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.

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
Long-term yogurt consumption tied to decreased incidence of certain types of colorectal cancer
Yogurt consumption over time may protect against colorectal cancer through changes in the gut microbiome.

Yogurt, which contains live strains of bacteria, is thought to protect against many types of diseases, with some reports indicating it could reduce risk of colorectal cancer. A new study led by investigators from Mass General Brigham finds that yogurt consumption over time may protect against colorectal cancer through changes in the gut microbiome.
Using data from studies that have followed participants for decades, researchers found that long-term consumption of two or more servings per week of yogurt was tied to lower rates of proximal colorectal cancer positive for Bifidobacterium, a bacterial species found in yogurt. The study showed that the bacterial species was quite common: about 30 percent of patients with colorectal cancer had detectable Bifidobacterium in their tumor tissue. Their results are published in Gut Microbes.
“Our study provides unique evidence about the potential benefit of yogurt,” said corresponding author Shuji Ogino, MD, PhD, the chief of the Program in Molecular Pathological Epidemiology in the Department of Pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system. Ogino is also an American Cancer Society Professor, a Professor at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and an Affiliate Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. “My lab’s approach is to try to link long-term diets and other exposures to a possible key difference in tissue, such as the presence or absence of a particular species of bacteria. This kind of detective work can increase the strength of evidence connecting diet to health outcomes.”
Ogino and colleagues – team OPTISTIMISTICC – are funded by Cancer Research UK through Cancer Grand Challenges, a research initiative co-founded by Cancer Research UK and the National Cancer Institute in the United States. OPTIMISTICC aims to transform the understanding of how the microbiome contributes to disease development, progression and response to treatment. As part of this, Ogino’s team aims to define the risk factors and environmental exposures that individuals encounter through life which are behind the rise of early-onset colorectal cancer and ultimately develop strategies to reduce the burden of this type of cancer.
To conduct their study, the researchers used data from two U.S.-wide prospective cohort studies known as the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (HPFS). The studies have followed more than 100,000 female registered nurses and 51,000 male health professionals, respectively. Participants have been followed since 1976 for the NHS and 1986 for HFPS, answering repeated questionnaires about lifestyle factors and disease outcomes, including questions about average daily intake of plain and flavored yogurt, as well as other dairy products. The researchers also assessed tissue samples for participants with confirmed cases of colorectal cancer, measuring the amount of Bifidobacterium DNA in tumor tissue.
The researchers found 3,079 documented cases of colorectal cancer in the two study populations. Information on Bifidobacterium content was available in 1,121 colorectal cancer cases. Among those, 346 cases (31%) were Bifidobacterium-positive, and 775 cases (69%) were Bifidobacterium-negative. The researchers did not observe a significant association between long-term yogurt intake and overall colorectal cancer incidence, but they did see an association in Bifidobacterium-positive tumors, with a 20 percent lower rate of incidence for participants who consumed two or more servings of yogurt a week. This lower rate was driven by lower incidence of Bifidobacterium-positive proximal colon cancer—a type of colorectal cancer that occurs in the right side of the colon. Studies have found that patients with proximal colon cancer have worse survival outcomes than patients with distal cancers.
“It has long been believed that yogurt and other fermented milk products are beneficial for gastrointestinal health,” said co-senior author Tomotaka Ugai, MD, PhD, of the Department of Pathology at the Brigham and the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “Our new findings suggest that this protective effect may be specific for Bifidobacterium-positive tumors.”
The researchers hypothesize that long-term yogurt intake may reduce risk of proximal colon cancer by changing the gut microbiome, including Bifidobacterium, but they note that further research that brings together both basic science and population health studies is needed to draw a definitive conclusion.
“This paper adds to the growing evidence that illustrates the connection between diet, the gut microbiome, and risk of colorectal cancer,” said co-author Andrew T Chan, MD, chief of the Clinical and Translational Epidemiology Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system and co-lead for Cancer Grand Challenges team PROSPECT addressing causes of cancer in young adults. “It provides an additional avenue for us to investigate the specific role of these factors in the risk of colorectal cancer among young people.”
In addition to Ogino, Ugai and Chan, Mass General Brigham authors include Satoko Ugai, Hidetaka Kawamura, Kota Arima, Kazuo Okadome, Qian Yao, Kosuke Matsuda, and Yuxue Zhong. Additional authors include Li Liu, Keisuke Kosumi, Tsuyoshi Hamada, Kosuke Mima, Hiroki Mizuno, Wendy S. Garrett, Mingyang Song, Marios Giannakis, Edward L. Giovannucci, and Xuehong Zhang.
NewsMakers
New study finds lower cardiovascular risk in Type 1 diabetes compared to Type 2 diabetes
A lower risk of cardiovascular events for patients with Type 1 diabetes (often called juvenile diabetes) compared to those with Type 2 diabetes. The research highlights the differences between the two types of diabetes and provides new insights that could influence future treatment approaches.

A study published in JSCAI has revealed a lower risk of cardiovascular events for patients with Type 1 diabetes (often called juvenile diabetes) compared to those with Type 2 diabetes. The research highlights the differences between the two types of diabetes and provides new insights that could influence future treatment approaches.
“The study’s findings suggest that the cardiovascular risk associated with Type 1 diabetes is lower than previously thought, which has important implications for managing these patients. Our findings indicate that Type 1 diabetes is associated with a significantly lower risk of cardiovascular events compared to Type 2 diabetes, even after adjusting for various confounders such as age, diabetes control, and kidney function,” said Andrew M. Goldsweig, MD, MSc, FSCAI, director of cardiovascular clinical research at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, MA. “The power of big data amplifies the results: With the enormous population included in this analysis, we were able to identify a large number of people with Type 1 diabetes and compare them to those with Type 2 diabetes, providing a comprehensive understanding of the differences in cardiovascular risk.”
For the study, Goldsweig collaborated with Baystate pediatric endocrinologist Bracha Goldsweig, MD, to examine the Veradigm Metabolic Registry, operated in collaboration with the American College of Cardiology, which includes longitudinal records of 1.5 million individuals from over 700 facilities. The analysis identified nearly 6,000 people with Type 1 diabetes and compared their cardiovascular event rates to those of people with Type 2 diabetes. When controlling for confounders, the results showed that people with Type 1 diabetes had lower rates of myocardial infarction (MI), percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), stroke, and limb ischemia compared to people with Type 2 diabetes. There was no significant difference in the rates of bypass surgery between the two groups.
Dr. Bracha Goldsweig emphasized the importance of distinguishing between patients with each type of diabetes to develop targeted treatment strategies:
“Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes are fundamentally different diseases. People with Type 1 diabetes do not produce insulin, while people with Type 2 diabetes have insulin insensitivity. Our study shows that it is not appropriate to manage all people with diabetes identically, and dedicated studies for Type 1 diabetes are necessary to understand the best treatment approaches,” Dr. Bracha Goldsweig said. “People with Type 1 diabetes now live normal lifespans, and it is crucial to study this population to ensure they receive the best possible care.”
This research marks the first time the Doctors Goldsweig, who are spouses, have published together, highlighting the importance of multidisciplinary collaboration. An Early Career Research Grant (ECRG) from the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) supported the project.
“We were excited to work together in this area where our fields overlap,” Dr. Andrew Goldsweig said. “The support from SCAI’s ECRG grant was crucial in making this research possible.”
NewsMakers
Children of housing loss have more depression, anxiety: Pitt study
“We knew that eviction or housing loss can impact the adults in a household, but we didn’t know as much about what happen to kids in families facing eviction or housing loss” said Jamie Hanson, associate professor in psychology at the University of Pittsburgh and the paper’s primary author.

At a time when costs are high and social safety nets appear further endangered, the experience of eviction, foreclosure, and housing loss creates a measurable and detrimental impact on families. New research, appearing in JAMA Network Open, now shows the true impact on children and their mental health.
“We knew that eviction or housing loss can impact the adults in a household, but we didn’t know as much about what happen to kids in families facing eviction or housing loss” said Jamie Hanson, associate professor in psychology at the University of Pittsburgh and the paper’s primary author.
In this new study, Hanson used data from over 36,000 families and looked at how a parent’s anxiety or stress about eviction, foreclosur, or housing loss was related to mental health issues in their kids. Stress about eviction or housing loss was associated with depression and anxiety disorders. “When a caregiver was really worried, this was related to a major increase, 10% to 35%, in depression,” Hanson said.
Particularly important was the impact on young children, under the age of 9. “Normally, we don’t see high rates of depression in young kids, those younger than 8 or 9; but a parent’s anxiety or stress about housing loss was related to those issues being reported more,” Hanson added.
Of note, stress about housing loss wasn’t related to increases in all mental health issues. “There weren’t major connections with ADHD and behavioral problems. We controlled for lots of other factors and didn’t see strong links,” Hanson said.
In sum, the stress increased the odds that children “will internalize issues, such as depression and anxiety,” the author wrote in the paper titled, “Stress About Eviction or Loss of Housing and Child Mental Health.”
“Notably, eviction and foreclosures are not equally distributed across demographics — it disproportionately affects individuals from minoritized racial and ethnic groups, the economically marginalized, and families with children in their homes,” Hanson wrote in the paper.
He added: “Our findings underscore the urgent need for policies and programs to address housing instability and protect children’s mental well-being. It doesn’t need to be this way. We could do more housing assistance; we could allow court records about eviction to be sealed for a period of time…. We need to do more.”
-
Product Showcase4 weeks ago
Manulife Wealth and Asset Management appoints Fabio Fontainha as Head of Asia
-
Product Showcase4 weeks ago
PhilCare members can now access Healthway’s full-service offerings
-
Dining Out3 weeks ago
A taste of Thai in Pasay
-
Dining Out2 weeks ago
Still trying to find the promise of Las Tres Marias Deliciosa Lasaña
-
Wellness3 weeks ago
Exercise improves brain function, possibly reducing dementia risk
-
Wellness3 weeks ago
Mental well-being and physical activity can form a positive cycle
-
Dining Out3 days ago
Heading to Cavite to try Som Thai Silang Bypass
-
NewsMakers2 days ago
Brain rhythms can predict seizure risk of Alzheimer’s disease patients, study finds