General health charts can be found in classrooms, doctor’s offices and hospitals, and are useful in explaining to students, and patients, the importance of a healthy balanced diet, exercise and smoking cessation in maintaining optimum health at any age.

Showing both a healthy lung and a smoker’s lung in the same diagram, the latter in disturbing shades of greenish gray, the Effects of Smoking chart examines the risk factors for smoking, including stroke, oral cancer, COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), cancer of the esophagus, heart disease, gastric disease and bladder cancer. Smoking is the number one cause of bladder cancer, and most often strikes women, whose reproductive health is equally impacted, as is the health of the fetus.

Between 1997 and 2007, the incidence of diabetes in the United States rose by 90 percent when adjusted for age. This phenomenal increase is largely due to sedentary lifestyles and diets laden with fats and simple carbohydrates. The Understanding Diabetes chart is a superb teaching tool for explaining the two types of diabetes (I, and II) and their complications, which can range from Type I neuropathies, and consequent limb loss, to Type II and heart attack or stroke. The chart also depicts and discusses glucose metabolism, insulin production (and its lack) and the common symptoms patients should be aware of.

Explaining the link between LDL cholesterol and heart disease is one of the major areas cardiologists focus on. The Understanding Cholesterol chart provides a comprehensive review of the relationship between cholesterol and fatty acids, namely LDL, and the link to atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries which, if left untended, can lead to heart attacks. Additional sections offer treatment options, including lifestyle changes.

The Understanding DVT , or Deep Vein Thrombosis, chart, isolates the component causes between this form of highly dangerous clotting by presenting a visual of the venous system of blood vessels and venous valve action. Additional images and text also cover pulmonary embolisms, a facet of the problem occurring in the lung, and chronic venous insufficiency. The chart addresses symptoms, risk factors and treatment options – both pharmaceutical and via lifestyle changes – that can reduce the risk for developing this heart-critical clots.

The Effects of Alcohol chart would be a superb addition not only to a doctor’s office but to a high school classroom. Underage drinking, by adolescents and even pre-adolescents, is a leading public health crisis, with more and more young people using legal alcohol in place of illegal and difficult-to-obtain drugs. Alcohol, which can interfere with the nervous system, cause cirrohosis of the liver, and permanently disable an unborn fetus, is now the leading cause of accidental death among teenagers who drive.

A final chart, Understanding Nutrition, provides a complete overview of the role of various nutrients – water, carbohydrates, protein, minerals, fat and vitamins – in human cell metabolism. A discussion of the major food groups is presented as an adjunct to discussions about portion sizes, eating disorders and the role of obesity in disease.

Universal Medical Inc is a premier provider of general health posters and general health charts

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