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Heart Disease

News & Headlines

Super Bowl Stress Can Spark Heart Attacks

February 5, 2010

FRIDAY, Feb. 5 (HealthDay News) — When the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts take the field for Super Bowl XLIV on Sunday, emotions will be running high, so high that some fans can run the risk of a heart attack and even death.

The risk is real, cardiologists say, because studies have shown that when a favorite team loses, angry fans can suffer so much stress that the result is sudden cardiac death.

“If you look at a lot of data from a lot of different sports, there is a spectator risk,” said Dr. Stephen Siegel, a cardiologist at New York University Langone Medical Center. Read More


CT Scans Deemed Best for Checking Heart Arteries

February 2, 2010

TUESDAY, Feb. 2 (HealthDay News) — When a doctor wants to assess the condition of heart arteries without putting a gadget into those blood vessels, the X-ray technology called computed tomography — more commonly called a CT scan — is better than magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, a German review of studies has found. Read More


Herbal Remedies, Heart Drugs a Dangerous Combo

February 1, 2010
ginger-remedies

(Getty Images)
By Sarah Klein

MONDAY, Feb. 1, 2010 (Health.com) — If you take heart medication, you may want to avoid some of the most popular over-the-counter herbal supplements on the market, including ginseng, saw palmetto, and echinacea. These herbal remedies—and many others—can cause potentially serious problems in people taking heart medications, a new report warns. Read More


Burning Heart Tissue Beats Atrial Fibrillation

January 26, 2010

TUESDAY, Jan. 26 (HealthDay News) — When drug therapy can’t control the dangerous heart rhythm disorder called atrial fibrillation, burning out the cardiac tissue responsible for the abnormality will do the job in most cases, a new study has found.

Called catheter ablation, the burning technique ended episodes of abnormal heartbeat and improved the quality of life over a nine-month period for two-thirds of the people in the study who had the procedure, compared with 16 percent of those who were started on a new drug regimen. Read More


Early EKG Seems to Improve Odds After Heart Attack

January 26, 2010

MONDAY, Jan. 25 (HealthDay News) — Researchers report that people with chest pain who are given an electrocardiogram by paramedics before reaching the hospital don’t wait as long to receive treatment to open their arteries.

They often were able to bypass the emergency room and go directly to the cardiac catheterization laboratory for treatment with what’s commonly known as an angioplasty, the study found. Read More


FDA Warns of Heart Risks With Diet Drug

January 21, 2010

THURSDAY, Jan. 21 (HealthDay News) — The weight-loss pill Meridia should not be used by people with a history of heart problems because the drug can increase the risk of heart attack and stroke in such people, U.S. drug regulators said Thursday.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said the drug’s manufacturer, Abbott Laboratories, has agreed to revise Meridia’s label to add the new warning. Read More


Study: Cutting Salt Intake Would Boost Nation’s Health

January 20, 2010
salt-intake

(Getty Images)
By Ray Hainer

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 20, 2010 (Health.com) — If Americans cut their salt intake by just half a teaspoon per day, it would produce public health benefits on par with reducing high cholesterol, smoking, or obesity, a new study has found.

The number of heart attacks in the U.S. could decline by up to 13% if adults could just slash their daily salt intake by 3 grams, or about 1,200 milligrams of sodium, according to the study, which was published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. New cases of heart disease and the number of strokes could also be expected to decline, by up to 11% and 8%, respectively. Read More


Heart-Assist System Approved for Severe Heart Failure

January 20, 2010

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 20 (HealthDay News) — A device that helps the heart’s left ventricle pump blood in people who have severe heart failure but who aren’t candidates for heart transplant has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The HeartMate II is already FDA-approved for people awaiting heart transplant and other “complex” forms of treatment, the agency said in a news release. Read More


Experts Push 7 Steps to Heart Health

January 20, 2010

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 20 (HealthDay News) — Assessing whether you are in poor, moderate or ideal cardiovascular health takes just seconds, thanks to a new American Heart Association measure of health factors and behaviors.

The seven-point checklist is part of a heart association program designed to improve U.S. cardiovascular health by 20 percent and reduce deaths from cardiovascular disease and stroke by 20 percent.

The program for children and adults, published online Jan. 20 in Circulation, includes well-known recommendations on diet, exercise, smoking and other risk factors, but there’s more, said Dr. Clyde W. Yancy, medical director of the Baylor Heart and Vascular Institute and president of the heart association. Read More


Shedding Light on Why Omega-3 Fatty Acids May Help the Heart

January 19, 2010

TUESDAY, Jan. 19 (HealthDay News) — Scientists think they have uncovered at least one of the reasons why omega-3 fatty acids are good for your heart.

The more omega-3 that patients with coronary heart disease consumed, the slower their telomeres shrank. Telomeres are structures at the end of a chromosome that get shorter the more times a cell divides, making them a marker of biological age. Read More




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