Battling For Health → Addiction • Alzheimer • Arthritis • Cancer • Depression • Diabetes • Healthcare • Heart • M.S. • Obesity • Schizo • Stress • Vision
Archive for the Children category
How much did you weigh at birth? Your baby/babies? Does it matter?
A new study by British researchers published in the European Heart Journal shows that there is a link between low birth weight and predisposition to hypertension later in life. More →
Smoking? Want to be pregnant? If so, then you should read this.
We’ve had several posts regarding the cardiovascular health issues of smoking be it firsthand and secondhand. It is important to be aware that smoking can also hurt the unborn baby in a smoking woman’s womb.
In some parts of the world, children are dying of hunger; in other parts, children are dying from obesity-related health problems. Such irony.
Childhood obesity is becoming a major problem in the developed world. In the US alone, 16.9% of boys and 15.6% of girls aged 6 to 11 years among non-Hispanic whites are overweight. Among non-Hispanic blacks, it’s 17.2% of boys and 24.8%of girls in the same age group. For Mexican Americans, it’s 25.6% of boys and 16.6% of girls. (Source: American Heart Association (AHA)). Obesity is a major risk factor in cardiovascular health as well as type 2 diabetes.
Last week, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) issued a revision of a policy statement from 1 January 1998 regarding lipid screening in children.
The new guidelines recommend early cholesterol screening of children and adolescents with a family history of high cholesterol or cardiovascular disease as well as children who are significantly overweight. Lipid screening should start as early as 2 years old, should be repeated 3 to 5 years later, and shouldn’t be put off beyond the 10th year of a child’s life.
It seems that when it comes to physical exercise and its benefits to the heart, it’s never too early to start. The study Effects of Maternal Exercise on the Fetal Heart shows that exercise during pregnancy can already have a lasting and beneficial effect not only on the mother’s heart but on that of the unborn child as well.
Kansas researchers studied 10 pregnant women, 5 of whom routinely performed exercise and 5 did not. Heart rates of the mothers and the fetuses were recorded using magnetocardiography (MCG) starting on the 24th week of pregnancy till full term. More →
When it comes to prevention, starting early - and I mean early in life - is important. Childhood blood pressure (BP) tracks throughout life. This means that elevated BP at childhood is most likely to develop into hypertension in adulthood. It is therefore important that children’s BP be managed properly.
As part of the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children conducted in the UK, 5505 children aged 11 to 12 years old were followed up by monitoring physical activity and measuring BP. Physical activity was measured by an accelerometer or movement detector which the children wore around their waist for 7 days. Two BP measurements were taken during the 7-day period. This study is one of the very few to actually measure physical activity. It actually measured all normal daily activities that required movement in the vertical direction such as walking, jumping, and playing. In contrast, previous studies relied mostly on interviews and self-reports which were not always so accurate.
Raquel Billiones has a PhD in Biology and has over 15 years experience as a researcher, scientific English teacher, and medical writer. Since 2006, she has been a freelance WAHM specializing in medical writing and scientific documentation. More ..
Search the HART-Empire Network of sites, including this one, with the search form below.
| Endothelial Dysfunction - learn about endothelial dysfunction and how to prevent it. |
Battling Heart and Stroke is Copyright © HART-Empire Network • Powered by WordPress
Original network template design by Thord Daniel Hedengren • HART'icized by HART (1-800-HART)
