Tag Archives: cardiovascular disease

A Companion Dog Can Enrich Your Life

A Companion Dog Can Enrich Your Life
Dogs as social catalysts In the latter part of the 20th Century, research suggested that dog ownership predicted better health and well-being. In particular, companion dogs seemed to function as social catalysts. In 2000, two British researchers conducted two experiments to clarify whether the social interactions depended on the attributes of the dog or the…
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Measures of Cardiovascular Health

Measures of Cardiovascular Health
Total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol, apolipoprotein-B, apolopoprotein-A1, For years, the concentration of low-density lipoprotein (LDL-cholesterol) in blood serum has served as the go-to measure of cardiovascular disease risk. However, researchers have noted that LDL-cholesterol contains several constituents (small, dense vs. large, buoyant particles), which predict higher and lower risks for cardiovascular disease, respectively. More recently, researchers have…
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Walk Faster for Better Health

Walk Faster for Better Health
Walking speed: the sixth vital sign Walking speed predicts a host of health outcomes and it’s easily and reliably measured with minimal equipment and cost. Given the ability of walking speed to predict health, two physical therapy researchers called walking speed the sixth vital sign, accompanying the five routinely measured vital signs of blood pressure,…
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Ectopic Fat

Ectopic Fat
What is ectopic fat? This term refers to the accumulation of fat molecules (triglycerides) in organs not designed to store fat. More specifically, ectopic fat can occur in your liver, pancreas, heart and skeletal muscles with undesirable consequences. Until recently, adipose tissue, which is comprised of fat cells, was thought be solely a fat storage…
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