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Helping make the healthier choice, the easier choice

About the Building a Healthier Polk initiative Building a Healthier Polk is a group of community partners brought together by Polk Vision who are working towards the goal of reducing the obesity rate in Polk County. Polk Vision is a broad, community-led partnership of organizations, businesses, government, and individuals. In 2012, Polk Vision’s Quality of…
The trouble with trigger finger

Local surgeon develops alternate solution for a tricky procedure There’s no getting around this fact: you need your hands. When one or more of your fingers or thumbs doesn’t function properly, it interferes with work and play. Correcting a condition such as trigger finger once meant a trip to a hospital or surgery center for…
Healthy Cook: The disease-fighting properties of red foods

Roses are red Berries are blue Red foods tastes good And are heart-healthy, too. There are only a few days of the year when a writer can get that corny, and who am I to pass up the chance? But it’s true. Lots of red foods are good for the heart because of what they…

A Closer Look at Cryptogenic Stroke

A cryptogenic stroke (CS) is defined as cerebral ischemia of obscure or unknown origin. The cause of CS remains undetermined because the event is transitory or reversible, investigations did not look for all possible causes, or because some causes truly remain unknown. One third of the ischemic strokes are cryptogenic. Cryptogenic stroke is a diagnosis…
HOW DID I GET THIS STYE?

Medically a stye is called a hordeolum. If we look at the eyelid’s anatomy, particularly the lid margin, you will find the lashes, and beside the lashes is the opening of our Meibomian glands. The Meibomian glands are the hard embedded plates that you can feel in both the upper and lower lids. The Meibomian…
Types of Strokes

A stroke is when blood flow to a part of your brain is stopped either by a blockage or the rupture of a blood vessel. The medical term for this is Cerebrovascular accident. As the definition states, it can be caused by one of two problems. Either by blockage of flow to an artery in the brain…