Texas Family Medicine February 2023 Blog

Getting on the move.

A recent study in people over the age of 70 showed that 500 more steps a day will likely lower risk of heart attack or stroke by 14%.

Did you hear that? I hope so because that is excellent news!

You can significantly reduce your risk of the country’s number one killer by 14% just by walking about a quarter mile.

And guess what? Each additional 500 steps lowers your risk even more. That benefit comes before you take a single medication or visit your doctor.

It is super important to keep your annual or bi-annual checkups with your physician. But I’ve always told our patients that it is what we do between doctor visits that helps us live longer and better.

Here is an encouraging 2 minute video about movement. Be sure to give it a watch!

Defeating a dragon by working together

In an effort to decrease heart attack, stroke, and hospitalizations Last year, we started sending many of our high blood pressure patients a blood pressure machine to their homes.

But this machine is special.

It is digitally connected to our office system. So everytime one of our patients checks their blood pressure, we can see it! How about that?!

As a result, we are making blood pressure medications adjustments almost everyday among our patient population, lowering blood pressure to safe levels, and keeping you engaged in your life.

We’vet hired a team of medical assistants and nurses to monitor all of this data that flows into our clinic. These amazing people talk with our patients everyday, reminding folks to take their medications, cautioning against the use of decongestants, and just making friends.