Obesity is defined clinically as a body mass index (BMI) greater than 30. BMI is a screening measure of body fat and obesity in adults 20 years and older. As BMI increases risks for certain diseases increase along with it. These diseases include coronary artery or heart disease, certain types of cancer, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol etc.
Millions of Americans take medicines for many different health conditions. Many do not understand the seriousness of the health conditions being treated or the importance of the medicines that have been prescribed. This lack of understanding about health conditions is called medical illiteracy and is a significant contributor to noncompliance – or people failing to take their medicines and incorporate diet and lifestyle changes as prescribed by their healthcare providers.
Ischemic stroke is defined as the sudden onset of characteristic neurologic defects such as arm, leg, or facial weakness, numbness, inability to talk, garbled speech, or changes in vision due to the blockage of an artery in the brain by a blood clot or foreign material. Ischemic stroke is the third leading cause of death in the United States. There is another type of stroke, known as hemorrhagic stroke, that is caused by bleeding in the brain due to a ruptured artery.
High cholesterol is diagnosed by a total lipid molecule greater than 200 mg/dL. People with this condition should have a fasting low density lipoprotein (LDL or bad cholesterol) and high density lipoprotein (HDL or good cholesterol) performed to better determine their health risk. Increased levels of this organic molecule in the blood is caused by heredity, obesity, physical inactivity, and an unhealthy diet.
Over 66 million adults have high blood pressure and over half of people with high blood pressure are either not controlled, unaware of having it, or not being treated. Chronic health problems such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol are significant contributors to worse events such as heart attack, stroke etc.
There are several classes of oral medicines that have been developed to treat people with type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes is high blood sugar caused by the body being resistant to insulin and insulin production being inadequate to make up for this resistance. Insulin works by stimulating the body to absorb blood sugar. The classes of oral diabetes medications include:
If you have had a stent placed in one of your coronary arteries or experienced a stroke or mini-stroke it is likely that your health care provider has prescribed an anti-platelet medication to help prevent recurrence of obstruction in the arteries supplying blood to your heart or brain. These medications work by blocking the action of platelets, a component of the blood that is involved in the formation of blood clots.