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Before ordering Oxiline’s Pressure X Pro, I measured my arm, as well as my husband’s, to ensure I ordered the correct cuff size. Oxiline’s online checkout process is quick and simple to use. I chose the free expedited shipping (three to four business days) option. My order shipped two days after the order was placed and was delivered three days later with no issues. Altogether, the process from order placement to delivery took five days. It took approximately 10 minutes to read the manual and prepare the monitor for use. The device came with batteries, which helped expedite set up, and illustrations for proper cuff placement are located directly on the cuff itself. With the click of one button, the device starts taking blood pressure measurements. The blood pressure monitor syncs each measurement with the app seamlessly, but it’s important the user profile of the person taking the measurement is selected in the app prior to starting the measurement. Otherwise, the reading is logged under the last selected user’s profile. There’s also an option to delete a reading. My husband, who tracks his blood pressure daily, was very impressed by the tracking features of the app. His previous blood pressure monitor didn’t have smart features, so he manually logged his measurements in a document. The graphics in the Oxiline app made it easier to visualize where his readings fell on a blood pressure chart. Although I have not had any issues or complications throughout my experience with Oxiline, many online reviews express complaints. Reviews found on the Better Business Bureau (BBB) website state that orders weren’t shipped within the specified shipment window and that items were often backordered. One BBB reviewer notes a poor experience with the company, citing backorders and difficulty with refunds specifically. “Really bad online experience with Oxiline. I strongly advise the consumer to find another company. They say same-day shipping, but you will come to learn they don’t even have the item in stock.” Many reviews expressed similar experiences with the company. Overall, I was impressed by my personal experience with the Oxiline Pressure X Pro blood pressure monitor. Delivery was quick, the device was easy to use, and readings were consistent. I highly recommend creating an account and using the app to log data, as it’s convenient to have all your blood pressure readings in one place. Although my experience with Oxiline has been without issues, I would also consider others’ experiences before recommending or purchasing from the company again. Hospital-Grade Accuracy For Your Home Oxiline blood pressure monitors enable you to view, store and share all of your data with smartphone connectivity.

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Debra Stewart walked toward a horse paddock with a bag of carrots in hand. Whisper, a splashed chocolate and white paint horse, met her at the fence. Flies shrilled as they bounced off Whisper’s body and her hooves plopped in ground softened by an overnight rain. But Whisper’s thick, forced cough made the most pronounced sound. “C’mon, c’mon,” Stewart said, gently encouraging Whisper to step free of mud as she crunched on carrots in between coughs. Whisper had moved to Debra’s property a few miles south of Fayetteville from another county in 2017. After arriving, the horse developed heaves—a common, allergic, respiratory horse disease characterized by chronic cough, nasal discharge and respiratory difficulty. That was the same year news broke that a factory near her Gray’s Creek neighborhood for decades had released a family of industrial chemicals known as PFAS that polluted river water and drinking wells. Experts can’t confirm that Whisper’s cough is tied to PFAS exposure on Stewart’s property. But in a recent study prompted by concerned community members, North Carolina State University researchers detected the industrial compounds in dogs and horses, including Whisper, in Gray’s Creek. The wind-broke horse Whisper’s condition is most similar to asthma in humans. Horses with it are often described as being “wind-broke.” Six months after Whisper arrived in Gray’s Creek, Stewart noticed the horse had developed a cough. “She was completely fine before I brought her down to this area,” said Stewart in an interview at her home, “My vet said she had environmental allergies—but her cough is year round.” Gray’s Creek sits a few miles north of the Fayetteville Works Facility. The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality has stated the plant may have started releasing PFAS into the environment as early as the 1980s. In 2017, Stewart started attending local forums about PFAS polluting the Cape Fear River area. She was concerned that animals, as well as people, were exposed and raised that alarm to state regulators, Cumberland County commissioners and staff with Chemours, which now operates the factory. In 2018, Stewart had to euthanize a pig named Wilbur after he developed a massive testicular tumor. Like Whisper, Wilbur drank well water contaminated with PFAS on Stewart’s property. Mike Watters, a local advocate pushing for protections from pollution released by Fayetteville Works Facility, introduced Stewart to Scott Belcher, a North Carolina State environmental science professor. Belcher and his team had detected PFAS in the blood of many animal species in the Cape Fear River Basin. Dogs and horses were of particular interest because they share environments with people, including drinking water sources. Something in the water PFAS are tough, human-made compounds that can accumulate in people’s bodies. Some have been linked to health problems, from decreased fertility in women and developmental delays in children to behavioral changes and increased cholesterol levels, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services. When researchers collected blood samples from 1,020 people in the Cape Fear River Basin from 2020 to 2021, they detected four types of PFAS compounds in nearly every person. But two types recorded in people living near or downstream of the Chemours factory were distinctive, according to researchers. They were either produced at or a byproduct of what was produced at the factory. Belcher’s previous studies revealed elevated levels of contaminants in fish and alligators in the Cape Fear River Basin when compared to the same animals in different regions of the state. In Gray’s Creek, Belcher’s team analyzed the blood of 31 dogs and 32 horses. They detected clear differences in PFAS exposure in animals with different drinking water sources. Fluoroethers, a type of PFAS associated with Fayetteville Works were found only in dogs given well water. A different suite of chemicals were detected in dogs given bottled water, said Belcher. Dogs who drank well water had higher concentrations of two PFAS types—PFOS and PFHxS—as compared to dogs given bottled water. These PFAS are known to contaminate the plants and animals near the Cape Fear River watershed, according to the study. The horses, which all lived outdoors, drank well water and had a lower average concentration of PFAS than dogs. Belcher and his team found higher total PFAS concentrations in dogs living indoors, which could be due to their contact with tainted water, house dust or PFAS-treated materials, according to the study. Out of the 20 types of PFAS the researchers were looking for, 12 were found in more than half of the animals. When analyzing the dogs and horses blood, they also saw proteins and other biomarkers associated with changed liver and kidney function—two major biological effects that have been associated with PFAS exposure in people, said Belcher. PFAS tend to stick to blood proteins, and since a lot of blood flows through the kidneys and liver, they can accumulate in these organs at high levels, presenting the most opportunity to have toxic effects, explained Belcher. How animals can signal exposure risks in people The study proves that dogs and horses could signal potential PFAS exposure risks in people and the environment, said Belcher. The median concentrations of two kinds of PFAS—PFOS and PFHxS—in dogs consuming well water was similar to the concentrations found in children residing in Wilmington, North Carolina, according to the study. Dogs, who live closer to the ground, could potentially indicate PFAS exposure risks in children and babies, who crawl on the floor and are more sensitive to chemical exposures than adults, said Belcher. The type of PFAS detected in horses have also been consistently detected in humans and animals in the Cape Fear River Basin, according to the study. While the researchers can’t make direct correlations between health effects in the Gray’s Creek animals with PFAS contamination, Belcher said they’re coming closer to understanding how much PFAS is in their environment. 2023 The Charlotte Observer. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Citation: PFAS detected in blood of horses and dogs too near factory in eastern North Carolina

100 Pints: Mocksville man’s first blood donation was made to get out of work Published 1:58 pm Tuesday, July 25, 2023 Bruce Henry, accompanied by wife Joyce, prepares to give his 100th pint of blood at the Red Cross Blood Drive. – Photo by Mike Barnhardt By Mike Barnhardt Enterprise Record Henry Bruce remembers that day in the U.S. Army many years ago. “A guy came around with a clipboard. He was looking for volunteers, and said you would get the rest of the day off.” Bruce didn’t even have to know the cause. His hand went immediately in the air to volunteer. It was his first time donating blood. Last week, the Mocksville man, 83, donated his 100th pint of life-saving blood. “It just seems like the right thing to do,” he said. “It doesn’t take long and you always feel good afterward. I donate whenever I’m able and thinking about it.” It likely won’t be his last time to donate, either. He’s in good health, and his doctor, Dr. Melanie Seagle, smiled and gave him permission to donate blood until hs is 100. Bruce and his wife of 62 years, Joyce, moved to Mocksville some 17 years ago from Florida, and haven’t regretted it. “We like it here,” she said. Their family – four sons, 15 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren – are scattered across the country.

SAN DIEGO — Truvian Health, a San Diego blood diagnostics company, shared data on Tuesday showing that its benchtop instrument’s results are largely consistent with those generated by large central laboratories. But while the results lend support for the company’s vision of decentralized and widely available clinical testing, they also resurface questions about the value of an approach widely associated with the now defunct and notorious Bay Area startup Theranos. In a multisite study, the company tested nearly 240 blood samples from healthy donors and chronic disease patients for dozens of blood-based measurements commonly ordered by doctors, from cholesterol to blood sugar to blood cell counts. Results from Truvian’s benchtop analytical instrument, with few exceptions, closely matched readings from devices used in large central labs and made by Swiss pharma giant Roche and Japanese firm Sysmex. advertisement The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry, recently rebranded as the Association for Diagnostics & Laboratory Medicine. It’s the first time Truvian has shared clinical data on its product, though they have not been published in a peer-reviewed journal. The company, which is planning additional validation studies, expects to submit for Food and Drug Administration approval of its device by the third quarter of 2024. Unlock this article by subscribing to STAT+ and enjoy your first 30 days free! GET STARTED