January 2009 Blog Archive
Friday, January 30, 2009
Healthy Heart
Maintaining a healthy heart takes more than just regular check-ups yearly. In order to tend to your health and more specifically your heart - this year start a new heart regiment. From yearly virtual heart scans to eating healthier here are a few tips to keep that heart of yours pumping and beating stronger than ever. As we all know cooking at home after long day of chugging away at work can be quite demanding and quite unsuccessful at times. We fall susceptible to eating garbage and eating out constantly - which means eating foods with bad fats.
Cooking at home, and doing so using healthy products and good oils and fats will be the key to your hearts health. So remember its not just getting checked yearly, its constantly maintaining good eating and exercise habits in order to properly take care of your health. Take a tip or two from this woman who's husband had a heart attack.
"There is no time like now to look for ways to take care of your heart. If you have put off a yearly checkup with your doctor, consider making an appointment. I am convinced that healthy cooking and exercise have energized my family and revitalized our lives."
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Virtual Colonoscopy Progress
Virtual Colonoscopies as we reported in the past month are gaining popularity and credibility in the medical industry. Colon cancer is one of the most common cancers, but similarly considered to be easily detected at its early stages with virtual colonoscopies. The procedure is making headlines in newspapers across the states. This week US News and World Report featured an article called "Colon Cancer is one of the most Preventable Cancers," which discussed viable options for detection and highlighted the benefits of virtual scans.
The article written by journalist Katherine Hobson says, "Colonoscopy can even be considered a form of prevention, since it enables the doctor to get rid of polyps before they become malignant. And yet fewer than half of people who should be screened-those ages 50 and older at average risk-are getting either a colonoscopy or one of the other highly recommended tests for colorectal cancer: sigmoidoscopy, CT or "virtual" colonoscopy, or a double-contrast barium enema."
Early detection screenings for heart, lung and colon are making huge progress in the medical field. Hopefully with more time more physicians will jump on board the early detection bandwagon and begin to send patients to get scans yearly.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Urging Americans to Get Screened
The American Cancer society is urging Americans to get screened for breast, cervical and colon cancer - 3 of the most common cancers striking men and women in the US. As baby-boomers begin to age, it is vital to their colon health that they can screened yearly for polyps, tumors and cancer. Traditional invasive colon cancer screening has been used for years, however with the advent of noninvasive virtual colonoscopies, the procedure is more cost efficient, timely and less painful and embarrassing.
The Washington Post has recently been promulgating the use of screening and early detection methods as well, "The rate of screening for breast and cervical cancers has stayed about the same since 2000, while the rate of colorectal cancer screening has increased but not as fast as experts had hoped, according to the report released Thursday by the American Cancer Society. "More people need to get screened than are being screened, and they need to get screened regularly -- that's a big problem," said report author Robert Smith, director of cancer screening at the cancer society."
Monday, January 19, 2009
The Many Benefits of Colonoscopy
Virtual colonoscopies have recently been considered the wise avenue to take for colon cancer screening. However a recent case in Tampa, Florida may show that these virtual scans that aid in detecting colon cancer early, may also help doctors find osteopersosis in patients.
ABC News interviewed Dr. Lori Slezak a physician who researches and uses virtual colonoscopies. Dr. Slezak said to ABC, "As CT colonography becomes more popular, those patients can certainly request, if they are 50 or older, to have those images reformatted and their risk assessed for osteoporosis. If their bone density looks to be low, their primary care physician would follow that test up with DEXA scan to determine your actual risk of osteoporosis and recommend a type of treatment."
With these added benefits of virtual colonoscopy, there is likely to be an increase of patients opting for the non-invasive route as opposed to traditional methods of colon cancer screening.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Colonoscopy Study Investing in Health and Education
Early detection of colon cancer, one of the world's leading cancer related killers, is key to fighting and attempting to cure the disease. In recent years, virtual colonoscopies have become the popular method for preventative screening.
"This is why the state Department of Public Health is conducting a $951,379 pilot study on the effectiveness of colonoscopy among 600 uninsured or underinsured men and women at eight of Connecticut's 13 community health centers."
This study is designed by the University of Connecticut to project and decide whether virtual colonoscopies are the appropriate screening method for preventing colon cancer. The virtual colonoscopy is the ideal screening tool, however not all people in the US have the economic or healthcare means to use it, which is why this study hopes to discover exact figures and how to best rectify this issue.
Friday, January 09, 2009
National Lung Cancer Screening
The United Kingdom is taking steps towards developing a nationwide
lung cancer screening program. This government backed program is being led by Liverpool University researchers, they are hoping to test potential patients with virtual CT scans in order to detect lung cancer at it's early more treatable stages.
The Liverpool researchers said to BBC News,
"Lung cancer kills 33,500 people a year in the UK and a screening trial of thousands of individuals is "urgently" needed to save lives, say researchers. Around a 100 people a day are diagnosed with the condition but many already have late stage disease and have little chance of survival."
These screenings will be done on patients who are at high risk of developing lung cancer a few years down the road. Which is why the physicians are hoping early detection CT scans can help prevent lung cancer related deaths.
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Economy and Virtual Colonoscopies
Many of our living expenses have been drastically cut in lieu of the economic crisis. However, your health is something that you cannot afford to cut. From baby boomers to retirees it is important to adjust your budgeting to accommodate to preventative health scans, more specifically
virtual colonoscopies. Colon cancer is a leading killer among Americans. It is vital to your health to get yearly scans, especially if you are over the age of 50. Unfortunately a large number of people never realize they have colon cancer till it is too far along.
So start cutting back your expenses in other ways and leave some extra money available to maintain your good health. Virtual colonoscopies are not only efficient, but far less time consuming and invasive.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Medicare Increasing Cancer Screening Coverage
US Health Officials have reported to Reuters they are proposing to pay for increased use of
PET Scans nationwide. The Center of Medicare and Medicaid said the reason being is to aid physicians in deciding which type of cancer treatment is necessary for patients. It will allot more time and added information for doctors to treat the cancer.
The Medicare and Medicaid Services announced,
"In a draft proposal, the agency said it would partially lift such requirements and allow most Medicare patients to undergo one positron emission tomography (PET) scan, though the changes would not apply to breast cancer, prostate cancer and melanoma."
Under such potential new laws patients could undergo scans without the hassle of registry, making it simpler and easier for doctors to scan patients.
