Houston, we have a stray animal problem

What do Houstonians say is the biggest health problem facing their neighborhoods? Crime?

Nope.

Traffic?

Not even close.

Stray animals, according to the Health of Houston Survey 2010, released last year. That answer surprised me, and Stephen Linder, PhD, who developed the survey, the first of its kind to report the health of Houstonians by neighborhood within Harris County..

"That wasn’t what we expected," says Linder, associate director of the Institute for Health Policy at The University of Texas School of Public Health, in my Q&A for UT HealthLeader. "It was worst on the east side of Houston. Strays can be a big problem for neighborhoods, because they increase the risk of animal bites and rabies if you have a lot of animals that have not been inoculated. Usually children are at the highest risk for being bitten."

The population study included health information from more than 5,000 households in the Houston area. Other interesting facts about the health of Houston:

• An estimated 20 percent of Houstonians reported they are in poor or fair health—twice the national average.
• Houston had twice the national rate for risk of psychiatric illness. Not only that, the rate for women was twice as high as for men.
• Almost half of the survey’s residents (48 percent) were experiencing difficulty buying food or paying their mortgage in the 12 months prior to the survey (2010).
• Thirty-four percent of adults younger than 65 are without insurance. Compared to other groups, more Hispanic and African-American residents are without insurance.

When it comes to our health, our city definitely has room for improvement. Thankfully, public health experts like Linder are showing us where and how to focus our efforts. I am looking forward to seeing what the 2013 study yields. In the meantime, check out the Health of Houston website, and see how your neighborhood ranks.

Camp lessons

My daughter went to her first sleep away camp this summer. It wasn't her favorite experience of the summer (in fact, she ranked it in her top three worst moments between having a root canal and getting separated from me during our water park trip), but it was definitely a valuable learning experience. For both of us. My daughter learned new camp songs, how to ride a horse and the least amount of hair brushing required to pass inspection. I learned that the house is only marginally quieter without your eight-year-old if you still have a talkative four-year-old around. We both learned we missed each other desperately. Read more about our camp experience on Divine Caroline, sister site to Ladies Home Journal. Be sure to "like" the article, if you do in fact like it.  

Ending the nightly grind

I was surprised to find out how many of my friends and acquaintances grind their teeth at night, after posting my recent UT Healthleader article on the subject. Apparently, I am not the only only sporting one of those cute, acrylic mouthguards at night. So, if everyone does it, does that mean grinding your teeth is cool? Definitely not, considering all the problems teeth grinding has caused me over the years--not to mention the headaches and the countless dentist bills. I know why I grind my teeth. A combination of stress and the way that my teeth are aligned is to blame. But I wonder why so many other people (at least in my social circles) grind their teeth. Are people in general more stressed out? Are they just more willing to talk about it? Teeth grinding, also called nocturnal bruxism, is an increasingly common problem probably because we pay more attention to our dental health than in times past, says my source for the article, Shawn Adibi, DDS, an assistant professor in the Department of General Practice and Public Health at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) School of Dentistry.

So how do we treat it? Wear your bite guard, of course (be sure to have one custom made by your dentist). Adibi also suggests patients who grind primarily because of stress work with mental health professionals to develop coping strategies, adding that both anti-anxiety medications and therapy help. “Once it (the stress) is controlled, the dentist has a better chance of managing the bruxism,” he says.

And now for something completely different:

Calling all parents with school-age kiddos! UT Healthleader recently posted its back to school package, filled with useful tips on topics such as:

• Handling first-day jitters
• Resetting your school body clock
• Protecting your college freshman from meningitis

Check it out!

Does HDL Really Matter?

For years, we've been told that raising our levels of HDL (the good cholesterol), would help protect us from heart disease. But a study published in May by The Lancet, has many people questioning that assumption. The study found that genetically high levels of HDL (high density lipoprotein) offered no extra protection against heart disease. In fact, it concluded there was no difference in heart attack risk between people with genetically higher levels of HDL and those with somewhat lower levels of HDL. So does HDL matter? It still does, according to cardiologist K. Lance Gould, MD, a professor of internal medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) Medical School and director of the Weatherhead PET Center for Preventing and Reversing Atherosclerosis. He says some patients with genetically high levels of HDL still develop heart disease, as was found in the study. The opposite is also true, as patients with genetically low HDL levels may never develop heart disease.

Clear as mud, right? For the basics of what HDL is and what it does, check out my latest HealthLeader article on the subject.

Keeping it real about teen sex

Actually, I should have titled this post, "Keeping it real about tween sex," because that's the age some kids begin having sex, according to Melissa Peskin, PhD, a researcher I interviewed for my latest UT HealthLeader article, "It's Your Game...Keep It Real." Millennial kids begin experimenting with sex in sixth, seventh and eighth grades, long before many parents expect. An estimated one in 10 sixth-grade students has initiated sex. Yikes! It gets worse. Kids who initiate sex at an early age are more likely to have unprotected sex and become pregnant.

“Texas has one of the highest teen birth rates. If we can work on delaying teen sex, it is possible we can help reduce that rate,” Peskin says.

Motivated by the statistics, Peskin and her fellow researchers at The University of Texas School of Public Health developed a classroom program to prevent teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Instead of relying on textbooks and lectures, they embraced videos and computer games, creating an interactive program that captures the fragmented teenage attention span.

The program—called It’s Your Game…Keep It Real—is helping delay the age middle school kids start initiating sex, which in turn lowers their risk for teen pregnancy and acquiring STDs. In fact, students who didn’t participate in the program were 1.29 times more likely to initiate sex by the ninth grade, according to Peskin and her colleagues’ study of 10 low-income middle schools in Southeast Texas.

What a great program! I am so glad to see it making a difference in our community.

But what I also took away from my interview with Peskin, was the importance of talking to your kids early about S-E-X. And I mean early, early. Don't wait until voices start changing, or it's time for training bra shopping. Sit them down sometime between the ages of Dora and Justin Beiber (or Thomas the Train and Batman movies for boys), and talk about it.

Experts say an age appropriate book about sex helps.

My two cents: a glass of wine never hurts either.