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"Controlling Hypertension Together!" As you will know by now I am always very keen on promoting things we can do as a community and how we can support each other. So I was very heartened to see that this is the theme for this year’s  World Hypertension Day on May 17. According to the World Health Organisation, the aims of the day are to promote increased awareness of high blood pressure and accuracy in blood pressure measurement. We can do that!  Find out more.... We all know we need to have ‘blood pressure’ to keep our blood pumping around our…

Then, now and the future of cancer.  There can be very few adults who have not been directly affected by cancer, either personally or with family and friends. According to Patient.info, ‘Cancer occurs when cells become abnormal and multiply out of control. According to Wikipedia and other sources we have about 37 trillion cells in our body, 20-30 billion cells die each day and need replacing, resulting in about 10 quadrillion cell divisions in an average lifespan! It is therefore not surprising that sometimes things don’t quite go as planned, resulting in abnormal cells being produced. Thankfully our bodies usually…

I spy with my little eye something beginning with ‘s’ - sunshine! I hope it’s not wishful thinking as I write this in January but I think I see a glimmer as we head towards Spring! So there’s no better time than now to think about keeping our eyes as healthy as possible so we can see the emerging green shoots and vibrant flowers of Spring. According to Patient.info our eyes ‘deserve a long term plan’. There are some factors which can increase our risk of eye conditions which are beyond our control, eg genetics, ethnicity and age, however there is…

Warmth in Winter!   February is often one of the coldest months of the year, so we all need to find some warmth to comfort us. Staying in our own homes to keep warm is a tempting way to achieve this, but this may not be good for our overall health. It’s hard to believe, but according to information in Patient.info, research has shown that ‘Reduced social contact, being alone, isolation and feelings of loneliness are associated with reduced quality of life’.  This risk is equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day and having an alcohol use disorder. https://patient.info/doctor/mental-health/social-isolation-how-to-help-patients-be-less-lonely  An…

Our Health & Wellbeing In consultation with Axbridge and Wedmore Medical Practice and with the support of Wedmore Parish Council here is this month’s item relating to our health & wellbeing. Feeling comfortable in our own skin! We don’t talk much about this in the winter, but then we obsess about it in the summer! I’m talking about our skin. It’s the largest organ of our body and covers about 1.5 to 2 square meters, according to the National Library of Medicine.  Click here for more information. Apart from keeping all our other essential organs inside, rather than exposed, it…

Our Health & Wellbeing In consultation with Axbridge and Wedmore Medical Practice and with the support of Wedmore Parish Council here is this month’s item relating to our health & wellbeing.  Also published in December's Isle of Wedmore News It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year! This is how Andy Williams sung about Christmas in 1963. It’s a joyous song, full of visions of a perfect festive season. Here are a few more of the lyrics.  ‘There'll be much mistltoeing, And hearts will be glowing, When loved ones are near.’ ‘When friends come to call, It's the hap-happiest season…

Our Health & Wellbeing In consultation with Axbridge and Wedmore Medical Practice and with the support of Wedmore Parish Council here is this month’s item relating to our health & wellbeing.  Also published in November's Isle of Wedmore News An unexpected turn of events.  We really enjoy visiting National Trust properties; other brands are available! We love the leisurely walk around a stately home with its opulent trappings. We can imagine the life of wealth and privilege for those upstairs and a life of hard toil for those downstairs. Then there is the relaxing stroll around the immaculately manicured gardens…

Reliable, relevant, accurate and easy to read information on the internet – is there such a thing? Yes, there is, but it is not always easy to find! Some sources look legitimate, but may not be. The NHS App and website are key sources of information you can trust about health & wellbeing. For locally produced information, try this website which has been developed by NHS Dietitians in Somerset. There are webinars providing information on some health conditions, mainly related to nutrition. Patient Webinars | Access to reliable nutrition information. Also I have recently found this source of reliable information…

Friendship and friendliness It was the International Day of Friendship a short while ago – a day dedicated to promoting friendship and fostering understanding between people, cultures, and countries. It was a reminder that through friendship we can create a more compassionate and united world. At an individual level too, we know that friendship is good for our own health. A recently published study by Pezirkianidis and colleagues, pulling together evidence published in peer reviewed academic journals, confirmed that adult friendship was found to predict, or at least be positively correlated with, wellbeing (link:  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36760434/). In particular, friendship is a crucial…

July is THE month to be ‘aware’! If we were ‘aware’ of all the ‘awareness days’ in July, we would not have time for anything else! They are numerous! Did you know there is a ‘Love all Budgies Day’ on 1st July? What about ‘International Bikini Day’ on the 5th and ‘Don’t Step on a Bee Day’ on the 10th! I particularly like ‘Lipstick Day’ on the 29th! Here is one we all need to be aware of – ‘International Kissing Day’ on the 6th. But I am being frivolous! There are many awareness days which would be good to…