Heart Attack
Do Omega-3 Fats Really Protect the Heart?
Omega-3 fatty acids found in fish, flaxseed and certain other foods are associated with a slight reduction in the likelihood of fatal heart disease. This question has been controversial, with some stu…
Will Higher Bad LDL Cholesterol Help Older Peopl…
A new analysis of prior research suggests that higher levels of so-called bad LDL cholesterol is associated with longer life for older people. Not surprisingly, many cardiologists are outraged over th…
Keep Moving Is Good Advice for Older People
Exercise is just as important for older people as it is for younger adults. Throughout life, it seems, if you want to survive, you have to keep moving. The Evidence That You Should Keep Moving: A new …
Should the “Salt Is Safe” Heretics B…
Modern medicine likes to think of itself as scientific, driven by data. But when new evidence disputes old dogma public health leaders might wish for the old days when dissenters were dealt with harsh…
Will Coconut Help You Stay Healthy?
Distinguishing between true health benefits and food fads can be tricky. Where do you look for the information that will tell you if the miracle food your friends and neighbors are raving about will r…
Is Working the Night Shift Bad for Your Heart?
Working a rotating night shift over an extended period of time seems to be bad for the heart. That is the conclusion of a study of 189,158 women participating in the Nurses' Health Studies. The Nurse…
Should You Shun Saturated Fat to Prevent A Heart…
Do you worry about your cholesterol levels? Have you followed the nutrition advice of the American Heart Association to ban butter, embrace margarine, avoid eggs and use vegetable oil as your cooking …
How to Protect Your Heart If You Have Diabetes
People with diabetes are at high risk of heart disease, which is a major complication of this metabolic disorder. The common diabetes drug metformin (Fortamet, Glucophage, Glumetza, Riomet) appears to…
Does New Study Demolish the Diet-Heart Hypothesi…
Vegetable oils, also known as polyunsaturated fatty acids or PUFAs, may not be as healthy as nutrition experts believe. For decades people have been told to cook with corn, safflower or sunflower oil …
How to Prevent a Heart Attack with Aspirin
The US Preventive Services Task Force has made a controversial recommendation with respect to aspirin for heart disease prevention. Aspirin Pros & Cons: For years, the evidence has shown that peop…
Is It All Right to Cook with Coconut Oil?
As we strive to follow the exhortations to eat a healthy diet, a lot of the uncertainty and anxiety about how to do that centers on the amount and type of fat we consume. It is easy to imagine that o…
Lowering Cholesterol Was Helpful, Blood Pressure…
When the cardiologists gathered in Chicago at their annual meeting last weekend, they learned about a big new study called HOPE-3. What the scientists and their pharmaceutical sponsor, AstraZeneca, w…
New Cholesterol Drug Failed to Save Lives
A study reported at the recent meeting of the American College of Cardiology had disappointing news. A drug with major effects on cholesterol failed to save lives. Cardiologists have been taught that…
How Bad is Bad Cholesterol for Your Heart?
Is cholesterol the chief culprit behind heart disease? For decades Americans have been told that to lower their risk of a heart attack they had to lower their cholesterol levels, especially LDL choles…
When Will Campbell Soup Cans Be BPA-Free?
Bisphenol A, a compound in many clear hard plastics, is known to be an endocrine disruptor in animals. There is concern that early exposure to BPA could alter development in human babies. Exposure to …
Is Cardiac Evaluation Before Surgery a Mistake?
Many people anticipating some type of operation other than one on their hearts are sent for cardiac evaluation with coronary artery angiography before surgery. Surgeons want to make sure that their …
How to Prevent Heart Disease by Soaking Up Sun
New research from Sweden suggests that women who sunbathe may live longer than women who shun the sun. Should they really be soaking up sun? Sunbathers Have Better Survival: This rather surprising res…
How to Cut Your Chance of a Repeat Heart Attack
Once a person has had a cardiac event, whether it is a full-blown heart attack or a spell in the hospital during which a stent is placed in a coronary artery, the risk of another episode is ever prese…
Will Eggs Increase Your Chance of a Heart Attack…
When it comes to breakfast, emotions run high. For decades now, people have heard that enjoying eggs at breakfast will increase the chance of a heart attack. This is largely because eggs are the most …
Will Praluent Work If You Cannot Stand a Statin?
When someone has a heart attack, there is a very good chance he will be put on a statin-type cholesterol-lowering medicine. This is called secondary prevention because the goal is to avoid a second he…
Is BC Powder a Good Way to Treat a Heart Attack?
Q. I have a question about aspirin. I had a serious heart attack 15 years ago and have been carrying a packet of BC Powder (845 mg aspirin and 65 mg caffeine) in a plastic bag in my pants pocket ever …
Eggs are Exonerated in Finnish Heart Study
For more than five decades Americans have been told that cholesterol causes heart disease. That's why nutrition experts, cardiologists and family practice physicians advised their patients to limit eg…
How to Avoid Heart Attacks by Eating Your Oats
Research has shown for years that highly processed carbohydrates have deleterious effects on health. People who eat more refined flour and sugar appear to be vulnerable to depression. In addition, ea…
What Pain Reliever Is Safe for a Heart Patient?
Have you ever heard of a silo? Technically, it is a structure used to store grain. Metaphorically, however, the fact that it is usually separated from the other buildings on a farm is important. Peop…
Will You Harm Your Heart by Eating Eggs?
Eggs and other dietary sources of cholesterol have long been on the list of foods that should be shunned if you want to keep your heart healthy. But is that list changing? Eating Eggs Won't Hurt the H…
Will You Have Better Heart Health by Eating Satu…
Americans have been warned to avoid eating saturated fat for at least as long as they have been told to avoid eggs and cholesterol-containing foods. Although the most recent Dietary Guidelines for Ame…
Could Anxiety Make for Misdiagnosis of a Woman&#…
Exercise testing can reveal how well blood is flowing to the heart. Overall, men are more likely to have reduced blood flow, called ischemia. But women with anxiety disorders, including generalized an…
Do Heart Attacks Have Different Symptoms in Wome…
After years of hints that women may have different symptoms and outcomes of heart disease than men, the American Heart Association has made it official. This week the organization published a scientif…
Should You Worry About a Slow Heart Rate?
Most people's hearts beat between 60 and 80 times a minute when they are not doing anything strenuous; people with slow heart rates may worry about whether that means they are in trouble. A new study …
Skeptical Doctor Doubts The Goodness of Garlic
Q. As a physician I usually enjoy your column. But I have some serious questions about your claims about garlic. What is the evidence that "Egyptian physicians used garlic"? You have stated that as if…
Should You Be Taking a Statin for Your Heart?
The US Preventive Services Task Force is recommending that doctors prescribe statins for people age 40 to 75 with a 10 percent or greater 10-year risk of a heart attack or stroke. Because most of thes…
Will a High Heart Rate Kill You?
Analysis of 46 epidemiological studies with 1.2 million participants has shown that a high resting heart rate could be a marker for poor cardiovascular health. The studies that looked specifically at …
Doctors Despise EDTA Chelation But Science Suppo…
Q. Are you familiar with EDTA (ethylene diamine tetra acetic acid)? My newspaper has a large ad today on this for artery cleaning. It sounds too good to be true...and I know the rest of that sentence.…
Stents Ease Angina but Fail to Stretch Survival
Angioplasty to place a stent or several stents in coronary arteries is known medically as percutaneous coronary intervention, or PCI. This procedure is used to open blocked coronary arteries and treat…
Beating Back Garlic Breath With Parsley
Q. My husband has decided he should be getting garlic every day to control his blood pressure and cholesterol and protect himself against cancer. He hates taking pills or anything synthetic so I am st…
Cashiers Have Higher Levels of BPA from Handling…
BPA, or bisphenol A, is an old compound that has become quite controversial in the past decade or two because it acts as an endocrine disruptor. It has been removed from baby bottles, but it is still…
Solving the Problem of Stents?
Stents are used to keep coronary arteries open after angioplasty for angina (chest pain) or acute coronary syndrome, but they have posed many problems. The original small metal mesh cylinders had a te…
Statins Are NOT a Magic Bullet for Longer Life
Current guidelines from heart experts insist that virtually every man over the age of 63 and every woman over 70 should be on statin-type cholesterol lowering drugs, regardless of risk factors. What …
Will Pain Reliever Prevent Heart Attacks?
How We Learned That Aspirin Can Prevent Heart Attacks: Although aspirin is now widely used to help prevent heart attacks, it actually took decades before it was recognized as beneficial. Aspirin was i…
Text Messages for a Healthier Lifestyle
When a text message arrives on the phone, people pay attention. Perhaps that's why a study in Australia found that people trying to adopt healthier lifestyle behaviors benefit from getting encouraging…