Popular health topics of 2012
Last week, MedlinePlus, the National Library of Medicine and National Institute of Health’s consumer health database, published the top 10 most visited health topic searches of 2012:
- High Blood Pressure
- Exercise and Physical Fitness
- Diabetes
- Diabetic Diet
- COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease)
- Skin Conditions
- Autoimmune Diseases
- Herpes Simplex
- Herniated Disk
- Heart Diseases
Looking at these searches, it would seem that the public are searching for information on the most common health threats in the United States. According to the Mayo Clinic, the top seven threats to women’s health are heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic lower respiratory diseases, Alzheimer’s disease, accidents, and type 2 diabetes. The top seven threats to men’s health are similar: heart disease, cancer, accidents, chronic lower respiratory diseases, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and suicide.
Of course the most visited sites could also mean that people who were diagnosed with high blood pressure and diabetes started exercising but they had trouble breathing, had heart palpitations, got sunburned, and hurt their backs!