In partnership with our member charities, Community Health Charities continues to offer National Health Day email updates to businesses throughout New England. This email is designed to promote and enhance the health and wellness of employees and their families.

Learning the facts and getting tested for colorectal cancer could save your life. It is the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States; it is also highly preventable. The American Cancer Society recommends adults ages 50 and older get tested for the disease. There are several different screenings used to determine precancerous polyps or small growths on the lining of the colon or rectum. Finding and removing polyps before they become cancerous can stop colon cancer. The survival rate for colon cancer is 90 percent if caught early. For more information about colon cancer, call the American Cancer Society at 1-800-ACS-2345 or visit www.cancer.org. A Lunch & Learn topic related to colorectal cancer is available. Please refer to topic 24 in your Lunch & Learn booklet.

There are 20.8 million Americans that have been diagnosed with diabetes and over six million people do not know it. Diabetes is more common in African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, Asian Americans, and Pacific Islanders. Risk factors for diabetes include: having high blood pressure (at or above 130/80), having a family history of diabetes, having had diabetes during pregnancy or having a baby weighing more than nine pounds at birth. Some symptoms of diabetes can include frequent urination, excessive thirst, extreme hunger, unusual weight loss, increased fatigue, irritability, and blurred vision. For more information on diabetes or to check if you are at risk for diabetes, take the Risk Test by going to www.diabetes.org. Lunch & Learn topics related to diabetes are available. Please refer to topics 9, 12, and 39 in your Lunch & Learn booklet.
Source: American Diabetes Association Website

Each year, 1.4 million Americans sustain a traumatic brain injury (TBI). Of these individuals, 50,000 die, 235,000 are hospitalized, and 1.1 million are treated and released from an emergency center. It is not known how many more people with a TBI are not seen in an emergency center or who do not receive care. The two age groups at highest risk for a TBI are infants to four year olds and 15 to19 year olds. Certain military duties (e.g. paratrooper) increase the risk of sustaining a TBI. An estimated 300,000 sports-related brain injuries of mild to moderate severity occur yearly in the United States. TBIs are most often due to falls, motor vehicle/traffic accidents, and assaults. Males are about 1.5 times as likely as females to sustain a TBI. To learn the signs and symptoms of a TBI, how you can prevent one, and the resources available, go to www.biausa.org. A Lunch & Learn topic related to brain injury is available. Please refer to topic 17 in your Lunch & Learn booklet.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, often disabling disease that attacks the central nervous system. In mild cases, its symptoms can include numbness in the limbs and in severe cases it can cause paralysis and loss of vision. Its progress, symptoms, and severity can be different in each individual and very unpredictable. It is a myth that those suffering with MS will inevitably end up in a wheel chair. Two out of three individuals with the disease remain able to walk over their lifetime. Multiple Sclerosis is not fatal. Today, approximately 400,000 Americans have MS. Most are between the ages of 20 and 50. Two thirds of those afflicted are women. For more information on MS, go to www.nationalmsscociety.org.

In a new study by the Journal of the American Medical Association, it is estimated that the number of American adults living with chronic kidney disease has increased from 20 million to 26 million. Warning signs of kidney disease can be: burning sensation or difficulty urinating, more frequent urination particularly at night, passage of bloody-appearing urine, puffiness around the eyes and swelling of hands and feet (especially in children), pain in the small of the back just below the ribs (not aggravated by movement), and high blood pressure. Risk factors for chronic kidney disease include: diabetes, high blood pressure, family history of chronic kidney disease, and older age. Chronic kidney disease is more common in African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian or Pacific Islanders, and American Indians. For more information on kidney disease, go to www.kidney.org. A Lunch & Learn topic related to kidney disease is available. Please refer to topic 8 in your Lunch & Learn booklet.

Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease that primarily attacks the lungs but can affect almost any part of the body. Tuberculosis is spread from person to person through the air by coughing, sneezing, laughing, or singing. Repeated exposure to someone with TB is generally necessary for the infection to take place. Although TB primarily affects the lungs, other organs and tissues may be affected. In the last year, over 13,700 new cases of TB in the United States were reported, representing the tenth consecutive year the number of reported TB cases has decreased. This is the lowest rate for reported TB cases since national surveillance began in 1953. For the fourth consecutive year, over half of new TB cases were in foreign-born persons. Symptoms associated with TB include prolonged coughing (sometimes including coughing up of blood), repeated night sweats, unexplained weight loss, loss of appetite, fever, chills, and general lethargy. Because these signs may be indicative of other diseases, a healthcare practitioner should be consulted to determine the cause of these symptoms. Go to www.lungusa.org to read more about tuberculosis.

Hemophilia is a genetic bleeding disorder that prevents blood from clotting normally. A bleeding disorder is a general term for a wide range of medical problems that lead to poor blood clotting and continuous bleeding. When someone has a bleeding disorder they have a tendency to bleed longer. The main symptom of hemophilia is uncontrolled and often spontaneous bleeding. Currently, there is no cure for hemophilia. Hemophilia occurs predominately in males while females are carriers of the defective gene and may experience milder symptoms. In about one third of cases, there is no known family history of hemophilia. For more information on hemophilia, bleeding disorders, and resources, click on to www.newenglandhemophilia.org and www.hemophilia.org.