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Know Your Risk Factors
Anything that increases a person’s chance of developing a disease like cancer or heart disease is called a risk factor. Some risk factors can be avoided like smoking or exposing your skin to strong sunlight. Others, such as certain traits we inherited from our relatives, are unavoidable. It’s important for you to know that having a risk factor, or even several, does not mean that you will be diagnosed with a chronic disease.
Your Disease Risk Calculator Tool, is an interactive tool that appears on many cancer pages on the Self chec website. It will ask you questions about your health, lifestyle and personal background.
By using Your Disease Risk Calculator, completing Your Family History Tree and filling out Your Personal Check List, you can help your health professional talk to you about chronic disease prevention and the regular check-ups and special screening tests you may need.
What To Do If You Find Something?
Remember that changes on your skin and lumps in your breasts or testicles are not sure signs of cancer. For example, eating something your body is not used to that can cause chest discomfort and weakness doesn’t mean you have diabetes, or are having a heart attack.
Cancer especially, is no longer the Big “C” killer so many of us grew up hearing about and fearing. Helping you understand that the fear is the real enemy, not the cancer, is one of the reasons why Self chec was created.
Fear can paralyze and keep us from responding quickly. A quick response is the first line of defense we can utilize to fight cancers, heart disease and other chronic diseases that are often preventable, treatable and may be curable. Listen to your body. If something feels or looks different, err on the side of caution and call your health professional for a check-up.
If you don’t have one click here. Write down exactly what you see or feel on a piece of paper, including any questions you have and try not to worry too much.
How To Find A Health Professional
Although it’s better to get a personal recommendation, this website will help you search for a licensed health professional. Unfortunately, we can’t vouch for the doctors listed on this website. Please click into the Healthgrades website for doctor’s ratings if you need further help making a decision about who to see.
Questions To Ask At Your Yearly Doc-Check
For Men And Women
Print and Take To Your Next Check-up
BMI—your body mass index is a ratio of your height and weight, used to identify obesity
Waist Circumference—a high waist measurement is a health risk
Blood Pressure (systolic/diastolic) screening—high readings can be a predictor of heart disease
Blood Glucose Screening for Prediabetes and diabetes
Cholesterol / Triglycerides Blood Test—high readings can be a predictor of heart disease
Take-Home Fecal Blood Test starting at age 50
Why It’s Important To Know Your Family Health History
Everyone has a unique set of inherited traits; maybe you have your dad’s silky black hair or your mom’s beautiful brown eyes. Now medical experts also say that one-third to one-half of your potential health problems may have their origins in your family’s medical history. And they agree that knowing this information will help keep you healthy and could help save your life.
Before you panic, understand that your family history does not automatically imply high-risk. It is very possible that a serious disease in your family is a chance occurrence, affecting your relatives in the same way that it affects the rest of the population and presenting little or no increased risk to you.
How To Choose A Reputable Health Web Site
- On the site you go to, click the "About Us" icon to get an idea of who is actually sponsoring the site.
- Look for sites with a dot-gov, dot-org, dot-edu or a dot-net address; they are government, non-profit and university sites and usually free of commercial sponsorship.
Ask Yourself
- Is this site sponsored by a company?
- Are they trying to sell me something?
- Are there any conflicts of interest?
- Is the information written by an author qualified to write on the subject?
- Is the information current, factual and referenced?
If you’re not feeling well, you can end up even sicker. Don’t self-diagnose yourself after getting information on the Web. There is a difference between having well-developed knowledge about a medical issue and just having loads of information, especially if much of that information may be wrong.
Source– Wall St. Journal and Time magazine, Paging Dr. Gupta
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