Good Health Blog

Do you know your ideal weight for your height? What is the normal range? Good health is many things and the focus on weight is only one parameter. I tell my overweight patients that I would prefer them fat, fit and happy than unfit, smoking and thin. Life is a balance. Good health is a balance. An obsession with weight as a primary measure of health is misguided. Still, it is nice to know what is recommended. The reports give a link to weight/height details. Good health and preventative health go hand in hand.

The US Preventative services task force has released a new recommendation about screening for HIV infection.

“Screening for HIV is important so that everyone knows their HIV status, and those with HIV can begin treatment right away,” says Task Force member John Epling, M.D., M.S.Ed. “Today’s treatments help people live long, healthy lives and lower the risk of passing HIV to others.”

That’s it in a nutshell.  If you have ever had sex or used intravenous drugs then you should know your HIV status. There are ‘at risk’ groups but the recommendation is for everyone to know their HIV status.  This is because over half the new transmission cases are by people who did not know they were HIV positive.

These are the big three for the development of heart and vascular disease. Although each is not a disease, they are the risk factors for the development of diseases. Heart attacks, strokes, kidney problems, aortic aneurysms and gangrene are all caused by these problems. The big surprise though is that none of them cause any warning signs for many years. High cholesterol could be an inherited problem – the youngest person I have started on cholesterol lowering medication was 13 years old. His father died suddenly from a heart attack at 42 years of age. If you smoke then you can do so for probably 20 years before noticing the health changes. But you cannot reverse these changes and the problems accelerate with age. High Blood pressure needs to be extremely high to cause headaches. Usually it causes no symptoms until you one day have your Doctor check it. By then it could have been high for many years damaging vital organs slowly. If you smoke or have a family history of high blood pressure, heart problems or high cholesterol then subscribe to the Comprehensive level to find out when and what you should be doing.