take two out of every five of us (40%), and
largely stem from the same issues that lead to cancer.

Leading a healthy lifestyle is the best way to prevent all
these serious and deadly diseases, and you can save
yourself if you know how. (You'll find lots of crucial
life-saving information in A Woman's Guide to Saving
Her Own Life, at http://www.saveherlife.com).

2. C-Reactive Protein (CRP), Statins, and Heart Disease

We've discussed the promise of C-reactive protein (CRP)
testing (http://www.mellaniehills.com/healthyliving3.htm).
Just what does C-reactive protein (CRP) testing do? It's
a simple blood test that indicates high levels of
inflammation or infection in the body, which may indicate
potential heart disease, stroke, colon cancer, or other
diseases. CRP may soon become more important then
cholesterol testing in foretelling your risk of heart
disease, especially since half of those having heart
attacks have normal cholesterol.

Several new studies just published in the New England
Journal of Medicine showed that medications that reduce
the levels of C-reactive protein in heart patients can
also reduce their risk of heart attacks and cardiac death.
One of those studies found that patients on statin drugs
to lower their cholesterol not only saw a drop in their
bad cholesterol (LDL) levels, but also saw a drop in their
CRP readings and in the number of heart attacks they
experienced. The next step in this clinical trial is to
determine if healthy patients experience the same results.

Though CRP is not a formally-recommended test, if you have
risk factors for heart disease it might be prudent to ask
your doctor about CRP testing. If a CRP test shows that
you have high inflammation numbers, you must do something
about your risk factors immediately.

Coincidentally, there has been recent evidence that
alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), found in soybean oil,
flaxseed, nuts, and leafy green vegetables, can decrease
CRP levels, and other testing has shown the impact of
vitamins in decreasing CRP. (See A Woman's Guide to Saving
Her Own Life for more details about CRP, including the
impact of diet and vitamin supplements on CRP.)

3. Statin Drugs Over-the-counter?

The FDA just turned down a drug company request to sell
statin drugs over the counter. Over-the-counter sales
appear inevitable as this has been approved in the United
Kingdom, but doing so now in the US might be premature.
Statins are tricky and should only be taken under a
doctor's watchful supervision due to the possibility of
liver, muscle, and other problems that can happen with
some statins.

4. New 2005 Dietary Guidelines

The USDA just released the new 2005 Dietary Guidelines,
replacing the old 2000 USDA Food Pyramid that had been
under attack for being obsolete due to advances in
nutritional science. The new guidelines are far more
complex and don't lend themselves easily to a pyramid so
we've yet to see how they will be visually displayed.

The new guidelines focus on determining your daily calorie
requirements and balancing that by getting 30-90 minutes
per day of physical activity, depending upon whether you
wish to maintain or lose weight. (By the way, this
30-90 minutes is already under attack.)

There is also a more intense focus on the number of
servings of specific foods required to get needed vitamins
and minerals. Eating vegetables is important, but just got
more complex due to the breakdown of vegetables into five
groups, with recommended servings per week for each group.
In addition, the guidelines recommend that half of your
daily grain intake should be whole grains.

You can find the detailed 2005 dietary guidelines at
http://www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines/dga2005/document/
(or use my distilled and simplified recommendations from
them in A Woman's Guide to Saving Her Own Life).

5. Red Wine and Your Heart

The latest issue of Circulation, a journal of the American
Heart Association, provides an interesting look at
Red Wine and Your Heart (http://circ.ahajournals.org/
cgi/content/full/111/2/e10?etoc) that is based on a
review of the existing scientific literature.

Data from 51 studies showed a 20% decrease in heart
disease risk when 0 to 2 alcoholic drinks were consumed
per day, and light to moderate alcohol consumption was
associated with an approximately 20% reduction in
(ischemic) stroke risk.

Is red wine better? The results conflict--some studies
showed up to a 32% heart disease risk reduction while
others showed no such beneficial effect, leading
researchers to surmise that factors such as diet, exercise,
or socioeconomic status might have been at work.

However, red wine's chemical composition (alcohol and
polyphenolic compounds, such as flavonoids and resveratrol)
appears to help maintain healthy blood vessels. Regular
alcohol consumption also appears to increase good (HDL)
cholesterol by about 12%, and to carry away the bad
(LDL) cholesterol so that it doesn't deposit itself in
the blood vessels. In addition, those who consume light
to moderate alcohol have less of the proteins that
encourage blood clots to form.

In spite of all this evidence, the researchers concluded
that the evidence is still insufficient as light alcohol
consumption has also been frequently shown to contribute
to cardiovascular disorders and recommending alcohol use
is risky due to other alcohol-related health concerns.
The American Heart Association recommends discussing this
with your physician, as do I. But it's good to know the
facts behind what we so frequently read.

As an aside, the effect of alcohol on the brain is also
being studied. A newly-released study of more than 11,000
nurses that was led by Harvard Medical School researchers
definitively linked alcohol consumption and the brain with
their finding that one drink or less per day prevents
cognitive decline in women. Presumably, the same would
apply to men, but requires further study.

6. Shocking, Yet Not So Surprising

A study found that cardiologists in New York don't always
perform emergency angioplasties on patients that come to
the emergency room with heart attacks because they don't
want to hurt their physician scorecard rankings.
Seventy-nine per cent of those responding said that their
decision had at some time been influenced by knowing that
their statistics would be made public. This is just one
more reason to be extremely proactive about your own health.
(The New York Times)

7. Wear Red

February is National Heart Month, and February 4 is
National Wear Red Day. Wear red to raise awareness that
heart disease is not only the number 1 killer of men,
but also of women. Call 1-888-MY-HEART to receive your
free red dress pin and wear it with pride. For more
information, go to http://www.americanheart.org/
presenter.jhtml?identifier=3017091

Men, please wear red, too, to show your support for your
wives, mothers, sisters, daughters, friends, and
employees.

8. What Are Your Health Goals for 2005?

Don't forget—please send me what health goals you've set
for 2005 and how I can help you reach them. Please take
a moment to e-mail me to let me know at mhills @
mellaniehills.com (remove spaces). I'd love to know:

* Do you make New Year's resolutions? Do you keep them?
* What are your goals or resolutions for 2005?
* How can I help you reach them?
* How will you pamper yourself this year?

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A Woman's Guide to Saving Her Own Life
(http://www.saveherlife.com) includes the secrets to how
I easily lost 85 pounds and how you can lose weight, too.
It's not just for women. Save yourself and your loved ones.
Get off to a great start for 2005!

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Please, take care of yourself.

Wishing you health, happiness, and longevity,
Mellanie True Hills

Copyright 2005 Mellanie True Hills. All Rights Reserved.

About the Author:

Mellanie True Hills (http://www.mellaniehills.com),
The Health & Productivity Revitalizer(SM), is a
speaker, consultant, coach, and author of 'A Woman's
Guide to Saving Her Own Life'. Read two chapters online
at http://www.SaveHerLife.com