Get Healthy is proud to introduce a redesign of its website. We’ve packed it full of all the great content you’re used to, plus the site will be the new home for engaging news stories about health care in Northwest Indiana.

Please bookmark our new URL here.

With access to the leading health experts right here in the region, Get Healthy offers readers a local perspective on what’s best for your health, including nutrition, fitness, mental health and environmental health. Along with the magazine, email newsletter and Facebook page, Get Healthy offers an array of valuable content that is both relevant and proactive.

The easy-to-navigate Get Healthy site will have even more beneficial content in the near future—including blogs and expert columns—so stay tuned. We’re here for you 24/7, so check it out, and let us hear from you!

Women in their 40s with a moderate family risk of breast cancer should get yearly mammograms, a new study suggests.

Though such testing is standard procedure in the U.S., women in Europe who have an intermediate family risk are not always offered screening if they are under 50.

British researchers followed 6,710 women under 50 who had a moderate breast cancer risk—meaning women who meet criteria such as having one close female relative who had breast cancer in her 40s or younger. Such woman have double to triple the risk of having breast cancer as the average woman.

When it comes to serious health issues, like infertility or ovarian cancer, or when it comes to simple matters, like annual checkups or allergies, finding a doctor that not only has the right kind of knowledge and skill, but also a doctor who truly understands, is critical. That is why when many women choose a doctor for themselves they turn to another woman, selecting a female doctor, to advise and to identify with their issues and their needs.

According to the Boston Globe, “Nearly half of medical school students nationwide are now female, and as they enter the profession, they are making patient care friendlier and therefore may be less likely to get sued than male physicians. Women physicians also are more likely to serve minority, urban, and poor populations and are twice as likely to go into primary care.”

(Left to right) Drs. Short, Murphy and Strickland with Chrys Davis, MSN, FNP, of Obstetrical & Gynecological Associates, Inc.

Women’s health care involves obstetrical and gynecological specialties. These specialties are the focus of the all-female practice of Obstetrical & Gynecological Associates Inc., at Glendale Medical Center, 1101 East Glendale Boulevard, in Valparaiso.

“As women, we understand women. We treat and empower individuals to make their own health care decisions,” says Cheryl Short, M.D., Fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. The practice also includes Jennifer Murphy, M.D., FACOG; Crystal Strickland, M.D., FACOG; and Chrys Davis, MSN, Family Nurse Practitioner.

You already know by now that eating well and exercising keep you from putting on the typical holiday pounds. And that’s important. But what’s even more important is simply having enough energy to get through the hustle and bustle of the season. With all the shopping, cooking, cleaning, wrapping and entertaining you’ll be doing in the next couple of months, you’ll definitely need a boost to keep going at full force—or at least to avoid crashing on the couch after turkey dinner.

In this special section, health care experts from all over the region give their advice on how to stay refreshed and rejuvenated during the holidays. This holiday season, don’t let stress and sluggishness get the best of you. Learn how to get refreshed.

FOOD & DRINK
You’ll learn about the best energy-inducing foods and drinks you can enjoy at home, on the go and at a party.

» Rescue your holiday diet
» Get a liquid boost

Every year is the same. When holiday stress runs high, loved ones get hit with a majority of the fallout, which is tragic because enjoying time with family is supposed to be a focal point of the season. Obligations of cooking, baking, shopping, wrapping and hosting parties on top of the normal stress of the rest of the year have a tendency to distance us from relatives rather than bring us together.

Make this year different. With some advice from licensed clinical psychologist Dr. Kalyani Gopal, be proactive about curbing holiday stress, avoiding friction and neglect and making sure family fun remains the focus.

Gopal, clinical director at Mid-America Psychological and Counseling Services in Merrillville, says women suffer from holiday stress more than their male counterparts, as they are “pretty much in charge of the holidays.” Thus, helping women cope with their additional stress load during the holidays, and the resentment that often accompanies the burden, is something Gopal deals with daily.

For 50-somethings up, the first book of women’s health care written by women is a social and cultural touchstone. Penned in 1970, Simon & Schuster’s expanded 1973 version whisked female sexuality out of the closet. No subject was taboo: anatomy, birth control, orgasms, abortion, even pelvic exams were outlined in graphic detail. Free love era or not, nice girls didn’t look Down There. Not until this comprehensive manual described how to locate one’s cervix.

Elizabeth Crown was a college junior when the feminist classic hit campuses. She and classmates passed around “someone’s sister’s or aunt’s or mother’s copy.” “We were blown away by the amount of information,” said Crown, 60, former spokeswoman for the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern. “It was accessible. It freely discussed things we tried to figure out among ourselves, but no one had told us.” Looking back, Crown credits the book for demystifying sex “in a good way,” freeing her, in turn, to be candid with her own daughter. “It was liberating,” said Crown, now director of communications at Stanford Cancer Center.

Tricia Perez leads Ramona Mateiu through a series of crunches on a Thursday morning at Sauganash Park. Perez incorporates core work with cardio and resistance exercises. (Photograph by Lauren Everitt/Medill.)

Dressed in a white fleece and a pastel green thermal vest with the logo “One Fit Momma,” a petite blond briskly pushes a stroller filled with fitness equipment along the walking trail in Sauganash Park on a Thursday morning. Every so often she stops, doles out resistance bands and demonstrates a bicep curl or a walking lunge for the moms following behind.

The leader of the pack is Tricia Perez, who makes it her business to be One Fit Momma. Literally. The 35-year-old mother of one is partnering with the Chicago Park District to bring her Philadelphia-based prenatal and postnatal fitness program to moms in the Chicago area.

It’s estimated that about half of American women get less than 70 percent of the magnesium required for good health.

Magnesium, the main component of Epsom salt, is easily absorbed through the skin, which means bathing in Epsom salt can help reduce inflammation, improve heart and circulatory health, flush toxins and heavy metals from the cells, and help the body to eliminate harmful substances. Also, calcium is the main conductor for electrical current in the body, and magnesium is necessary to maintain proper calcium levels in the blood. Magnesium is also necessary for the body to bind adequate amounts of serotonin, a mood-elevating chemical within the brain that creates a feeling of well-being and relaxation.

Magnesium is also available in the form of a supplement at Baums Natural Foods, which has locations in Merrillville, Munster and St. John. Taken daily with food, the P-5-P/Mag capsules promote immune system function, support nervous system function and offer significant benefits for heart health—an important asset for women.

For most women, implementing a healthier lifestyle is as much a mental overhaul as it is physical. You need motivation to work out, courage to ask your doctor embarrassing questions, and fortitude to go through life’s more difficult phases (read: menopause). We talked with local experts about these obstacles, which can be overcome with grace and ease.

Read all of the articles here:

» Health or Vanity
» Questions You’re Afraid To Ask
» Navigating the Change

It doesn’t have to be so bad

Drs. Lovera and David Miller (Photograph courtesy of Drs. Lovera and David Miller.)

It’s not often that doctors will tell you that you can help yourself better than they can. But two LaPorte doctors, Dr. Lovera and Dr. David Miller, a married couple who are experts on the topic of menopause, will tell you just that—when it comes to women facing “the change.”

Dr. Lovera Miller, who started practicing obstetrics and gynecology in 1977—several years before her husband entered medical school and became an anesthesiologist—used to come home with all kinds of stories about women coping with menopause. The stories made an impression on the couple, and somewhere in the back of their minds, through their years of medical practice and raising two daughters, they planned to write about it.