Posted Nov. 24, 2008 – The tragic death of MC Breed shows how vulnerable we are to kidney disease, and how important it is not to get it. Best known for the 1993 hit “Gotta Get Mine” that featured Tupac Shakur, the Michigan hip-hop artist died in his sleep of kidney failure over the weekend at age 37. He’d been on a kidney transplant list since collapsing earlier this year.  But it’s a well-known fact that Blacks suffer from higher rates of kidney disease and failure than other ethnic groups.

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Posted Nov. 17, 2008 – Posted Nov. 17, 2008 – If you’re stuffing down mega doses of Vitamin C or E in an effort to prevent cancer, don’t bother. While you’ve probably heard over the years that taking high doses of these nutrients help ward off cancer, there’s new evidence that that’s not the case; they simply don’t work that way. Vitamin C and E pills did not help prevent cancer in men who participated in a large Harvard-affiliated study, which has implications for the rest of us. Nor, did they work to fight heart disease, the researchers said. However, the good news is that when vitamin C and E were absorbed as part of your diet, there were some positive benefits.

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The NBA star has had personal experience with the flesh-eating infection
 

Posted Sept. 5, 2008 – Grant Hill, one of the best all-around players in the NBA, wants you to know more about MRSA – (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus). It’s a potentially life-threatening antibiotic resistant Staph infection that is becoming increasingly common in places like locker rooms, gyms and schools. Hill has had personal experience with the flesh-eathing staph infection. Read more about his experience why he’s fighting the disease at BET.com’s Body & Soul.

 For more tips on how to protect yourself go to StopMRSANow.org.

 The bulk of those who died drowned 

Updated Sept. 1, 2008 – As another hurricane bears down on New Orleans, a new report says Hurricane Katrina caused some 986 deaths in Louisiana either directly or indirectly, making it the deadliest hurricane to hit the U.S. Gulf Coast in 80 years. Study authors – who were from the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – said in a press  release Thursday that the leading cause of death was drowning (40 percent), followed by injury and trauma, then heart conditions. Almost half of the victims were 75 or older. Eighty percent of the deaths occurred on the day of the storm — Aug. 29, 2005.

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 Posted Aug. 26, 2008 – I was just blown away by how quickly legendary football great Gene Upshaw was felled by pancreatic cancer only days after he found out he had the disease. Upshaw was a trailblazer whose mark is forever etched in the annals of football. If not for him, there might not be a free agency system, which frees players and their teams from a lot of grief when things go sour or either party wants out. But the disease that got to him is not only is the fourth leading cause of cancer deaths, but tends to be more deadly for African Americans.

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Posed Aug. 11, 2008 — As the discussions wrapped up at the 17th Annual International AIDS Conference in Mexico City over the weekend, one thing became abundantly clear: We are ignoring a deadly and debilitating disease that affects African Americans more than any other ethnic American group. Dozens of US AIDS activists demonstrated at the AIDS conference Wednesday calling on White House candidates to commit to HIV prevention, as experts warned of growing US public indifference towards the disease. But, at the same time, the activist point out that complacency in America – and within our own communities – is leading to more and more Black deaths from AIDS. What will it take to keep HIV/AIDS on the front burner?

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Posted Aug. 7, 2008 – The sports world seemed to be in shock when Philadelphia Eagles guard Shawn Andrews announced on Monday that he missed practice because he’d been battle clinical depression and “I really was kind of at my end.’  But is it really so depressing that a population of people could go through the pressures we face in America and not have some folks who are adversely affected?  Or, that there are those among us whose systems for one reason or another get out and out of balance, resulting in mental illness?  

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Stress-and-lifestyle-related heart disease is preventable, one doctor told the NAACP
Stress, unequal treatment in the U.S. healthcare system and couch-potato/video-game lifestyles are killing Black Americans, health professionals told an audience at the NAACP on Saturday.

“We have a heart-obsessed society, but not a heart-healthy society,” Dr. Pamela Redden, former chief of staff in the Huron Hospital, a part of Cleveland Clinic Health Systems, said during a health symposium at the 99th Annual NAACP National Convention downtown.”It’s the organ that keeps us alive, but it’s the No. 1 killer in America.”

As you know by now Black Americans — particularly Black women — are more likely to die from heart-related illnesses, such as coronary heart disease, than all other Americans. But what’s different about the message at the NAACP convention is that many of the medical professionals pointed out that stress – worrying over whether you’ve got enough money to take care of your kids, or how you’re going to get done all you need to do, or whatever – is one of the things that’s killing us. Dr. Fleda M. Jackson found that a leading cause of infant mortality was elevated stress levels of Black women.

“We need a revolution. We need a radical change in the way we view our health,” said Dr. Marilyn Gaston, former U.S. assistant surgeon general and one of the panelists Saturday. “These are preventable. They’re not just statistics … They represent us when we fail to make a change.”

And, of course, one of the number one solutions for that stress: GET FIT. That doesn’t mean losing a bunch of weight all at one time, or trying to run a marathon. What the medical experts urged was just start gradually to do something for your health, whether it’s taking a walk after you eat or popping in a 20-minute workout video before you go to work, or taking a boxing class. They drove home the point that women should put their own health first (instead of the well-being of others); determine their own risk factors, like family history; practice prevention; get fit and manage their stress levels.

Find out more about what’s happening at the NAACP Convention here.

Posted June 18, 2008 – It appears that something is amiss when the only way for pass a bill to better regulate cigarettes in America is to exempt the one type of cigarette that African Americans smoke the most – menthol. Congress is considering a bill that gives control of tobacco products to the Food and Drug Administration and would ban flavor additives such as mint, clove and vanilla, which appeal to young people. However, menthol flavor, which is preferred by more than 75 percent of Black smokers and only 25 percent of Whites, according to government estimates. Menthol cigarettes such as Kool were marketed during the 1960s in advertising campaigns targeting urban Black folks, according to the National African American Tobacco Prevention Network. That group withdrew its support from the tobacco control bill last month over the menthol exemption along with several former health secretaries, including Dr. Louis Sullivan, health secretary from 1989 to 1993 under President George H.W. Bush. “If we’re banning things such as clove and peppermint, then we should ban menthol,” says Dr. Sullivan, one of seven former health secretaries who sent a letter to lawmakers opposing the menthol exemption. But, apparently, the fix is in that if there’s no menthol exclusion, the bill that would put cigarettes under the purview of the FDA would sail through Congress with support from both sides of the isle. Supporters say by giving the FDA authority to reduce harmful ingredients in cigarettes, there would warnings about harmful substances in cigarettes and no more misleading labels such as “light” and “mild.” But am I the only one who thinks that it’s wrong to balance the rest of American smokers’ health on the backs of Black Americans? We already have higher rates of cancer and cancer deaths from smoking. What’s it going to take for our lives to be taken as seriously everyone else’s What do you think should be done aga?

Can’t remember where you put your keys? Can’t ever remember where you put your keys? That’s normal, especially if you’re in your late 40s or 50s.

Can’t remember the name of that woman you just met? The one who was sitting next to you? The one whose brother went to school with your uncle? That’s normal, too.

Aging effects our entire body, including our brain cells. As we get on in years, most of us suffer from “tip of the tongue” syndrome – difficulty in finding the right word, or in remembering names of people or places. The condition is maddening because the information will pop into our heads later, just not at the time we need it most.

If that’s happening to you or a loved one, relax. But go to a doctor if that “forgetfulness” hampers the ability to care for oneself.

It’s normal, for example, to forget where you put the keys. It is not normal to forget what keys are for. It’s normal to misplace an item. It’s not normal to put an item in a strange place: keys in the refrigerator for example.

The Alzheimer’s Association has a publication for African Americans entitled “Is It Alzheimer’s or just normal signs of aging: 10 signs every African-American should know.” And know this: roughly 60 other treatable conditions cause memory loss. They include thyroid, depression, stroke, even a poor diet.

But our community’s risk factor for Alzheimer’s  demands we educate ourselves on its symptoms and treatments. I’ll talk about the latter in the next posting.