Jessamine Whitney was featured in a 1914 edition of The Atlanta Constitution. (via Newspapers.com) Every year, the American Heart Association compiles statistics that tell the story of how cardiovascular disease affects the lives of people in the U.S. and around the world. This massive, monthslong endeavor takes a team of experts who produce a book-length…
Krissi Oden (left) with her mom, Edna Machen, in the mid-1990s. (Photo courtesy of Krissi Oden) One of the best dishes to come out of Edna K. Machen’s small-town West Texas home kitchen was chicken fried steak. Her fried chicken was pretty good, too. For Edna’s daughter, Krissi Oden, and Krissi’s older brother, Mark, and…
(Drs Producoes/E+ via Getty Images) Lea en español Despite its rapid growth, the Hispanic and Latino population in the United States continues to be underrepresented in clinical trials designed to help prevent and treat diseases. Hispanic people make up about 19% of the nation’s population, census data shows, but they represent just a small portion…
Claire Sprouse was five and a half months pregnant when she had a procedure to get a new aortic valve. (Photo courtesy of Edwards Lifesciences) As a teenager, Claire Sprouse spent hours in the ballet studio perfecting her pliés, then performing on stage. At 16, she started having chest pains. The problem indeed turned out…
(PeopleImages/iStock via Getty Images) Lea en español Pregnancy often causes discomfort, whether it be morning sickness, backaches or swollen feet. But sometimes, health experts warn, a seemingly minor symptom could be a flag for something more. Take dizziness. “It’s common, especially in the first trimester,” said Dr. Silvana Ribaudo, an attending physician and assistant clinical…
When Nick Reed had a stroke while playing golf, his equilibrium was so off that he had to crawl into the clubhouse. (Photo courtesy of Matthew Watson Photography) On his way to the golf course one day last July, Nick Reed couldn’t get cool. He figured it had to do with the heat advisory in…
(Maryna Terletska/Moment via Getty Images) Lea en español It’s easy to be complacent about COVID-19. Most people experience only mild issues – fever and coughing, maybe congestion and shortness of breath. But the coronavirus is capable of causing much more than a simple respiratory illness, affecting organs throughout the body, experts say. “We see people…
(sorbetto/DigitalVision Vectors via Getty Images) Lea en español When you get the results from a routine blood screening, some familiar terms and numbers may jump out: cholesterol levels that point to a risk for heart disease, for example, and A1C, a blood sugar measurement used to diagnose diabetes. But are there other numbers that merit…
(fcafotodigital/E+ via Getty Images) Lea en español It’s a headline sure to make people keep reading: Is chocolate good for you? Almost everyone wants the answer to be yes, of course. But there isn’t a simple response to be swallowed whole. So, like a good bar of chocolate, let’s break it into bite-sized pieces. Chocolate…
(mikroman6/Moment via Getty Images) While deaths from cardiovascular disease were falling over the first two decades of this century, those involving substance use rose an average of 4% per year, according to new research. The study, published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Heart Association, analyzed mortality trends using Centers for Disease Control and…