CHP: How to Love Your Heart, for Heart Month

Submitted by Jonna Gaberman, MD 04:17PM / Wednesday, February 14, 2024Print Story | Email Story

Dr. Jonna Gaberman is CHP Berkshires Director of Adult Medicine and primary care physician at CHP Neighborhood Health Center in Pittsfield.

It's National Heart Month, so now is a good time to give some TLC to your body's most important muscle. Prevention is always the first step in keeping your heart healthy, but you can also make changes to address any existing heart conditions.

Key risk factors impacting the heart include high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and smoking, including second-hand smoke exposure.

What are some meaningful changes you can make to care for your heart? First, have a basic heart health screening with your primary care provider or with CHP Mobile Health. This will include a blood pressure check and screening for high cholesterol and diabetes.

If your blood pressure is elevated, set a goal to lower your salt intake to under 2,000 mg per day, and take care to read labels of soups and other foods for sodium content. Eating more fruits and vegetables, and getting more physical activity will help, too. You can also help your heart by eliminating or reducing alcohol use, as alcohol can contribute to elevated blood pressure and abnormal heart rhythm.

Diabetes screening is typically done with an A1C blood test, which indicates your blood sugar level over the past three months. If the result suggests a risk of diabetes, it's time to make some changes in your diet and exercise routine. Focus on whole grains, veggies, fruits, beans, nuts, lean proteins like fish and chicken, and healthy fats.

If you don't have regular time to exercise, try parking further away from your destination and walking more, or take the stairs more often at work. Any amount of physical activity is good, so, when possible, take a walk, a bike ride, go on a hike, or take a yoga class. Find a friend, family member, or colleague to join you and choose an activity that you enjoy. If you are a CHP patient and need a hand getting started, ask for a referral to our CHP Nutrition team.

If you are a smoker, talk to your PCP about different medications and strategies to help you to kick the habit, because smoking – and second-hand smoke – can also raise the risk of heart problems. There are many tools to help you quit, and the more often you try to stop, the more likely you will succeed.

Taking care of your heart health will impact your overall wellness and your mood. As always, check in with your CHP primary care provider. We are here to help.

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Lee Wants Bioremediation in Housatonic River Vernal Pool Study

05:24AM / Thursday, September 03, 2026

LEE, Mass. — The town has asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and General Electric to include PCB bioremediation in its vernal pool study on the Housatonic River.

Lee officials are urging the EPA to require GE to add a bioremediation treatment arm to the vernal-pool study or provide the public with a clear explanation for why such testing is being excluded.

"This is exactly the kind of question EPA and GE should be asking before final remedy decisions are locked in," Select Board Chair Bob Jones said in a statement released to the press. "The town is not asking to slow the cleanup. We are asking EPA and GE to make the cleanup smarter, less destructive, and more protective over the long term."

An open house was held in Pittsfield earlier this summer for the Vernal Pool Pilot Study on Reach 5A of the Housatonic River, a five-mile stretch between the river's confluence and Lenox border.

EPA has required GE to conduct a Vernal Pool Pilot Study as part of the Housatonic River Rest of River remediation, comparing excavation and restoration with activated-carbon-based treatments, including a product called SediMite and powdered activated carbon, the town said.

Ten vernal pools will be cleaned of polychlorinated biphenyls in total, five with excavation and five with active carbon, and seven additional vernal pools will be monitored as controls. Construction will be complete around October, but the pools will be left to their natural processes and monitored with surveys and sampling for three years.

The Lee PCB Advisory Committee wrote a letter calling for the 21st-century approach it said could reduce long-term toxicity, avoid unnecessary destruction of sensitive habitats, and improve the effectiveness of the cleanup.

It states that Lee supports the study's purpose and agrees that EPA and GE must understand how cleanup activities affect sensitive vernal-pool ecosystems.

"The current pilot includes 10 treatment pools and seven control pools, while local officials understand that roughly 100 vernal pools may occur in the broader remediation corridor," the Aug. 27 letter reads.

"That makes the pilot study consequential: the methods tested now could shape how many sensitive wetlands are excavated, reconstructed, treated, or left with PCBs managed in place."

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