Dr. J's SOAP Notes

Monday, December 21, 2009

Heart Attacks and Holidays

Not to put a damper on your time-off, but some studies tell us that death rates from heart attacks and stroke (as well as non-heart-related causes) spike during the holiday season. A national database with detailed information on the 53 million deaths that occurred in the US between 1973 and 2001 indicates that fatalities from heart disease hit a highpoint in December/January, with Christmas and New Year's Day having the highest numbers, according to a University of California at San Diego study. Researchers say there are several possible reasons for the spike. One of them being that people who are having heart trouble prior to the holiday season often put-off going to the doctor or look at the holidays as a reason to take a break from their exercise and diet programs. The lesson from this? Heart attacks don’t take holidays.

2 comments:

AnonymousFriday, December 25, 2009 8:30:00 PM
I also wonder if one contributing factor could be shovelling snow. If I understand right, being in the cold can constrict blood vessels a bit, and if you have a heart condition on top of that and are exerting yourself shovelling snow it can cause problems. And since December and January are big snow months, I am curious if this could be a reason, in addition to holiday stress.
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UnknownSunday, December 27, 2009 5:29:00 PM
I would definitely agree with your comment. Thank you for your thoughts.

-DR.J
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Who is Dr. J

Background:

She is originally from Spencer, Iowa. Malea is a graduate of Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa. She attended medical school at the University of Osteopathic Medicine in Des Moines, Iowa. She graduated from her Family Practice Residency program at Iowa Lutheran Hospital in Des Moines, Iowa in 1998.
In her spare time, Malea trains clients on physical activity and nutrition, spends time with friends and her wonderful father, and loves to watch football. What is better than bodybuilding? “Wolverine football on Saturday and Vikings football on Sunday!” Malea also loves basketball as March Madness rounds out a wonderful basketball season. As you may have guessed, Malea is very sports oriented, having been a four-sport athlete in high school, and a three-sport athlete in college.

Why I do what I do:

Jensen approaches her medical practice with the same determination as anything else she does. “The effort to understand how to promote more active lifestyles has been of great importance to the health of this nation. Schools, workplaces, and families need to weave physical activity into the fabric of their daily lives. The key to lifetime fitness is consistency!”

What I Do Away From Work

Dr. Malea Jensen is the total package. She’s exceptionally bright. She’s remarkably attractive. She’s a doctor. She’s a bodybuilder. “I have been competing in bodybuilding since 1996,” Jensen explains. “Bodybuilding was never a whim”, Jensen says. “I have always admired men and women with muscle. Initially, it was not my ambition to get up on stage and pose, but this has been a way to extend my competitiveness. It is an ambition of mine to keep fit and look lean, with muscular detail.”

She credits her father for pushing her to “give 100 percent,” whether it was school, work, or one of the many sports at which she excelled.

Mission Trips

Why does Dr. J go on mission trips? You are probably thinking I go so I can do medical work. It’s funny, our culture has formed us from our earliest days to see our significance in terms of WHAT we do. It is old school thinking that mission work is all about giving and doing for the poor. This is true to a certain degree. Missionaries, when asked if they were successful during their mission trip, often speak of their success by what they have done, whether spiritually or materially. But really our significance as people comes not from what we do, but from WHO we are. So, to answer why I go on mission trips...it is for nothing less than for the sake of conversion...my own conversion! This conversion has to do with a change in the way that I view my own life - what I do, what I have, who I count as friends, what questions I ask myself, what issues I pay attention to, who and what I give my allegiance to. In essence, I have to leave my world where I have control and go someplace I have never been...to a place where I am poor and powerless. It is hard to do this at “home.”
Any time you enter a third world country, you will see the poor, but more importantly, you enter into the world of a deprived people and share not only their pain and struggle, but also their hope! To see this is so amazing!