Health & Healing for African-Americans

Book excerpt: Health and Healing for African-Americans is the first A-to-Z guide for African-Americans that brings you straightforward advice from more than 150 African-American health experts. You'll find over 1,000 practical solutions to help you prevent and treat a wide range of health problems. From America's leading Black doctors, learn how to: reduce your risks for high blood pressure and heart disease, handle diabetes without drugs, learn when sex is safe and when it's not, treat sickle cell disease, protect yourself and your family from the threat of violence in your community, and eat right and keep your weight under control. Plus special health-care information for women and men: sisters - take charge of fibroids, cut your breast cancer risk, and plan a healthy pregnancy; brothers - protect yourself from prostate cancer and keep stress from harming your heart. You will also find advice and inspiration from African-Americans who took health care into their own hands - and triumphed. Actor Levar Burton and his wife, Stephanie, explain how they overcame infertility to have the family of their dreams. Theatrical producer and former dancer Harold Perkins describes how he beat heart disease and saved his career. Victoria Johnson, one of the nation's top physical trainers, reveals how she became fit and healthy after struggling with bulimia and a weight problem.