|
|
Heart Disease
|
|
Definition of Heart Disease
Heart disease is an umbrella term for a number of different diseases which affect the heart and is the leading cause of death in the United States as of 2007.
|
Muscle cell therapy repairs damaged heart
Muscle cell therapy repairs damaged heart
The Yomiuri Shimbun
OSAKA--A medical team at Osaka University Hospital has succeeded in restoring function to the heart of a patient with severe cardiac disease using muscle cells taken from one of the patient's thighs, it has been learned.
The male patient in his 50s, who had been waiting for a heart transplant, is now able to walk unaided, and will leave the hospital in Suita, Osaka Prefecture, on Thursday, according to the hospital.
It is the first time in the world that a patient waiting for an organ transplant has been successfully treated using their own cells.
"The treatment can be a good alternative to heart transplants," said Yoshiki Sawa, director of the Medical Center for Translational Research at the hospital.
In the treatment, the team first removed about 10 grams of muscle tissue from the patient's thigh. From the muscle tissue, it then extracted myoblast cells, which are the main building block of muscle fibers. The team cultivated the cells and formed them into sheets about four centimeters wide. They then wrapped the diseased heart with three layers of the myoblast sheets.
The treatment was approved in July 2006 by the hospital's ethics committee as part of clinical research into dilated cardiomyopathy--a disease in which the heart becomes swollen and unable to pump blood efficiently.
The male patient began suffering from the disease around 2004, and was hospitalized in January 2006. Despite being fitted with a pacemaker the following month, he continued to suffer serious symptoms.
The patient registered with the Japan Organ Transplant Network in August 2006, and had been waiting for a heart transplant.
The medical team took the myoblast cells from the patient at the end of March this year, and then spent two months creating 25 myoblast sheets. At the end of May, the team attached the sheets to the patient's heart, mainly around the organ's left ventricle, which is key to circulation.
After the treatment, the patient's heart functions, including pulse rate and quantity of blood pumped, all improved rapidly. On Sept. 5, or 98 days after the treatment, it became possible to remove the pacemaker. According to the hospital, the man's heart functions have almost fully recovered, and he is able to lead a normal daily life.
"The myoblast sheets were not transformed into heart muscle, but they apparently released substances that assist the functioning of weakened heart muscles. We'd like to conduct further research on the treatment so we can apply the method to other cardiac diseases and to some children's conditions," Sawa said.
Read the Article
|
Childhood Obesity Linked to Heart Disease in Adult Life
The number of children having problems with their weight will grow considerably in the years to come and so will their death rates caused by heart disease, according to researchers from the United States and Denmark.
The Danish study, which tracked almost 276,000 children from 1930 to 1976, discovered that those who were overweight when they were 7 to 13 years old were more likely to develop heart disease between the ages of 25 and 71. Even those who were just a little chubby as kids face the same risk regardless of whether they lost the weight when they grew up. The heavier they were as youngsters, particularly entering their teens, the greater the risk, researchers found.
"This is incredibly important. This is the first study to convincingly show that excess childhood weight is associated with heart disease in adulthood or with any significant health problem in adulthood. Even a few extra pounds increase the risk. That's the very frightening message from our results," said lead author of the study, Jennifer L. Baker of the Institute of Preventive Medicine in Copenhagen.
Baker said that the risk could be reduced substantially if the child lost weight while still young and remained at a normal weight.
"This gives us hope. This really suggests that if an intervention occurs during this short period of time to help a child attain and maintain a normal weight, the risk of heart disease could be reduced," Baker said.
The second study conducted by Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo of the University of California at San Francisco, used federal statistics from the year 2000 to show that almost 17 percent of boys and 16 percent of girls now in the United States, meaning more than 9 million totals are overweight. In addition, this number is expected to increase to 30 to 37 percent by 2020, when they turn 35.
About 32 percent of the women in that group who now are obese, that ratio will rise to 34 to 44 percent according to Bibbins-Domingo.
Researchers reported that this statistics would lead to more heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure at a younger age and even aggressive treatment would not be effective in treating them.
They also estimated the rate of heart disease would increase by 5 percent to 16 percent by 2035.
"Barring a major advance in the treatment of either excessive weight gain itself or its associated alterations in blood pressure, lipid levels and glucose metabolism, current adolescent overweight will have a substantial effect on public health far into the future," was the conclusion of the study .
Melinda Sothern, an expert on childhood obesity at Louisiana State University in New Orleans said the findings are disturbing because they suggest not only that overweight children experience more disease and disability in childhood but also that many are also destined to be more sickly young adults.
"Overweight children are already losing their childhood. They can't do the same types of activities as healthy-weight children. Now they will lose their early adulthood as well," she said.
Read the Article
|
Overweight Adolescents Projected To Have More Heart Disease In Young Adulthood
ScienceDaily (Dec. 6, 2007) — A new study investigating the health effects of being overweight during adolescence projects alarming increases in the rates of heart disease and premature death by the time today's teenagers reach young adulthood.
---------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------
See also:
Health & Medicine
Heart Disease
Diseases and Conditions
Chronic Illness
Stroke Prevention
Teen Health
Obesity
Reference
Body mass index
Coronary heart disease
Overweight
Anti-obesity drug
A team of researchers at the University of California, San Francisco and Columbia University Medical Center used a computer-based statistical modeling system known as the Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) Policy Model to estimate the potential impact of an increasingly overweight U.S. adolescent population on future adult health nationwide.
Based on the numbers of overweight adolescents in 2000, the study found that up to 37 percent of males and 44 percent of females will be obese when these teenagers turn 35 years old in 2020. As a consequence of this obesity, these young adults are expected to have more heart attacks, more chronic chest pain and more deaths before they reach age 50.
The model also estimated more than 100,000 extra cases of heart disease by 2035, which is a 16 percent increase over today's figures, and a rise in obesity-related CHD deaths by as much as 19 percent.
"Today's adolescents are the young adults of tomorrow -- young adults who would ordinarily be working, raising their families, and not worried about heart disease until they are much older. Our study suggests that more of these young adults will have heart disease when they are 35-50 years old, resulting in more hospitalizations, medical procedures, need for chronic medications, missed work days and shortened life expectancy," said Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, PhD, MD, lead author on the study and assistant professor in medicine, epidemiology and biostatistics at UCSF.
"This study highlights the importance of preventing obesity before it starts in children. The current high rate of overweight is not just a problem for adolescents and their parents, it's something that will affect all of us well into the future," she added.
The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that nine million adolescents in the United States are considered overweight, and that childhood obesity rates have tripled since 1970. Eighty percent of overweight adolescents become obese adults, according to other studies.
"We must recall that we all tend to gain weight as we age, so overweight in adolescents means even higher weights later on," said Lee Goldman, MD, MPH, the senior author and an original developer of the Coronary Heart Disease Policy Model used in the study. Goldman is executive vice president for health and biomedical sciences at Columbia University Medical Center and dean of the medical school there. "Although the general findings of our analysis are not surprising, we
Read the Article
|
No. 1 Killer Of Women Is Heart Disease
The No. 1 killer of American women is heart disease, and doctors say 95 percent of those women have at least one risk factor that could have been avoided.
There are a lot of things that affect your risk for heart disease that you can't change -- like your age, your gender, and your family history -- but the American Heart Association says there are plenty of things you can do.
So, keep these in mind: You can quit smoking, monitor your cholesterol, monitor your blood pressure, keep diabetes controlled, maintain a healthy weight and become physically active.
Read the Article
|
High Blood Pressure Increases Risk Of Developing Heart Disease
December 12, 2007 - Results of a new study find that 75% of Americans who have medical conditions that increase their risk of heart disease are also dealing with high blood pressure.
High blood pressure is diagnosed in a person whose BP is equal to 140 over 90 or above. A normal blood pressure is equal to 120 over 80.
The study, performed by researchers at the University of California, Irvine featured data from 4,646 adults who took part in a national health survey.
31% of the study participants were found to be suffering from high blood pressure, with older, or black adults at an increased risk.
Out of the study participants, up to 75% of the participants with one of the following medical conditions also had high blood pressure: diabetes, chronic kidney disease, one previous stroke, congestive heart failure, peripheral artery disease, coronary artery disease.
The study forecasts that overall, about 1 third of the US population are living with high blood pressure.
"You get high blood pressure by leading an unhealthy lifestyle, so it often goes hand in hand with chronic conditions," said Norm Campbell, president of Blood Pressure Canada.
“Recent estimates indicate little change in the prevalence of hypertension, and, although there seem to be some recent improvements in treatment and control rates, hypertension in many persons remains inadequately controlled,” the authors write.
“Moreover, given recently released recommendations to reduce the blood pressure goal to less than 130/80 milligrams of mercury for persons with coronary artery disease and other high-risk conditions, our hypertension control rates would be even lower and a greater distance from the goal for these persons if the new criteria are applied,” the authors conclude.
Read the Article
|
Ho, ho heart attack?
The good side of holiday hoopla -- increased camaraderie, generosity of spirit -- can help ease depression for some. But what is balm for the mind can be bad news for the ticker.
National statistics show that even as suicides go down during the holiday season, deaths from heart disease go up. Cardiac problems increase so much that researchers have coined the phrases "Merry Christmas Coronary" and "Happy New Year Heart Attack."
And, contrary to conventional wisdom, the increase in heart attack deaths has nothing to do with shoveling snow or coronary artery spasms caused by frigid weather. Dr. Robert A. Kloner, a cardiologist at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, challenged that once-prevalent medical theory in 1999.
His research team examined L.A. County death records of 220,000 people who died of heart disease over a 12-year period. In a paper published in the journal Circulation, they reported that heart disease deaths were 33% higher in December and January than they were from June through September -- even in Southern California's consistently mild climate.
A national study published in 2004 in Circulation further debunked the cold-weather theory. Researchers led by David P. Phillips at UC San Diego looked at 53 million death records between 1973 and 2001. They found a 4.6% increase in heart-related deaths in the period from Christmas Eve through New Year's Day. Although the increase was apparent across the country, the uptick was slightly smaller in the northern border states than in southern border states.
The two riskiest days of the year for heart-related deaths: Dec. 25 and Jan. 1. Christmas and New Year's, it appears, can line up alongside smoking, obesity and high blood pressure as risk factors for cardiac mortality.
Researchers speculate that some of the things that come with the season of joy may be playing a part in heart attack deaths: rich food, alcohol and the season's stress and excitement.
Kloner has some advice on staying healthy -- long enough, at least, to fail at your New Year's resolutions. He tells patients to try to avoid some of the known triggers of heart attack: too much food, salt, fat and alcohol. "Avoid excess physical exertion, overeating, lack of sleep, emotional stress and anger. They have all been associated with cardiac events," he says.
Don't let a flood of social obligations let you forget to take medications for high blood pressure or high cholesterol, or get in the way of exercise routines.
"Don't say, 'I'm at a party. I'm having chest pain, but I'll just have another drink and blow it off,' " Kloner says. It's possible that more people die on the holidays because, in a festive mood, they put off seeing a doctor even in the face of a classic symptom.
If you do need medical care, try to see a physician who knows you, or at least make sure a vacation-substitute physician has all your records. Phillips speculated in his 2004 paper that one reason for the increase in deaths could be that many healthcare providers take time off during the holidays, and patients are seen by doctors who aren't fully aware of patients' histories.
Read the Article
|
Calcium In Coronary Arteries May Be Linked To Increased Risk For Heart Disease In Low-risk Women
ScienceDaily (Dec. 12, 2007) — About 5 percent of women considered low-risk for heart disease by current classification standards have evidence of advanced coronary artery calcium and may be at increased risk for cardiovascular events, according to a report in the December 10/24 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
---------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------
See also:
Health & Medicine
Heart Disease
Stroke Prevention
Cholesterol
Asthma
Vioxx
Menopause
Reference
Coronary heart disease
Hypertension
Low density lipoprotein
Hormone replacement therapy
The Framingham risk score--which includes such factors as age, cholesterol and blood pressure levels, smoking habits and diabetes--is a standard approach for assessing an individual's risk of developing coronary heart disease in the next 10 years, according to background information in the article. Americans are considered low-risk if they have an estimated risk of less than 10 percent in 10 years, and high risk is 20 percent or greater in 10 years. Approximately 95 percent of U.S. women younger than 70 are considered low-risk and therefore do not qualify for aggressive management of risk factors. "Nevertheless, most women will ultimately die of heart disease, suggesting that the Framingham risk score alone does not adequately stratify women in ways that would be useful for targeted preventive interventions," the authors write.
Susan G. Lakoski, M.D., M.S., of the Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, N.C., and colleagues assessed 3,601 women age 45 to 84 when the study began, in 2000. Computed tomographic (CT) scans of the chest were used to determine scores for coronary artery calcium. High scores indicate a significant amount of calcium deposits, which has previously been associated with heart disease risk but is not included in the Framingham risk score. Medical history, measurements and laboratory tests were also taken at the beginning of the study, and participants were interviewed by telephone every nine to 12 months about subsequent cardiovascular diagnoses and hospital admissions.
A total of 2,684 (90 percent) of the women were considered low-risk based on the Framingham risk score. About one-third (32 percent) of them had detectable calcium in their coronary arteries. Over an average of 3.75 years, 24 of the low-risk women had heart events (such as heart attack and heart pain)--a 0.9 percent risk--and 34 (a 1.3 percent risk) had a cardiovascular disease event, including heart events, stroke or death.
"Compared with women with no detectable coronary artery calcium, low-risk women with a coronary artery calcium score greater than zero were at increased risk for coronary heart disease and cardiovascular disease events," the authors write. In addition, almost 5 percent of the low-risk women had advanced coronary artery calcium, defined as a score of 300 or greater. These women had a 6.7 percent risk of a heart event and 8.6 percent risk of a cardiovascular event over the 3.75-year follow-up.
"These data shed new light on cardiovascular disease risk and the modalities to evaluate and treat middle-aged and older women," the authors write. "This study also provides novel data in support of the 2007 guidelines on cardiovascular
Read the Article
|
Risk Factors For High Cholesterol
Your blood cholesterol level is affected not only by what you eat but also by how quickly your body makes LDL cholesterol and disposes of it. In fact, your body makes all the cholesterol it needs, and it is not necessary to take in any additional cholesterol from the foods you eat.
Patients with heart disease typically have too much LDL cholesterol in their blood. Many factors help determine whether your LDL cholesterol level is high or low. The following factors are the most important:
Heredity.
Your genes influence how high your LDL cholesterol is by affecting how fast LDL is made and removed from the blood. One specific form of inherited high cholesterol that affects 1 in 500 people is familial hypercholesterolemia, which often leads to early heart disease. But even if you do not have a specific genetic form of high cholesterol, genes play a role in influencing your LDL cholesterol level.
What you eat.
Two main nutrients in the foods you eat make your LDL cholesterol level go up: saturated fat, a type of fat found mostly in foods that come from animals; and cholesterol, which comes only from animal products. Saturated fat raises your LDL cholesterol level more than anything else in the diet. Eating too much saturated fat and cholesterol is the main reason for high levels of cholesterol and a high rate of heart attacks in the United States. Reducing the amount of saturated fat and cholesterol you eat is a very important step in reducing your blood cholesterol levels.
Weight.
Excess weight tends to increase your LDL cholesterol level. If you are overweight and have a high LDL cholesterol level, losing weight may help you lower it. Weight loss also helps to lower triglycerides and raise HDL.
Physical activity/exercise.
Regular physical activity may lower LDL cholesterol and raise HDL-cholesterol levels.
Age and sex.
Before menopause, women usually have total cholesterol levels that are lower than those of men the same age. As women and men get older, their blood cholesterol levels rise until about 60 to 65 years of age. In women, menopause often causes an increase in their LDL cholesterol and a decrease in their HDL cholesterol level, and after the age of 50, women often have higher total cholesterol levels than men of the same age.
Alcohol.
Alcohol intake increases HDL cholesterol but does not lower LDL cholesterol. Doctors don't know for certain whether alcohol also reduces the risk of heart disease. Drinking too much alcohol can damage the liver and heart muscle, lead to high blood pressure, and raise triglycerides. Because of the risks, alcoholic beverages should not be used as a way to prevent heart disease.
Stress.
Stress over the long term has been shown in several studies to raise blood cholesterol levels. One way that stress may do this is by affecting your habits. For example, when some people are under stress, they console themselves by eating fatty foods. The saturated fat and
Read the Article
|
Regular Fasting May Protect From Heart Disease
Researchers in Utah found that fasting one day each month appeared to have a beneficial effect on those who practiced, in that their hearts were healthier, it was revealed earlier this week.
The study was conducted in Utah by Benjamin Horne, a heart disease researcher from Intermountain Medical Center and the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. He presented his work at a recent American Heart Association conference, according to the Associated Press.
Horne and his team discovered that Mormons were significantly less likely to be diagnosed with heart disease compared to non-Mormons. They designed a survey to explore possible reasons for this and included questions about respondents’ lifestyle.
More than 500 people answered the survey and the researchers found that the main difference in heart risks was fasting. It is a Mormon practice to fast one day a month, as well as refrain from smoking, consuming alcohol, coffee and tea and take a day each week for rest.
The researchers found that only 59 percent of those who forewent their meals for one day each month were diagnosed with heart disease, compared to 67 percent of those who did not fast.
The difference was constant regardless of participants’ age, weight and health status. Interestingly enough, not all those who fasted on a regular basis and presented better heart health were Mormons.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is based in Utah. The authors said approximately 70 percent of Utah residents are Mormons. Their religion forbids them from eating on the first Sunday of each month.
Horne’s theory is that during fasting, when the body does not receive food, it consumes fat reserves and thus burns calories.
He nevertheless warned that fasting has not been proven as advisable for anyone and that more research is necessary.
Read the Article
|
Maximizing Your Health With Wine: The Amount Vs. Type
Second, we have to distinguish between the type of alcohol, and if the alcohol is wine, then the kind of wine. Certain red wines contain properties that aid in the prevention of heart disease and other ailments.
Dr. Roger Corder, a scientist at William Harvey Research Institute and author of The Red Wine Diet, found that some red wines contain flavonoid polyphenols called procyanidins. These procyanidins help protect our heart and prevent fatty deposits latching onto our arteries.
Red wines have significant fermentation time, 3 to 4 weeks, which allows time for the procyanidins to be extracted. Most wines are fermented in a week which leaves little or no procyanidins. Corder also found that some grapes, such as cabernet sauvignon, helped make wines that are rich in procyanidins.
The highest proportion of centenarians (those living over 100) in Europe live in Sardinia, an island off the west coast of Italy. The Sardinians drink wine which has the highest concentration of procyanidins in the world.
Corder lists locations that produce wines with high levels of procyanidins. South west France and Sardinia are top of the list. Wines elsewhere include the Australian wines - D'Arenberg Cabernet Sauvignon (McLaren Vale) and Wynns reds from the Coonawarra; and the US wines - Robert Mondavi Napa Valley Reserve from California and Matthew Cellars Red from Washington State.
Dr Serge Renaud studied 34,000 middle-aged French men of eastern France and reported that drinking 2-3 glasses of wine a day results in a 30 percent reduction in death rates from all ailments, a 35 percent reduction from cardiovascular disease, and an 18-24 percent reduction from cancer. Note that the diet in this region is high in saturated fats, and that they typically drink at mealtimes when alcohol is more easily absorbed.
Who is to say that if the women in the Karolinska study had a glass or two of procyanidin rich wine, whether that would have altered the figures.
Studies of diets and wine should say what kind of wine as it is clear that some are much better for you than others - those that contain procyanidins when drunk in moderation. To help us choose the right wine, perhaps a kind of rating is needed.
If wine is not your thing, then berries, apples, pomegranates, walnuts and chocolate (up to 25g daily) contain this property
Read the Article
|
Daily News: Heart Disease Could Speed Alzheimer's Symptoms
High blood pressure, chest pains, or an irregular heartbeat may speed memory loss in Alzheimer’s patients, according to a Johns Hopkins University study reported by the American Academy of Neurology.
The study followed 135 newly diagnosed elderly people, 62% of which reported vascular factors, for three years.
Those with high blood pressure experienced cognitive decline at twice the rate of other Alzheimer’s patients, and decline was markedly faster in those with chest pains or irregular heartbeat because of lack of blood supply, author Michelle Mielke, MD, reported.
Vascular factors also included a previous heart attack or stroke, coronary artery bypass surgery, and diabetes.
Read the Article
|
Abdominal Fat Distribution Predicts Heart Disease, Study Shows
ScienceDaily (Dec. 11, 2007) — Abdominal obesity is a strong independent risk factor for heart disease, and using the waist-hip ratio rather than waist measurement alone is a better predictor of heart disease risk among men and women, researchers reported in a study published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
---------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------
See also:
Health & Medicine
Heart Disease
Stroke Prevention
Cholesterol
Vioxx
Chronic Illness
Diseases and Conditions
Reference
High density lipoprotein
Hormone replacement therapy
Coronary heart disease
Menopause
In the study, researchers also looked at whether the association between fat distribution and heart disease risk was independent of body mass index (BMI), which assesses body weight relative to height, as well as other heart disease risk factors, such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
"The size of the hips seems to predict a protective effect," said Dexter Canoy, M.Phil., M.D., Ph.D., lead author of the study and a research fellow in epidemiology and public health at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom. "In other words, a big waist with comparably big hips does not appear to be as worrisome as a big waist with small hips."
The research was based on 24,508 men and women ages 45 to 79 in the United Kingdom who participated in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer cohort study (EPIC-Norfolk) which is based at the University of Cambridge in the UK. Researchers measured participants' weight, height, waist circumference, hip circumference and other heart disease risk factors from 1993 to 1997. They then followed up with participants for an average 9.1 years.
During the follow-up, 1,708 men and 892 women developed coronary heart disease. When they divided the men and women into five groups, according to waist-hip ratio, researchers found that those with the highest waist-to-hip ratio had the highest heart disease risk. Among the findings:
Men in the top one-fifth of the distribution (those with the biggest waists in relation to their hips) had a 55 percent higher risk of developing coronary heart disease compared to men in the bottom one-fifth of the distribution (those with the smallest waists in relation to their hips).
Women in the top one-fifth, or the highest waist-to-hip ratio group, were 91 percent more likely to develop heart disease than women with the smallest waists in relation to their hips.
Waist-only measurements underestimated heart disease risk by 10 percent to 18 percent when compared to risk estimates for waist measurements when hip is considered
Read the Article
|
English 'less likely to die of heart disease'
ENGLISH people living in Scotland are a fifth less likely to die from heart disease than those born north of the Border, according to a new study.
Researchers from the University of Edinburgh found that people who are born in other parts of the UK and move to Scotland are 20 per cent less likely to die from heart problems.
The precise reason for this difference is not known, but scientists suspect it is because many who move are well-off professionals.
This would make them less likely to develop bad habits associated with heart disease, according to the study's lead author Dr Colin Fischbacher.
However, he added, this would not fully explain the difference in heart attack rates. "Scots seem to have worse rates of heart disease than even our bad lifestyles would explain," said Dr Fischbacher.
"Whatever the reason, the English moving to Scotland seem to escape it."
Read the Article
|
http://www.medheadlines.com/news/11070383.htm
Med Headlines - A study conducted in Cologne, Germany, concluded that pioglitazone (Actos) may lower the risk of serious cardiovascular events for diabetic patients who have kidney disease. The study, which is featured in the January issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, was conducted by Dr. Chistian A. Schneider of the University of Cologne.
Diabetes is a disease in which the body does not produce or properly use insulin. Insulin is a hormone that is needed to convert sugar, starches and other food into energy needed for daily life. The cause of diabetes continues to be a mystery, although both genetics and environmental factors such as obesity and lack of exercise appear to play roles. There are 20.8 million children and adults in the United States, or 7% of the population, who have diabetes. While an estimated 14.6 million have been diagnosed with diabetes, unfortunately, 6.2 million people (or nearly one-third) are unaware that they have the disease.
Ac
Read the Article
|
|
Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Members currently browsing this category:
|
|
|
