Cooking heart-healthy food isn’t so hard if you know how.

So, the American Heart Association is offering free classes to encourage people to cook low-cost, heart-healthy meals at home.

The demonstrations will be offered Nov. 29 from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Baltimore International Culinary College, 210 S. Central Ave. in Baltimore. There will be free parking, prizes, cookbooks and tastings.

To RSVP, contact Faye Brooks at 410-637-4534 by Tuesday. For more information, here’s the website.

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Categories: Cardiovascular Health
        

Let’s talk about sex …. among older married individuals.

New research released at the Gerontological Society of America meeting found that the more often older married people engage in sexual activity, the more likely they are to be happy in their lives and in their marriage.

Seems like a no brainer, right?

 Adrienne Jackson, an assistant professor at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, said the study is important because it can help open up dialogue between healthcare providers and older Americans on barriers that may limit and prevent older adults from engaging from sexual activity.

Some gerontologists say many doctors do not broach this issue with their older patients. Creating awareness of the issue can help develop sexual health interventions for the aging population, Jackson said.

Jackson’s findings were based on a 2004-2008 public opinion poll of a nationally representative sample of English and Spanish-speaking adults living in the U.S. Based on the responses of 238 married individuals 65 and older, Jackson found frequency of sexual activity was a “significant predictor” of both general and marital happiness.

Here are some of the findings:

Forty percent who reported no sexual activity in the last 12 months said they were very happy with life in general. 

Sixty percent who had sex more than once a month said they were very happy.

About 59 percent who reported no sexual activity during the same time period said they were very happy with their marriage 

Eighty percent who had sex more than once a month said they were very happy with their marriage.

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Categories: Cardiovascular Health
        

About 137,000 Americans die of stroke every years, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wants everyone to know how to reduce the risk.

A stroke happens when a clot blocks blood to the brain or when a blood vessel in the brain bursts.
Just ahead of World Stroke Day tomorrow, the CDC says there are lifestyle changes and medicines that can make a difference.

“Someone in the United States has a stroke every 40 seconds and while that is a statistic to some, it’s a life abruptly changed for the person who suffered the stroke and the person’s family,” said Dr. Thomas Frieden, CDC director, in a statement.

The CDC advises: aspirin for people at risk, blood pressure control, cholesterol management and smoking cessation.

Strokes can cause death or significant disability including paralysis, speech difficulties and emotional problems. New treatments can less the damage is given immediately. Call 911 if you experience sudden numbness or weakness of the face, arm or leg, especially on one side of the body; sudden confusion, trouble speaking or understanding; sudden trouble seeing in one or both eyes; sudden trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance or coordination; or sudden, severe headache with no known cause.

The CDC reports that there are more than 2 million heart attacks and strokes a year. Treating them and other vascular diseases is responsible for about $1 of every $6 healthcare dollars.
A new Million Hearts campaign joins public, private and nonprofit groups in an effort to prevent 1 million heart attacks and stroke in the next 5 years.

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Categories: Cardiovascular Health
        

Doctors always say that if you don’t smoke, eat well, exercise regularly and limit alcohol you’ll live longer. Now the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has put an actual statistic behind that advice.

A new study shows that those who engage in all four healthy behaviours were 63 percent less likely to die early, compared to those who did none of those things. Not smoking was the most protective, the CDC said.

“If you want to lead a longer life and feel better, you should adopt healthy behaviors– not smoking, getting regular physical activity, eating healthy, and avoiding excessive alcohol use,” said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, CDC director, said in a statement. The alcohol limited was two drinks a day for men and one for women.

Specifically, those who did all four healthy things were:

+66 percent less likely to die early from cancer,
+65 percent less likely to die early from cardiovascular disease and
+57 percent less likely to die early from other causes.

Researchers looked at data from the CDC’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey who were recruited from 1988 to 1994 and followed until 2006. The study, called Low Risk Lifestyle Behaviors and All-Cause Mortality: Findings from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III Mortality Study, was published in the American Journal of Public Health.

The study showed only a small percentage of U.S. adults has adopted such a healthy lifestyle. But the CDC pointed out that significant progress has been made on smoking.

Baltimore Sun file photo/Amy Davis

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Categories: Cardiovascular Health, Consumer health, Healthy Living, geriatrics
        

Johns Hopkins Hospital has begun testing a new device designed to replace blocked aortic valves in patients who can’t have major open-heart surgery because they are elderly or have other serious medical conditions.

Surgery for the implant is minimally invasive, and may be the only hope for some patients. Called CoreValue, the device is placed inside a damaged valve through a catheter threaded through a leg artery to the aorta, the heart’s main blood vessel.

It is a self-expanding compressed metal scaffold with three flexible tissue leaflets. A sheath covering the valve is removed and the leaflets can then open and close and direct blood flow around the body.

The first two patients -- aged 84 and 90 -- had their procedures July 8. Already approved in Europe, reports show that it has allowed blood flow to more than double.

“The people most likely to benefit from this approach are incredibly weak, often bedridden because of their severely narrowed, aortic valve,” said interventional cardiologist Dr. Jon Resar, an associate professor and director of Hopkin’s adult cardiac catheterization laboratory.

He and cardiac surgeon Dr. John Conte are leading the Hopkins part of the study, which includes 40 medical centers. The device maker, Minneapolis-based Medtronic, is funding the tests.

About 1,200 are expected to get the devices during the two-year study. Doctors note that it won’t be a cure-all for everyone. Up to 30 percent may die within a year from disease-related complications. But without the device, and a drug-only treatment, up to half could die within a year.

Conte estimate that more than 300,000 elderly American have severe aortic stenosis, or narrowing, but traditional open-heart surgery is too risky. Debilitated patients can get immediate relief from chest pain, he said.

For more information on the trial, go here.

Photo courtesy of Medtronic

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Categories: Cardiovascular Health
        

Many metro areas around the country, including Baltimore-Washington, have made improvements in air quality in the last year, but half the nation still has unhealthy level of air pollution, according to the annual State of the Air report from the American Lung Association.

The bad air that some 154.5 million people breathe contains ozone (smog) or particle pollution (soot) from smokestacks and tailpipes that can cause early death, asthma exacerbations, coughing and wheezing, heart attacks, strokes and emergency room visits.

The good news, the lung association said, was that in the last year all metro area surrounding the 25 cities most polluted by ozone showed improvement – Baltimore-Washington-Northern Virginia, with 8.4 million people, is No. 14 on this list, up a spot from last year. And all but two of the 25 cities most polluted with year-round particle pollution improved. Only 11, however, of those most polluted by short-term spokes in particle pollution saw improvement.

“State of the Air tells us that the progress the nation has made cleaning up coal-fired power plants, diesel emissions and other pollution sources has drastically cut dangerous pollution from the air we breathe,” said Charles D. Connor, American Lung Association president and chief executive. “We owe our cleaner air to the Clean Air Act.”

The lung association decried efforts in Congress to weaken the act, which the Environmental Protection Agency credits with saving more than 160,000 lives last year.

The group used the color-coated air quality index that warns the public of bad air quality days used by the EPA. It considers ozone and particle pollution, the most widespread types of air pollution. The data in the report, which can be found at stateoftheair.org, is from 2007-2009.
The cleanest cities were Honolulu and Santa Fe-Espanola, N.M. Most of the dirtiest were cities in California, lead by Bakersfield and Los Angeles-Riverside.

In Maryland, Baltimore City and Garrett County were the only two areas without a failing grade for high ozone days. And only Harford and Frederick made the list of cleanest counties for short-term particle pollution.

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Categories: Cardiovascular Health, Consumer health, News roundup
        

Recent stories of sudden cardiac death among athletes -- including a Harford Community College freshman and a Michigan high school player who both collapsed on the court – have cardiologists at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center discussing what families should do.

A recent study in the journal Circulation found that about one in 44,000 National Collegiate Athletic Association athletes has sudden cardiac death each year. Survival is low for victims outside of hospitals, the American Heart Association says.

The Hopkins doctors say most cases in young athletes stem from underlying heart conditions, so it should prompt medical evaluation for the whole family when one member suffers.

“Because several types of inherited, and often lethal, heart conditions can manifest themselves in sudden death or fainting during exercise, the story doesn't end with the child being successfully brought back to life or with the postmortem results,” Dr. Anne Murphy, a pediatric cardiologist at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center, said in a statement.

Any child with chest pain or fainting that occurs during exercise should see a pediatric cardiologist, the doctors said. Tests can reveal abnormalities that can lead to trouble.

And any child with a family history of sudden cardiac death not caused by common coronary health disease should also see a pediatric cardiologist.

But what about healthy kids in healthy families?

Continue reading "Athletes' sudden cardiac deaths spark discussion" »

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Categories: Cardiovascular Health
        

Twenty three hospitals in the state, including several in the Baltimore area, have been designated as “cardiac interventional centers” by the state emergency management system. That means if you’re having the most common type of heart attack that the ambulance will take you to one of these places.

They have demonstrated that they can effectively handle those experiencing an ST-elevation myocardial infarction, or STEMI. A STEMI occurs when an artery supplying blood to the heart is suddenly blocked.

The designation is one of many that the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems has established. Others are for trauma, burns, spinal cord injuries, pediatrics, eye, hand/upper extremity, hyperbaric, neurotrauma, perinatal and stroke.

The cardiac designation is a result of a recommendation made in 2007 by the American Heart Association, which was aiming to improve outcomes for STEMI sufferers. The association estimates that About 400,000 Americans experience a STEMI every year. In Maryland, approximately 5,600 do. And only half call 911 and are transported by ambulance to a hospital that performs the recommended procedure, balloon angioplasty, to improve the blood supply.

With most heart attacks, people feel discomfort in the center of the chest that last more than a few minutes or that goes away and returns. It can feel like pressure, squeezing or pain. There may also be pain in the arm, back, neck, jaw or stomach and shortness of breath. Some sweat, feel nauseated and lightheaded. The emergency officials say to call for help if you have these symptoms.

The cardiac hospitals in the area include: Anne Arundel Medical Center, Baltimore Washington Medical Center, Carroll Hospital Center, Franklin Square Hospital Center, Howard County General Hospital, The Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Sinai Hospital of Baltimore, St. Agnes Hospital, St. Joseph Medical Center, Union Memorial Hospital, University of Maryland Medical Center and Upper Chesapeake Medical Center.

The hospitals were all designated for cardiac care three years, and will need to be renewed after that. The designations for hospitals in other categories last from one to five years.

For a list of all the cardiac hospitals and the other trauma and specialty hospitals, click here.

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Categories: Cardiovascular Health
        

Men who used a cardiac drug called digoxin had a 24 percent lower risk for prostate cancer, which could potentially lead to using that drug or similar ones to treat that cancer, Johns Hopkins scientists say.

Digoxin is made from the foxglove plant used for centuries in folk medicine and for congestive heart failure and rhythm abnormalities. It’s now a leading candidate among 3,000 screened by the Hopkins researchers for prostate cancer.

Researcher emphasize the drug isn’t proven to prevent prostate cancer and it has significant side effects. “This is not a drug you’d give to health people,” said Elizabeth Platz, professor of epidemiology, oncology, and urology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

But it shows promise for treatment: Platz did an epidemiologic study after collaborators in the Kimmel Cancer Center whittled the list of potential cancer drug candidates down to 38 in their lab. All of the drugs reduced prostate cancer cell growth by at least 50 percent. The dual approaches reduced the possibility that results were due to chance.

The most effective drug was one used to treat alcoholism and not widely used, so they went with the heart drug, which was used enough on people to be studied. The data came from 47,000 men aged 40-75 in a Harvard study from 1986-2006. About 5,000 cases of cancer were diagnosed after 1986 and tose on digoxin since the start of the study had a 24 percent lower risk of getting the disease.

The drug alters enzymatic pathways for sodium and potassium in heart cells and may do the same for prostate cancer. The next step is testing the effect on prostate cancer cells. The findings are published in the April 3 issue of Cancer Discovery.

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Cancer, Cardiovascular Health
        

An estimated 1.2 million Americans have aortic aneurysms, a bulge in the body’s main artery. They kill approximately 15,000 every year when they burst and people bleed internally.

Many don’t even make it to the hospital, and those that do, still often die -- this is what recently killed U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrook.

That’s why it’s important to get screened if you have risk factors – being over 60 and a white male with a family history of heart trouble are the most common sufferers. And that’s why it’s important to have them repaired if necessary.

Major surgery has long been the fix for such problems, but less invasive stents have been growing in use over the last decade. And doctors at Anne Arundel Medical Center have just started using a next-generation device that can conform to more patients’ anatomies.

The hospital says it could make stents the standard of care of abdominal aortic aneurysms, when the bulge is in the belly verses the chest.

The stent was developed by Medtronic and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in December. A stent is a flexible wire fame sewn into a specially woven fabric tube. It’s treaded through blood vessels from the groin. The graft is expanded at the site of the aneurysm.

The center says that stents cut hospital stays (of at least five days) and recovery time (of months).

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Categories: Cardiovascular Health
        

This Saturday, Baltimore Washington Medical Center is sponsoring Heartbeat for Health, which will offer all kinds of free activities centered around prevention of heart disease.

There will be chances to try country line dance, belly dancing, hip-hop and Zumba presented by local studios. And also will be yoga and resistance training demonstrations from local fitness experts.

Also, there will be cholesterol, bone density, foot and blood pressure screenings, and educational displays for smoking cessation and heart health.

Refreshments and promotional items will also be available, as well cooking demonstrations and health snack sampling from Deliciously Nutritious.

Registration is not required at the event, from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. at the Severna Park Community Center,  623 Baltimore-Annapolis Boulevard in Severna Park.

For more information or for a free calendar of events of free screenings and programs at Baltimore Washington Medical Center, call 410-787-4375.

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Categories: Cardiovascular Health
        

Three out of four devices recalled in the last five years because of serious risks were given an expedited review by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or were exempt from review, according to a new study.

The report says that medical devices are either given a premarket approval, which requires clinical testing and inspections, or they are put through the speedier 510(k) process because they are deemed similar to a device already on the marketed and are considered to have low or moderate risk.

Diana M. Zuckerman, of the National Research Center for Women & Families in Washington, and her colleagues looked at device recalls from 2005 to 2009 and determined which approval process was used or if they were exempt from FDA review.

They found 113 recalled devices that could cause serious health problems or death. Twenty one (19 percent) had the more rigorous review and 80 (71 percent) had the expedited one and eight were exempt. They also found some that by law should have gone through the tougher review. The most common high-risk device recalled was heart related.

The report authors said the 510(k) review has been criticized by public health advocates, other federal agencies and medical journals. The courts have also noted shortcomings in the process. But the authors said Congress hasn’t given the FDA enough funding to give the higher scrutiny to every device.

The report, posted online and planned for the June 14 issue of Archive of Internal Medicine, concluded that Congressional action or major regulatory changes were due.

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Categories: Cardiovascular Health, Consumer health
        

In an effort to draw attention to the toll of strokes and cardiovascular disease, a group of researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles decided to take a look at the health of Oscar-level actors.

They found that Hollywood isn’t immune from strokes and heart disease – which are among the leading causes of death and disability in the nation.

The findings, presented at the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference in Los Angeles last week, showed a tremendous impact on the actors’ careers.

“Since this is the first time the ISC is being held in Los Angeles, we thought it was an appropriate occasion to investigate the frequency and impact of stroke among leading Hollywood actors,” said Hannah Smith, a staff research associate at the UCLA Stroke Center, in a statement. “By documenting the toll that stroke and myocardial infarction have exacted on stars like Kirk Douglas and Grace Kelly, we hope to illustrate the damage that cardiovascular disease can cause.”

They looked at best actor and best actress Oscar nominees from 1927 through 2009, and of the 409  nominated over the 82-year period:

+30 (7.3 percent) suffered strokes and 39 (9.5 percent) suffered heart attacks.
+The average age of nominees at their first stroke was 67.
+More women suffered strokes than men and 20 percent of the total suffered fatal strokes.
+Performers' annual movie/television appearances declined an average of 73 percent during the three years following a stroke or heart attack.

The heart and stroke associations report that stroke is the fourth leading killer in the country. Some 795,000 people have a new or recurrent stroke each year. The groups say it’s preventable by controlling blood pressure and cholesterol, quitting smoking, exercising and eating a healthy diet.

See a list of those who have had a stroke on the next page.

Continue reading "Hollywood not immune from strokes, heart disease" »

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Categories: Cardiovascular Health
        

Heart disease is not just a man’s disease. It’s also the top killer of women in Baltimore and across the country, and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake wants to make sure everyone knows it.

She joined with the Baltimore City Health Department, the local office of the American Heart Association and St. Agnes Hospital at City Hall today for that purpose – and to announce upcoming American Heart Month activities.

The mayor wants everyone, especially women, to step up their efforts this February to live healthier lives. She notes that heart disease kills, causes disability and is a major contributor to the 20-year life expectancy gap among rich and poor city neighborhoods.

“Many efforts are underway to build a stronger, healthier Baltimore, such as improving food access in our neighborhoods,” said Mayor Rawlings-Blake in a statement. “There are simple steps we all can take to make our hearts stronger: Cut your salt intake, make healthy food choices, exercise more often, quit smoking, and schedule regular blood pressure and cholesterol screenings.”

The mayor and other noted that heart disease is largely preventable. But more women die of cardiovascular disease than the five leading causes of death combined, including all forms of cancer. The disease kills about 450,000 women every years, according to the American Heart Association.

The groups are calling on women to “Go Red” to raise awareness on designated days. That means wearing the color red and reminding everyone to make healthy choices such as increasing physical activity, changing diets and checking cholesterol levels.

See event listing on the next page.

Continue reading "Baltimore mayor kicks off heart health month " »

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Categories: Cardiovascular Health
        

Nearly a third of all adults have high blood pressure and another third have high cholesterol, but most aren't being treated, leaving them at risk for developing heart attacks, strokes and related vascular diseases, according to new data out from the CDC.

Half of American adults with high blood pressure and two thirds of those with high cholesterol aren't getting adequate treatment, the agency reports.

And it's not lack of health insurance keeping people from the doctor. Some 80 percent of people with uncontrolled hypertension or high cholesterol have some form of coverage, the CDC reports.

So what's the problem? Well, while patients may have insurance, they may not have regular access to medical care, or the counseling and support needed to care for these chronic conditions. Others don't go to the doctor for follow-up visits and about half just stop taking their medicine all together.

Heart attack, stroke and other vascular diseases kill more 800,000 Americans a year and cost the nation about $300 billion a year in medical costs. Thing is, medications can control high blood pressure and high cholesterol before they become serious, the CDC urges.

The full report analyzed government data from 11,100 patients from 2005 to 2008 and found 68 million people with high blood pressure and 71 million with high cholesterol.

What exactly does it mean to have high blood pressure or high cholesterol, you ask? For blood pressure, a reading of 120 over 80 is considered normal and  140 over 90 indicates it needs to be managed. For cholesterol, the LDL or "bad cholesterol" is the key figure. It should be less than 160 for people without heart disease or diabetes, no more than 130 for people with two or more other risk factors for heart disease and below 100 for people with heart disease or diabetes. 

Continue reading "Americans with high blood pressure, cholesterol go untreated" »

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Categories: Cardiovascular Health
        

Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine have found that a new highly sensitive blood test may help doctors predict a person’s risk of heart failure much earlier than tests allow now.

The study is being presented today at the Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Unlike existing tests, this new one measures troponin T, a marker for the biological process of cell death that leads to heart failure, at such low levels they can be detected in people who have no symptoms.

The new test found the market in two-thirds of seniors without symptoms. The blood samples were stored and subjects were followed to see if they developed heart disease. 

“We found that the higher the level of troponin, the greater the individual was at risk for symptoms of heart failure or death from cardiovascular disease over the next 10-15 years. The meaning of these elevated levels was unknown until this point,” said Dr. Christopher deFilippi, the principal investigator and a cardiologist at the University of Maryland Medical Center and a professor of medicine, in a statement.

People 65 and older are most likely to suffer heart failure, but without symptoms it’s tough to determine if they are at risk for heart disease – the top killer in the United States.
If doctors know a person is at risk, they could intervene. And the people could change their habits.

Researchers also say more study is needed to confirm the findings before a test could become available. But if you knew, would you change your ways?

Posted by Meredith Cohn at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Cardiovascular Health
        

Teens, caught up in sports and friends, probably aren't giving too much thought to their heart disease risks.

But doctors and officials at Johns Hopkins and in the city school system want them to learn about their risk factors -- and hopefully, change their bad habits are engrained.

They plan to screen some 2,000 kids this weekend at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute from 9 a.m.-2 p.m. The free screening will look at obesity, high blood pressure and family history of disease, among other things.

The program expands on one Hopkins started with school athlete. The doctors screen the kids for heart problems that could prove fatal on the field.

Wish someone took at look your heart health at 13?

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Categories: Cardiovascular Health
        

The American Heart Association this week officially changed its guidelines for CPR.

Officials say chest compression should be done first by non-professionals and professional rescuers on victims of cardiac arrest – not breathing.

The guidelines were published in Circulation, the Journal of the American Health Association, and they are an update to 2005 guidelines. The guidelines now switch from ABC (Airway-Breathing-Compressions) to CAB (compressions-Airway-Breathing).

“For more than 40 years, CPR training has emphasized the ABCs of CPR, which instructed people to open a victim’s airway by tilting their head back, pinching the nose and breathing into the victim’s mouth, and only then giving chest compressions,” said Dr. Michael Sayre, co-author of the guidelines and chairman of the American Heart Association’s Emergency Cardiovascular Care Committee, in a statement.

“This approach was causing significant delays in starting chest compressions, which are essential for keeping oxygen-rich blood circulating through the body. Changing the sequence from A-B-C to C-A-B for adults and children allows all rescuers to begin chest compressions right away.”

Now, officials compressions should be started immediately on anyone who is unresponsive and not breathing normally. Breathing delays up to 30 critical seconds the compressions that get blood to the health and brain.

One note, this advice is for adults and children, not infants. Give compressions at a rate of at least 100 times a minute. Keep at it until help arrives.

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Categories: Cardiovascular Health
        

When Dick Cheney got a new piece of equipment to keep his heart going, we wrote about how it works.

The device spins rather than pumps, so when we talked to Hopkins transplant doc Stuart D. Russell, he noted that means Cheney now officially has no pulse.

Of course, Picture of Health didn't joke about the former vice president's life-saving surgery. But that didn't stop Comedy Central. See this Stephen Colbert clip (item on Cheney is in the third segment):

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Categories: Cardiovascular Health
        

After five heart attacks, former Vice President Dick Cheney’s ticker has taken a beating. Last week, he said that he underwent surgery to install a new heart pump.

What he got was a LVAD, or left ventricular assist device, which is made for people like Cheney who need a little help pumping blood because their hearts aren’t keeping up.

The pump runs something like a drill bit, continuously rotating at 9,000 rotations per minute rather than squeezing and releasing, so Cheney now officially has no pulse, according to Dr. Stuart D. Russell, chief of heart failure and transplantation at Johns Hopkins’ Comprehensive Transplant Center.

But what he’s likely getting in return, says Russell, who is not involved in Cheney’s care, is a better quality and quantity of life.

Cheney said in a statement that he had “increasing congestive heart failure,” which afflicts about 5 million Americans whose hearts have weakened over time. In most candidates for the device, the amount of have blood squeezed out with each beat is significantly reduced – normal is 55 percent or greater and Cheney was likely more in the 10-15 percent range. That makes the people grow tired quickly after doing minor chores such as dressing.

Pumps have been around for about three decades, but this version by Thoratech Corp., at about five years old, gives people a 60 percent survival rates after 2 years. There’s not a lot of data on this pump after that. Drug therapy, in contrast, gives patients about a 10 percent survival rate.

“That’s a lot better than 10 percent on the pills,” Russell said. “Some would say going from 10 percent to 60 percent is phenomenal.”

Some patients use the device, Russell said, as a bridge to a transplant. But Cheney, at 69, might not be a candidate. In that case it’s a “destination therapy,” meaning this is his treatment destination.

But Russell says that he could live 4,5 or 6 years with this pump and new ones already are in development. And “6 years for a 69-year-old who has had 5 heart attacks is significant,” he said.

Russell said those who get this pump are generally in the hospital 14 to 21 days and start to feel normal after two to three months. The device requires an energy source, so the people have a line coming out of their skin near their belly that need to be hooked up to a battery pack during the day -- it can be worn holster-style if Cheney prefers. It also needs to be plugged into an energy source at night.

It can’t get submerged, so wearers can’t swim but they can shower. They also need to take anti-coagulation drugs. They are also at increased risk of infection and gastrointestinal tract infections.

“People generally can get back to a fairly normal lifestyle,” Russell said. “The vast majority do well.”

Graphic reprinted permission from Thoratec Corp.

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Categories: Cardiovascular Health
        

High blood pressure is so common, it affects nearly a third of the nation's adult population. A new study offers a good news-bad news picture of the disease: About half of the 65 million Americans with high blood pressure are controlling it, reaching a nationwide goal set nearly a decade ago to combat the illness. But the prevalence of high blood pressure has remained unchanged in recent years, according to research published in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association.

Back in 1988, about 27 percent of adults controlled their high blood pressure, according to the study's analysis of government data of nearly 43,000 people. The increase in those who got the illness under control is notable, say researchers, but more must be done to prevent high blood pressure, which can lead to damaged arteries, heart attack and stroke.

The research suggests more people are controlling their hypertension with medicine, not lifestyle changes. But if prevention is going to take hold, people need to change their diets and exercise, says an accompanying editorial by Dr. Aram V. Chobanian of Boston University Medical Center:

Although lifestyle changes can reduce [blood pressure] and the risk of developing hypertension, successful behavioral approaches to modify lifestyles on a population basis have lagged far behind the advances in the drug treatment of hypertension. Societal changes such as the rapid growth of the fast food industry, increased availability of prepared foods, and decreases in physical activity have had major adverse effects on cardiovascular risk factors.  Programs to incorporate healthier lifestyles into daily life need to be intensified on a national basis to deal with not only hypertension but also obesity, diabetes, dyslipidemias, and cardiovascular diseases.

Continue reading "More Americans have high blood pressure under control" »

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Cardiovascular Health
        

Barbara Walters' heart surgery to replace her aortic valve is serious surgery, but it's not an uncommon procedure. About 18,000 such surgeries took place in the U.S. 2007, according to  the American Heart Association.

But what exactly is the surgery and why is it needed? We caught up with Dr. John Conte, associate director in the division of cardiac surgery at Johns Hopkins, to answer some basic questions. 

What is aortic valve surgery?
The aortic valve is the main valve leading out of the heart. Surgery is performed to repair or replace it.

What is the aortic valve replaced with?
There are many different types of valves. Bioprosthetic valves are made from living tissue. Specifically pig heart valves and cow pericardium (the sac around the heart of all mammals). Mechanical valves are made of a carbon-based metal. In simplest terms, bioprosthetic valves can wear out in 10 to 20 years but don't need blood thinners. Mechanical valves last forever but demand blood thinners your entire life.

What are the reasons for replacing it?
They are replaced because they become stenotic, meaning the openings are too tight, and blood has a hard time getting out of the heart. Or the valves leak and blood goes back into the heart.

How are such valve problems detected?
Usually they are detected when the patient becomes short of breath, becomes tired easily or develops chest pain.

Are the causes of aortic valve problems genetic or due to lifestyle, or both?
The cause is usually wear and tear which causes the valve to calcify. It can also be caused by inherited traits and congenital anomalies.

What's the recovery time and how safe is the procedure?
The recovery time is usually measured in weeks, following a hospital stay of a few days to a week. It is a very safe and good procedure that is easy to reproduce.

AP photo

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Cardiovascular Health
        

From local health departments to big-city governments, everyone's talking about reducing Americans' love affair with salt. Today, the influential Institute of Medicine says too much salt consumption is a threat to public health and suggests in a new report that the Food and Drug Administration regulate the mineral.

The FDA told The Washington Post it plans to do just that with a campaign to reduce the amount of salt in processed foods. 

But the FDA backed off the claims in The Post, which quotes anonymous sources. In a statement issued this afternoon, the FDA says it doesn't have plans to do so at the moment. Instead, the agency says it plans to review the IOM report, which recommends that the FDA set new standards for how much salt restaurants, food manufacturers and food service companies can add to food.

Either way, the IOM report is clear about what the FDA should do. Recommended daily sodium intake is 2,300 milligrams -- or about a teaspoon. But Americans consume about a teaspoon and a half, or 3,400 milligrams, according to the report written by a panel of health experts. They suggest that intake be ratcheted down to 1,500 milligrams. People over 50 need even less, they said.

The goal isn't to ban salt, the panel says. Rather, the idea is to limit the harmful effects of consuming too much. Excessive salt intake increases the risks of hypertension, heart disease and stroke. 

Continue reading "Should the FDA crack down on salt?" »

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 2:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Cardiovascular Health, Diet and exercise
        

It's no surprise that people who lack health insurance often put off routine medical care. But a new study suggests that patients with financial difficulties will even delay seeking care in an emergency such as a heart attack.

The research, appearing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, examined some 3,700  patients in 24 U.S. hospitals between 2005 and 2008. Nearly half of uninsured patients waited more than 6 hours after the start of symptoms to arrive at the hospital, compared to 40 percent of insured patients. 

Even patients who had insurance -- but who were worried about money -- waited longer to seek care, the study found. 

In general, of patients who had insurance, but reported financial problems 83 percent said they avoided medical care, 56 percent said they didn't take medications and 13 percent said they had trouble getting health care services because of cost.

When it comes to treating cardiac arrest, time is everything.  "A victim's chance of survival is reduced 7 to 10 percent for every minute that passes without CPR or defibrillation," Dr. Leigh Vinocur, an emergency physician at the University of Maryland Medical Center, told me a few months ago for a story I wrote about a fatal house fire. "Few attempts are successful after 10 minutes or so."

The authors, of Tilburg University in the Netherlands and several research centers in the U.S., said the findings suggest that patients with concerns about money are also likely to delay seeking care for other common medical conditions.

AP photo

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Cardiovascular Health
        

Former President Bill Clinton had two stents placed in his arteries yesterday after being hospitalized with chest pain.

What's a stent, you ask?

The mesh metal tubes work as a scaffolding to keep clogged arteries propped open. The procedure is so common, about 1 million are done each year in the United States.

We gave you the scoop on stents, about cardiologists' debates over when they are necessary and a local controversy about hundreds of patients who may have received stents when they didn't need them.

And last month in this live chat with Dr. Claudia Hochberg, an interventional cardiologist at Boston Medical Center, to answer your questions on the ABC's of stents.

Here were a couple of the most common question and answers: (Or replay the entire chat with this link.)

Q: Are there different kinds of stents? What's the best kind to get?

A: Claudia Hochberg:
There are different kids of stents and the type of stent that is best for a particular patient depends on multiple factors. Your doctor will decide what type of stent to use based on your clinical history, the lesion type and location and the your ability to take blood thinning medicines after the procedure. Stents basics are that there are two types, drug coated stents and bare metal stents (just metal with no medicine)

Q: What percent blockage in an artery is considered the cutoff for intervention (need for stent)?
 
A: Claudia Hochberg:
Generally speaking, a blockage of less than 70% is not thought to be hemodynamically significant and therefore is not treated with stents. The exception to this is a blockage in the left main coronary artery which is a big vessel that branches into the two arteries that feed the left side of the heart. There a blockage of 50% or greater demands treatment (and that treatment has historically been surgical)

Got more questions? Ask away and we'll get them answered.

AP photo

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Cardiovascular Health
        

Dr. Claudia Hochberg, an interventional cardiologist at Boston Medical Center, will be here at noon today to answer your questions on coronary stents. You can leave questions in the comments field in advance, or check back at 11:45 a.m., when the chat interface (below) will be open for questions. We'll actually begin our chat at noon on the dot.

Posted by Carla Correa at 9:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Cardiovascular Health
        

Adults with high levels of artery-clogging "bad" cholesterol decreased by a third between 1999 and 2006, new research finds.

At the same time, though, researchers found that many adults still have very high cholesterol levels and are not being treated for them. This, despite the widespread use of drugs known as statins, which lower bad cholesterol levels.

While the use of such medications increased from 8 percent to 13.4 percent over the study period, screening rates remained unchanged at less than 70 percent, the researchers write in the article published in today's Journal of the American Medical Association,

Researchers from the CDC studied 7,044 men and women 20 years and older and examined their levels of "bad" cholesterol, or LDL.

Overall, the prevalence of people with bad cholesterol decreased from 31.5 percent in 1999 to 21 percent in 2006. But about two-thirds of people in the highest risk categories -- susceptible to heart attack and other problems -- were not on medication, the authors found.

Why are so many people at risk not getting treated?

An accompanying editorial suggests that screening guidelines are too confusing and need to be simplified. Doctors evaluate patients with a fixed threshold of LDL levels. As a result, doctors sometimes miss people with high risk factors for developing heart disease even if their LDL levels aren't high enough to meet the threshold. In another editorial, other experts suggest factoring age into the equation -- offering generic statins (cheaper than the name brands and therefore more accessible) to all adults above a particular age.

Baltimore Sun photo

Continue reading "Levels of "bad" cholesterol on the decline" »

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 7:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Cardiovascular Health
        

Smoking bans--love them or hate them--appear to reduce the risk of heart attack and heart disease of nonsmokers, a major government report concludes.

It's a finding that many researchers had expected. As smoking bans proliferate around the globe, health officials' major argument for implementing them is to prevent illness in non-smokers. 

The report, from the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academies of Sciences, is based on a major review of numerous studies on smoking and long-term cardiovascular problems. 

Eleven key studies of smoking bans in the US, Italy, Canada Scotland showed repeatedly a reduction of heart attack rates in places after bans had been instituted. It was hard to say precisely how much the risk decreased, since the studies varied in their methods. But the range was between 6 percent and 47 percent decrease in the incidence of heart attack in places with smoke-free policies.

The bottom line, according to the report: smoking bans work.

Continue reading "Study: smoking bans cut heart attack risk" »

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 7:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)
Categories: Cardiovascular Health
        

Congratulations to Alan C. Reese. His question has been chosen by a panel of distinguished judges (OK, Kelly and me) to be answered as part of Picture of Health's inaugural "Ask the Expert" feature. And as the first, he wins our special prize, a one-year membership at Brick Bodies. (Cue the confetti).

Dr. Richard A. Desi, a gastroenterologist at the Institute for Digestive Health and Liver Disease at Baltimore's Mercy Medical Center is our expert today.

Q: How do you distinguish between heartburn and a heart attack?

A: "That's actually not a very easy question," says Dr. Desi. "It's a difficult question for patients and for doctors."

One key, he said, is to look for what are considered the classic symptoms of each. With heartburn, burning sensations are likely to radiate from the center of the stomach and into the chest. Typically those symptoms will improve when you take an antacid and worsen when you lie down. It can be set off by a meal.

With a heart attack, the common sensation is left-sided chest pain, radiating down the left arm with numbness or tingling. It can be accompanied by shortness of breath and can be set off by physical exertion.

But sometimes, Desi says, the typical symptoms don't appear and sometimes, they will overlap, making it hard to know the difference. His advice: If you've never had the pain before, have it checked out by a doctor. "It's probably something that you shouldn't be gambling with," he says, considering that heart disease is the No. 1 killer in the United States.

He says some people are sent to his office from the emergency room, where they raced after thinking they were having a heart attack only to be told it was acid reflux instead. "It's better to err on the side of being a little bit embarrassed," he says.

To read more, try this explanation from the Mayo Clinic.

Photo of Dr. Desi/Mercy Medical Center

Posted by Stephanie Desmon at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Cardiovascular Health
        

Two new studies by Harvard researchers affirm what doctors have been trying to drill into us for years: adopt a healthy lifestyle and you'll keep your heart healthy.

Sure, to all you diet and fitness buffs out there, this may not be earth shattering news. Still, the studies, which appear in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association drive home the link between behavior and health.

In the first paper, researchers used the Nurses Health Study -- a long-running research project -- to examine the connection between lifestyle and the risk of developing high blood pressure in some 84,000 women between 1991 and 2005. They measured how well the nurses followed advice on six lifestyle factors such as exercising for 30 minutes a day, having a body mass index of less than 25 and even drinking moderate alcohol. Women who followed all six, had about an 80 percent lower risk of developing high blood pressure than those who did not.

Continue reading "Prevention key to heart health" »

Posted by Kelly Brewington at 8:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Cardiovascular Health