Last year, Cynthia Bailey from the popular American reality TV show, The Real Housewives of Atlanta, announced that she had fibroids.

Cynthia revealed that her fibroids caused chronic weight gain,  chronic fatigue and loss of sex drive. She stated that she didn’t understand why she was gaining weight and felt so unwell and visited her doctor who found that she had fibroids. She later had surgery to have them removed and said:

“I’m feeling much better! The surgery was the best thing I ever did! My only regret was I didn’t do it sooner.”

Cynthia also described the negative impact her symptoms had on her marriage but said that her experience with fibroids motivated her to adopt a healthy lifestyle.

We applaud Cynthia Bailey for speaking out about her fibroids and raising awareness of the impact fibroids can have not just with respect to the physical symptoms but its wide reaching effect on daily life.

This week, an article in the Daily Record encourages everyone to take a look at the Japanese diet and lifestyle if we are serious about improving the health and wellbeing of our families. They stated that The Lancet has found that Japanese children are the healthiest in the world and this is down to their lifestyle.

The article highlights a new book by husband and wife team William Doyle and Naomi Moriyama, Secrets of the World’s Healthiest Children. This book is based on Doyle and Moriyama’s research into why Japan is the world leader when it comes to health. The key reasons why this is so include:

–          The Japanese eat foods high in nutrients, including fruit, vegetables and whole grains.
–          They don’t rely on processed foods
–           The Japanese only consume sugar or salt in small quantities
–          Meat is usually treated as a garnish or side dish rather than the main part of any meal
–          The Japanese eat moderately, they serve only moderate sized portions of food
–          The Japanese are physically active

Let’s follow Japan’s example and adopt some of their habits to ensure that we too can enjoy good health.

This week  WHO published its European Health Report 2015. The report shows that whilst many European countries are making great progress in improving the health of their nations there is still much work to do. Great improvements were noted  in tackling premature mortality and therefore improving life expectancy but high levels of tobacco and alcohol consumption coupled with the rise in obesity  could mean that life expectancy for future generations may fall.  Furthermore inequalities do exist with the gap in life expectancy at birth between the highest and lowest countries being 10 years.

This report is an interesting look at the health of Europe and shows, to a certain extent, that the health challenges are lifestyle related. Therefore by more  people making different personal choices Europe can significantly improve its health.

The Lake Foundation specifically encourages the black community to make these changes as we are more likely to develop conditions like high blood pressure, stroke and diabetes which can be prevented by being more active and eating a healthy diet.

For more information you can read WHO’s report here

This week the UK government has announced a key part of its plan to improve cancer care in England. In order to improve the care that patients receive, NHS England will introduce a target  to ensure that patients are given a confirmed diagnosis or all-clear within four weeks of being referred by their GP.

The target the government  is aiming for is that by 2020 95% of patients will receive a confirmed diagnosed within four weeks. To achieve this the NHS has to invest £300M a year until 2020 and train 200 extra staff to perform diagnostic tests for certain cancers.

This 95% target by 2020 was recommended by the independent cancer taskforce and the plans to achieve this will be piloted in five hospitals before being rolled out nationally. It is hoped that achieving this target will save 11,000 lives a year by increasing the number of cancers diagnosed at an early stage.

Jeremy Hunt, the UK’s Health Secretary said:

“For people who are worried they may have cancer, waiting for that all important test result is a nerve-wracking time. We have a duty to make sure this period of uncertainty is as short as possible. For those who get the all-clear, they will have peace of mind sooner. Those who sadly have cancer will get treatment much quicker and we will save thousands of lives as a result.”

The Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) has found that unhealthy eating contributes to more deaths globally than any other factor. This is because unhealthy eating plays a role in increasing risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes.  They also found that high blood pressure was another big cause of premature death across the world.

The IHME’s conclusions are based on data from 108 countries from 1990 to 2013.

This study is very important as it adds to the evidence base that shows the extent to which our diet affects our health and wellbeing. It also shows that we can significantly improve our health by making very simple changes to our lifestyle.

Researchers at the National Institute of Ageing have published the results of their study exploring the relationship between weight at midlife and Alzheimer’s Disease.

In their study they found that being obese or overweight at midlife (at age 50) may put people at increased risk of developing early onset Alzheimer’s Disease. They found that for each unit of increase in BMI at age 50 accelerated onset of Alzheimer’s by nearly 7 months in those who developed the condition.

Although more work is needed to confirm this relationship between body weight and Alzheimer’s, this work suggests that maintaining a healthy weight could be an option for delaying the development of Alzheimer’s.

Last week, Diabetes UK reported that the number of people living with diabetes has risen by a staggering 60% over the past 10 years.  They stated that 3.3 million people in the UK have some form of the condition which is up from 2.1 million in 2005.

About  90% of diabetes cases are type II which is strongly linked to lifestyle  (diet and obesity) therefore we can reverse this trend by encouraging the UK’s population to change their lifestyle and adopt a healthy lifestyle.

The black community is three times more likely to develop diabetes and hence it is important that we take note of these statistics and make a concerted effort to do something about this.

As a community we have to look at our diet, make changes and get more active in order to beat this condition.

Kinetic Root Services is running three two-hour monthly workshops on difficult issues in women’s lives.  The workshops aim to empower women ensuring that they can move on from any difficult situation they encounter.

The sessions will be held at The Hub, Lordship Recreation Ground from 7-9pm  on:
Wednesday 26^th August 2015
Wednesday 30^th September 2015
Wednesday 28^th October 2015

For more information please email info@kineticrootservices.org  or call 07746 260 258. Alternatively you can download their flyer below.

The government will soon be launching a campaign aimed at 40-60 year olds encouraging this group to get more sleep. This campaign is part of a government initiative to  encourage middle aged men and women to live a healthier lifestyle and hence reduce their risk of developing a number of conditions.

Research has shown that over a third of the UK’s population get less than six hours of sleep a night and this is putting people at risk of a number of conditions. It is thought that people who get less than 6 hours of sleep a night have a 12% increased risk of early death and are also at a higher risk of developing diabetes, obesity, heart disease and a stroke.

As the black community is at an increased risk of developing diabetes, heart disease and stroke it is important that we do what we can to reduce our risk of developing these diseases and also improve our overall health;  getting more sleep is an easy way to do this. We should all be aiming for  7-8 hours of sleep a night.

For tips on how to get more sleep please visit the Sleep Foundation’s webpage – http://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-tools-tips/healthy-sleep-tips

Volunteers are needed for a research project which forms part of a taught Masters degree programme at King’s College London.

This project will look at an important area of study in relation to how people with Sickle Cell Disease (SCD)  make use of complementary and alternative medicines to provide relief and support for their health condition. Such treatments may include but are not limited to osteopathy, yoga, herbal treatments or meditation as well as many others.

The interview will take about an hour at a location most convenient for you. If you are interested and would like further information please contact: stellakemi@blueyonder.co.uk or call 07949 932 850 or 0207 686 0768