DASH Diet, Healthcare Crisis, Breast Cancer Screening

Are you interested in lowering your blood pressure? Reducing your risk of heart disease? If so, you may want to consider the DASH Diet.

When compared to a typical America diet, women following a DASH diet were 24 percent less likely to have a heart attack, and 18 percent less likely to have a stroke. This is a pretty big deal, especially considering that the number one cause of death in women is heart disease.

Diet Reduces Heart Attacks, Strokes.

A large study offers the strongest evidence yet that a diet the government recommends for lowering blood pressure can save people from heart attack and stroke.

Researchers followed more than 88,000 healthy women for almost 25 years. They examined their food choices and looked at how many had heart attacks and strokes. Those who fared best had eating habits similar to those recommended by the government to stop high blood pressure.

The plan, called the DASH diet, favors fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat milk and plant-based protein over meat.

Women with those eating habits were 24 percent less likely to have a heart attack and 18 percent less likely to have a stroke than women with more typical American diets.

From WebMD

A healthy diet rich in fruits and vegetables and low in fat has long been touted as heart smart. Now, increasing evidence suggests that a similar diet reduces blood pressure and decreases a woman’s risk for heart attack and stroke.

Scientists reporting in the April 14 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine have found that healthy, middle-aged women who closely followed the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet have lower rates of cardiovascular disease (CVD) than women who do not follow such diets.

“Our study provides, to our knowledge, the strongest evidence to date on the long-term benefits of the DASH diet in the primary prevention of CVD among healthy subjects,” writes Teresa T. Fung, ScD, of Simmons College, Boston.

National dietary guidelines promote the DASH diet as an example of a healthy eating pattern. The diet comprises plenty of fruits, vegetables, and plant proteins from legumes and nuts, and moderate servings of low-fat dairy products. It is low in meat.

Also See:

Amy’s Diet Food Blog

Fitness Mamas

And, if you thought the health crisis wouldn’t be affecting you because you have heath insurance, you might need to think again. It seems that many people who thought they had good insurance and a good prescription plan, are now paying the equivalent to a house payment each month for their medications.

What that means is…You could be paying for insurance coverage, paying your co-pays and deductibles, and still end up paying hundreds (or thousands) for your prescriptions.

Co-Payments Soar for Expensive Drugs

Health insurance companies are rapidly adopting a new pricing system for very expensive drugs, asking patients to pay hundreds and even thousands of dollars for prescriptions for medications that may save their lives or slow the progress of serious diseases.

With the new pricing system, insurers abandoned the traditional arrangement that has patients pay a fixed amount, like $10, $20 or $30 for a prescription, no matter what the drug’s actual cost. Instead, they are charging patients a percentage of the cost of certain high-priced drugs, usually 20 to 33 percent, which can amount to thousands of dollars a month.

The system means that the burden of expensive health care can now affect insured people, too.

Also See:

Why We Need National Health Care

And this week in Washington D.C., new studies on the detection and treatment of breast cancer will be discussed.

Detecting, Diagnosing Breast Cancer

New studies into breast cancer imaging techniques reinforce the importance of these procedures in detecting and treating tumors in the young and the elderly.

The findings, all expected to be presented during the American Roentgen Ray Society’s annual meeting this week, in Washington, D.C., include:

• Evaluating palpable breast lesions by using mammography and sonography helps rule out cancers in most patients.
• MRIs are effective at showing how the blood flows to and from certain breast tumors, a critical fact in determining treatment planning and prognosis.
• An MRI given before initial surgical treatment resulted in 28 percent of breast cancer patients having their treatment changed.
• Women over age 70 can still benefit from mammograms even though some guidelines do not recommend the need for the exam.

Also See:

Don’t Let Bush Shortchange Breast Cancer Research