Dr. Brooke Hildebrand Clubbs

According to the National Eye Health Education Program, glaucoma is a leading cause of vision loss and blindness in the United States. People are often unaware that glaucoma has no symptoms in its early stages. If detected early, before noticeable vision loss occurs, glaucoma can usually be controlled and severe vision loss can often be prevented. Vision that is lost from glaucoma cannot be restored.

January is Glaucoma Awareness Month.

Author Brianna Weist recently wrote, “True self-care is not salt baths and chocolate cake, it is making the choice to build a life you don’t need to regularly escape from.”

Self-care CAN be salt baths and chocolate cake, but it is not just the now oft-touted reason for indulging yourself. True self-care involves some components that are not necessarily hedonistic.

The Encyclopedia of Global Health states, “While it is impossible to avoid all illnesses, there are many forms of preventive care that reduce health risks by improving individual health.”

What preventive care do you need to have this year? It depends on your age as well as your risk factors.

Perhaps with more people staying home from parties this year, drunk driving will be less of a problem on new year’s eve. However, the risk of overdose can be reduced on the 31st, and year round through expanded access to overdose education and naloxone, public awareness, assessment, and referral to treatment according to The Missouri Opioid-Heroin Overdose Prevention and Education (MO-HOPE) Project.

Did you know that on average, Americans gain a little over a pound in the week following Christmas? Would it make you feel better if I told you so do Germans and the Japanese? Misery loves company. And fudge.

The New England Journal of Medicine published a study in September that found Americans aren’t the only ones who put on weight during celebratory times. But, a report in Nutrition Review suggests that pounds Americans gain can have long lasting effects: weight gain during the holiday season may be an important contributor to the rising prevalence of obesity.