Chest pain in middle-age an ominous sign

clipped from www.reuters.com In a long-term follow-up study, chest pain felt by men and women in their 40s was a major risk factor for premature death due to heart disease later on The risk of death from heart disease was much higher in men and women with angina than in those without, the investigators report in the medical journal Heart The relative excess risk conferred by angina is similar to that associated with modest elevations in cholesterol and blood pressure, they note This study, the investigators say, supports results of a previous study indicating that "Rose angina" is not a benign finding and warrants investigation in both sexes

Eight Healthy Reasons To Drink Beer

clipped from www.forbes.com Looking for a good excuse to tip back a beer? You don't have to wait for St. Patrick's Day. That's because a decade's worth of health research shows that regular, moderate beer intake--one to two 12 ounce glasses per day for men and one for women--can be good for you, especially if you're facing some of the most common diseases related to aging. Alcohol, including beer, in moderation raises high-density lipoprotein or HDL, known as good cholesterol It also appears to have a favourable effect on the lining of blood vessels, making them less likely to form a clot or for a clot to rupture and plug an artery, and may help protect against Type 2 diabetes. Beer may also give your brain a boost. frequent drinking in moderation may protect men from death due to cardiovascular disease. Adults over age 65 who drank one to six alcoholic beverages over the course of the week turned out to have a lower risk of dementia than non-drinkers or heavier drinkers

Metabolic Syndrome as Depression Risk Factor

clipped from www.reuters.com Metabolic syndrome: a risk factor for depression? NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A cluster of heart disease and diabetes risk factors known as the metabolic syndrome may be a "predisposing factor for the development of depression," Finnish researchers report. Components of metabolic syndrome include high cholesterol and triglyceride levels, low levels of "good" HDL cholesterol, high blood sugar, high blood pressure, and excess belly fat. According to Koponen and colleagues, non-depressed subjects at the start of the study who were found to have the metabolic syndrome were twice as likely as those without the metabolic syndrome to have symptoms of depression at follow-up 7 years later. The increasing incidence of metabolic syndrome suggests that the incidence of depression may rise accordingly, the researchers warn in a report in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. Effective prevention and treatment of the metabolic syndrome may, in turn, reduce the incidence of depression.

Pacemakers can be hijacked by radio

Not such a funny trick.

clipped from technology.newscientist.com IT GIVES new meaning to the term "heart attack". Last week researchers led by William Maisel at Harvard University used a commercially available radio transmitter to hijack the software on a device that acts as both a heart pacemaker and defibrillator. The device was not implanted in anyone, but the experiment raises the prospect of hackers being able to disrupt a person's heartbeat or stealthily administer damaging shocks. Is the threat of a hacker-instigated heart attack imminent? "The chances of someone being harmed by malicious reprogramming of their device is remote," says Maisel. However, implanted drug pumps and neurostimulators, which deliver electrical pulses to the brain, could be more vulnerable to such attacks in future as they increasingly have wireless capabilities built in.

What's Cholesterol Got To Do With It?

clipped from www.nytimes.com THE idea that cholesterol plays a key role in heart disease is so tightly woven into modern medical thinking that it is no longer considered open to question. This is the message that emerged all too clearly from the recent news that the drug Vytorin had fared no better in clinical trials than the statin therapy it was meant to supplant. Heart disease specialists who were asked to comment on this turn of events insisted that the result implied nothing about their assumption that LDL cholesterol is dangerous, only about whether it is always medically effective to lower it. There is little doubt that certain of these lipoproteins pose dangers, but whether cholesterol itself is a critical factor is a question that the Vytorin trial has most definitely raised. It’s a question that needs to be acknowledged and addressed if we’re going to make any more headway in preventing heart disease

Jet noise risk to sleepers

Professor Graham McGregor, an expert in blood pressure, said the study was interesting, but more work would have to be done to confirm the link.

He said people who lived close to airports tended to be poor, and high blood pressure was associated with poverty.

clipped from news.bbc.co.uk Night-time noise from aircraft or traffic raises blood pressure even while people sleep Researchers monitored 140 sleeping volunteers in their homes near Heathrow and three other big European airports Volunteers' blood pressure increased after exposure to a noise louder than 35 decibels - whether it comes from overhead aircraft, or snoring The study is reported in the European Heart Journal Aircraft noise caused an average increase in systolic blood pressure of 6.2 mmHg and an average increase in diastolic blood pressure of 7.4 mmHg Similar increases in blood pressure were seen also for other noise sources such as road traffic The louder the noise, the greater the increase in blood pressure Measures need to be taken to reduce noise levels from aircraft, in particular during night-time, in order to protect the health of people living near airports Imperial College London Dr Lars Jarup "Noise pollution may be the latest in a long line of issues that the airline industry needs to tackle."

How to Manage High Blood Pressure

Having high blood pressure myself, I found this article interesting and realize I really need to manage it better... and get some exercise!

clipped from healthteria.com When you think about blood pressure, you are referring to the blood's pressure as it makes contact with arterie's walls within the body. It is normal to think of it as two numbers which are the heart beats or systolic pressure and also the heart relaxation or the diastolic pressure.

Type2 Diabetes: Avandia deaths error by Lab.

clipped from www.guardian.co.uk Home Therapy not Avandia said to blame for trial deaths Reuters The popular diabetes drug Avandia did not cause higher rates of death in a study testing ways to prevent heart problems in high-risk diabetics, researchers said on Wednesday, who instead blamed overly aggressive therapy They said high-risk patients with type-2 diabetes who got intensive treatment to bring their blood sugar or glucose down to normal died at a higher rate than patients allowed higher blood sugar levels The researchers said they would adjust the trial, called ACCORD, so the blood sugar of patients would not be lowered so much The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, which funded and helped organize the trial, stressed that all the patients in the study were less likely to die than similar type-2 diabetics in the general population Patients in one group were given aggressive treatment to lower their blood sugar levels -- a measure known as hemoglobin A1c -- to below 6 far below the current target of under 7

Fish Oil May Be Helpful To Some And Harmful To Others

Isn't this a common story. It seems that we are all "crash test dummies", with the proliferation of drugs and herbal helpers.

clipped from www.sciencedaily.com ScienceDaily (Jan. 15, 2008) — Fish oil supplements may help some cardiac patients while harming others, suggests a new review of evidence compiled by St. Michael's Hospital and University of Toronto researchers. In a systematic review of trials where patients with implantable cardioverter defibrillators used fish oil supplements, Dr. David Jenkins and Dr. Paul Dorian found significant differences among the trials, indicating fish oil may be beneficial to some patients while having a negative impact on others. "Fish oils can have complex and varied effects on the heart," says Jenkins, a U of T Professor of Medicine who runs the Clinical Nutrition and Risk Factor Modification Centre at St. Michael's Hospital. "These effects include blocking cardiac ion channels, reducing fibrosis in response to mechanical stress, decreasing blood coagulation, and possibly altering immune function."

clipped from www.earthtimes.org Possible oral treatment for diabetics HAIFA, Israel, Dec. 24 A substance derived from yeast is being tested in Israel as a potential oral treatment for diabetes and its complications. The substance -- glucose tolerance factor, or GTF -- offers promise of inhibiting oxidation processes that can result in strokes and heart attacks. GTF given at early stage of diabetes may prevent or delay renal complications as well as cataracts and retinal damage.

Avandia use can lead to brittle bones

clipped from www.msnbc.msn.com The popular diabetes drug marketed as Avandia may increase bone thinning, a discovery that could help explain why diabetics can have an increased risk of fractures While bones seem solid, they constantly are being broken down and rebuilt by the body. Researchers found that in mice, the drug increased the activity of the cells that degrade bones, according to a report in this week’s online issue of Nature Medicine. Avandia recently was labelled with warnings about the risk of heart failure in some patients Nearly 21 million people in the United States have diabetes. Rosiglitazone is widely used in people with Type II, or adult onset diabetes, the most common form of the disease Evans said the discovery was fortuitous. Researchers were looking at different aspects of the diabetic mice and did not realize they would be able to change the bone-removing activity Test yourself Diabetes: How much do you know?

Green Tea--Beats Avandia for Diabetes, and No Deadly Side Effects

clipped from articles.mercola.com A compound in green tea, EGCG (epigallocatechin gallate), works as well in moderately diabetic mice as GlaxoSmithKline’s diabetes drug Avandia, according to researchers from Sweden’s Karolinska Institute. In the study, 5-week-old moderately diabetic and severely diabetic mice were fed EGCG or given Avandia. After five and 10 weeks of treatment, the blood sugar and insulin levels of the mice were tested. Moderately diabetic mice did just as well on the green tea extract as they did on Severely diabetic mice did not benefit as much fromAvandia. EGCG. Researchers said the EGCG, though less potent than Avandia, “exerted changes that were similarly beneficial.” Dr. Mercola's Comments: However, it’s since come out that Avandia causes a 43 percent higher risk of heart attack, and possibly death. These are hefty risks for a drug designed to treat a disease that is virtually 100 percent curable with SIMPLE lifestyle changes (more on these later).

How Cholesterol Damages Your Heart

clipped from articles.mercola.com High blood cholesterol is known to contribute to atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, which in turn increases your risk of heart attack and stroke. Now, researchers from the Saint Louis School of Medicine have found out how it does this. Dr. Mercola's Comments: Heart disease is one of the leading causes of death in the United States, and high cholesterol has been singled out as the primary cause, at least according to conventional medicine. The researchers in the above study have made an interesting connection between cholesterol and a protective protein in your body, but this is merely another ruse to use “science” to justify yet another unnecessary, expensive, and dangerous drug to solve a non-problem. The researchers found, using an animal model, that cholesterol limits the activity of transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta), a key protective protein that protects your heart’s aorta and other vessels from damage caused by hypertension, high cholesterol, and other factors.

Zero trans fat doesn't always mean Zero

clipped from news.yahoo.com NEW YORK - Stroll the aisles of any grocery store and you're sure to spot labels declaring "zero grams trans fat" on the front of snack foods, cookies and crackers. But does zero really mean there's NO artery-clogging fat inside Federal regulations allow food labels to say there's zero grams of trans fat as long as there's less than half a gram per serving. many people eat two to three servings at a time." small amounts of trans fat can add up, check the list of ingredients to see if partially hydrogenated oil — the primary source of trans fat — is included Trans fat occurs naturally in some dairy and meat products, but the main source is partially hydrogenated oils, formed when hydrogen is added to liquid vegetable oils to harden them The American Heart Association recommends that people limit trans fats to less than 2 grams per day. The bigger problem is foods that have no labels at all," Mozaffarian said, citing food served not only at restaurants, but at bakeries, cafeterias and schools.

What I hate is that the ingredients are in such tiny print, its impossible to be sure you are reading them correctly

Avandia, Actos get Heart Failure Warnings

clipped from www.fda.gov FDA ALERT [8/2007]: This Alert highlights important revisions to the full prescribing information for rosiglitazone maleate (marketed as Avandia, Avandamet, and Avandaryl). The updated information includes a new BOXED WARNING, and additional updated WARNINGS, PRECAUTIONS and CONTRAINDICATIONS to emphasize that rosiglitazone may cause or exacerbate heart failure, particularly in certain patient populations. The implications of this new labeling for healthcare professionals who prescribe Avandia, Avandamet, and Avandaryl are summarized below. This information reflects FDA’s current analysis of data available to FDA concerning this drug. FDA intends to update this sheet when additional information or analyses become available.

Not a surprise; this side effect is well-known for both of these drugs. Although laypeople often confuse heart failure and heart attacks, they are distinct. Heart failure is when the heart is chronically weak; heart attacks are when muscle tissue in the heart actually dies because it is starved of blood. So this is not the denouement of the Avandia controversy we've been watching for several months now. --Matt Herper

Stem Cells Repair Blood Vessels

clipped from www.technologyreview.com An efficient new method to generate what appears to be a novel type of stem cell could be a boon to diseases linked to lack of blood flow. The new type of cells helped repair tissue in animals that had had heart attacks or eye damage due to diabetes. The tissue damage that accompanies many diseases, including the ulcers that occur in diabetes and the heart-muscle damage associated with cardiovascular disease, is linked to an inadequate supply of blood. Researchers are currently trying to determine whether adult stem cells derived from bone marrow can boost blood flow in these diseases by triggering growth of new vessels. In the new study, scientists developed a way to turn embryonic stem cells into stem cells that are an earlier and thus more plastic form than the adult stem cells derived from bone marrow. quantities; in contrast, adult stem cells

Lanza has high hopes for the stem cells and has numerous collaborations in the works. He's exploring the cells' potential to prevent the progression of atherosclerosis, to treat stroke, and to be used as a starter ingredient to create "universal donor" blood cells for blood transfusions.