National Urban League and Walgreens provides free health screenings. In an effort to promote early detection and raise awareness of preventable diseases in urban communities, the National Urban League and Walgreens have partnered to launch a nationwide, educational health screening bus tour. The tour will encourage consumers to act as their own health advocates by visiting the wellness bus when it visits New Orleans August 28-30. The National Urban League and Walgreens Wellness Tour will continue will raise awareness of various health issues and encourage individuals to seek the appropriate resources by providing free health screenings in 27 urban communities across the U.S. as part of a 12-month mobile health campaign. the 38-foot customized bus features five free screenings, including blood pressure, bone density, glucose levels, cholesterol levels and body mass index which total more than $100 in value. “Walgreen is delighted to partner with the National Urban League to provide resources that will empower Americans in urban communities to live healthier lives,” said Mark Wagner, executive vice president of store operations for Walgreen Co. “Many diseases can be detected through screenings long before any symptoms are noticed, which is why we are bringing this valuable service to residents of New Orleans.” People in urban communities, particularly minorities, experience disproportionately higher rates of preventable disease. “The National Urban League is pleased to offer these screenings and health information to people who otherwise may not have had access to these basic health resources,” said Marc H. Morial, NUL president and CEO. “We are excited to be taking this tour to major cities across the country , such as Chicago, New York and Miami.” The National Urban League’s State of Black America 2006 reports that Blacks are impacted by higher rates of obesity, substance abuse and diabetes.

Married folks are the healthiest. People who’ve exchanged wedding vows tend to be healthier than their single, divorced or widowed peers, but new research shows that health gap may be narrowing, reports HealthDay News. Interviews with today’s never-married men suggest they are healthier than never-married guys were three decades ago, researchers say. And that’s helping single males gain some ground, in terms of their health, compared to married people. “One of the most-often documented facts is that married people are healthier than non-married people, but the difference between married and unmarried people has changed over the past few decades,” said the study’s lead author, Hui Liu, an assistant professor and sociologist at Michigan State University in East Lansing. Liu said there are two theories as to why married people report better health. One is that being married gives you more access to social support and economic resources. The other is that being divorced or widowed hurts health. “In general, marriage tends to make people healthier, happier and richer, and that’s especially true for men,” Scott Wetzler, vice chairman of psychiatry and behavioral science, and head of the “Supporting Healthy Marriage” program at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City told HealthDay.

Some overweight people can be healthy.

Some obese individuals do not appear to have an increased risk of heart disease, while some normal-weight individuals experience a variety of heart risks, according to two reports in the August 11 Issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, a JAMA/Archives journal. “The prevalence of obesity is increasing worldwide, and this epidemic is accompanied by a high incidence of type 2 diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular disease,” the authors write as background information in one of the articles. But research shows that in addition to overall obesity, the way body fat is distributed may decide whether a person is at risk of heart disease and diabetes. For instance, individuals with fat around the tummy — estimated by measuring waist size —appear to be at higher risk for insulin resistance (a pre-diabetic condition that occurs when the body fails to respond to the hormone insulin) and for having an unhealthy cardiovascular risk profile. In one study, individuals in the obese–insulin sensitive group did not differ from the normal-weight group in insulin sensitivity or artery wall thickness, the authors note. “In conclusion, we provide evidence that a metabolically benign obesity can be identified and that it may protect from insulin resistance and atherosclerosis,” Norbert Stefan, M.D., and colleagues at the University of Tübingen, Germany, wrote about their study of 314 individuals age 18 to 69 (average age 45). The second study found that among U.S. adults 20 years and older, 23.5 percent (about 12 million adults) of normal weight had abnormal metabolisms, while 51 percent (about 36 million adults) who were overweight and 31.7 percent who were considered obese had healthy metabolisms. The average weight of individuals with slow metabolisms tended to be older, less physically active and had large weights. Bottom line, waist size had more to do with whether a person had an increased risk for heart disease or diabetes than their actual weight, the studies show.

TAGS: , diabetes, Disease, Health, Heart, League, long-term, married, National, obesity, screenings, single, Urban, walgreens

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