Editor’s Letter

Diana Swift
Editor-in-Chief
editor@canadian-health.ca

It's our pleasure to bring you the premiere issue of Canadian Health, an authoritative wellness magazine from the Canadian Medical Association. We want your time in the waiting room to be your time to catch up on the best and most up-to-date clinical recommendations and on all the exciting new developments in health research.

Whether you're a mom raising kids, a boomer dad, a senior or a teen, Canadian Health will bring you the right information for your age group. We aim to help you become a better-informed partner with your doctor in your medical care, while in no way attempting to be a substitute for your physician's expert one-on-one advice. We'll show you how to adopt healthier habits that will help you live longer, with the best possible quality of life and the least possible medical problems. We'll emphasize prevention and risk reduction, as well as a sensible lifestyle, fitness, safety and mental well-being.

Photo : Susan Ashukian

In our inaugural issue, Michele Sponagle outlines 10 ways to protect your heart, and Kristin Jenkins explains the workings of the immune system and suggests strategies to keep it strong . And our "Mind + Body" column tackles the problem of stress and how it impairs brain function, offering ways to counteract its ill effects.

Another of our goals is to demystify any medical conditions you or your family might have and update you on the latest in treatments. In this issue, Janet French addresses the problem of schoolchildren with allergies and what everyone can do to make schools safer for them.

We also want to sort out the mixed messages served up by today's proliferating sources of health information. Whether it's supplements or sunscreens, we'll consult clinicians and researchers to get to the heart of the contradictions and give you the most useful take-home message. And Canadian Health will interview the experts to reveal the science behind current recommendations. So you'll know not only what to do but why. To help us achieve these aims, we've assembled an expert editorial advisory board.

Men's health will be a key focus in our pages as well. In this issue, Pam Harrison tackles the problem of getting men to see their physicians more often, while Marcia Kaye explains gender differences in sexuality that sometimes set men and women at cross-purposes.

Another focus is nutrition, since what we eat is an essential component of a healthy life. And because eating is both an art and a science, we enlisted the talents of Steve Pitt, a Toronto chef and award-winning author, and Susie Langley, a Toronto registered dietitian with wide clinical experience treating people with diet-related problems. They make our "Intelligent Eating" section special, offering nutritious recipes with both a chef's tip to facilitate the cooking and a registered dietitian's tip to explain the nutritional benefits of selected ingredients.

So have a look. I learned a lot compiling these articles and I hope you will, too. And I hope you enjoy reading them as much as we've enjoyed getting them ready. If you'd like to make comments, suggest topics or receive a copy of the recipes, drop me an email at the address below. In the meantime: here's to your health!