Top 10 Hearty Trivia Facts
1. Author of Frankenstein Mary Shelley kept her dead husband’s, poet Percy Shelley, heart wrapped in silk until she died. Imagine how that smelled!
2. You can purchase the largest model of a human heart for a small price of $5795.95 US dollars. Um huh, I said five thousand. It is 8 times the size of an anatomical heart at 100×90×70 cm. Wow, that is a lot of money!
3. The smallest person believed to ever have open heart surgery was just over 25 weeks gestation and about 1.4 lbs. This was back in 2002 and …read more

Here are 5 fun facts, well not really fun but useful, to share with your kids, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, neighbors, students and… well, you get the point. It is so darn important to educate our youth. After all, they are our future…1. The human heart looks like a piece of red meat, aka steak or a raw hamburger patty. In fat or obese people the heart actually looks like it is covered in yellow goo, aka the fat tissue. Yellow… no good. Red… good!
2. Even though we are taught to put our hand over our heart on the left side …read more

The final event of the Olympics leaves me wondering… just how do these men run a 26 mile race? The mental and physical strength that it must take to complete such a task is mind blowing. I searched around to figure out how the body and human heart can stay strong and continue to beat under such exhaustion. Here is what I found…
The researchers found that throughout the course of the races, the runners’ heart rate increased in a very controlled way, which appeared to be scaled to the distance of the race. When the heart rate response was scaled …read more

I am doing fairly well this week with my diet- have eaten a lot of protein and fruits and veggies- although I did have a half of a bagel. But it was sooo good!
I checked my bloodsugars more frequently this week. Even though I have had great bloodsugars recently I was still feeling a bit ‘out of control’.  So… I have been 100, 91 and 88 today. I ate fruit for breakfast, 1/2 cup spaghetti noodles with olive oil and cheese, and then a sandwich for dinner. I also had a peach and a sugar free popsicle for snack today. …read more

What is the fountain of youth? Hmm… endurance training. Or so it seems.
In a new study older people who did endurance exercise training for about a year ended up with metabolically much younger hearts- and women fair better then men.
Our hearts suck up glucose while in a high energy activity- thus protecting our heart against an ischemic attack or lowered oxygen that would occur during a heart attack or similar event.  Think of it as protection. Get yourself on that treadmill and go, go, go!
to read more 

Here is something that should make you smile. Optimism is good for heart health. Yes… emotional wellbeing. I know that so many disregard how we as patients and people are felling and coping, but it is so important! I am a firm believer.
Optimism is good for heart health, at least among men, a new study shows. University of Rochester Medical Center researcher Robert Gramling, M.D., D.Sc., found that men who believed they were at lower-than-average risk for cardiovascular disease actually experienced a three times lower incidence of death from heart attacks and strokes.
The same results were not found among …read more

Leading US doctors are saying that children as young as 8 should receive statins as a course of treatment for high cholesterol. Currently in many places such as the UK kids with a rare gene fault are being prescribed statins but US pediatricians are taking it one step further.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, however, believes that the drugs, which are used by millions of adults worldwide, could benefit thousands more children who are already obese, or showing signs of high blood pressure or type II diabetes.
Many UK docs do not agree with this decision and state that this is being …read more

This week was very crazy around here- really quite sad. We had several deaths in our close nit community and at my workplace. With that being said…  was virtually non existent around the blogging front. Apologies!
For the week- my bloodsugars were very very very low. Did I mention that they were low? Like 62 and 53 low. Usually stress affects me the other way but for whatever reason my sugar checks were in the toilet and I would definitely rather be high then low.
Low is no good! I ate my regular foods and did exercise for most of the week- …read more

Here is a reminder for you this morning… now go get a measuring tape and get to work.
A a person’s waist-to-hip ratio is an even better predictor of cardiovascular risk than their body mass index or BMI. It appears that a large waist size, which generally indicates large amounts of abdominal fat, is more harmful than a larger hip size.
Determine your body shape and risk for cardiovascular disease by calculating your waist-to-hip ratio. First, measure your waist at its smallest circumference; then, measure your hips at their widest. Next, divide your waist measurement by your hip measurement. For example, a …read more

Second to diabetes, heart disease seems to be on the horizon for India. They are estimating that India will account for 60% of all heart disease cases worldwide within the next 2 years.
As India becomes more developed so does it’s social habits…
The risk factors in India were the same as elsewhere and included tobacco use, high levels of lipids in the blood due to diets rich in saturated fat, and hypertension, the study said.
The major complication that goes along with such a rise in heart disease across India is the fact that the estimated time it takes one to reach …read more