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11 millones de personas en riesgo de perder su vista a causa de la diabetes


Doctor examining pregnant womans blood sugar

La retinopatía diabética es una de los tipos de enfermedad más comunes que afecta los ojos de diabéticos. Actualmente esta condición afecta a más de 7 millones de personas en EE.UU y se pronostica que para el 2013 afectara a más de 30 millones, según el instituto nacional de los ojos (NEI). Los latinos, nativos americanos y afroamericanos están a mayor riesgo. “Lamentablemente, solo la mitad de las personas con diabetes se hace un examen completo de los ojos con dilatación de las pupilas.” según lo ha expuesto el experto del Instituto Nacional del Ojo, el Dr. Eduardo Alfonso. “Este examen es clave para detectar la enfermedad diabética del ojo en sus primeras etapas, cuando se puede tratar efectivamente.” Las enfermedades de diabetes en el ojo incluyen ...

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#SaludTues Tweetchat 1p ET 11/3/15: “How Swimming Can Level the Playing Field for Kids”


Swimming

Swimming is one of the best physical activities because it requires all major muscle groups and had proven to increase children’s confidence, motor skills, and academic achievement. But not everyone has the same access to swimming facilities and lessons. This increases a child's risk of drowning, and fewer opportunities to swim or learn how to swim means kids can't do water-based physical activities, such as underwater handstands, sink-and-seek, diving, water aerobics, tubing, kayaking, paddle boarding, boating, skiing, and fishing. Join #SaludTues on No. 3, 2015, to tweet about how communities can increase children's access to swimming lessons and facilities to decrease their risk of drowning and increase their participation in numerous life-enriching water activities: ...

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Renowned Pulmonologist Pushes to Raise the Smoking Age to 21


Early Smoking Heart Disease Risk Smoking Age to 21

Raising the smoking age to 21 could curb access to tobacco products at an early age, which could lead reductions in smoking prevalence, said Dr. Daniel Ouellette, a Henry Ford Hospital pulmonologist. “Most of my patients are diagnosed with emphysema or lung cancer at a relatively young age from smoking, despite the media attention given to the health risks of smoking, and despite them knowing about those risks,” Oulette said. Smoking causes 1 in 5 deaths in the United States and is linked to cancer, heart disease, stroke, lung disease, diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, according to the CDC. Oulette warns that based on current smoking rates 5.6 million Americans under 18 will die during their lifetime due to smoking and tobacco products. Need help to kick ...

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Dia de Salud Increases Health in Oregon Community


Dia de Salud

Sarah Cantril started the Huerto de la Familia program to focus on boosting health by helping local families live healthier lives in Eugene, Ore. In trying a new approach to bring health information to families, Julia Ridgeway-Diaz and other officials with Huerto de la Familia decided to start an annual health fair, called Dia de Salud (Health Day). This free, tailored annual health fair brings families together to receive free eye exams, blood tests, and other health services that would normally be unavailable to their community. What Role Do People Play in Their Health?  Huerto de la Familia has been assisting families in Eugene, Ore. (7.8% Latino), since 1999, when Sarah Cantril formed the organization from a grassroots project, to a fully developed non-profit. But Julia ...

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Tanya Enriquez: Breast Cancer Survivor


Tanya Enriquez DelValle

When you’re 27 years old the last thing that crosses your mind are mammograms, breast self-examination and breast cancer. “My doctor had said I was too young to have a mammogram, so when I finally heard the breast cancer diagnosis after tests on my “cyst,” my whole body went numb. I didn’t have time for cancer; I was getting married. On December 5, 1997,” Tanya Enriquez says. Her honeymoon turned into a visit to the hospital to have 20 lymph nodes removed, and an aggressive chemotherapy treatment. Soon after her diagnosis Tanya met Marta Zuniga, a stage III breast cancer patient and later met Susan Coll, the three were known as the Three Musketeers. “We had a bond that not many shared. We were all under 30 and had breast cancer. We would talk, laugh, and go out ...

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NYC Makes Policy to Change to Kids Menus at Fast Food Restaurants


Girl eating a huge hamburger Kids Menus at Fast Food Restaurants

What if fast food meals for kids were considered more nutritious? Researchers from New York University (NYU) studied kids' meals by looking at over 358 fast food receipts which detailed over 400 purchases of kids' meals. After calculating what those meals would look like with a set of healthy nutritional standards, researchers summed up that there would have been a nine percent drop in calories for kids if the fast food meals purchased were up to their standards. This may not seem like much, but Dr. Brian Elbel, the lead author of the study and associate professor in the department of population health at NYU, said in a recent article, that these changes on fast food kids' meals would be a step in the right direction to help fight against childhood obesity. The new bill purposed ...

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17 Year-Old Creates Healthy Cooking Camp



Camp Cauliflower is a cooking camp in Novato, Calif., where young students are learning what healthy cooking looks like for one week. Created by 17-year-old high school senior, Elena Dennis, the camp encourages young students to create healthy meals from the garden to the kitchen. Students harvest, cut, chop and cook alongside their older peers throughout the classes, all while learning what it takes to create a well-balanced meal. Elena, interested in starting this camp to encourage healthier diets for younger classmates,  wanted to use her passion for cooking and nutrition in her school. She set out to make her dream of Camp Cauliflower become a reality in 2014 by asking food and nutrition director of Novato School District, Miguel Villarreal, to help her start her ...

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Turn Your Phone into a Personal Coach to Help You Quit Smoking!


Quitxt Quit Smoking

Smoking is a tough opponent to beat. Quitxt is a new free service that turns your mobile phone into a personal coach to help you quit smoking, using interactive and entertaining text messages, online support, hip-hop music, and videos designed for South Texas young adults by researchers at UT Health San Antonio. The service’s text messages help with motivation to quit, setting a quit date, finding things to do instead of smoking, handling stress, using nicotine replacement if needed, and more. To join Quitxt in English, text “iquit” to 844-332-2058.   For Spanish, text “lodejo” to 844-332-2058.   “Text-message applications have scientifically proven to roughly double one’s odds of quitting smoking, so we developed Quitxt specifically for young adults to ...

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Hospitals Could be doing More to Implement Breastfeeding Friendly Practices


Mother breastfeeding her baby in hospital room Breastfeeding Friendly Practices

Of the approximately four million babies born in the United States every year, only about 14 percent are born in Baby-Friendly hospitals, The Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative established 10 Steps to Successful Breastfeeding in 1989, which were endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2009. However, a recent study found that many hospitals still do not implement these 10 Steps. Breastfeeding has numerous health benefits, including reduced childhood obesity, but many mothers face challenges to breastfeed. Maternal experiences during the birth hospitalization show that a hospital's policies and practices affect a mother's ability to establish and maintain breastfeeding. In the six-year study, Maternity Practices in Infant Nutrition and Care, investigators compare ...

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