| January 2004 Monthly Newsletter p3 |
| Blood Drive: Jason from StuGov and member of Phi Theta Kappa brought up in our December 2003 meeting, that there will be a blood drive before the Spring Break. It is set up for March 8th, 2004 and as yet there is no firm time on it, but he has asked for Phi Theta Kappa's help with this blood drive called "Be Safe." We will discuss it more fully at the January meeting, and decide just what our part in the blood drive will be. So stayed tuned for further developments. Carnation Fundraiser: Our Valentine Day fundraiser will soon be here, and let me assure you that Margaret and all the rest of the board of officers will be looking to our members to help set up a committee to make this a rousing success for the club. These funds will go to renew our coffers, and to help with the scholarship for the spring. This means we will need our members to sign yet another infamous sign up sheet, to help put up flyers, to get the word out that we are taking large order requests the week before the sale, so that we can order enough. For those who have never seen this sale before, let me assure you that these carnations sell like hotcakes. It has been so popular, and large orders have occurred causing us to run out, so this year we don't want to leave anyone out. We carry the traditional red, white, and pink carnations, with the red being the most popular. We make our own cards, wrap the flowers, and this adds such a wonderfully warm touch that the students and facility keep coming back in droves each year. So please let us know as soon as you can if you are able to help with this. The dates for this will be February 12th & 13th, which is on the newsletter's homepage under the link of monthly events. For more details you can contact Margaret Berter as she has done this for several years. FYI Health Series: Recently I read an article that I will simply copy here to keep the information as relevant and accurate as possible, and at the end you can check out the link for further information. Blood pressure lowering my increase life expectancy: Dec. 01 (Reuters Health)-Blood pressure lowering may lead to gains of more than two years in life expectancy in some patients, according to researchers. Dr. Howard D. Sesso, of Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, and colleagues used a cardiovvascular disease event Markov model to estimate life expectancy benefits of anti hyper tensive treatment, based on systolic and diastolic blood pressure reduction. They used prospective data from 57,573 subjects, and defined seven patient states: no cardiovascular disease, stroke, myocardial infarction, revascularization,history of cardiovascular disease, non-cardiovascular disease death, and cardiovascular death. "Risk functions were developed from gender-specific multivariateCox proportional hazards models for primary events and age-,smoking-, and diabetes-,adjusted models for secondary events," Dr. Sesso and colleagues write in the medical journalHypertension. Baseline assumption included hypothetical pretreatment blood pressures of 160/95 or 150/90 mm Hg; strategies that lowered blood pressure by 20/13 mm Hg (strategy A) or by 13/8 mm Hg (strategy B); and age of 35 years. Among subjects with an initial blood pressure of 160/95 mm Hg, strategy A produced gains in life expectancy of 2.43 years for hypertension alone and of 2.80 years for hypertension plus diabetes. A gain of 2.43 years was seen for smokers with hypertension and diabetes. Similar gains were observed in individuals with an initial blood pressure of 150/90 mm Hg. Furthermore, for individuals with an initial blood pressure of 160/95, strategy A provided additional life expectancy gains compared with strategy B. Sesso's group also found that "initial blood pressure level did not affect the magnitude of life expectancy gains for equivalent blood pressure reductions." Overall, the findings suggest that lowering blood pressure in hypertensive patients, especially those with other cardiovascular disease risk factors such asdiabetes or smoking, "has the potential to pr ovide substantial gains in life expectancy." SOURCE: Hypertension, November 2003 Publish Date: December 01, 2003 Website: http://www.heartcenteronline.com Healthy Recipes: Low-Sodium Recipes: Entree: Barbeque Chicken Breasts: Ingredients: 4 skinless chicken breast halves, with bone 1/3 cup apricot preserves 2 Tbs. plus 2 tsp. lite soy sauce 2 Tbs. plus 2 tsp. ketchup 2 tsp. brown sugar |
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