The Common Signs People Miss During a Heart Attack

According to the American Heart Association, 2 million people in this country die each year from cardiovascular disease. This number only understand if you put it in perspective. Of all people who die each year from injuries, old age, disease, cancer and so on, half of these people die from heart disease. This is a huge amount. Keep in mind that it is only in the United States.
Many people know about heart attacks and are aware of their destructive consequences. Most people think it will never happen to them. This is the first sign of danger. The refusal will not prevent you receive treatment in a timely manner or in some cases receive treatment at all. Many people think that they are generally healthy and exercises on the occasion. Of course, it is enough to protect you from heart attack. In contrast, the risk factors go far beyond physical exercise and overall health.
Some women believe that they are less likely to survive a heart attack. This is also true. Women account for nearly 50% of all heart attacks. In addition, some believe that because they are less than 50 years, that there is no rick of heart attack. Again, this is a false assumption. Risk factors include age, family history, high blood pressure, smoking, stress, cholesterol, obesity and a sedentary lifestyle. It's obvious things to look at. Who in this country is experiencing stress, and buy Valium online or skip exercise during a stressful time? Who does not eat at the casual fast food restaurant?
Classic signs and symptoms of heart attack, are very different. Classic symptoms usually begin with chest pain or feeling of pressure type. Typically, the pain radiates down the left arm or up into the left jaw. Some people get sweaty and dizzy. There are those that describe some of the difficulties with breathing. Some go on to experience nausea. All of these "classic" signs and symptoms of a heart attack. Now that we have defined the "classic" signs, keep in mind that many people do not have all these signs during the event. Here's the thing, if you have any of these signs or symptoms, to treat it seriously. Every time your body pain, the body tries to tell you something. The trick is to figure out when it was something serious, and when it is something soft.
Education is the great equalizer. The more you know, the better for you. We are not medical professionals. We rely on professionals for this information. I would recommend to be educated as possible. For more information on becoming medical examination, take some classes. Here is a good place to start.

Animal Planet's New Show Looks at Animal Hoarding

Many of us love animals and enjoy our pets. Animal Planet has a new show, 'Confessions: Animal Hoarding' billed as “an unflinchingly honest look at a human condition that affects people and animals.” It looks at the condition which has gone past simple love and enjoyment of our pets.
Animal hoarding is a form of compulsive hoarding in which the person collects and hoards pets rather than items such as clothing, books, newspapers. While hoarding can be a symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), animal hoarding has important differences with OCD-related hoarding as it does not seem to share the same array of repetitive compulsive behaviors such as washing or checking compulsions.
Animal hoarding has considerable overlap with impulse control disorders. A recent (June 2010) in-depth review by eminent psychologists explains the differences between OCD and hoarding, and suggests there is sufficient evidence for creation of a new disorder, provisionally called hoarding disorder, in DSM-V.
According to the Hoarding of Animals Research Consortium, the pathological accumulation of animals was first described in 1981. Animal hoarding was formally defined in the public health literature in 1999 using the following criteria:
* Having more than the typical number of companion animals
* Failing to provide even minimal standards of nutrition, sanitation, shelter, and veterinary care, with this neglect often resulting in illness and death from starvation, spread of infectious disease, and untreated injury or medical condition
* Denial of the inability to provide this minimum care and the impact of that failure on the animals, the household, and human occupants of the dwelling
* Persistence, despite this failure, in accumulating and controlling animals
The basic features of animal hoarding (failure to provide adequate food and water, failure to provide necessary veterinary care to treat a disease or injury, failure to provide a sanitary environment) have been used to define animal cruelty laws in every state.
When a person hoards animals, it puts the person’s health and the animals health at risk. The extreme clutter can increase fire hazards. The increased amounts of feces and urine can damage dwellings beyond repair and release a host of potentially toxic bioaerosols and gases (especially ammonia) into the air.
Bioaerosols include a wide variety of inflammatory and physiologically active components, including endotoxin, fungal cell wall fragments, and dust particles that can reach lower airways.
Ammonia is a known irritant of the eyes and upper respiratory tract. It is produced by the decay of animal waste.
All forms of hoarding carry the risk of elder neglect, child neglect, and self-neglect. Dependent/vulnerable adults or children are found in 10-15% of hoarding cases.
With more than 3,500 cases a year, animal hoarding puts a strain on families, finances, the 250,000 animals affected annually and the health of everyone involved.

Black Men Less Likely To Seek Preventive Medical Care

Black menin Jacksonville, Fla., are less likely than white men to havea primary care physician or health insurance, according to a recent report bythe Duval County Health Department, the Florida Times-Union reports. According to the report,28% of black men in the city do not have a primary care physician, comparedwith 19% of white men. Twenty percent of black men are uninsured, compared with9% of whites. The study also found that 43% of black men who visited Duval Countyemergency departments in 2005 were uninsured, compared with 36% of white men.

The findings contribute to black men being more likely than white men to die atyounger ages from manageable and treatable diseases such as diabetes, prostatecancer and heart, the Times-Union reports. Wally Smith, aprofessor of medicine and medical director of the Center on Health Disparities at Virginia Commonwealth University, said thatsuch findings have been consistent for decades, adding that having a primarycare physician is an important factor in receiving preventive care. Smith saidthat low-income men are particularly at a disadvantage for receiving preventivecare because they are less likely to qualify for Medicaid.
County officials will use the findings to develop outreach programs and effortsthat focus on preventive care, Tim Lawther, assistant director of the countyhealth department, said. The efforts — such as going to neighborhoods thathave a large number of uninsured residents with diabetes to direct them tomedical care — will begin next month. The county already has a program thatoffers prostate screenings to men who just attended church services. Lawthersaid in that initiative, officials have found that most of the black men areinsured but choose not to seek medical care. He said that black men often donot view routine medical care as a priority.
"If you don’t go to a doctor, these things that are perfectly controllablewith medical science are going to kill you," Lawther added (Galnor, FloridaTimes-Union, 6/23).

Reprintedwith permission from kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Weekly Health Disparities Report, search the archives, and sign upfor email delivery at kaisernetwork.org/email . The Kaiser Weekly HealthDisparities Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of TheHenry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. 2007 Advisory Board Company and KaiserFamily Foundation. All rights reserved.

Health Professionals Have Little Training in Self Harm

In a research review carried out by mental health specialists from the University of Nottingham, UK, researchers have discovered that most professionals have little training in self harm. Sadly researchers found that the lack of professional education and awareness on self-harm was the main cause of negative attitudes.
Staff nurse Jo McHale and lecturer Anne Felton studied 19 papers from the UK, Australia, Sweden and Ireland to gather the information.

Negative experiences sometimes lead to self-harm

“Research has historically shown that people who have self-harmed often have negative experiences because of the attitudes of the healthcare professionals employed to help them" says said Jo McHale."Our study showed that, on the whole little has changed. But there were a number of encouraging studies that highlighted how better education and clinical supervision can improve attitudes, especially when it is supported by government guidance."
Research found that there wasn’t any kind of support and this lack of often left nurses feeling that they were failing in their duty of care towards patients who self-harmed.
"The gap between what health professionals saw as their role and what they were expected to do in practice also influenced negative attitudes" says McHale. "For example, some felt it was wrong to remove client's property and that leaving them in nightwear to stop them self-harming contravened their rights. The people who self-harmed also had more challenging needs than medical patients on wards and were subject to different rules.”
Negative attitudes were also linked to the health professionals' perceptions of the client's ability to control their self harm. They noted that staff was more negative if they felt that the factors leading to the self-harm were within the client's control.
This attitude and judgment by medical staff affects the care of the person who self injured however, harsh judgment by undertrained medical professionals dissipated and attitudes were mainly positive when staff were giving some training and basic knowledge about self harm and training.
The research offers a clear indication that nurses and medical professionals should receive more training in self-harm so they can work with helping those who self harm.

Higher farmworker risks include diabetes, respiratory disease

More than 1 million California farmworkers face a higher risk of diabetes as well as respiratory diseases related to poor air quality, according to articles in the latest issue of California Agriculture.
The journal is put out by the University of California.
In the articles, scientists affiliated with UC Western Center for Agricultural Health and Safety offer details of their research on the potential health effects of particulates in ambient air inhaled by laboratory animals in the San Joaquin Valley. They also reviewed factors such as the effect of pesticide exposure on diabetes rates among California farmworkers.
The articles note the Central Valley has the highest recorded levels of particulate matter in the country, resulting in increased rates of asthma and other respiratory illnesses.
The recent research points to possible environmental links between pesticide exposure and the risk of diabetes.
“California’s hired farmworkers face increased risks of morbidity and mortality from respiratory disease, musculoskeletal problems, infectious diseases, stress-related mental health disorders and lifestyle-related diseases such as obesity,” said UC Western Center Director Marc Schenker.

Parents Are Clueless About Teen Drug Abuse

Researchers from Wayne State University and the National Institute on Drug Abuse discovered that when teens were asked about their use of cocaine and opiates, teens often were dishonest with answers despite the fact they knew they were being subjected to hair analyses that would prove they did use those drugs.
"The basic finding is that when teens were asked about their use of cocaine and opiates, they gave socially acceptable answers rather than being completely forthright," said Dr. Virginia Delaney-Black, a study co-author and professor of pediatrics at Wayne State in Detroit.
Researchers surveyed over 400 teens and their caregivers and asked whether they used a variety of drugs, including cocaine, opiates and marijuana. Researchers later did hair analyses on them and compared the results of those tests with their survey answers. Teens and parents did not generally answer questions honestly about teens' drug use, and parents also did not answer truthfully about their own drug use. They were unable to accurately analyze marijuana use because the hair tests were not sensitive enough.
Teens and parents did not answer honestly. "All the data we have about teen use of drugs, except when [they've faced legal action] or when they're in drug treatment, comes from self-report," said Delaney-Black. "We need to rethink what we're doing from the perspective of pediatrics, and when there's need to know about drug use, and should consider biologic measures."
Teen hair analysis was 52 times more likely than self-report to identify cocaine use. For parents, hair analyses for cocaine and opiates were 6.5 and 5.5 times more likely, respectively, to identify drug use than parental self-report.
Parent can help their children confide in them if they start talking about the risks of drugs and alcohol when children are still young, help children with how to react with what they will say to peers who want them to drink or use drugs and have good communication skills with them.
"The lack of concordance between teen self- or parent-reported teen drug use and biomarkers confirm our concerns that both teen- and parent-reported teen drug use is limited, at least for youth in high-risk urban settings. Methods of ascertainment other than self- or parent-report must be considered when health care providers, researchers, and public health agencies attempt to estimate teen drug-use prevalence," the authors write.