Peripheral arterial disease prevention and prevalence: study
Peripheral arterial disease, whether symptomatic or not, refers to occlusive disease of lower-limb arteries. It is most commonly caused by atherothrombosis, but may reflect other disease, such as arteritis, aneurysm, and embolism. In recent years, it has become evident that PAD is an important predictor of substantial coronary and cerebral vascular risk.
Increased awareness of the prognostic importance of PAD has led to a search for sensitive diagnostic markers. The ankle–brachial pressure index (ABPI) has emerged as a valid and reliable marker of PAD and its attendant vascular risk, particularly in patients without clinical features of PAD.
Exercise Trumps Vitamins for Heart Disease, Cancer Prevention
Most experts agree that supplements add little, if anything, to a well-balanced diet. Exercise, however, is proven to achieve the benefits claimed for vitamins, even for people who eat properly, reports the November 2007 issue of Harvard Men’s Health Watch.
One leading reason people take vitamin supplements is to protect against cancer. But sadly, this strategy has been a flop.
Obesity Common in Children with Heart Disease
Obesity is common in children with heart disease, a population already at increased risk of a shortened life expectancy.
More than 25 percent of children with congenital and acquired heart disease are overweight or obese, say researchers from The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Children’s Hospital Boston in a study released in the current issue of Pediatrics. While this 25 percent prevalence is similar to the rate found in the general population, the researchers stress that health risks from obesity are added to the children’s separate risks from their underlying heart disease.
Pet Scan Helps Distinguish Alzheimer’s from Other Dementia
A PET scan (positron emission tomography) that measures uptake of sugar in the brain significantly improves the accuracy of diagnosing a type of dementia often mistaken for Alzheimer’s disease, a study led by a University of Utah dementia expert has found.
The scan, FDG-PET, helped six doctors from three national Alzheimer’s disease centers correctly diagnose frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and Alzheimer’s in almost 90 percent of cases in the study—an improvement of as much as 14 percent from usual clinical diagnostic methods. FDG stands for fluorodeoxyglucose, a short-lived radioactive form of sugar injected into people during PET scans to show activity levels in different parts of the brain. In Alzheimer’s low activity is mostly in the back part of the brain; in FTD, low activity is mostly in the front of the brain.
Link between a sleep-related breathing disorder and increased heart rate variability
A sleep-related breathing disorder, common in heart failure, increases one’s heart rate variability. Further, central sleep apnea (CSA) and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) produce different patterns of heart rate variability, which are likely to reflect the different pathophysiological mechanisms involved, according to a study published in the November 1 issue of the journal SLEEP.
Matthew T. Naughton, MD, of Alfred Hospital and Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, evaluated 21 patients with heart failure who were referred for polysomnography for investigation of a sleep-related breathing disorder. For each subject, two conditions were examined: a sleep-related breathing disorder and stable breathing.
