HEALTHY REPS
Health news and notes Read up! Eat up! The foods and beverages that you consume have a profound impact on your health, says the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in its recently published Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2020-2025, 9th Edition. The scientific connection between food and health has been well documented for many decades, with substantial and increasingly robust evidence showing that a healthy lifestyle – including following a healthy dietary pattern – can help people achieve and maintain good health and reduce the risk of chronic diseases throughout all stages of the lifespan. The new edition of Dietary Guidelines is 150 pages long, but full of easy-to-understand verbiage and graphics.
Breast density best measured at age 40 High breast density not only has a masking effect on mammogram reading, it also increases the risk of breast cancer. However, most women do not know their breast 52
April 2021
•
www.repertoiremag.com
density classification until after their first mammogram at age 50. A recent study in the Annals of Internal Medicine suggests that a mammography screening strategy based on a baseline breast density measure at age 40 may be the most effective and cost-effective way to reduce breast cancer mortality. (Current breast cancer screening guidelines recommend that mammography begins at age 50 for women at average risk.) The Breast Density Notification Act requires providers to inform women who have a mammogram whether they have dense breasts.
Cognitive aging can be slowed down or even reversed Aging and inflammation go hand in hand. Overactive inflammatory responses lead to conditions more common in people over 65 – atherosclerosis, metabolic syndrome, cancer, and frailty. In the brain, inflammation is also tied to cognitive decline. Myeloid cells that should clear debris no longer do so, but instead go into inflammatory overdrive
