Health

Talking on the Phone is Healthy

- Adam Clare

A recent study that set out to lower the risk of heart disease and strokes in people predisposed to have them by talking to them over the phone. The patients received health “report cards” letting them know how they’re doing. Based on the report cards a kinesiologist would talk to the patient about their health. The results appear to be positive!

Andrew Lister, one of the study’s authors and chair of the gerontology department at Simon Fraser University, said the study was also meant to act a model for a community-based health-care program that could be implemented at a fairly low cost to lower a population’s heart and stroke risks.

The intervention consisted of a health report card that was sent to the participants and their family doctors. This included a profile of risks such as high cholesterol, systolic blood pressure, diabetes and smoking status. Physical activity, body mass index, waist circumference, nutrition status, stress level and health confidence were also factored in.

The other component of the intervention was a telephone discussion between a lifestyle counsellor — trained as a kinesiologist and well-versed in cardiovascular disease prevention — and the participants. Two kinesiologists performed all 611 interventions.

“Two people did it all, one full-time and one part-time,” Lister told CBCNews.ca on Friday. “You could reach a lot of people if you were doing this on a continual basis.”

Walking Towards Health

- Adam Clare

While I’m at a conference looking at how we can use the internet for the better, in Toronto there’s a conference on how to use public space for the better called Walk 21. The Toronto magazine Spacing has been blogging about it on their site and I particularly like their recent post on how walking improves health and mental well-being.

“I was also particularly struck by their awareness that walking is important for sustaining good mental as well as physical health. It was a message conveyed in a plenary session in the morning by Nova Scotia researcher Catherine O’Brien, but in Canada this concept is still in its initial stages, and public health departments are only just beginning to realize that maintaining good mental health can be as important as maintaining good physical health. Apparently they are way ahead of us in Australia. For example, VicHealth funds public art projects in low-income areas that will draw people into public space, to enhance mental well-being.”

Proper Back Stabbing Healthy

- Adam Clare

A recent study has looked at the effect of acupuncture treatments compared to more “conventional” treatments for lower back pain and have concluded that acupuncture is better. The German researchers split participants into many different groups receiving differnt kinds of treatment and those who received acupuncture got better results.

“The superiority of both forms of acupuncture suggests a common underlying mechanism that may act on pain generation, transmission of pain signals or processing of pain signals by the central nervous system and that is stronger than the action mechanism of conventional therapy,” the authors conclude.

Shop on the Fringe and be Healthy

- Adam Clare

Shopping on the periphery of grocery stores ensures that you’ll purchase healthier food than if you were to go down ever aisle. Life Hacker agrees with shopping outside the aisle.

That’s where all the fresh foods are. The less you find yourself in the central aisles of the grocery store, the healthier your shopping trip will be. Make it a habit–work the perimeter of the store for the bulk of your groceries, then dip into the aisles for staples that you know you need.

All Recipes has a list of ten ways that will help in your regular food shopping including buying organic and shopping on a full stomach.

Eat good to stay good 🙂

Hope Cube

- Adam Clare

Sometimes all someone needs is a little hope. After seeing people loose hope in their struggles with cancer, poor health, or addictions George Ruann decided to do something about it.

Hope Cube is the result. It’s a social networking site for people who need support in their lives to tackle some difficult aspects of living. You can even ask open-ended questions to the community to solicit support and knowledge.

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