When you really stop and think about it, aren’t you more active in the summer months than the winter months? I think I am with the pool, walks in the evenings and running with the kids all day long. So this little tidbit of information shouldn’t come as a huge surprise.
A five-year study found people treated in the summer were on average 8% more likely to see their blood pressure come down to healthy levels.
These same findings were reported from 15 VA hospitals across the US. Not only are blood pressure’s elevated in the winter months but the incidence of …read more

So, I have a sticky kind of topic to share with you today…
A large study has found that black Medicare patients are less likely than white patients to receive blood vessel opening procedures such as angioplasty following a heart attack, whether they are admitted to hospitals that provide or do not provide these procedures, but also experience higher mortality rates at 1 year, according to a study in the June 13 issue of JAMA.
Why the difference?  Do you really think it is solely race related or are there other factors that play in to the decisions for interventions?
“These differences …read more

Thanks to more effective medicines and treatments, death among heart failure patients has halved over the last 6 years. Also, incidence of stroke and heart attack after discharge fell over the first half of this decade.
— The death rate for patients admitted with a severe heart attack, where the arteries are completely blocked, went down from 8.4 to 4.5 per cent.
– The risk of heart failure for severe heart attack patients also went down from 20 to 11 per cent.
– The death rate for patients admitted with a milder heart attack, where the arteries are only partially blocked, …read more

Welcome to Saturday! Seems like it would be an appropriate time to let you know that if you can control yourself, don’t have a heart attack this weekend. Come to think of it, if you can control yourself that well, don’t have a heart attack at all.
A study of New Jersey hospitals between 1987 and 2002 has found that heart-attack patients on the weekends were more likely to die one day after admission. The effect continued at one month, six months, and a year later. One reason given for their higher mortality rate is that doctors are less …read more