What is Hypertension?

Your blood pressure reading consists of two numbers, measured in millimetres of mercury (mmHg): The first indicating systolic pressure (higher number): This is the force at which your heart pumps blood around your body. The second diastolic pressure (lower number). This is the resistance to the blood flow in the blood vessels. Generally, anything between… Read More

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Vietnam: What are the Prevalence of & Risk Factors for Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus?

Research Paper Title Prevalence of and Risk Factors for Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in Vietnam: A Systematic Review. Background This systematic review examined trends in the prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and identified its risk factors among adults in Vietnam. Methods PubMed, Web of Science, Wiley Online Library, and Scopus databases were searched to… Read More

How Many US Cardiovascular Deaths are due to Modifiable Risk Factors?

If the five commonest modifiable risk factors for cardiovascular disease – high cholesterol concentrations, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and smoking – were eliminated in the United States, deaths from cardiovascular disease would be halved, a new study in the Annals of Internal Medicine has found (Patel et al., 2015). Cardiovascular diseases such as coronary heart disease… Read More

Coronary Heart Disease: Traditional Risk Factors versus Biomarkers

Research Paper Title Traditional Risk Factors Versus Biomarkers for Prediction of Secondary Events in Patients With Stable Coronary Heart Disease: From the Heart and Soul Study. Background Patients with stable coronary heart disease (CHD) have widely varying prognoses and treatment options. Validated models for risk stratification of patients with CHD are needed. The researchers sought… Read More

Obesity: TV Watching Up & Blood Pressure Down!

A study of BMI-defined obesity among children and adolescents in the general English population did its best to measure activity levels by questionnaire and, where it could, by acceleromtery (Coombs & Stamatakis, 2015). The study found that television viewing, and not other forms of objectively measured or questionnaire-based sedentary time, was associated with obesity in… Read More

What’s the Link between Blood Sugar, Blood Pressure & Blood Cholesterol?

Raised blood sugar, blood pressure (BP) and blood cholesterol are risk factors often clustered together. However, two new studies from Asia try to disentangle their interactions. In the Chinese population, blood glucose level within prediabetic range is significantly associated with elevated risks for diabetes mellitus after multi-variable adjustment, but only when it is concurrent with… Read More

Do You know Your BP Numbers!

Read about the categories of blood pressure in a short article by Dee Connelly, a registered nurse at the US Army Physical Fitness Research Institute, using the link below. Did you know that high blood pressure is a factor in 67% of heart attacks and 77% of strokes in the United States. Reference Connelly, D.… Read More