Your health

Have you checked your blood pressure?

Four million people and counting have checked their blood pressure in the U.S. during an awareness campaign meant to draw attention to high blood pressure, American Heart Association News reports.

The World Hypertension League challenged people worldwide to get their blood pressures checked from April 17 until World Hypertension Day on May 17 to increase global awareness about the dangers.

The group had hoped to screen 3 million people, but is expecting to far surpass that goal with just the American Heart Association and its network of partners reporting more than 4 million checks.

Worldwide, hypertension is a driving force in more than 14 million deaths annually among adults ages 30 to 70, according to World Hypertension League estimates.

That threat needs to be taken seriously, said AHA President Mark A. Creager, M.D.

“Of the 80 million Americans with high blood pressure, only half have their condition controlled to a healthy level,” he said.

The campaign hopes to raise awareness about the damage high blood pressure causes. Knowing blood pressure numbers also can help people avoid stroke, heart attack and other cardiovascular conditions, said Eduardo Sanchez, M.D., the American Heart Association’s chief medical officer for prevention.

Popular painkiller may kill kindness

If your job, or simply your state of mind, depends on feeling empathy for others, you might want to reconsider reaching for the Tylenol the next time you have a headache, The Washington Post reports.

In research published online in the journal “Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience,” scientists from the National Institutes of Health and Ohio State University describe the results of two experiments they conducted involving more than 200 college students.

Their conclusion: Acetaminophen, the most common drug ingredient in the United States, can reduce a person’s capacity to empathize with another person’s pain, whether that pain is physical or emotional.

“We don’t know why acetaminophen is having these effects, but it is concerning,” said senior author Baldwin Way, an Ohio State psychologist.

“Empathy is important. If you are having an argument with your spouse and you just took acetaminophen, this research suggests you might be less understanding of what you did to hurt your spouse’s feelings.”