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Heart Failure Information Added to NIH Senior Health
Site
March 3, 2006 - Information about the prevention,
detection, and treatment of heart failure, a health condition that
affects roughly 5 million older Americans, has been added to
NIHSeniorHealth.gov. Designed especially for senior citizens,
NIHSeniorHealth is a joint effort of the National Institute on Aging
(NIA) and the National Library of Medicine (NLM), which are part of the
National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Heart failure tends to be more common in men than
in women, but because women usually live longer, the condition affects
more women in their 70s and 80s. Blacks are more likely than whites to
have heart failure and to suffer more severely from it. It is the number
one reason people over age 65 are hospitalized.
In heart failure, the heart cannot pump enough
blood through the body. Over time as the pumping action of the heart
gets weaker, blood and fluid back up into the lungs and fluid builds up
in the feet, ankles, and legs. People with heat failure often experience
fatigue and shortness of breath. Heart failure is caused by a number of
diseases and conditions that damage the heart muscle, including coronary
artery disease. People who have had a heart attack are at high risk of
developing heart failure. Diabetes and high blood pressure also
contribute to heart failure risk.
There are a number of things you can do to reduce
the risk of heart disease and heart failure, says Elizabeth G. Nabel,
M.D., director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI),
which developed the content for the heart failure topic on the
NIHSeniorHealth Web site. For example, it is important to keep your
cholesterol and blood pressure levels healthy, keep your diabetes in
check, lose weight if you are overweight, eat right, dont smoke, and
get regular physical activity.
One of the fastest growing age groups using the
Internet, older Americans increasingly turn to the World Wide Web for
health information. In fact, 66 percent of wired seniors surf for
health and medical information when they go online. NIHSeniorHealth,
which is based on the latest research on cognition and aging, features
short, easy-to-read segments of information that can be accessed in a
variety of formats, including large-print type sizes, open-captioned
videos, and even an audio version. Additional topics coming soon to the
site include heart attack, clinical trials, and falls and fractures. The
site links to MedlinePlus, NLMs premier, more detailed site for
consumer health information.
The NIA leads the Federal effort supporting and
conducting research on aging and the health and well-being of older
people. The NLM, the worlds largest library of the health sciences,
creates and sponsors Web-based health information resources for the
public and professionals. The NHLBI supports research in diseases of the
heart, blood vessels, lung, and blood, and sleep disorders. All three
are components of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda,
Maryland, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) The
Nations Medical Research Agency includes 27 Institutes and Centers
and is a component of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services.
It is the primary Federal agency for conducting and supporting basic,
clinical, and translational medical research, and it investigates the
causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For
more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.
Links
NIHSeniorHealth.gov
www.NIHSeniorHealth.gov
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
www.nih.gov
National Institute on Aging (NIA)
www.nia.nih.gov
NIHSeniorHealth
www.NIHSeniorHealth.gov
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