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In other words, many kids are affected by pressure-cooker school environments and a culture of thinness promoted by magazines and music videos, but most of them don't secretly scrape their dinner into the garbage.

As I continued reading, I concluded that the scariest symptom of anorexia is that, Anorexics are often delusional.

They can be weak with hunger while they describe physical sensations of overfullness that make it physically uncomfortable for them to swallow.

They hear admonishing voices in their heads when they do manage to choke down a few morsels.

They exercise compulsively, and even when they can count their ribs, their image in the mirror tells them to lose more.

Although my initial inclination was to dismiss any genetic component to anorexia and attribute it to a compulsive, unhealthy reaction to society’s message that “thin is beautiful”, apparently I was only partially correct in my assumption of the cause.

While, “Children predisposed to eating disorders are uniquely sensitive to media messages about dieting and health,” like alcoholics and drug addicts whose bodies demand more of the chemical creating their “high”, anorexics ha...

Like Puckett, my grandfather had glaucoma and died in his mid-60s.

My mother's been battling hypertension most of her life.

Plenty of my relatives struggle with the chronic health problems that disproportionately afflict African-Americans: obesity, coronary disease, stress-related depression, a grim litany some experts have linked to the legacy of slavery.

But like Puckett, I'm an ex-jock, too - 20-plus years past my college playing days, more than 25 pounds over my playing weight.

I've always tried to stay in shape, but it was years after graduation before I realized I couldn't keep eating as if I was 18 and still at the training table.

Still, because I seemed healthy, the news my doctor delivered two years ago was stunning: you've got chronic hypertension, pretty common for black men your age (I was 42).

If we don't fix it now, he said, you're heading to a stroke or a heart attack.He was ready to write a prescription, but I was too proud: I told him I'd rather hit the gym and lose some weight.It took six months of workouts and mealtime discipline to drop 17 pounds, and another year to make sure the weight stayed off; I still have to lose 10 more to bring my blood pressure in line and cut my stroke risk to an acceptable level for black men my age.

Even though ...

Residing deep in the airways, the virus is not easily expelled the usual route by coughing and sneezing.

This virus attacks in and around the alveoli, structures deep in the lungs where oxygen enters the blood.

The bird flu is also difficult to detect, as symptoms are very similar to any influenza or chest cold.

If the symptoms are excessive, or slightly stranger than your normal flu symptoms, then it would be in your best interest to seek medical attention quickly.

However, the Avian influenza in humans can be detected reliably with standard influenza tests, and anti-viral drugs are clinically effective in both preventing and treating the disease.

Vaccines, however, take at least four months to produce and must be prepared for each subtype, making it a longer process.

While the information to avoid the disease is common sense and readily available here in the United States, many countries, such as China, Thailand and Vietnam, do not have the same luxury and are finding the issue very detrimental.

The importing of poultry from those areas and the migrating actions of wild birds may bring the virus here.

As the virus currently stands, there are a few simple steps to take to ensu...