Heart
Virgin olive oil deemed especially heart healthy
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When it comes to heart health, virgin olive oil may have an edge over other vegetable fats, new research suggests.
Reporting in the Annals of Internal Medicine, European researchers say virgin olive oil may be particularly effective at lowering heart disease risk because of its high level of antioxidant plant compounds.
In a study of 200 healthy men, the researchers found that virgin olive oil—rich in antioxidants called polyphenols—showed stronger heart-health effects than the more extensively processed “non-virgin” variety.
Cardiovascular disease prevention program for Chile
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World Congress of Cardiology Report - Fifty-five percent of the Chilean adult population is at risk of a cardiovascular event with a high rate of morbidity and mortality affecting mainly a productive population, between 35 and 74 years of age. This risk is 1.4 times greater for men.
Cardiovascular disease is one of the three most common causes of incapacitation in the adult population in Chile. The average rate of invalidity is 49 years for women and 53 years for men, making it is easy to understand that this is a financial burden to the health care system.
Additionally, cardiovascular disease is the main cause of death in Chile: 29% of all people in the country die from coronary heart disease. Of those 36% are due to coronary heart disease and 36.3% from cerebrovascular disease (stroke).
Vasogen heart therapy cuts risk in 70 pct of patients
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A heart treatment from Canadian biotech firm Vasogen Inc., which failed a key clinical trial hurdle in June, still helped more than 70 percent of patients, researchers said on Sunday.
Vasogen Chief Executive David Elsley told Reuters he was confident the detailed analysis presented at the World Congress of Cardiology meant its Celacade device-based therapy now had a promising commercial future.
If all goes well Celacade could go on sale in Europe in mid-2007. Elseley - who previously said he expected to have to do another study to win U.S. approval - added the firm would now also discuss the results with U.S. and Canadian regulators.
Immunotherapy for heart failure
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World Congress of Cardiology Report - Heart failure (HF) is a complex, progressive clinical syndrome that can result from any structural or functional cardiac disorder, such as coronary artery disease or hypertension (high blood pressure), which impairs the ability of the heart to function properly as a pump.
As a result of this pump dysfunction, a variety of body mechanisms are activated in an attempt to compensate for this defect. Multiple systems within the body, including the neurohormonal system and the immune system, respond to the HF state. Accumulating evidence indicates that inflammatory cytokines (immune response mediators) play a pathogenic role in the progression of HF by impairing the ability of the heart to contract, inducing excessive hypertrophy (enlargement), and promoting cell death or fibrosis (the formation of fibrous tissue). These mechanisms contribute to the destructive cycle of myocardial (heart muscle) remodeling that is characteristic of chronic heart failure.
The primary objective of the ACCLAIM study was to evaluate the effects of Celacade immunotherapy on the composite endpoint of mortality or cardiovascular (CV) hospitalization in patients with chronic HF. ACCLAIM stands for Advanced Chronic Heart Failure Clinical Assessment of Immune Modulation Therapy.
Dodgy heart? Then don’t ride the roller coaster
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People with known heart problems should not take roller-coaster rides and theme parks should consider having defibrillators on hand in case riders are taken ill, German doctors said on Monday.
A study of 55 individuals taking a two-minute roller-coaster ride found they experienced a sharp rise in heart rates, comparable to severe short-term physical exercise, with women’s heart rates increasing more than men’s.
Dr Juergen Kuschyk of Mannheim’s University Hospital and colleagues told the World Congress of Cardiology that the increase in heart rates was big enough to trigger arrhythmia problems in people with heart disease.
Developing world is new frontline in heart disease
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Heart disease, usually seen as a quintessentially Western problem, is rapidly becoming a major threat to the developing world, costing millions of lives and billions of dollars, top cardiologists said on Tuesday.
Worsening diets, lack of exercise and smoking mean heart attacks and strokes are taking a mounting toll on poorer countries, experts told the World Congress of Cardiology.
“They now cause four times as many deaths in mothers in most developing countries than do childbirth and HIV/AIDS combined,” said Professor Stephen Leeder of the University of Sydney.
Some arthritis drugs may protect the heart
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In patients with rheumatoid arthritis, use of disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs, or DMARDs, seems to lower the increased risk of cardiovascular disease associated with rheumatoid arthritis, research suggests.
In a nested case-control analysis within a cohort of RA patients, the rate of acute heart attack was significantly lower in current users of any DMARD, including methotrexate, leflunomide (Arava), and other traditional DMARDs, but not with current use of newer “biologic” DMARDs.
“Our study,” Dr. Samy Suissa told Reuters Health, “suggests that the benefits of these medications (DMARDs) may extend beyond their arthritis-remitting effects to cardiovascular effects.”
Sleep apnea in middle age raises heart disease risk
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Obstructive sleep apnea in middle-aged adults may increase the risk of coronary artery disease by up to five-fold, research in Sweden suggests. However, successful treatment of the sleep apnea significantly cuts that risk.
Although evidence supports ties between sleep apnea—that is, brief but frequent episodes during the night when breathing becomes blocked—and coronary artery disease, a causal relationship has not been established, Dr. Yuksel Peker and his colleagues at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Goteborg note. The concomitant presence of other illnesses further complicates the ability to delineate cause and effect.
For their study, Peker’s team identified 308 middle-age individuals (ages 30 to 69 years) who had been evaluated for obstructive sleep apnea in 1991 and were free of any heart disease at baseline. Nearly one-third (n=105) patients had documented obstructive sleep apnea.
Heart attack risk raised in people with gout
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Gout, and the high levels of uric acid in the blood that cause the problem, are linked to an increased likelihood of having a heart attack among men at high risk of coronary artery disease, investigators report.
The few studies that have examined the association between gout and heart attack have had inconclusive findings, Dr. Eswar Krishnan, from the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, and his associates note in the journal Arthritis and Rheumatism. They therefore conducted what they hoped to be “a conclusive study” that analyzed data from a large trial.
The study included 12,866 men (average age 46 years old) deemed to be at high risk of coronary “events” based on their smoking status, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure. During follow-up of approximately 6.5 years, 1108 subjects had a heart attack.
Obese have higher heart risk, but better outcome
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Obese individuals are at increased risk for suffering a heart attack or other “acute coronary syndrome” (ACS), but because they are treated more aggressively than their lean counterparts, their outcomes are actually better, new research suggests.
However, being extremely obese or underweight increases the cardiac mortality risk.
Numerous reports have identified obesity as a risk factor for coronary artery disease, but its influence, if any, on the presentation, treatment, and outcome of ACS was unclear, Dr. Deborah B. Diercks, from the University of California Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, and colleagues note.
Heart disease patients may suffer PTSD
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Post-traumatic stress disorder is not limited to troops on the battlefield; it can also affect patients with heart disease as well as those with other medical conditions, according to this month’s issue of the Harvard Heart Letter.
“The same kinds of things we associate with soldiers can be associated with so many other things,” Patrick Skerrett, editor of the Harvard Heart Letter, told Reuters Health, including heart attacks and heart disease.
Coined during the Vietnam War, the term post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is often used to describe the condition affecting soldiers returning home from war, for example, or that affecting individuals who have witnessed horrors such as the attack on the World Trade Center.
Automated external defibrillators, reliability and clinical benefits
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The FDA frequently issues safety advisories for automated external defibrillators (portable electronic device used to restore regular heart beat in patients with cardiac arrest) and accessories, although the number of actual device malfunctions appears to be relatively small, according to a study in the August 9 issue of JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association.
Sudden cardiac death is a leading cause of death in the United States, accounting for nearly 330,000 deaths annually. Successful resuscitation of persons with cardiac arrest depends on prompt emergency care, with early defibrillation a key component to improved survival. The use of automated external defibrillators (AEDs) and their increasingly widespread distribution in public places, including many airports, sports arenas, and shopping centers, has resulted in the saving of innumerable lives, according to background information in the article. AEDs are easy to use, but are technically complex devices that occasionally malfunction. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for the safety and oversight of medical devices in the United States, and occasionally issues recalls and safety alerts (collectively referred to as “advisories”), a number of which have involved AEDs. Little is known about the reliability of AEDs.
Light to Moderate Drinking Reduces Risk of Cardiac Events, Death
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Older adults who consume one to seven alcoholic beverages a week may live longer and have a reduced risk for cardiac events than those who do not drink - an association that appears independent of the anti-inflammatory effects of alcohol, according to a report in the July 24 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Alcohol may worsen some chronic diseases and the overall effect of drinking on survival is not clear, according to background information in the article. However, several studies have shown that alcohol may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease and heart failure and contribute to a lower death rate. Light to moderate alcohol intake has been shown to reduce levels of C-reactive protein and interleukin-6, compounds that circulate in the blood due to inflammation. Therefore, researchers have suspected that the mechanism linking alcohol to reduced risk of cardiovascular disease may be related to inflammation.
Study Suggests Emergence of New Most Common Form of Heart Failure
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Data from a 15-year period show that the prevalence of a particular type of heart failure - heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, also known as diastolic heart failure - is increasing. This type of heart failure now accounts for more than half of heart failure cases, according to Mayo Clinic research published in the July 19 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. An editorial accompanies this research, as well as another study on the same topic.
Nearly 5 million Americans are living with heart failure. Heart failure refers to symptoms of shortness of breath, exercise intolerance and fluid retention, which occur when heart function is impaired.
Heart failure may be associated with reduced pumping function as measured by the ejection fraction (systolic heart failure) or reduced relaxing function with preserved ejection fraction (diastolic heart failure). These two types of heart dysfunction cause exactly the same symptoms. Measurement of heart function, usually with an echocardiogram, is needed to distinguish between the two forms of heart failure.
It’s never too late to start exercising!
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According to German researchers it’s never too late to start exercising and even long time couch potatoes can reduce their risk of heart disease, by just getting off the sofa and going for a walk.
Researchers at the University of Heidelberg in Germany say this need not entail strenuous activity such as a work out at the gym, and just walking can make a difference.
Dr. Dietrich Rothenbacher of the University of Heidelberg says people who change their physical activity patterns in late adult life reduce their risk for coronary heart disease.
