Health Notes

There are so many interesting stories out there I thought I would just pass on to you some things I have been reading lately.

Here’s another reason to try and avoid diabetes, as if we needed anymore reasons: apparently there is some risk that a person with diabetes might develop some cognitive impairment. Diabetes takes a real toll on a human body.

While I am on the subject of diabetes, here is something that I have mentioned before: apparently having diabetes can take 15 years of health from a person’s heart. In other words, a 40 year-old person with diabetes has about the same risk of cardiovascular disease as a 55 year-old person. Stated another way, diabetes can age a person’s heart by 15 years. My mother was diabetic. She died from a stroke at the age of 70. Without diabetes she might have lived to 85.

Canada appears to be an example of an evolved society: apparently there is a “national effort to curb obesity.” Good for them.

I have talked a lot about stress before. Managing it is one thing that is well within our power to do, and it can have a real positive impact on our health. We can eat a healthy diet, lose weight, but if we are stressed out, a lot of our efforts can go for naught. For example, this article says that stress may make cancer more difficult to kill.

This is very interesting: the drug Lithium, which is used to treat bipolar disorder, is said to build gray matter in the brain. Maybe I could try some. (Just kidding. Bipolar disorder is a serious condition.)

This article says that Australian teenagers eat a really poor diet. Do American teenagers do any better?


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