Connect with us

NewsMakers

OMRON Healthcare initiates the ‘Heart Reacts Only’ campaign

OMRON Healthcare, a global leader in the field of clinically proven, innovative medical equipment, initiates the ‘Heart Reacts Only’ campaign, encouraging Filipinos to love and take care of their heart with five easy steps.

Published

on

The heart is the core of a person’s life. With every beat, the heart pumps blood to the body, carrying oxygen and nutrients to the cells and removing metabolic waste from the body’s tissues. It’s no secret the heart is essential to life. Unfortunately, it is the organ that is often neglected.

Cardiovascular diseases (CVC) continue to be a pressing concern among Filipinos. Ischemic heart diseases were the leading cause of death in the Philippines in 2022, accounting for 114,557 cases or 18.4 percent of total deaths recorded during said report, according to 2023 data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).[1] The rising incidence of heart risks in the country was pointed by one study about cardiovascular diseases in the Philippines make heart diseases a public health emergency.[2]

This February, officially proclaimed as Philippine Heart Month, Filipinos are reminded to make their heart’s health a priority not only this month but every day thereafter. OMRON Healthcare, a global leader in the field of clinically proven, innovative medical equipment, initiates the ‘Heart Reacts Only’ campaign, encouraging Filipinos to love and take care of their heart with five easy steps.

Regularly check your blood pressure

A simple habit, but it can save lives. Having regular blood pressure checkups gives you an overview of your heart’s health. Knowing your blood pressure levels provides a clue if you are at risk of having heart diseases.

Recognizing the value of having reliable, accurate and quality blood pressure monitoring tools, OMRON Healthcare offers and recommends the OMRON Complete and the Stroke Risk Calculator.

The OMRON Complete is an upper arm blood pressure monitor that provides a more comprehensive view of your blood pressure and measures your EKG at the same time. Like most digital blood pressure monitors, the Complete shows the systolic and diastolic blood pressure readings and pulse rate. But unlike other monitors, the Complete can connect to your mobile phone, which then lets you access the OMRON app to get more information about your heart’s health such as the pattern of your heartbeat or sinus rhythm. This information can help you track any irregularities in your heartbeat. 

The OMRON Complete uses ECG technology to enable early detection of atrial fibrillation (AFib), a condition that is commonly associated with heart failure and stroke. The Complete is also able to detect other conditions such as tachycardia or a faster heart rate and bradycardia or a slower heart rate.

OMRON’s Stroke Risk Calculator is an online tool that helps users assess their risk of having a stroke in the next five to 10 years. All you need to do is visit the OMRON webpage and tap on the “Calculate Now” button. This will bring you to an assessment form that covers general personal information, daily habits and diet, and any other significant information from your recent checkups.

The Stroke Risk Calculator analyzes your stroke risk based on your answers and immediately shows the results. It will also show you the possible and specific factors that may lead to a stroke. The Stroke Risk Calculator is free and can be easily accessed by anyone.

Hydrate!

Just like you, your heart works extra hard every day. It also needs to feel refreshed to be able to do its job better.

Ever notice that when you’re dehydrated, your heart starts beating faster? That’s because the blood volume throughout your body decreases, which means your heart has to beat faster to “catch up.” This then increases your heart rate and your blood pressure. This can overwork and strain one’s heart.[3]

Drinking enough water daily is a surefire way to support the heart in doing its job. By hydrating properly and regularly, you not only enable your heart to function properly but you contribute to making it healthy. 

Laugh more

It’s true what they say. Laughter is indeed the best medicine. For one, laughter relaxes you and counters stress, which when isn’t managed well can hurt your heart.

Laughing brings a plethora of advantages for your heart. It enables oxygenated blood to circulate around your body, helps your heart work at a steadier pace and lowers blood pressure.[4] It can even decrease artery inflammation and increase good cholesterol.[5] All of these contribute to reducing the risk of heart diseases.

So the next time you see or hear something that splits your sides, go and laugh your heart out! It’s good for you in so many ways.


Do some cardio

Exercise strengthens your muscles, including your heart. Doing some spirited cardio regularly helps improve your heart’s ability to pump blood throughout your body, resulting in improved blood flow and higher oxygen levels.[6]

The American Heart Association advises at least 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic exercise or 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity — or a combination of both — every week.[7] You don’t need to do all 75 or 150 minutes in one go. Spread the workouts throughout the week to remain active. Get off that couch and move around. One option is to do 13 minutes of vigorous aerobic exercise or 25 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise a day for six days and leave one day for rest.

Your workouts don’t necessarily need to be intense all the time, especially if you’re just beginning. If you can’t sneak a full-on workout in your hectic day, try indoor walking or brisk walking around the neighborhood. Other moderate-intensity workouts can be biking, gardening or, to make exercising more fun, dancing! Then push your body further with more vigorous activities like running, jumping rope or cycling.

Some people refuse to exercise because they think it’s too much work or it can feel pressuring. The suggestions above will not only make exercising fun and manageable but may even help you sustain the workouts and eventually make them part of your routine.

Get adequate quality sleep

It’s no secret what sleeping can do. It allows your body to repair and recharge after a long day. But it also plays a major role in keeping your heart healthy.

Achieving quality sleep regularly helps lower your blood pressure. Often, we disregard getting enough quality sleep because we’re too caught up in our daily work or just like to stay up late. Sleep deprivation has long-lasting effects, particularly on your heart. Poor-quality and lack of sleep raises your blood pressure, and it can stay high for a longer period of time. This can increase your risk for a heart disease, heart attacks, diabetes and stroke.

If you’re guilty of bedtime procrastination because you tend to put work first or can’t seem to let go of your phone at night, now’s the time to start fixing your sleep schedule. Doing so will not only give you the rest that you need and deserve but will also keep your heart healthy.

Caring for your heart doesn’t necessarily have to involve big and complicated efforts. In fact, it’s the simple daily habits — like the ones listed above — that can make all the difference. The next time you’re thinking about brushing aside these little steps, think of your heart. It does so much for you, and these small efforts can be your way of saying thank you.

To further promote proactive heart health management this Heart Month, OMRON is teaming up with Southstar Drug and other participating drug stores to offer a discount of less Php250 for every purchase of the HEM-7120. This promo will run from February 15, 2024 to March 31, 2024.

In addition, OMRON is proud to partner with Watsons for its ‘Let’s Talk Wellness,’ a series dedicated to promoting various aspects of health and wellness, including heart health. Tune in and join the conversion to learn more about how you can prioritize your heart health and take proactive steps towards a happier and healthier heart.

NewsMakers

5 Tips to upgrade your sleep

Sleep contributes to better brain function, memory, concentration and lower stress. According to the National Institutes of Health, most adults need 7-9 hours of sleep every night to achieve maximum health benefits.

Published

on

Good sleep isn’t just about waking up feeling rested and ready for the day. Quality sleep, and plenty of it, is important for your overall health. While you sleep, your body naturally recharges itself, which puts you at lower risk for cardiovascular problems and chronic conditions like diabetes, as well as improving your immune system.

Sleep also contributes to better brain function, memory, concentration and lower stress. According to the National Institutes of Health, most adults need 7-9 hours of sleep every night to achieve maximum health benefits.

If you’re falling short of the recommended amount of sleep, you may be able to make some adjustments that help you reap the health benefits of better rest. Learn what you can do to improve your sleep with these tips from the experts in safer, healthier sleep at Naturepedic.

Reduce Light Exposure
Your body’s natural circadian rhythms are closely aligned with light and dark. When your body senses light, it sends signals to your brain that it’s time to be awake. Light also suppresses your body’s production of melatonin, a hormone linked to sleep. Cutting back on bright lights and avoiding devices at least an hour before bed can tell your body it’s time to wind down, and sleeping in a dark room promotes better rest.

Invest in the Right Mattress
Your mattress plays a major role in your comfort through the night, so making sure it fits your needs is an important step toward getting better rest. Take control of your comfort with a quality mattress such as Naturepedic’s EOS (Ergonomic Organic Sleep) mattress, which is handcrafted and made without polyurethane foam, formaldehyde, flame retardants or fiberglass. The breathable layers of certified organic cotton, wool and GOTS-approved latex ensure better temperature regulation while naturally contouring the body. An added feature is the ability to customize each side of the bed by opening the zippers and adjusting the layered components for the perfect comfort combination.

Find the Right Sheets
Sheets that are too stiff, scratchy or otherwise unpleasant make it nearly impossible to settle in for a good night’s rest. Higher thread counts tend to be softer, higher quality sheets. However, you may need to experiment to find which material suits you best.

Set a Comfortable Temperature
When you’re too hot or cold, your mind tends to focus on those sensations rather than allowing you to slip into a slumber. Set your thermostat at a comfortable temperature, adding fans or adjusting the layers of bedding as necessary to achieve the perfect level of cozy comfort.

Use a Sound Machine
If you’re a light sleeper, noise can wreak havoc on your rest. Many people find sound machines offer two key benefits: They provide a soothing sound, such as rain or ocean waves, that allows you to relax and ease into slumber and constant background noise, so additional sounds are less disruptive.

Find more solutions for achieving better sleep at Naturepedic.com.

Continue Reading

NewsMakers

What you should know about IBD

Two common conditions are irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). They’re often confused for one another, but these are actually two different GI disorders.

Published

on

It may not be something you like to talk about, but if you have gastrointestinal (GI) problems, your symptoms may be far more common than you think. According to data from the American Gastroenterological Association, 60-70 million people living in the United States have gut health concerns.

Two common conditions are irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). They’re often confused for one another, but these are actually two different GI disorders.

IBS is a syndrome; it is defined by a group of symptoms, does not cause inflammation and rarely requires hospitalization or surgery. IBD, on the other hand, is an umbrella term used to describe disorders that cause chronic inflammation of your GI tract.

The disease is more common than you may realize; a study led by the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation found nearly 1 in 100 people living in the U.S. have IBD. The two most common forms of IBD are Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.

Understanding IBD Symptoms
Because it poses serious health risks and can cause permanent damage to your intestines, it’s important to be aware of what IBD is and recognize the symptoms. Your primary care doctor or gastroenterologist can help if you have concerns about these symptoms:

  • Intense, crampy pain that doesn’t go away in a day or two or has been present on and off for weeks or longer
  • A notable change in bowel movement frequency, whether more or less often
  • Frequent diarrhea over several weeks, or loose stools multiple times a day
  • Frequent constipation, or constipation alternating with diarrhea
  • Urgency on a regular basis or inability to hold back the bowel movement before reaching the bathroom
  • Blood with bowel movements
  • Mucus in your stool regularly or paired with pain or other symptoms
  • Always feeling as though you aren’t fully emptying your bowels

Other symptoms that may have a variety of causes but need extra attention especially if you notice them along with any of the symptoms above include pain outside of the gut, fatigue, loss of appetite and weight loss. In addition, children with IBD may have delays in growth and the onset of puberty.

Diagnosing IBD
No single test can confirm a Crohn’s or ulcerative colitis diagnosis. Your medical history and information obtained from diagnostic testing can exclude other potential causes of your symptoms, since gastrointestinal symptoms are common and can have a variety of causes.

Your first tests will likely include blood and stool laboratory tests. Further testing could include imaging studies of your gastrointestinal tract or a look inside your GI tract through an endoscope.

Identifying Treatment Options
Once an IBD diagnosis is confirmed, you can partner with your doctor to manage your disease. Treatment plans are highly personalized, as what works for one person may not for another. Medication and managing your diet and nutrition are two common treatment recommendations. In some cases, surgery can help improve your quality of life.

Clinical trials may also be an option for treating your IBD. Through clinical trials, researchers find new ways to improve treatments and quality of life. In fact, clinical trials represent the final stages of a long and careful research process to make new and improved treatment options for patients available.

However, an important part of clinical trials for IBD is patient participation. Without the enrollment of patients in clinical trials, new treatment options for IBD can be delayed or never become available.

Equally important to this process is having a diverse representation of patients that considers race, age or other categories. This helps researchers develop treatments that meet the needs of a vast IBD patient community.

If you’re interested in participating in a clinical trial, ask your doctor to help you find a trial that is right for you, and visit crohnscolitisfoundation.org to learn more about IBD and treatment options, including clinical trials.

Continue Reading

NewsMakers

Unlocking the science of sleep: How rest enhances language learning

Getting eight hours of sleep every night helps the brain to store and learn a new language.

Published

on

Sleep is critical for all sorts of reasons, but a team of international scientists has discovered a new incentive for getting eight hours of sleep every night: it helps the brain to store and learn a new language.

A study led by the University of South Australia (UniSA) and published in the Journal of Neuroscience has revealed that the coordination of two electrical events in the sleeping brain significantly improves our ability to remember new words and complex grammatical rules.

In an experiment with 35 native English-speaking adults, researchers tracked the brain activity of participants learning a miniature language called Mini Pinyin that is based on Mandarin but with similar grammatical rules to English.

Half of the participants learned Mini Pinyin in the morning and then returned in the evening to have their memory tested. The other half learned Mini Pinyin in the evening and then slept in the laboratory overnight while their brain activity was recorded. Researchers tested their progress in the morning.

Those who slept performed significantly better compared to those who remained awake.

Lead researcher  Dr Zachariah Cross, who did his PhD at UniSA but is now based at Northwestern University in Chicago, says sleep-based improvements were linked to the coupling of slow oscillations and sleep spindles – brainwave patterns that synchronise during NREM sleep.

“This coupling likely reflects the transfer of learned information from the hippocampus to the cortex, enhancing long-term memory storage,” Dr Cross says.

“Post-sleep neural activity showed unique patterns of theta oscillations associated with cognitive control and memory consolidation, suggesting a strong link between sleep-induced brainwave co-ordination and learning outcomes.”

UniSA researcher Dr Scott Coussens says the study underscores the importance of sleep in learning complex linguistic rules.

“By demonstrating how specific neural processes during sleep support memory consolidation, we provide a new perspective on how sleep disruption impacts language learning,” Dr Coussens says. “Sleep is not just restful; it’s an active, transformative state for the brain.”

The findings could also potentially inform treatments for individuals with language-related impairments, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and aphasia, who experience greater sleep disturbances than other adults.

Research on both animals and humans shows that slow oscillations improve neural plasticity – the brain’s ability to change and adapt in response to experiences and injury.

“From this perspective, slow oscillations could be increased via methods such as transcranial magnetic stimulation to accelerate aphasia-based speech and language therapy,” Dr Cross says.

In future, the researchers plan to explore how sleep and wake dynamics influence the learning of other complex cognitive tasks.

“Understanding how the brain works during sleep has implications beyond language learning. It could revolutionize how we approach education, rehabilitation, and cognitive training.”

Continue Reading
Advertisement
Advertisement

Like Us On Facebook

Facebook Pagelike Widget

Most Popular

Copyright ©FRINGE PUBLISHING. All rights reserved.