Heart Attack
Cardiovascular Risks of Joint Replacement Surger…
Persistent severe joint pain due to arthritis sometimes leads people to sign up for hip or knee replacement surgery. The thought here is that the "wear and tear" that years can put on the joints, toge…
How Accurate Is the Cardiac Risk Calculator?
New guidelines for preventing heart disease with statin-type drugs are still causing controversy, as they have been since they were released over two years ago. We wrote about the kerfuffle then, but…
Trans Fat Is Worse Than Sat Fat When It Comes to…
When it comes to diet...saturated fat has been the number one public health enemy for decades. For years, American were urged to eat margarine instead of butter because margarine had no cholesterol. I…
Testosterone May Help Instead of Harm Men’…
Testosterone may not be as bad for men's hearts as public health authorities have cautioned. The FDA recently warned that men who use testosterone replacement therapy are at higher risk for heart atta…
Southern Cooking Bumps Risk of Heart Attacks
Southern cooking, with its emphasis on fried foods, biscuits and sweet tea, is hard on the heart. How Do We Know? A team from the University of Alabama at Birmingham examined data from more than 17,00…
Spicy Foods May Help People Live Longer
A new study from China suggests that people who consume spicy foods may live longer and healthier lives. The investigators collected information from nearly half a million Chinese adults and followed …
Will a Mediterranean Lifestyle Lower Triglycerid…
We've heard a lot about the benefits of the Mediterranean diet for heart disease. A new review of the research goes beyond olive oil to look at the effects of other components of a Mediterranean lifes…
Bystanders Using Defibrillators Can Save Lives
You may have noticed defibrillator stations in airports, sports arenas and other public places and wondered if bystanders using defibrillators can really make a difference when someone has a heart att…
Should Half of All Adult Americans Take Statins?
The headlines this week proclaimed that healthy American adults should be taking statin-type cholesterol-lowering drugs. Studies published in JAMA support controversial guidelines from influential ca…
Leisure Time Exercise Helps Americans Live Longe…
The federal government issues physical activity guidelines for Americans from time to time. The latest of these came out in 2008, recommending that all of us get at least 150 minutes of moderate activ…
Australians Live Longer with Vigorous Activity
Australian researchers have looked at how activity level is related to longevity. In this study, more than 200,000 adults ranging in age from 45 through 75 were tracked from February, 2006, through Ju…
Combining OTC Pain Relievers and Heartburn Pills…
It's hard for the FDA to admit it might have made a mistake. But when it comes to OTC pain relievers and heartburn pills, that seems to be the case. When the agency approved NSAID pain relievers like …
Eat Chocolate! It’s Good for Your Heart
One previously forbidden treat that people need not avoid any longer is chocolate, so long as it doesn't contain any hydrogenated vegetable oils (trans fats). A new study confirms previous suspicions …
What Took the FDA So Long to Ban Trans Fats?
This week the Food and Drug Administration announced that it is finally ready to ban trans fats from American foods. You might have assumed that trans fats had already disappeared, since there is stro…
Woman Has Heart Attack Despite Very Low Choleste…
Q. I thought you only got heart disease if you had high cholesterol. My friend, a woman 53 years old, had a heart attack even though her cholesterol was 141 (HDL 49, triglycerides 124 and LDL 67). The…
Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals May Add to Inflam…
Some pesticides and chemicals from plastics persist for a very long time in the environment. Many persist in our body fat as well and have estrogen-like activity. Fatty Tissue Harbors Endocrine Disrup…
How Vitamin D Deficiency Contributes to Diabetes…
Some epidemiological studies have shown that two chronic conditions, heart disease and type 2 diabetes, are more common in people with low levels of vitamin D. Now scientists have uncovered some impor…
Statin Smackdown: Doctors Disagree on Pros &…
There are few modern medications that have stirred such heated debate as statins. Some health professionals believe the benefits have been overblown and the risks downplayed. Others have hailed such d…
FDA Issues Testosterone Warning, But Research Is…
Television commercials focusing on the dangers of "low T" have gotten many men to ask their doctors for a prescription. In 2013, prescription testosterone medicines such as AndroGel or Axiron hit $2 b…
Help Your Heart to a Handful of Peanuts
Peanuts have a place in a heart healthy diet. For years, Americans were told to avoid nuts because they are high in fat, which was assumed to be bad for the cardiovascular system. Then researchers fou…
Coffee Does Not Harm the Heart
Americans used to be warned against drinking coffee. There were concerns that coffee would raise blood pressure and cholesterol, potentially harming the heart. More recently, though, coffee consumptio…
Pain Relievers Are Dangerous After a Heart Attac…
People who have had a heart attack are supposed to take anti-clotting drugs for at least a year to help prevent a recurrence. But a new study from Denmark shows that during that year, these folks shou…
Does Sauna Habit Boost Heart Health?
A twenty-year study of more than 2,000 men in Finland has found that frequent sauna bathing is associated with a lower risk of sudden cardiac death. When these men volunteered for the study in the 198…
Are Saturated Fat, Cholesterol and Salt Really D…
Doctors today pride themselves on practicing "evidence-based medicine." That means using the best scientific data derived from research to make recommendations for policy and treatment. When it comes …
Childhood Vitamin D Affects Adult Arteries
Children with low levels of vitamin D may grow up to be adults with atherosclerotic plaque clogging their arteries, according to a 25-year long study from Finland. More than 2,000 children were enroll…
Is Sex Good Exercise?
Sex is good for your health. Most people enjoy sex for its own sake, but a study suggests that men who have sex at least three times a week cut their risk of a heart attack in half (Journal of Epidemi…
Researchers: Testosterone Is Good for the Heart
Previous studies have linked testosterone replacement therapy to an increased risk for cardiovascular complications. Now an in-depth analysis of testosterone research carried out between 1940 and 2014…
Whole Grain Lovers Live Longer
Eating whole grains such as wheat berries, barley or brown rice has been linked to better survival over the long term. Harvard epidemiologists studied nearly 75,000 female nurses (the Nurses' Health S…
Getting a Fitness Tracker to Work with You
Thomas Jefferson was probably the first American to use a pedometer. The new generations of fitness trackers that have followed that first mechanical instrument are far more sophisticated. In addition…
Yoga Has Real Cardiovascular Benefits
Yoga is real exercise, according to a meta-analysis of 32 randomized controlled trials. The investigators found that yoga can help people lose weight, lower their blood pressure, reduce their heart ra…
Should You Give Up On Aspirin?
The headlines were grim. If you read no further you would conclude that aspirin is a bust when it comes to heart health. Here is just a small sampling of the spin on the latest aspirin study: "AHA: As…
How Well Does HDL Work?
We frequently refer to high-density lipoprotein, aka HDL, as "good" cholesterol. But a study just published in The New England Journal of Medicine suggests that this is an oversimplification. Scientis…
Benefit-Risk Balance Tricky after Stent
When people develop significant blockage in the arteries that feed the heart, doctors often perform percutaneous coronary intervention of PCI. In this procedure, a tiny balloon-tipped catheter is thre…
New Study Supports Polyunsaturated Fat
Fat continues to be a bone of contention among nutrition scientists. A few months ago, a massive meta-analysis of 72 studies with more than 600,000 subjects concluded that there is no association betw…
EDTA Chelation Effectiveness Challenges Doubting…
Q. How effective is chelation for reducing carotid plaque? A. Chelation (pronounced key-lay-shen) is a way of removing toxic heavy metals such as lead, mercury, arsenic, iron, uranium or cadmium. The …
High-Fat Mediterranean Diet Has Health Benefits
The Mediterranean diet has once again shown superiority over a low fat diet in reversing cardiovascular risk. PREDIMED Study Spanish researchers analyzed data from the PREDIMED study in which voluntee…
Love and Friendship Are Good for the Heart
Researchers have known for some time that older people recover better from heart attacks if they have good social support. Now, investigators report that the same is true for younger heart attack vict…
Healthy Habits Prevent Heart Attacks
Does lifestyle really make a difference for preventing heart disease? That's the question Swedish scientists asked when they started a study in 1997. They recruited more than 20,000 healthy Swedish me…
What Cardiologists May Not Tell You about Gettin…
When people experience symptoms of chest pain, they frequently undergo diagnostic procedures on their coronary arteries to see whether they are having a heart attack. When there is blockage visible on…
Study Prompts Reassessment of Cardiovascular Ris…
The Women's Health Initiative began more than two decades ago. The study recruited over 160,000 women over the age of 50 20 years ago and has followed them ever since. New data from the observational …