Healthy Heart Program Updates
In this Issue
We are delighted to finally bring to your attention the newly revised Self-Care for a Healthy Heart that reflects current national recommendations for nutrition and heart disease/stroke prevention. Extensive evaluation from the original program in 1991 to the recent evaluation completed last month, shows that this program improves knowledge, changes attitudes, and enhances skills. This is important if we are to provide research-based information that puts knowledge to work and improves people's lives.
Use Self-Care for a Healthy Heart to support your health promotion disease prevention education. If you offer a one-shot program or a series of health promotion classes, Self-CARE for a Healthy Heart can be your material. It is designed to be used by an individual in their own home, and will supplement your presentation on topics pertaining to heart disease and stroke risk, namely diabetes, obesity, and high blood pressure.
Activity and exercise information is included that meet the newest recommendations. And, if you wish to evaluate outcomes, a valid and reliable questionnaire is also available.
This issue of Healthy Heart Beats contains recent reports on strategies to address obesity. In addition, you may include in your newsletters the suggestion to pull the plug on the television and get moving for National Turn off the TV Week from April 19-25, 2004. TV-Turnoff Network is a national nonprofit organization that encourages children and adults to watch much less television in order to promote healthier lives and communities. Click the link below for some great activities to get you moving: www.tv-turnoff.org.
As we look to the younger child there has been a recent study published in Circulation that shows that breastfeeding may be linked with lower childhood blood pressure. According to this study breastfed babies have lower blood pressure as children compared to their bottle-fed counterparts. This could possibly set the stage for lower blood pressure in adulthood and a reduced risk of coronary death, according to this new study.
The findings are consistent with another study that found that breastfeeding is associated with a reduced risk of coronary disease death. However, other studies failed to show a consistent link between breastfeeding and specific coronary risk factors, such as high cholesterol or high blood pressure. Findings from this report need to be confirmed in larger studies. You can learn more about these results in this issue.
Jennifer Anderson, Ph.D., R.D.
Food and Nutrition Extension Specialist
Shirley Perryman, M.S., R.D.
Extension Specialist
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Updated Tuesday, September 25, 2007.
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