Heart health

A healthy heart is essential to living a full life.  In the wake of Valentine's Day, remember to nurture heart health; this may prevent stroke, heart disease, and dementia.  Titles available at the St. Louis Public Library include:

• Mayo Clinic wellness solutions for heart health [videorecording]
• The heart health bible: the five-step plan to prevent and reverse heart disease by John M. Kennedy, M.D.
• Best practices for a healthy heart: how to stop heart disease before or after it starts by Sarah Samaan

Million Hearts^® and The Heart Truth^® have helpful information for keeping your heart (as well as other parts) healthy, and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has an animation showing how the heart pumps blood and a brief explanation of how the heart works in the body.

As American Heart Month draws to a close, these sources of information can support you in keeping your heart going strong all year long.

St. Louis Rare Disease Day 2016 Edit-a-thon

St. Louis Rare Disease Day 2016 Edit-a-thon

6 p.m.-8 p.m. Monday, February 29 at Central Library's Creative Experience room, 1301 Olive St., 63103

In honor of Rare Disease Day, we will add information to rare disease articles about how people can find community support.  Anyone is welcome to attend. If you are a newcomer, you will have made your first edit on Wikipedia by the end of the event!  No Wikipedia editing experience necessary; as needed throughout the event, tutoring will be provided for Wikipedia newcomers.

Updated Zika virus information

For up-to-date news on the Zika virus, check out this page maintained by the the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where it is easy to find the information you're looking for.

National Eating Disorders Awareness Week

February 21-27, 2016 is National Eating Disorders Awareness Week.

Missouri Institute of Mental Health brings you their February Free Video of the Month, which is a discussion with Dr. Randall Flanery, a St. Louis-based psychologist with over 25 years' experience in the treatment of Eating Disorders.  In this video, Dr. Flanery covers the foundations of recognition and treatment, so that you will be better prepared for the 2016 National Eating Disorders Awareness Week theme, which is early detection and treatment.  Click here to view the video.

Mind/body: posing produces success

Your mind can change your body, but it is also true that changes to your body can affect your mind.  For instance, exercise can improve your mood (and even make you more creative).

In this video, Amy Cuddy talks about how power poses have an affect on hormone levels, on how we feel about ourselves, and how others rate us.  It's amazing that something as simple as how we arrange our limbs can have measurable effects on chemicals in our body.

For an assortment of books on posture and body language, check out these or browse for others in the St. Louis Public Library catalog:

• The new rules of posture: how to sit, stand, and move in the modern world by Mary Bond
• Core strength training: the complete step-by-step guide to a stronger body and better posture for men and women
• Nonverbal communication: where nature meets culture edited by Ullica Segerstrale, Peter Molnar
• Body language quick & easy by Richard Webster

Zika information

Wondering what is the deal with the Zika virus?  Medline has up-to-date information with links to additional resources.  Medline is produced by the National Library of Medicine, and has easily understandable information on a wide variety of health topics.

The Safety Reporting Portal

Have a concern about the safety of food or medicine for pets or people?  The Safety Reporting Portal (SRP) may be the place to report it.  Along with manufacturers, health care professionals, researchers, and public health officials, concerned citizens can report product safety issues to the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Healthy mothers, healthy babies.

Relationships are key to physical and mental health, and necessary for survival.  In no way is this more obvious than in the bond between a mother and child.  In St. Louis, there are many organizations working to support families throughout pregnancy and beyond birth; because infant mortality is a complex issue the Maternal, Child & Family Health Coalition formed an inititiative called FLOURISH St. Louis  – "to work in a new way to achieve large-scale, lasting improvements in the health and well-being of our babies and families".  An article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch last month describes "Letters of Love", a project which sends encouraging letters to pregnant women.  To write a letter yourself, click here.

Gateway extension!

Great news for St. Louis, especially those uninsured in both the City and the County: the Gateway to Better Health will continue through December 2016.  In 2015, over 70,000 medical visits and over 230,000 prescriptions happened because of this program.  Click here for the full announcement and learn more here.  You can also call the Gateway to Better Health call center for more information at 1.888.513.1417.

Gateway to Better Health is a partnership of the Missouri Department of Social Services with the St. Louis Regional Health Commission.