Guest Blogs

by Chris Smoking had me hooked almost from the first cigarette. That was at age 15. At the time, I didn't even consider what the health risks were, I was cool, and that's all that mattered…or so I thought. As the years went on, I suddenly realized that by smoking, I was risking both my health and the health of people around me. I was also spending large amounts of money on something that could very well kill me. Cancer runs in my family, and having lost both parents to forms of cancer, it was always in the back of...

Childhood obesity continues to reach epidemic proportions worldwide. The jury is still out on exactly why the obesity crisis continues even though there are ample research and health promotion initiatives to warn against it. Research from our Healthy Heart Schools’ Program shows that the obesity problem is present in Niagara as much as it is anywhere else. More specifically, a total of 20,719 students were enrolled and screened for cardiovascular risk factors in our Healthy Heart Schools Program from 2002-2008. Our data shows that within this time-period, the proportion of obese children in each cohort significantly increased from 11% to...

Heart Attack vs Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA). There is a difference between the two, however, many residents of Niagara, who take part in Heart Niagara training sessions, are under the impression that these two medical afflictions are identical. Let’s try to determine the basis for these misconceptions and get to the truth of the matter. When someone is experiencing a heart attack, our instructors relate it to a “plumbing” problem, because there is an occlusion of rich-oxygenated blood to a certain portion of the victim’s heart. If the artery containing this occlusion isn’t reopened quickly, the part of our hearts...