Heart Disease Prevention - Is Heart Disease The Only Cause Of Chest Pain?

Chest pain is any unusual or disturbing pain or discomfort in the chest that occurs in the front of the chest. Serious medical problems such as heart attack or benign condition like heartburn, anxiety can all cause chest pain. Find out more at:

https://www.howtopreventheartdisease.com/is-heart-disease-the-only-cause-of-chest-pain.html

Heart Disease Prevention - Can Revascularization Outperform Drug For Ischemia?

Cardiologists have debated for more than decades the best way to deal with blockages in an artery, and when should procedures or surgery be performed. A recent finding revealed on November 16 at the 2019 American Heart Association Scientific Sessions in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania may actually provide answer to such debate. Click the following link for more details:

https://www.howtopreventheartdisease.com/can-revascularization-outperform-drug-for-ischemia.html

Heart Disease Prevention - Can High Cholesterol Cause Heart Disease?

For some peoples, too much cholesterol in the body can be unhealthy. High blood cholesterol, which does not have any signs or symptoms, can raise the risk of coronary heart disease, a condition in which plaque builds up inside the coronary arteries. Find out more at:

Heart Disease Prevention - Can High Cholesterol Cause Heart Disease?

Heart Disease Prevention - Why Is Coronary Artery Disease Treated Differently Now?

Traditionally, CAD happens when there is buildup of plaque (known as atherosclerosis) in the inner walls of arteries that supply blood to the heart muscle. As atherosclerosis grows, the blood flow to the heart will be restricted and the heart will become starved of oxygen. Over time, CAD can weaken… Find out more at:

Heart Disease Prevention - Why Is Coronary Artery Disease Treated Differently Now?

Can Stop Smoking Really Save Life?

Smoking is bad for the health. It is a risk factor for many diseases including lung and other cancers, cardiovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), stroke, sexual problems, ageing and many more.

Cardiovascular disease is a general term for disease involving narrowed or blocked blood vessels that can lead to heart attack, chest pain (angina) or stroke. It is often used interchangeably with heart disease.

A study appeared in the May 7, 2008 Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) revealed that women who stop smoking greatly cut their risk of early death and cardiovascular disease just 5 years after they quit. Researchers from Harvard School of Public Health, Boston also reported that the risk of death from smoking-linked cancers was also reduced by about 20 percent over the same period.

In order to examine the relationship between cigarette smoking and stopping smoking on the total and cause-specific mortality in women, the researchers reviewed the data from the Nurses' Health Study of 104,519 female participants during the period between 1980 and 2004.

Among a total of 12, 483 deaths found, 4,485 (35.9 percent) were never smoked, 3,602 (28.9 percent) were current smokers, and 4,396 (35.2 percent) were those smoked in the past but quit.

It was found that a 13 percent reduction of all causes of mortality within the first 5 years of quitting smoking, compared with women who continued smoking. Meanwhile, the study also discovered that 20 years after quitting, the excess risk fell to the level of a person who never smoked, and people who started smoking at early age faced an increased mortality risk.

According to the researchers, a good public health program should be able to effectively communicate risks to smokers and help them quit successfully. As such, they recommended preventive strategies that involve implementing and maintaining school tobacco prevention program, in addition to enforcing youth access laws.

How Effective Is Crestor In Preventing Heart Disease?

Being manufactured by AstraZeneca, Crestor is a cholesterol-lowering medicine that aims to reduce levels of bad cholesterol (low-density lipoprotein, or LDL) and triglycerides in the blood, and in the meantime increase levels of good cholesterol (high-density lipoprotein, or HDL). It has been approved for use in over 95 countries with nearly 15 million patients being prescribed presently worldwide.

By lowering the bad cholesterol, it is possible to help prevent heart disease and hardening of arteries. These two conditions can develop heart attack, stroke, as well as vascular disease. Nevertheless, how effective is this medicine?

Presented during November 2008 at an annual meeting of the American Heart Association in New Orleans and published online by the New England Journal of Medicine, the study known as “JUPITER” revealed that Crestor could actually reduce by 44 percent the risk of heart problems among patients who currently do not face a high risk of getting a heart disease.

The study involved 17,802 men and women, of the age of 50 and more, who took 20 milligrams of Crestor on a daily basis. It was found that the combined risk of myocardial infarction, stroke, arterial revascularization, hospitalization for unstable angina, or death from cardiovascular causes was reduced by 44 percent as compared with placebo among men and women with elevated hs-CRP but low to normal cholesterol levels.

By the way, CRP is a protein that is produced by the liver. It plays an important role in inflammatory processes and serves as a biological marker to measure the risk of artery blockage.

Also shown in the study, patients who took Crestor also had the combined risk of heart attack, stroke or death from heart disease reduced by 47 percent. Meanwhile, their risk of heart attack was cut by more than half, the risk of stroke was reduced by nearly half and the total mortality of the participants was lowered by 20 percent.

It was also recorded in the study that a daily dose of 20 milligrams of Crestor was well tolerated in nearly 9,000 patients during the course of the trial, and there was no difference between treatment groups for major adverse events, including cancer or myopathy.

Can Electrocardiogram Predict Heart Disease?

Angina is a common symptom of coronary artery disease. It is a condition characterized by sharp chest pain or discomfort. It occurs when an area of the heart muscle does not receive enough oxygen-rich blood. Sometimes, the pain may also occur in the neck, arms, shoulders, jaw or even back, and it can feel like indigestion too.

People usually regard electrocardiogram (or better known as ECG or EKG) as one that is given only to patients who are having attack of angina. It is estimated that about 1 in 50 people in Britain experience angina.

A paper published on November 14, 2008 in the British Medical Journal indicated that a routine examination by a doctor works almost as well as ECG in predicting heart disease.

During the ECG test, electrodes are placed on a patient’s skin and the electrical activity of the heart is recorded over time so that abnormal rhythms could be detected. Although ECG has been shown to be effective in revealing damage, its ability in predicting future heart disease was unknown.

As such, a team of researchers at the London Queen Mary's School of Medicine and Dentistry carried out a study that examined 8,176 patients with suspected angina but with no prior history of heart disease.

A standard clinical assessment, which looked at criteria including age, sex, ethnicity, duration of symptoms, description of chest pain, smoking status, and history of hypertension (high blood pressure) and medicines, was carried out on all the patients.

ECG was given to all the patients while they were at rest, and some 60 percent of them were arranged to have an exercise ECG that was performed while they were in motion. All the patients were monitored during the following year.

The researchers found that half of all heart incidents, which occurred during that period, happened in patients whose ECG tests had not shown any indication of heart disease. Meanwhile, they also found that a routine clinical assessment was almost as good an indicator of future heart problems.

Such findings might highlight the importance of taking a detailed medical history and making a thorough physical examination. ECG might be helpful for some patients by the additional information it provides, but it is a pity that it does not predict heart disease risk for everyone.

Which is Superior, Angioplasty or Bypass?

I always hear people around me debating about the superiority of angioplasty and coronary artery bypass grafting. Some insisted angioplasty is good because it carries lesser risk than bypass, while others argued that bypass could prevent heart patients from getting a repeat procedure or surgery over a longer period.

Coronary Angioplasty (or angioplasty, in short) is a technique to treat coronary heart disease and angina. It involves opening narrowed or blocked blood vessels known as coronary arteries of the heart.

Angina is chest pain or discomfort that occurs when an area of the heart muscle does not get enough oxygen-rich blood. A person with angina may feel pressure or squeezing in the chest. The pain may also occur in the shoulders, arms, neck, jaw, or back.

While angioplasty is a procedure, coronary artery bypass grafting (in short, bypass) is a type of heart surgery. It is sometimes called CABG ("cabbage"). During the operation, the surgery reroutes, or "bypasses," blood around clogged arteries by using a segment of a healthy blood vessel from another part of the body to improve blood flow and oxygen to the heart.

In October 2007, a new study revealed that bypass is indeed better than angioplasty at relieving chest pain and preventing the need for a repeat procedure. On the other hand, both angioplasty and bypass could provide patients with heart disease who need a procedure or surgery to clear their clogged coronary arteries the similar 10-year survival rates.

1.2 percent of patients undergoing bypass and 0.6 percent of those being treated with angioplasty incurred strokes. Angina was relieved over a 5-year period in 84 percent of bypass patients comparing with 79 percent of the angioplasty group.

Meanwhile, the researchers also found that 43 percent of patients treated with angioplasty and less than 10 percent of patient undergone coronary bypass required repeat procedures after 5 years.

Nevertheless, as noted by the researchers, emergence of new and refined techniques has made such a comparison to “remain a moving target”. In fact, new studies have already begun to investigate how the availability of drug-coated stents used in angioplasty affects the comparative efficacy of these techniques.