To
Your Good Health
By Paul G. Donohue,
M.D.Heart
Attack Pain Is Highly Variable.
DEAR DR.
DONOHUE: My mother-in-law had chest pain in the
center of her chest. The emergency-room personnel
told her it was indigestion. By the time it was
diagnosed as a heart attack, 24 hours later, it
was too late to save her. Please add this to your
description of heart-attack pain. -- N.N.
ANSWER: People
experience a huge variety of different pain
sensations on having a heart attack. The pain is
described as burning, crushing, pressing or
squeezing. It can be felt under the middle of the
breastbone or in the left side of the chest. It
may spread to the right side of the chest, the
left or right shoulder and arms, the upper back,
the neck, the jaw or the upper abdomen. One
usually consistent feature of the pain is that it
lasts for half an hour or more.
There is so much
variability to heart-attack pain that other clues
have to be taken into account in order not to
miss an attack. One-quarter of heart-attack
patients have no pain. Fatigue can be the sole
symptom -- a fatigue that is not sleepiness but
such a total loss of energy that it’s hard
to hold the head up. Nausea and vomiting can
accompany a heart attack or can be the only signs
of it. Sudden shortness of breath is another
common sign.
Tests confirm a
heart attack. The EKG usually shows clear
evidence that a heart attack is occurring or has
occurred. Blood tests are also helpful. Creatine
kinase is an enzyme found in heart muscle, and a
rise in its blood level is a tip-off of a heart
attack. The same goes for the blood test for
troponin, a protein found in heart muscle.
DOLLARS AND SENSE
By David Uffington
Credit-Card
Security in an Insecure World.
A recent security
breach at a chain grocery store put 4 million
credit-card users at risk when their card numbers
and expiration dates were stolen.
While it’s
not the first time a credit-card breach has
occurred, it brought to light a new way of
stealing data: during the transaction itself. In
the past, stored data has been at risk if the
information wasn’t encrypted.
This time the
breach appears to have occurred between the
initial swipe of the card at checkout and the
transaction approval, an interval of seconds or a
minute.
What does this
mean for you, the consumer? It means there’s
a need for even more vigilance in the way you
handle your credit and debit cards.
If you were in the
compromised millions, have the issuer or bank
cancel your card and give you a new one.
If you had
automatic deductions through the card to make
automatic payments, notify those businesses of
the new card number -- or use this opportunity to
rethink whether you want to cut back on the
number of automatic deductions. For example, if
you pay for a gym membership by automatic
deduction each month, ask yourself if you really
want your credit-card number stored in the
database of a small gym with questionable
security.
Check your
statements carefully and report questionable
transactions immediately.
Many bank cards
function as an ATM, credit and debit card, all in
one. Debit cards, also known as check cards,
usually have a brand logo in the bottom corner,
look like a credit card and are tied directly to
your checking account.
Debit cards have
their own special security issue: the PIN. Use it
as a credit card, not a debit card. Here is the
difference: With a credit card, you’re
required to sign. With a debit card, you’re
required to put in your PIN. When you’re at
the checkout about to swipe your card, ask
yourself this: Is anyone about to steal your
information over the network? With that in mind,
choose the "credit" option and sign
your receipt. If anyone did steal information
during the transaction, they got your card number
and expiration date, but they didn’t get
your PIN.
FROM START TO
FITNESS
By Andrea Renee Wyatt, M.S.S., C.S.C.S.
Fitness
Challenge.
Q: My gym had a
fitness challenge that lasted 12 weeks and
consisted of working out five days a week.
I’m very proud of myself for committing to
this program and sticking with it. Although my
results were not the best out of the group, I did
make progress (I lost 10 pounds, 9 inches and 2
percent body fat). However, I wondered if I
should have done better. A few people lost 25-30
pounds in 12 weeks. Should I have seen more
changes?
A: Congratulations
on finishing the fitness challenge at your gym.
Believe it or not, your committing to the program
for 12 weeks -- regardless of how your body
responded -- is just as big an accomplishment as
losing the 10 pounds.
Many fitness
challenges are focused on losing a large quantity
of weight over the allotted time, but the main
focus should be on developing healthy lifestyle
habits that will carry on well past the end of
the program. The results you achieved during the
challenge were a result of your hard work and
commitment, and although other participants may
have seem more dramatic changes in numbers, the
real challenge will be maintaining what you have
accomplished in the months ahead.
The changes that
occur while exercising differ for everyone, and
there are a lot of factors that determine how
your body composition might change over a period
of weeks or months. Activity level, nutritional
habits, your current body composition (fat/lean
muscle mass), genetics and gender all play a part
in how your body might respond.
A safe change in a
12-week period would be a loss of 1 1/2 to 2
pounds a week, with the main goal of losing
non-essential body fat and maintaining and
increasing lean muscle mass. The body fat and
circumference (inches) measurements are fantastic
measures to use to track your progress, because
they give you information on just
"what" type of "weight loss"
you achieved. Remember, weight is just a measure
of how much your body weighs. It does not take
into account muscles, fat, water or organs. You
should be proud of losing 9 inches and 2 percent
body fat.
Also remember that
nutrition plays a big role in how our bodies
change. You might have increased your workouts,
but you still need to maintain a proper nutrition
plan that supports portion control, balanced
meals throughout the day and healthful food
choices. This will greatly determine how your
body is able to adjust.
It’s
difficult not to compare ourselves to others, but
remember, we are all different. Use your past and
present experiences to set personal goals for
yourself and seek to achieve them. You are the
only one who has to live in your body, so focus
on being the best that YOU can be!
Always consult a
physician before beginning an exercise program.
Moments In Time
The History Channel
On April 27, 4977
B.C., the universe is created, according to
German mathematician and astronomer Johannes
Kepler. Scientists in the 20th century developed
the Big Bang theory, which showed that
Kepler’s calculations were off by about 13.7
billion years.
On April 25, 1859,
at Port Said, Egypt, ground is broken for the
Suez Canal, intended to connect the Mediterranean
and the Red Sea. Fewer than 500 ships navigated
the canal in its first full year of operation.
Today, an average of 50 ships navigate the canal
daily, carrying more than 300 million tons of
goods a year.
On April 21, 1918,
in the skies over France, Manfred von Richthofen,
the notorious German flying ace known as
"The Red Baron," is killed by Allied
fire. By the time he was 25 years old, Richthofen
had downed 80 enemy aircraft.
On April 26, 1954,
the Salk polio vaccine field trials, involving
1.8 million children, begin. The study used for
the first time the now-standard double-blind
method, whereby neither the patient nor attending
doctor knew if the inoculation was the vaccine or
a placebo.
On April 23, 1969,
after being convicted in the assassination of
politician Robert F. Kennedy, Sirhan Sirhan is
sentenced to the death penalty. In 1972,
Sirhan’s sentence was commuted to life in
prison. Sirhan, a Jordanian immigrant, continues
to make requests for parole, but they have been
repeatedly denied.
On April 24, 1980,
an ill-fated military operation to rescue 52
American hostages held in Tehran, Iran, ends with
eight U.S. servicemen dead and no hostages
rescued. The hostages were not released for
another 270 days, the day President Jimmy Carter
left office.
VETERAN’S
POST
By Freddy Groves
Pandora’s
Box.
Coming to a VA
hospital near you: All your medical information
on a national computer linkup.
Like it or not,
the Nationwide Health Information Network is
gearing up. Soon your medical information will be
accessible by the Department of Veterans Affairs,
Social Security, Department of Defense and Indian
Health Service. Twenty government agencies are in
line to eventually be linked up. Phase Two of the
plan is to share information with your private
physician and hospital.
There are
ramifications, of course, any time that personal
information is entered into a computer.
The Good:
After years of
having different systems, VA and DOD doctors will
finally be able to talk to each other -- allowing
them to determine instantly if a certain drug was
already prescribed, or view the results of a
previous test.
Claims and
disability upgrades should be easier, as the
information will be available.
Patients with
infectious diseases such as tuberculosis can be
identified and quickly tracked.
The Bad:
You likely
won’t have any say about the "need to
know" list. The release of medical records
waiver could be obsolete, in theory if not in
actuality. If the network is the accepted mode of
storage and transfer of your data, once your
information hits the pipeline it could end up
with all 20 agencies.
The Ugly:
Security breaches
are commonplace now. A recent breach involved a
laptop from the National Institutes of Health.
Despite 2006 guidelines, the data wasn’t
encrypted and the personal and medical
information on 2,500 patients was stolen. The
more agencies that get the software allowing them
to link up, the more opportunities there will be
for security breaches.
DONNA’S
DAY:
CREATIVE FAMILY FUN
By Donna Erickson
Pass the
Popcorn.
The smell and
taste of freshly popped popcorn makes me think of
good times with people I enjoy.
Popcorn is
definitely an instant crowd-pleaser, and our
longtime family friend Geneva Johnson knew it
best. When we arrived at her lake cabin to spend
a weekend with other adults and kids, she greeted
us at the front door with a giant bowl of popcorn
in her outstretched arms. The bigger the bowl,
the better, as far as she was concerned.
Here’s an
easy recipe to spice up basic popcorn when your
friends stop by.
SOUTHWEST PARTY
POPCORN
10 cups popped
popcorn
1/2 cup grated
Monterey Jack cheese and 1/2 cup grated cheddar
cheese
3-2-1 popcorn
flavoring to taste (see recipe below), or use
taco seasoning mix
10-ounce package
tortilla chips
1 tablespoon
chopped scallions
1 cup salsa
Let’s get
started:
1. Spread popcorn
into an 11-by-13-inch baking dish. Sprinkle 3-2-1
flavoring and cheese onto the popcorn. Place
tortilla chips around the popcorn at edges of
baking dish.
2. Bake in oven at
350 degrees for 2 to 3 minutes, until cheese is
melted. Remove from oven, garnish with chopped
scallions, set a bowl of salsa in center of dish
and serve. Dip chips one at a time in the salsa,
then scoop up the spicy, cheesy popcorn.
Tip: Make a mold
for the salsa bowl by pressing the bowl into the
popcorn in the baking dish. Remove the bowl
before placing the baking dish in the oven.
3-2-1 POPCORN
FLAVORING
3 tablespoons
white cheddar cheese powder
2 tablespoons
chili powder
1 tablespoon cumin
powder
Combine the
ingredients and pour into a clean spice jar. Make
your own family label and attach to the jar.
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