Preventive care Archive

To get the full benefit of your workout, you need to know how hard you're exercising, and that can be different for everyone.

By Anne Fabiny, M.D., Editor in Chief

President Barack Obama recently announced the Precision Medicine Initiative, a new program to speed up discoveries based on information and technology stemming from the Human Genome Project. "Precision medicine" and "personalized medicine" are terms that describe health care tailored to an individual patient's genetic makeup, using information about a patient's genome to diagnose illness and design therapies to treat and cure disease. This approach has been described as "the medicine of the future."

However, it may be reassuring to know that although your doctor doesn't have your genome at hand, he or she is likely to be giving you personalized care as we understand it today.

Health studies rarely involve people on opposite sides of the globe who have very different lifestyles. However, researchers at Vanderbilt Medical School took that approach when they pooled data from dietary studies of 72,000 men and women in the southeastern United States and 135,000 people in Shanghai, China. It turns out that the Americans and Chinese have something in common—they both eat a lot of peanuts—and they may be living longer as a result.

All of the participants filled out detailed questionnaires on the foods they ate regularly. The research team noted that peanuts accounted for 50% of nuts eaten by Americans and almost all the nuts consumed by the Chinese.

Why you should plan now for care you may need later.

Q. Why do people over 60 lose height? I've lost a few inches over the years. Can this be prevented?

Easy ways to increase activity and cut down on sedentary time.

They're linked to calorie absorption, high blood pressure, and heart trouble.

For weight-conscious people who love the bite of carbonation and the taste of various soft drinks, the advent of sugar-free sodas 60 years ago seemed a blessing: if there were no calories, you didn't have to worry about weight gain—and the diseases that go along with obesity, like diabetes and heart disease. "But there are growing doubts about whether diet sodas really help people lose weight and avoid diabetes," says Dr. Anthony Komaroff, editor in chief of the Health Letter.

Standing up more throughout the day may help you dodge heart disease and live longer.

Some first-generation diet pills proved risky to the heart. New drugs may have expanded the options for treating obesity.

Q. I'm 68, and I had the pneumonia vaccine a few years ago. Now I hear that I need to have two different ones. Do I really need to do this?

A. For many years, men who turned 65 were told that they needed a single pneumonia shot, called Pneumovax. Now the CDC suggests that older adults get an additional vaccination with a different vaccine, called Prevnar. The combination stimulates the immune system more effectively than either alone.

The two vaccines build immunity against different types of the bacterium, known as pneumococcus, that causes pneumonia. Pneumovax (PPSV23) protects against 23 common types of pneumococcus. Prevnar (PCV13) protects against 13 types.