A Hearty Life Is About You and Your Heart
March 8, 2007 by Lei
Filed under Diseases & Conditions
Yesterday on Mark Sisson’s Daily Apple, I was pleased to find A Hearty Life featured in Aaron Fox’s weekly round-up – Aaron’s Additions: Blogs with Heart. At the same time, I was rather dismayed with his impression of A Hearty Life.
A Hearty Life
Dr. Lei clearly knows her stuff, and has the best of intentions, but the real bummer is that most of her advice boils down to “if only you’d taken your medication”. I’m sure she knows that 1 in 3 women die of heart disease, so I think it’s only reasonable to suggest that the thinking on heart health needs a hefty overhaul. Let’s start earlier, work harder, and take more assertive preventive action. Now where were those pills…
Reviews are great because it’s like seeing A Hearty Life with new eyes. I had no idea that I was giving out so much advice and that the advice I was giving was persuading everyone to take your medicine. Huh?!*
Certainly, I am an advocate of modern medicine and feature the latest research I think could have significant impact on your heart health or are simply cool. I also see that alternative approaches might also be complementary. Otherwise, why would I write about the benefits of tea, deep breathing, exercise, natural alternatives to statins, and talk about using snake venom to treat stroke patients? But the fact remains that no amount of exercising or apple eating can negate the utility of cholesterol testing, heart imaging, and heart transplants.
More importantly, A Hearty Life is unlike other heart disease blogs because I focus on personal stories. I’m interested in people’s day-to-day experiences with keeping fit and healthy. In fact, I’ve got more interviews and features planned that I hope will make us all more aware of the importance of our heart health.
What do you think of A Hearty Life? Do you think I’m trying to shove pills down your throat?
NB: On a good note, Aaron really likes Eating Fabulous, a b5media sister blog written by Ruth Schaffer.
*Perhaps the clue is the tagline for Mark’s Daily Apple – “Doing my part to piss off the self-righteous health establishment.”
Update: Aaron has posted a rebuttal (don’t you just love that word?) to this post. I’m cool with what he thinks about A Hearty Life but I’d also like to emphasize that I’m as much for prevention as they are. After all, I come from a public health background. The difference is that I also know many people already have heart disease; arteriosclerosis starts early. My aim is to offer tips not just for healthy preventive living but also information on treatments that can help you get and stay healthy.
Like this post? Why not read another? Every page you read at A Hearty Life in March is helping to raise money for the British Heart Foundation.
Tags: reviews, heart, heart disease, diseases, illness, health, medicine
