The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has developed a checklist for men over 50 to help them talk to their health care provider about staying healthy.

The items on the first part of the list seem like “no brainers”.

They are behaviors like

• 1) Don’t use tobacco
• 2) Be physically active
• 3) Eat a healthy diet
• 4) Get to and stay at a healthy weight
• 5) drink alcohol in moderation

The list covers items like talking to your doctor about taking aspirin and having immunizations like a flu shot yearly and updating your tetanus, diptheria an pertusis and maybe shingles vaccinations. You can learn more about needed immunizations here.

There are nine recommended screening tests for

1. obesity,
2. STDs,
3. HIV,
4. Cholesterol,
5. Diabetes,
6. High blood pressure,
7. Depression,
8. Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm, and
9. Colon Cancer.

You can download a pdf with the tests here and take it with you to discuss with your doctor. The link for it is in the middle of the page.

Items not on the list are

• serum testosterone and
• prolactin levels,
• thyroid hormone and
• erectile dysfunction screening and
• benign prostatic hypertrophy evaluation.

Most of these can be done by questionnaires and then the answers are reviewed with your doctor or by simple in office tests like taking your blood pressure. A few require outpatient testing requiring blood, stool or urine samples or non-invasive ultrasound tests.Sign up to receive this and other articles by email on the upper right corner of my blog Get the Skinney.

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Over on Yahoo Health, Dr. Simeon Margolis M.D./Ph.D. wrote about choosing a doctor. Dr. Margolis quoted an article published in the Archives of Internal Medicine about physician mistakes. His take on the article was that a physician could have a big impact positive or negative on your life.

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Cholesterol is a natural product of your metabolism.  You produce it because you need it.  Elevated cholesterol levels, especially of a part of cholesterol called low density lipoprotein (LDL) are associated with plaque in the arteries that can lead to heart disease and stroke.
There are many areas to learn about cholesterol.  One from Health Scout is here. 

The last part of the article has a list of questions to ask your physician.  This is the most important part of the piece.  Some of these questions are:

• "How often should my cholesterol levels be monitored?
• How do I interpret my blood results?
• What are the best forms of exercise for me to begin/maintain?"

There are several others.  The rest of the article will be informative about cholesterol and about communicating about your therapy with your medical-care provider.  Does your Doctor or Practicioner communicate clearly and effectively?  What could they do better?  How have you solved this problem?

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Your Doctor probably sees 20-30 people per day with acute problems.  By acute I mean new, generally one day to one month in duration.  The doctor needs to hear their patients complaint , then to systematically ask questions so they can form an opinion.  In science an opinion would be called a hypothesis.  In medicine it is called a differential diagnosis, a list of the possible causes of your complaint.  His job is to not put blinders on.  Blinders is a reference to how farmers used to keep horses from seeing anywhere except straight ahead.  Good for horses but bad for your  doctor.  Your physician is under time pressure, pressure to get it right, and pressure to please you.  Help your Doctor and yourself by being prepared in these ways.

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