John D. Fuller Recreational Complex

Men's Health

9 Things You Can Do to Prevent & Control High Blood Pressure

Lose weight if you are overweight and maintain a healthy weight. Limit portion sizes, especially of high calorie foods, and try to eat only as many calories as you burn each day—or less if you want to lose weight.
Eat heart healthfully. Follow an eating plan that emphasizes fruits, vegetables, and low fat dairy products and is moderate in total fat and low in saturated fat and cholesterol.
Reduce salt and sodium intake. Read food labels to choose canned, processed, and convenience foods that are lower in sodium. Limit sodium intake to no more than 2400 mg, or about 1 teaspoon’s worth, of salt each day. Avoid fast foods that are high in salt and sodium.
If you drink alcoholic beverages, do so in moderation. For men, that means a maximum of 2 drinks a day, for women, a maximum of 1.
Become more physically active. Work up to at least 30 minutes of a moderate-level activity, such as brisk walking or bicycling, each day. If you don’t have 30 minutes, try to find 2 15-minute periods or even 3 10-minute periods for physical activity.
Quit smoking. Smoking increases your chances of developing a stroke, heart disease, peripheral arterial disease, and several forms of cancer.
If you are pregnant, make sure you are under a doctor’s care. High blood pressure is a major cause of complications in pregnancy.
Talk with your health care professional. Ask what your blood pressure numbers are and what they mean.
Take medication as prescribed. If you need medication, make sure you understand what it’s for and how and when to take it, then take it as your doctor recommends.

Copyright (c) 2007
National High Blood Pressure
Education Program
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services • National Institutes of Health • National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute

How to Find Out What Credit Agencies are Saying About You

Ebony, July, 2000

You may not know it, but businesses and credit agencies are talking about you behind your back, circulating reports and giving intimate, sometimes erroneous and painful, details of your financial life.

Did you miss two car payments when you were ill?

Did a creditor take you to court for refusing--rightfully--to pay for shoddy work?

Did your ex-wife or ex-husband spread false reports about your money-laundering habits?

All these and other items, including false and incomplete information, may be in the credit reports that agencies use to determine your credit rating. Some 2 billion pieces of information are downloaded every month to update the information on you and other consumers. With so much information going into the system and no one to verify whether it's a rumor or a fact, it's nearly impossible to prevent mistakes. It's even possible for someone else's credit report to "bleed" into your file.

To make things worse, there is not one, but at least three major credit files maintained on you from three different companies. In addition to the "big three" credit agencies--Equifax, Experian, TransUnion--smaller agencies also sell information about your financial life. With so many people circulating so much information, it's vitally important that you find out what they are saying about you.

"If you don't check your credit report at least twice a year, you're going to find all kinds of problems," says Dean Taylor, a business manager for an automobile dealership outside Atlanta. "It is crucial."

Taylor, who's worked at the dealership arranging financing and checking credit reports for seven years, says that the "big three" credit bureaus are not credit verifiers; they simply report information they receive.

Many times that's not enough. A poor credit report can lead to a negative credit rating, which in turn can result in a denial of a home or car loan, apartment rental or even a job. So it's important to verify the information on your credit report and protect your credit rating. Don't wait until your house is on the market and the bank's holding up your new home or car loan because of a fixable mistake.

Cigarettes More of a Risk for Black Americans

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters Health) - African-American smokers may breathe in more tobacco smoke from cigarettes than other smokers do, which could help explain their higher lung cancer rates, according to a report presented.

Researchers from the American Health Foundation in Valhalla, New York, said their investigation found that black study participants had significantly higher levels of cancer-causing tobacco byproducts in their blood and urine than a comparable group of white study participants.

“This suggests that exposure to tobacco smoke is higher in blacks than in whites, which could explain the higher lung cancer rates,'' lead investigator and foundation researcher Joshua Muscat told Reuters Health.

He presented his study, which was partly supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health (news - web sites), at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.

The foundation surveyed 167 black and 186 white smokers in the Westchester, New York area, asking them how many cigarettes they smoked each day, and what type of cigarettes they smoked. The participants were also asked about smoking-related behaviors, such as how deeply they inhaled and how much of each cigarette they smoked.

Both blacks and whites began smoking at about age 16, and had smoked an average 15 to 17 years. Blacks reported smoking fewer cigarettes per day than whites, but tended to prefer cigarettes with higher nicotine and tar per cigarette.
A greater number of blacks smoked mentholated cigarettes, Muscat said.
But, none of these factors seemed to explain why blacks have higher tobacco byproduct levels in their bodies, he noted.

Muscat and his colleagues believe that blacks are doing something different in their smoking behavior--perhaps inhaling more deeply or taking more puffs per cigarette--that may lead to a higher concentration of cancer-causing substances.

There was no difference in smoking behaviors between blacks and whites in this initial study, but the smokers reported their own actions. Muscat said smokers might not be conscious of how they actually smoke.

To get a better handle on the behaviors, the foundation has begun a study where smokers are watched by observers in the lab. There, researchers can scientifically measure length of puffs and other behaviors that might influence levels of cancer-causing substances found in cigarettes.