Improving Your Health: Tips for African Americans | NIH

You don’t have to give up all of your favorite foods or start training for a big race to improve your health. Over time, small changes to your eating, drinking, and physical activity habits may help you control your weight, feel better, and improve your health.

This fact sheet will give you ideas on how to make better food and beverage choices and add physical activity to your life. When you make these changes, you may also become a health champion to help your family, friends, and others in your community do the same.

Am I overweight?

More than three in four African American adults are overweight or obese.

The body mass index (BMI) is the tool used most often to find a person’s weight status. (See the box below.) This tool may help you find out if your weight could raise your chances of developing health problems described later in this fact sheet.

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Watchful Waiting May Not Be Best for Black Men With Prostate Cancer

They were more likely to develop aggressive disease sooner than white patients, study says

By Robert Preidt
Monday, September 8, 2014

MONDAY, Sept. 8, 2014 (HealthDay News) — Monitoring early stage prostate cancer instead of treating it may not be appropriate for all patients, especially black men, a new study indicates.

According to background information with the study, there is currently controversy among oncologists over the best way to handle early stage prostate cancer, with some experts suggesting that regular monitoring — known as watchful waiting — of the disease is the best approach because it avoids overtreatment.

But this new study suggests that watchful waiting may not be suitable for all men with early stage prostate cancer, especially black patients.

“We know that African-American men have more aggressive prostate cancer than Caucasian men,” Dr. Kosj Yamoah, chief resident in the department of radiation oncology at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, said in a university news release.

Please take time to read the rest here

Taking Care of the Black Heart | Blacks, women face greater burden from CVD risk factors

Study Highlights at Heart.org

The impact of major cardiovascular risk factors combined is greater in women than men and in blacks than whites.
Diabetes and high blood pressure may play the greatest role in leading to cardiovascular disease in women and blacks.

DALLAS, Aug. 11, 2014 — The impact of major cardiovascular risk factors combined is greater in women than men and in blacks than whites. While the gender gap may be narrowing, differences by race may be increasing, according to new research in the American Heart Association journal Circulation.

“We’ve been targeting traditional risk factors in public health campaigns for many years,” said Susan Cheng, M.D., M.P.H., study lead author and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Mass. “We wanted to take a look at how well we’ve been doing over time at keeping these risk factors from causing heart and vascular disease — both by preventing the risks from occurring and by minimizing their effects when they do occur.”

Please take time to read the rest here

Treating Cancer After Chemo and Other Related Medical Procedures and Treatments

PLANO — As her balance improves, so does Donna MacKinney’s brain, which seemed after treatment for a Stage IV brain tumor to be clouded in fog.

“The little things that should be so every day will not come to me,” she said.

MacKinney is a middle school librarian who loves her words, so the mental haze she was experiencing was very frustrating.

The condition — known as chemo brain — was once thought to be psychological. And while no one knows why it happens, it is a common side-effect of chemotherapy treatment.

A new rehabilitation program at Texas Health Plano, called the STAR Program, aims to clear that fog.

Read the rest of this innovative approach to cancer treatment here

Are green leafy veggies good for your eyesight? Check out this short video at BlackDoctor.org. Also check out the list of Dallas area black doctors / physicians from BlackDoctor.org below (visit the site for more info and ratings):