Pulmonary Hypertension

April is Stress Awareness Month, when there will be a flurry of articles about managing stress. That is a good thing, up to a point. But many of these articles will come with the inference that stress is inherently bad. A one-sided view of stress as a negative force to be "managed" is a missed opportunity to learn how to leverage its real upside. The old science of stress We owe much of our current understanding (and misunderstanding) of stress to the pioneering endocrinologist Hans Selye. His 1946 paper on "General Adaptation Syndrome" described three stages the body goes through when it is under prolonged stress: alarm, resistance, and exhaustion. GAS was an important contribution in that it identified certain common patterns of how we respond to various stressors, whether those be disease, mental stress, or a challenging situation. But GAS also contributed to our conception of stress as largely negative. It turns out that the final phase of exhaustion...

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By Emily Fitzgerald, MD Your ALS crew is dispatched to a local nursing home for the 74-year-old female with shortness of breath, priority 2. You arrive on scene to find an elderly woman in respiratory distress. She is tripoding in bed, has marked accessory muscle usage and can only nod yes/no to questions due to her severe tachypnea. You perform a rapid physical exam. On auscultation, you find she is tachycardic with an irregular rhythm and has no murmurs/rubs/gallops. She has poor air movement with diminished breath sounds bilaterally but you appreciate a faint expiratory wheeze. You note 2+ pitting edema in her bilateral lower extremities. ...

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Share on Pinterest Strength training may be a noninvasive way to manage high blood pressure, a study suggests. Thomas Barwick/Getty Images High blood pressure or hypertension is a common condition that can lead to serious problems without proper management. High blood pressure management can involve using medications and lifestyle modifications. Data from a systematic review and meta-analysis found that strength training may be an effective non-medication option for the management of high blood pressure. However, its effectiveness depends on factors like intensity level and duration. People with high blood pressure or hypertension are at risk for certain long-term complications. Early intervention can lower blood pressure and reduce someone's risk for complications. Researchers are still working to understand the best options for lifestyle modifications to improve blood pressure. One area of interest is how strength training plays a role in lowering blood pressure. A​ recent system...

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Hypertension , or high blood pressure, commonly affects over 1 billion people worldwide, including 45% of adults. Blood pressure measures the pressure at which your blood circulates throughout your body. It's measured in millimeters of mercury (mm Hg) and is read as a fraction. High blood pressure is a risk factor for heart disease, heart attacks, and strokes and can be life-threatening if left untreated. Hypertension is difficult to detect without testing and is often called a "silent killer." Because it usually does not produce symptoms, many people don't know they have it. Learning how to identify it and practicing prevention whenever possible is essential. This article examines what it means to have high blood pressure, including causes, potential symptoms, long-term effects, treatment, and prevention. Mayur Kakade / Getty Images High Blood Pressure Symptoms Hypertension is a blood pressure reading of 130/80 mm Hg or hig...