news. Cardiovascular disease strokes and heart attacks are the leading causes of

death in America. In fact, more than a third of veterans have been diagnosed

with hypertension and more than 40 percent have high cholesterol.

Potu: So, if you have a family history of hypertension then I would be concerned about it

because I do have a family history of hypertension so you want to eat a low

salt diet, exercise regularly, quit smoking - these are all the lifestyle changes that you can do.

Identifying and controlling hypertension and high

cholesterol in a patient population is no small undertaking. But, the American

Heart Association and the American Medical Association recognized VA North

Texas as the gold standard for controlling both hypertension and high

cholesterol among its patient population.

Did you know that Veterans enrolled in the VA health care system their caregivers and

visitors have access to the veteran's canteen service online shopping site,

shopvcs.com? The patriotic shop offers a variety of gear and apparel

bearing the Stars and Stripes while the military pride shop features a

collection of products honoring all branches of the armed forces. Best of all,

every order at shopvcs.com supports the veteran community through the VCS

"gives back" mission. Legendary guitarist and Rock & Roll Hall of Famer James

Burton, through the James Burton foundation, recently donated 15 guitars

to Memphis VA Veterans as part of the "Guitars 4 Vets program. Guitars 4 Vets

is a nonprofit organization, founded in Milwaukee Wisconsin in 2007, that

pursues its mission to share the healing power of music by providing free guitar

instruction, a new acoustic guitar, and a guitar accessory kit. To learn more go to

blogs.va.gov and search "guitars 4 vets." That's all for VA news I'm Matt Webb

thank you for serving.