Wichita Eagle: Healthy Living

Health-related apps make life easier

Nedra Rhone — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:36 CST

A strange thing happened when the menus arrived at the table during Ilene Berman’s 48th birthday dinner.

It involved 10 women, five smartphones and an application called Mag Light. The dimly lit atmosphere at the restaurant was momentarily interrupted as the women whipped out their phones to illuminate the very tiny light brown print on the cream-colored menus.

“No one thought twice about it,” Berman said. “It is becoming commonplace.”

Doc Talk: Aspirin is an ounce of prevention that costs pennies per pill

JAY HSU — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 06:17 CST

Aspirin has been around for more than a century, used for everything from fevers to aches and pains. For an inexpensive product that many people have lying around in their medicine cabinets, it often is surprising to know that it may be the best remedy that can save your life.

When people experience severe chest pain, they often take aspirin. In a landmark trial, aspirin was given within 24 hours to people suffering from a major heart attack. This resulted in a 23 percent reduction in cardiovascular death at five weeks, comparable to the effect of the “clot-buster” agent streptokinase. This study also found that when aspirin and streptokinase are combined, the mortality rate was reduced by approximately 42 percent. This study helped to clearly establish aspirin as a vital tool in the treatment of acute coronary syndrome. It also lends credence to the cultural belief in taking aspirin when having severe chest pain.

Healthy patients may also benefit from taking aspirin. Data combined from many trials demonstrate that aspirin can decrease the risk of cardiovascular events like strokes and heart attacks by 25 to 33 percent. Stroke, death from a cardiovascular cause and myocardial infarction also were reduced. In a 2009 meta-analysis published in Lancet, use of aspirin for preventing cardiovascular disease resulted in a 12 percent relative risk reduction of events. The most prevalent benefit is prevention of a heart attack.

Maybe it’s time to downsize

By Phyllis Spade — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:38 CST

Years have a habit of eroding our independence. Not one of us is immune, not even the fiercely independent.

Maybe it was the time you lost your footing right there in your own kitchen. You got yourself up, nobody saw you, nothing broke, nothing suffered. But the confidence that kept you in that big house forever is shaken. The house that has been your home has the basement laundry or the upstairs bedroom, not to mention a yard that always needs a haircut.

That little tumble may have been a wake-up call. Maybe it’s time to downsize, opt for a smaller house, apartment or senior living facility.

You Docs: Pneumonia vaccine recommended for everyone 50 or older

DRS. ROIZEN AND OZ — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 06:16 CST

If you had bet that Katy Perry and Russell Brand would never last or that the Cleveland Browns would not field a Super Bowl team in 2012 — well, then your crystal ball is working as well as ours did when eight years ago we said that everyone 50 or older should get a pneumonia vaccine.

The Food and Drug Administration now agrees: A vaccine, called Prevnar 13, that was for kids ages 6 months to 5 years old, is now available for people 50-plus. It attacks 13 strains of the lung-congesting and inflammation-causing bug and may pack a bigger punch than older vaccines (including Pneumovax) that used to be doled out only to those folks who were 65 or older.

For the more than 300,000 people over 50 who are projected to be hospitalized with pneumonia this year, that’s very good news. But the vaccine’s power doesn’t stop there.

Good carb, bad carb

Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 06:22 CST

Confused about which carbohydrates you should be eating?

Welcome to the club.

“It’s the biggest lack-of-consensus issue in the U.S. diet today,” said Dariush Mozaffarian, associate professor of epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health. “We don’t have a standard method for assessing their quality.”

The many health perks of coffee

Edward M. Eveld — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:44 CST

James O’Keefe is a cardiologist who specializes in heart disease prevention, a positive guy who often must deliver a downer message.

Stop smoking. Careful with the alcohol. Cut back on sugar and starches. Lose weight.

Yep, lots of things you like aren’t good for you. So O’Keefe is starting to enjoy this new message: You like coffee? Great. Drink up!