But do the bans affect health? Are people healthier because their access to smoking may be less than it was before. According to researchers, yes.

In a study, published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, North American and European communities that had such bans had a 17% drop in heart attacks within the first year of the ban and a 36% drop after three years.

An interesting finding from this study was that it wasn’t just the smokers who were affected, it was the nonsmokers who would otherwise have been exposed to second-hand smoke. Nonsmokers who have this exposure have a 25% to 30% higher risk of developing heart disease than those nonsmokers who aren’t exposed.

Makes you wonder why it’s so hard to convince some people about the dangers of smoking.

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Image: StockXchng.com

Post from: Blisstree

Smoking Bans Mean Fewer Heart Attacks

New research says that “implantable defibrillators to protect against deadly heart rhythms do not prevent deaths in women with advanced heart failure.” These types of defibrillators are inserted into the body and help to restore a normal heartbeat. They work differently in women, and scientists now realize they need to study the effects on women more closely.

Image: sxc.hu.

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Defibrillators Not as Effective for Women

Researchers in Sweden followed over 1000 men and women who had experienced a first-ever heart attack. Besides the usual types of questions asked in health questionnaires, these patients were asked about eating habits, including chocolate consumption.

Three months after their discharge from the hospital, the patients were examined and then they were followed by researchers for the next eight years. According to the study findings, which were published in the most recent issue of the Journal of Internal Medicine, the people who ate the most chocolate had the highest survival rates.

Those people who ate chocolate twice or more a week had a 66% reduced risk of dying from a heart attack than those who didn’t eat chocolate; those who at it once a week had a 44% reduction in their risk of death from heart attack and those who ate it once a month  had a 27% reduction in risk.

This study is by no means definitive as there are many variables that weren’t taken into account, such as mental health. The researchers also didn’t qualify what type of chocolate was eaten and this could be an important factor because milk chocolate and dark chocolate are quite different in properties.

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Images: PhotoXpress.com

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Chocolate After Heart Attack = Good Thing

The researchers didn’t, however, find the same results that American researchers found two years earlier, which suggested that Avandia also increased the risk of heart attacks. The Canadian researchers found no difference between patients who took Avandia and another type of medication, Actos (pioglitazone), and the rate of heart attacks among them

The researchers studied 40,000 patients over the age of 65 who took Avandia or Actos. For every 93 patients, there was one more heart “event” or death each year among those who took Avandia.

This being said, this doesn’t mean that Avandia shouldn’t be used to treat type 2 diabetes. The results show that perhaps it shouldn’t be prescribed for people who are in high risk groups or who have heart disease already.

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Photo: StockXchng.com

Post from: Blisstree

Avandia, Diabetes Drug, May Cause Problems

Even with this amazing news, the death count for Americans in 2006 from heart attacks and strokes was still at 829,072.

On an average one American dies from heart disease every 37 seconds.

A study on cholesterol levels in men men over 40 and women over 60 showed a 2% improvement. The same study showed no improvement in younger people.

We also have a rise in children with high cholesterol, due to their eating habits and little or no exercise. Obesity is a major factor in children with high cholesterol, 4% of the children from 1971-74 were considered obese. The same study showed from 2003-06 a remarkable rise to 17%, of children that are obese.

Results from two National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute studies show that in adults ages 33 to 45, 15% of men and 5.1% of women already had calcification and 1.6% had a calcification score above 100, which may indicate a significant burden of plaque.

http://www.latimes.com/features/health/medicine/la-sci-heart16-2008dec16,0,4082880.story

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Great News In Heart And Stroke Study

The graveyard shift is the worst time to call code blue, a new study finds. Patients who go into cardiac arrest while in the hospital are more likely to die if it happens after 11 p.m., when staffing may be lower or patients are watched less closely.

The ER is the only place that there was no difference in death rates. Among day shifts in all other units hospital wide the success rate of patients that cardiac arrested was 20% and the night shift rate was 15%. Either way it is not real good odds but I would take the first over the latter.

Why the difference? I would suppose most would blame it on fatigue and lower staff numbers. Interesting enough, while weekends had lower success rated then weekdays they were not nearly as pronounced as night versus day.

via Houston Chronicle

Post from: Blisstree

Working the nightshift… stay on your toes for that code blue!

Oh boy, I am so excited. I can’t play with it until after the kids pull it out from under the tree on Christmas morning. Who will be more excited- my hubby, the girls or me?? I will fill you in on my Wii fitness progress!

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I Got A Wii!!!!

Heart attacks could leap by 25 per cent if England crash out of the World Cup on penalties this weekend, say medical experts.

And not only that, health experts claim “soccer stress” could lead to unhealthy and risky behaviors:

• Binge-drinking
• Eating fast food
• Increased smoking
• Relationship stress
• Mood swings
• Aggression
• Depression

I have seen firsthand the gloom and doom that accompanies the loss of a football game. Then there’s the urban myth of increased wife beating on Superbowl Sundays. What other side effects of sporting disappointment would you add to the list above?

More on World Cup-related heart health.

Lifestyle Extra, June 23, 2006

Post from: Blisstree

World Cup Soccer Stress Leads to Heart Attacks

There was no difference in overall death or cardiovascular death among women who took Evista compared with those who took a placebo. The company said there was an increase in stroke mortality, although the overall incidence was low.

Sometimes it seems to me that testing to see the various effects new pharmaceutical drugs may have is like a fishing expedition. First, Evista was designed for osteoporosis then someone noticed that it may reduce the risk of heart attacks and even breast cancer. So they begin to pursue these other lucrative uses as well. Medical science does tend to be trial and error but I’m not sure I would want to enroll in these experimental studies.

Reuters, April 12, 2006

Post from: Blisstree

Evista Does Not Prevent Heart Attacks

Via e-mail yesterday, I learned about the Association for Eradication of Heart Attack. In June, their main project – S.H.A.P.E., Screening for Heart Attack Prevention and Education – will publish an executive summary of the SHAPE task force report in the American Journal of Cardiology.

Primarily, they are proposing to identify close to 65 million asymptomatic individuals vulnerable to first heart attacks by detecting subclinical atherosclerosis and documenting risk factors.

• Screen all men aged 45 and older, women aged 55 and older
• Test for atherosclerosis by determining coronary calcium score via CT scan or carotid artery intima-media thickness via ultraound (both non-invasive)

Early detection could prevent more than 90,000 CVD deaths each year and reduce the rate of heart attacks by as much as 25 percent. The task force believes early screening will save approximately $21.5 billion annually.

These numbers, of course, are optimistic and assume that everyone who is eligible will avail themselves of screening. As we all know, people are stubborn and often prefer not to know any specifics about their health. If you are willing to get a regular check-up then all the better. Regardless, eat right, exercise, and live a healthy lifestyle.

*E-mail tip from Daniel Keeney, APR

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Association for Eradication of Heart Attack