January 24, 2011
Dr. Oz talked about heart attacks on his show today. He emphasized things we can do to manage our risk for ourselves. He talked about the risk for women as well as men. One of the issues that he emphasized was ‘stress.’ He noted that stress is a big contributor to heart disease. He has talked about this in terms of our diet before http://whyhealthcommunication.com/whc_blog/?p=328 I have talked about Dr. Oz referring to stress before on this blog .http://whyhealthcommunication.com/whc_blog/?p=236
This time, I want to applaud the very concrete suggestions that Dr. Oz gave us for handling stress. He said, “Have two social conversations each day.” And, “Have one social outing each week.” This is very useful for us. How often do we find ourselves stressed with feelings that there is ‘no wait out.’ Then we talk to a friend or a colleague about a new movie coming out, or our passion for a sport, or our love for our children. Even five minutes, and some of that stress melts away. And, yes, as impossible as it seems when we feel stressed, having a social outing–a walk at the city park or in the mall when it is too cold outdoors, lunch at Subway’s or each other’s home, or going to see that new movie–everything looks and feels different afterward. So thumbs up to Dr. Oz for concrete ideas that we all can do to manage our stress…
Well, the issue that one of the students in my undergraduate students focused on last semester — in the designing health messages class — was autism and vaccines. She explained how the medical research that led to media stories about vaccines and autism was based on a small sample size of 12 children and that 10 of 13 of the original researchers who authored the study no longer stand behind its conclusion that there is a link between autism and vaccines. Now, we have a new story in a medical journal — telling how the results in the original publication were ‘made up’. See 
