Talk! with Audrey

Older adults (age 65 and over) often shoulder a significant portion of healthcare costs but may not always receive the care they prefer. This month, FAIR Health, with generous support from The John A. Hartford Foundation, launched FAIRHealthOlderAdults.org, a free website that offers tools, educational content and resources to help older adults and family caregivers plan for care relevant to older adults. FAIR Health Executive Director of Grants and Consumer Education, Nicole Iny joins me to tell us more about the new website and how patients can have a voice in what happens as their health needs grow.

Dr. Joanne Mortimer, a medical oncologist at the City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center and Jessica, who was diagnosed with breast cancer join me to talk about the importance of BRCA mutation testing, and how knowing her BRCA mutation status led to routine cancer screenings that Jessica says saved her life.

From cash stuffing to loud budgeting, when there’s a new personal finance trend every month, it can be challenging to decipher the best way to keep your finances in shape. Rising costs haven’t made it easier, especially as consumers navigate building up their savings amidst higher costs of living. America Saves Week is a time for people at all stages of their financial journey to reevaluate their finances, identify smart saving strategies and take control of their financial futures. Robin Growley, Bank of America’s Savings and Budgeting Guru, joins me to discuss strategies for conducting a financial wellness check.

What would make Tamim Hamid, a former NASA biomedical engineer working at the Kennedy Space Center invent a device that regrows hair and write a book about it? Well, today we're going to find out; he's the author of Grow It Back, How Laser Phototherapy Stops Hair Loss and Regrows Your Hair.

Registered nurse and psychotherapist Laurie Elizabeth Murphy draws on her own experience working in the field to create a uniquely intellectual and entertaining mystery in her new book, Dream Me Home. It's a chilling mystery, a story of betrayal, infidelity, and love.

Genealogist and health educator Bernice Bennett, host of Alnylam’s Family Health History Road Trip program, traveled and visited families affected by an inherited condition called hereditary ATTR amyloidosis – She is joined by Giselle, whose father’s diagnosis solved her own health puzzle and why it’s so important for families to discuss their health history with each other, and with their doctors.

Did you know? That Black Americans are up to 50 percent more likely to have high blood pressure when compared to other racial and ethnic groups, and Black/African American men have the highest rate of uncontrolled blood pressure? Joining me to talk about the importance of controlling blood pressure in midlife (particularly for Black men ages 28 to 45 who are most at risk) to help reduce the risk of having a stroke and developing dementia and Mind Your Risks® campaign, Dr. Richard T. Benson, Ph.D. – Director, Office of Global Health and Health Disparities at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

Despite representing a large proportion of the general population with a high disease burden, racial and ethnic minority populations have been consistently underrepresented in clinical trials. Dr. Elizabeth Ofili, professor of medicine at Morehouse School of Medicine and a practicing cardiologist with Morehouse Healthcare in Atlanta has information about a collaboration between Amgen, the Association of Black Cardiologists (ABC) and the Morehouse School of Medicine.

According to PETA, a Harvard Medical School experimenter is permanently removing newborn monkeys from their mothers and depriving them of normal visual input, and students, faculty, and scientists—Including Dr. Jane Goodall— are demanding an end to outdated, curiosity-driven experiments. Katherine Roe, Ph.D., former NIH neuroscientist and chief scientist with the Laboratory Investigations Department at PETA, joins me to talk about the Harvard experiments and what PETA is doing to stop them.