“We have bro­ken bar­ri­ers in car­dio­vas­cu­lar care with many ground­break­ing firsts”, shares Dr Ris­shi Ram­per­sad, In­ter­ven­tion­al Car­di­ol­o­gist, Caribbean Heart Care Med­corp (CHCm).

Pa­tient DS knows she should have seen the warn­ing signs. When she looked back at 2018, the year she suf­fered a stroke, the 56-year-old prin­ci­pal re­calls “an over­worked, ded­i­cat­ed pro­fes­sion­al who de­pri­or­i­tized her health and re­mained in de­nial”. “I had let my blood pres­sure go un­con­trolled, and I re­mained chron­i­cal­ly stressed and in­ac­tive for too long,” she says. She knew she was play­ing with her health but got caught in the vi­cious cy­cle of tak­ing care of the world and not her­self. Post-stroke, and lost her abil­i­ty to freely move her dom­i­nant hand and low­er limb, there is much she shares she would do dif­fer­ent­ly.

Is gen­der a fac­tor in coro­nary artery dis­ease? A woman’s heart may look just like a man’s, but there are sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ences. For ex­am­ple, a woman’s heart is usu­al­ly small­er, as are some of its in­te­ri­or cham­bers. The walls that di­vide some of these cham­bers are thin­ner. And while a woman’s heart pumps faster than a man’s, it ejects about 10% less blood with each squeeze.

Through all this un­cer­tain­ty of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, one thing for cer­tain is that sleep is ex­treme­ly im­por­tant to the heart as much as it is to the mind and vi­tal or­gans. If you are one of the many peo­ple who toss and turn night­ly, you are no stranger to how a sleep­less night can af­fect your mo­ti­va­tion, at­ti­tude and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty of your day. How­ev­er, the ram­i­fi­ca­tions of poor sleep ex­tend far be­yond a cranky mood.

Be­ing phys­i­cal­ly ac­tive is a ma­jor step to­ward good heart health and an im­por­tant way to low­er your risk of heart dis­ease. It’s one of your most ef­fec­tive tools for strength­en­ing the heart mus­cle, keep­ing your weight un­der con­trol and ward­ing off the artery dam­age from high cho­les­terol, high blood sug­ar and high blood pres­sure that can lead to heart at­tack or stroke.

Trinida­di­an-born Laila Sul­tan-Khan Valere has been a promi­nent coun­selling psy­chol­o­gist, diplo­mat, con­fer­ence leader and ed­u­ca­tor. Be­ing a moth­er, how­ev­er, has af­ford­ed her her most prized lega­cy. When she be­came preg­nant at 45, af­ter hav­ing ex­pe­ri­enced menopause, she set out to prove a be­lief she had al­ways held–that child­birth is a beau­ti­ful, di­vine gift which is meant to be nat­ur­al and pain­less. She seeks to pass on her rev­e­la­tions to oth­er women in her re­cent book, The Birthing God­dess–Re­claim­ing the Lega­cy of Nat­ur­al, Pain-free Child­birth.

Alarm­ing­ly, near­ly 191,000 men will be di­ag­nosed with prostate can­cer in this year and rough­ly 30,000 men will die in the US, ac­cord­ing to the Amer­i­can Can­cer So­ci­ety.

Three years ago I en­tered a phar­ma­cy at Trinci­ty Mall when a ma­ture woman walked up to me and said: “thank you.” This was a time when COVID-19 was nowhere on our radar, so when she stretched out her hand, I gra­cious­ly ac­cept­ed it.

Three years ago I en­tered a phar­ma­cy at Trinci­ty Mall when a ma­ture woman walked up to me and said: "thank you." This was a time when COVID-19 was nowhere on our radar, so when she stretched out her hand, I gra­cious­ly ac­cept­ed it.

Eight years ago, Sara Karis­sa Shankar, a res­i­dent of Fe­lic­i­ty, de­cid­ed to pur­sue her pas­sion and be­come a pro­fes­sion­al hen­na artist. With no for­mal train­ing but by con­sis­tent prac­tice and hard work, she was able branch off in­to hen­na-in­spired pot­tery, ran­goli de­signs and re­cent­ly added hen­na-in­spired face masks dur­ing the on­go­ing Covid-19 pan­dem­ic. She now of­fers both in­di­vid­ual and group hen­na work­shops for all ages.

The sun had al­ready risen over the hills when the ve­hic­u­lar-turned-foot-in­clined trek along­side the truck jam be­gan. This, in ac­com­pa­ni­ment of three com­mu­ni­ty po­lice of­fi­cers. Their pur­pose: to learn and un­der­stand the life/cul­ture that ex­ists be­yond a par­tic­u­lar gate. This was a vis­it to the Beetham Land­fill Site, off the Beetham High­way west­bound, on Sep­tem­ber 14 and 16.

Re­cent­ly, res­i­dents of Court Sham­rock Cen­tre for So­cial­ly Dis­placed Per­sons re­ceived a spe­cial treat when they were vis­it­ed by Miss T&T World del­e­gate for San Fer­nan­do El­i­she­va Phillips and reign­ing Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch Ter­ri Lyons.