Health News:Heart Disease
WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
TUESDAY, Dec. 2 (HealthDay News) — A new study casts more doubt on the safety of the drug Trasylol (aprotinin), used to limit bleeding in patients undergoing High Salt Levels Common in Many Foods
TUESDAY, Dec. 2 (HealthDay News) — There can be plenty of sodium — commonly known as salt — in foods that seem to be health-friendly, and shoppers should know that lower-fat foods can have much more sodium than full-fat products.
That’s the finding of a report published online Monday by Consumer Reports magazine.
Researchers analyzed 37 common supermarket items and found large amounts of sodium in unexpected places, including some products that don’t even taste salty. For example: a cup of Kellogg’s Raisin Brain cereal contains 350 milligrams of sodium; a half-cup of Friendship 1 percent low-fat cottage cheese has 360 milligrams of sodium; and a single Pepperidge Farm Whole Grain White Bagel has 440 milligrams of sodium. Read More
Rapid Response Teams Don’t Cut Hospital Cardiac Arrests, Death Rates
TUESDAY, Dec. 2 (HealthDay News) — Hospital rapid response teams, created to prevent cardiac arrest and deaths in critically ill patients, do not seem to work, a new study finds.
“Many hospitals have implemented these teams over the past decade,” said lead researcher Dr. Paul S. Chan, a cardiologist at the Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Mo. “Earlier studies had shown that rapid response teams may decrease code [cardiac arrest] rates for patients in the hospital.” Read More
Light Drinking Poses No Heart Risk for Women
TUESDAY, Dec. 2 (HealthDay News) — A healthy middle-aged woman can have up to two drinks a day without increasing her risk of the abnormal heartbeat called atrial fibrillation, a new study finds.
A group including Dr. Christine M. Albert, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, mined the data of the large-scale Women’s Health study, looking for a relationship between alcohol intake and atrial fibrillation, the most common abnormal heart rhythm. Read More
Study: Brand-Name Heart, Blood-Pressure Drugs Not Superior to Generics
TUESDAY, Dec. 2, 2008 (Health.com) — People who are taking a generic drug to lower blood pressure or ward off stroke and heart troubles can rest easy. Those low-cost alternatives are just as good as more expensive, brand-name drugs, according to Harvard researchers who published a large new analysis of the available data in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
“We found no evidence that brand-name drugs are superior to generic drugs in terms of the clinical outcomes,” says the review’s lead author, Aaron S. Kesselheim, MD, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. “Doctors should consider generic drugs where appropriate for their patients with cardiovascular disease.” Read More
Vitamin D May Be Essential for Heart Health
MONDAY, Dec. 1, 2008 (Health.com) — Want to avoid a heart attack or stroke? In addition to well-known risk factors like diet and exercise, you may want to keep an eye on your vitamin D levels too.
Low levels of the “sunshine vitamin”—so nicknamed because we get most of our vitamin D from sunlight—may increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, according to a report published Monday in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
About 30% to 50% of American children and adults don’t get enough vitamin D, says coauthor James O’Keefe, MD, cardiologist and director of preventative cardiology at the Mid America Heart Institute, in Kansas City, Mo. Read More
Heavy Traffic Can Be Heartbreaking
SUNDAY, Nov. 30 (HealthDay News) — The decline in highway traffic that was brought on by last summer’s spike in gas prices may be a boon to heart health.
That’s because automobile emissions are among a long list of risk factors for heart disease and stroke.
“There’s a very coherent and consistent body of data that links particulate air pollution with cardiovascular disease and premature death,” said Dr. Ted Schettler, science director of the Science and Environmental Health Network, an environmental and public health advocacy group. Read More
Pricey Heart Test Can’t Replace Traditional Angiogram
WEDNESDAY, Nov. 26, 2008 (Health.com) — An expensive CT scan that uses multiple X-rays to produce spectacular 3–D images of the heart can’t replace tried-and-true coronary angiography for finding blocked blood vessels in chest-pain patients, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine.
But doctors are using the newer test—sometimes because patients ask for it—despite a lack of evidence that it’s helpful, and a possibility that it might be harmful.
“I think it’s being used without clear data of any benefit for the patient,” says Rita Redberg, MD, a professor at the University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine, who wrote an article accompanying the study. Read More
Limited Value Found for First-Generation Heart Pumps
TUESDAY, Nov. 25 (HealthDay News) — The first generation of ventricular assist devices (VADs) — tiny pumps implanted in people with failing hearts — are costly but provide limited benefits, a study finds.
However, the finding should not affect current medical practice, because the devices it describes are already being replaced by second- and third-generation VADS that are far superior, one expert said. Read More
Continuous Blood Pressure Monitoring Predicts Risks
MONDAY, Nov. 24 (HealthDay News) — Round-the-clock blood pressure measurements, especially those during the night, are better predictors of major cardiovascular problems than readings taken in a doctor’s office for people whose high blood pressure is hardest to treat, a Brazilian study shows.
“Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring should be performed during the whole 24 hours, with separate analyses of the daytime and nighttime periods, because it seems that nighttime blood pressures are better cardiovascular risk factors than are daytime blood pressure,” said the report in the Nov. 24 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine by physicians at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Read More
