Heart Disease: Overview, Causes, Risk Factors, Treatment, Prevention
Black women with SLE develop cardiovascular disease at early age
A recent study by researchers at Penn State College of Medicine found significant racial disparities in the age of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients at the time of hospital admission for cardiovascular disease (CVD) events and CVD-related death. Black women were youngest to both be admitted with CVD and to have an in-hospital death due to CVD. Results of the study appear in the September issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American College of Rheumatology.
Lupus is a chronic autoimmune disease where the body’s own immune system attacks healthy cells and tissues, causing inflammation, extreme fatigue, joint pain, and organ damage. According to the Lupus Foundation of American approximately 1.5 million American in the U.S. have some form of lupus, with SLE representing 70% of all cases. In those patients with SLE, cardiovascular disease is a major cause of illness and mortality with recent studies suggesting 36% of all SLE-related deaths are attributed to ischemic heart disease
Using data from the Health Care Utilization Project (HCUP) Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) database, Lisabeth Scalzi, M.D., M.S., and colleagues analyzed all adult (18 years of age or older) patient records between 2003 and 2006. After eliminating records without complete demographic information, the research team identified 90,444 hospitalizations for SLE patients and roughly 19 million for subjects without SLE. Of those with SLE, 89% were women, compared with 61% in the non-SLE population. The racial composition of the SLE group was: 55% white, 28% black, 12% Hispanic, 2% Asian, and 3% other.
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Moderate chocolate consumption linked to lower risks of heart failure
Middle-aged and elderly Swedish women who regularly ate a small amount of chocolate had lower risks of heart failure risks, in a study reported in Circulation: Heart Failure, a journal of the American Heart Association.
The nine-year study, conducted among 31,823 middle-aged and elderly Swedish women, looked at the relationship of the amount of high-quality chocolate the women ate, compared to their risk for heart failure. The quality of chocolate consumed by the women had a higher density cocoa content somewhat like dark chocolate by American standards. In this study, researchers found:
* Women who ate an average of one to two servings of the high-quality chocolate per week had a 32 percent lower risk of developing heart failure.
* Those who had one to three servings per month had a 26 percent lower risk.
* Those who consumed at least one serving daily or more didn’t appear to benefit from a protective effect against heart failure.
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Free statins with fast food could neutralize heart risk, scientists say
Fast food outlets could provide statin drugs free of charge so that customers can neutralise the heart disease dangers of fatty food, researchers at Imperial College London suggest in a new study published this week.
Statins reduce the amount of unhealthy “LDL” cholesterol in the blood. A wealth of trial data has proven them to be highly effective at lowering a person’s heart attack risk.
In a paper published in the Sunday 15 August issue of the American Journal of Cardiology, Dr Darrel Francis and colleagues calculate that the reduction in cardiovascular risk offered by a statin is enough to offset the increase in heart attack risk from eating a cheeseburger and a milkshake.
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Community heart disease risk programs work: study
Healthy heart programs do work and may cut the risk of heart disease by as much as 1 percent, a review of large community-based programs concludes.
The benefits may sound small “but across a population, that’s quite a large effect,” study co-author Tom Marshall of the University of Birmingham, in England, told Reuters Health.
For every one million people, lead author Dr. Mary Pennant told Reuters Health, the authors estimate that, on average, the programs prevented about 650 heart attacks or strokes per year.
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EMS systems catch cardiac arrests, and a lot more
San Francisco sends out seven ambulances in response to people thought to be in cardiac or respiratory arrest for every one person that is actually in cardiac arrest, according to a new study of the city’s Emergency Medical Dispatch system.
The results reflect an issue faced by emergency departments around the world: how do you decide where to send a limited number of ambulances and paramedics?
“Using resources most effectively - that’s the name of the game,” Dr. Jeff Clawson told Reuters Health. Clawson, who was not involved in the current study, contributed to the first emergency medical dispatch system and is now with the National Academies of Emergency Dispatch in Salt Lake City, Utah.
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Calcium supplements linked to increased risk of heart attack
Calcium supplements, commonly taken by older people for osteoporosis, are associated with an increased risk of a heart attack, finds a study published on bmj.com today.
The results suggest that a reassessment of the role of calcium supplements in osteoporosis management is needed.
Calcium supplements are commonly prescribed for skeletal health, but a recent trial suggested they might increase rates of heart attack (myocardial infarction) and cardiovascular events in healthy older women.
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Heart failure care improved by performance intervention at outpatient cardiology practices
A study led by UCLA tested a new performance intervention to help improve adherence to national guideline-recommended therapies for heart failure patients in an outpatient setting.
Heart failure is a chronic, progressive disease that impacts millions and results in substantial morbidity, mortality and the use of significant healthcare resources and costs. Though scientific research and national guidelines have shown the effectiveness of specific therapies, these treatments are still underused.
Although several programs have helped improve heart failure patient care in the hospital, this is the largest performance improvement intervention on the use of national guideline-recommended therapies in an outpatient clinic setting.
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Preventing heart problems while keeping a cool head
Cholesterol influences the health of our hearts and blood vessels. Conventional treatment attempts to reduce the level of “bad” cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, in the blood plasma. The opposite approach, which involves increasing the concentration of “good” HDL cholesterol using nicotinic acid, has proven unpopular among patients up to now. The reason for this is that treatment with nicotinic acid has an unpleasant but harmless side-effect: the drug makes patients turn quite red in the face. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim have now discovered the mechanism behind this effect, which is known as flushing. This will enable the development of flush inhibitors and thereby the more effective prevention of cardiovascular diseases. (Journal of Clinical Investigation, online version: July 26, 2010)
In addition to a healthy lifestyle, the treatment of lipid metabolic disorders is one of the important measures used in the prevention of cardio-vascular disease. Cholesterol is the key molecule here and LDL cholesterol is the type of cholesterol most widely discussed in this context. This “bad” cholesterol is one of the most important risk factors for the emergence of cardio-vascular diseases. The higher the blood-plasma concentration of LDL cholesterol, the higher an individual’s risk of suffering cardiac arrest, stroke or peripheral vascular disease.
The opposite applies to the “good” HDL cholesterol: in other words, the higher an individual’s level of HDL cholesterol, the lower his or her risk of contracting these diseases. For this reason, the strategy of increasing HDL plasma concentration through medication has become more prevalent of late. The drug on which most hopes are pinned here is nicotinic acid.
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Muscular heart failure patients may have a better chance at survival: U of A study
University of Alberta research has discovered heart failure patients with more muscle have the potential to increase their length of life.
Antigone Oreopoulos, a researcher from the U of A’s School of Public Health, studied 140 patients with heart failure. Study participants underwent a special scan to measure their muscle mass and body fat.
Oreopoulos’ research found that having more muscle was associated with better nutritional status and lower severity of heart failure, while higher body fat was associated with increased inflammation and reduced exercise capacity. This suggests that in patients with heart failure having more muscle mass and lower fat may be beneficial.
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Optimism about heart risks may be a good thing
Men who believe they are at low risk of a heart attack may in fact live longer than those with a more pessimistic outlook, a new study suggests.
Researchers found that of more than 2,800 adults followed for 15 years, men who thought they were at lower-than-average risk of a heart attack were 70 percent less likely than other men to die of heart disease or stroke—even with their objective risks taken into account. This relationship was not seen among women though.
The findings, published in the Annals of Family Medicine, suggest that a dose of optimism may be helpful in controlling heart disease risk. An awareness of one’s heart disease risk factors can certainly be a good thing. But problems may arise when people become fearful about their odds of suffering a heart attack, according to lead researcher Dr. Robert E. Gramling, of the University of Rochester in New York.
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