The leading cause of stroke is out of control high blood pressure. More than 72 million people in America have high blood pressure and more than 70% of those do not have what could be called well controlled hypertension.
In my life insurance dealings with those who have high blood pressure, it appears that the leading cause of poorly controlled blood pressure is the person in charge of controlling it, namely the patient. Like many medically controlled health issues there seems to be a tendency toward does adjustment based on how a person feels. The presrcripton is always very clear. One tablet twice a day, etc.
Self medicating as above is what leads to poor blood pressure control in most cases. A person with a history of hypertension can often feel just fine with blood pressure levels that would make many of us light headed. The logic I hear far too often is that they only take the medication when they need it. The problem with the logic is that if they feel like they need it, they should have taken the medication as prescribed.
Recently World Stroke Day focused particularly on the role of hypertension on the health issue that is the third leading cause of death in America and the second leading cause worldwide. “Stroke is a preventable catastrophe and hypertension is its most common and treatable risk factor,†said Vladimir Hachinski, M.D., FRCPC, D.Sc., Chair, Working Group, World Stroke Day, First Vice-President, World Federation of Neurology.
Bottom line. High blood pressure, taken seriously, is very controllable and ultimately shouldn’t cause any other health issues. People with well controlled hypertension can, if all other risk factors are good, get preferred or better rates from most companies. Uncontrolled is bad for life insurance rates and worse yet for your health.
December 3rd, 2007
PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) tests have long been the standard test for determining BPH (enlarged prostate), Prostatitis (infection of the prostate) and prostate cancer. There are two events that are watched for.
The event that far too many people experience is when they are not being tested on at least an annual basis and when they do get tested, their PSA is substantially above normal. If a PSA is not changing, an acceptable normal level would be between 0 and 4. In the scenario above, finding a PSA that has always been in the normal range suddently out of the normal range would require further immediate testing to determine the cause.
The other event has to do with what is called PSA velocity. This is normally seen when the PSA is still within the normal range, but begins to increase on a regular basis. Generally if your PSA starts to increase a doctor will encourage more frequent PSA tests. Monitoring in this manner will allow you to avoid unnecessary invasive testing such as needle biopsies. Often, with BPH or prostatitis, the PSA will rise and level off, or rise and fall.
If a PSA continues to steadily rise, even if it is still within the normal range it is often recommended to check for cancer through a biopsy. The good news in those cases where the PSA velocity is slow is that if it is determined that cancer is present, it is generally an early stage, low grade cancer. When diagnosed at this level, prostate cancer has more treatment options and has a better overall prognosis.
When prostate cancer becomes more dangerous is when regular testing is not done and the cancer is not found until it has spread.
From a life insurance standpoint prostate cancer is ultimately insurable at very good rates as long as the cancer is diagnosed at early stages and low grades, and treatment is successful. There is generally a waiting period after the treatment just to ensure that the planned outcome is on track, but, if your PSA has returned to the appropriate level within a year post treatment, you should review your situation with an independent life insurance agent.
Bottom line. Follow the guidelines for testing. Learn more about prostate cancer and life insurance underwriting at our new website. If you have a family history of prostate cancer you should begin annual testing no later than age 40 and earlier certainly makes sense if there are multiple incidences in your family. Any man over age 50 should have annual reviews of their PSA and yes guys, a digital exam.
December 3rd, 2007
