Heart Disease Prevention - What Is Coronary Artery Disease?

Coronary artery disease (CAD, or coronary heart disease (CHD), is the most common form of heart disease. Also known as ischemic heart disease, CAD is a condition of the narrowing or blockage of the coronary arteries causing impaired blood flow. Find out more at:

https://www.howtopreventheartdisease.com/what-is-coronary-artery-disease.html

Heart Disease Prevention - New Test To Detect Heart Disease Risk

On December 15, 2014, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have approved a new test that might help health care professionals identify those patients before they experience a serious CHD event, like a heart attack. The test is designed for both men and women with no history of heart disease, but studies have shown that the test more accurate in predicting CHD risk in women, especially African-American women. Find out more at:

Heart Disease Prevention - New Test To Detect Heart Disease Risk

Heart Disease Prevention - Role Of Inflammation In Causing Heart Disease

Inflammation has been placed an equally important role as cholesterol. Inflammation is an essential part of the body’s healing system because without it, injuries would fester and simple infections could be deadly. Its aim is to defend the body against bacteria, viruses, and other foreign invaders, to remove debris, and to help repair damaged tissue. Click the following link to find out more:

Heart Disease Prevention - Role Of Inflammation In Causing Heart Disease

Prevent Heart Attack In 5 Steps!

A heart attack occurs when the flow of oxygen-rich blood to a section of heart muscle suddenly becomes blocked and the heart cannot get sufficient oxygen. Most heart attacks happen because of coronary heart disease (CHD).

CHD is a condition in which plaque builds up inside of the coronary arteries that supply oxygen-rich blood to the heart. The plaque can eventually rupture and a blood clot is formed on the plaque’s surface. The clot, if large enough, could completely block the blood flow through a coronary artery. This would cause the portion of heart muscle fed by the artery starts to die, and healthy tissue is replaced with scar tissue.

Fortunately, heart attack is preventable. A new study by researchers in Sweden revealed that men who take just 5 steps could actually lower their odds of a heart attack by four-fifths, though only 1 percent of men do so on their own. A total of 20,721 healthy men aged between 45 and 79 were followed for 11 years. Their findings were published September 22, 2014 in the ‘Journal of the American College of Cardiology’.

According to the American Heart Association (AHA), heart attack risk can be evaluated at home by looking at lifestyle choices that are under one’s control. These include smoking, alcohol consumption, exercise, diet, Type-2 diabetes, high blood cholesterol and in some cases high blood pressure.

In order to determine a man’s risk and how it fluctuates depending on certain factors, the researchers identified a certain 5-step combination as the key to reduce heart attack risk by up to 86 percent. The 5 steps are: do not smoke, have regular exercise, watch waistline, limit alcohol consumption and adopt healthy diet.

The study indicated that men who did not smoke lowered their risk by 36 percent, and men who walked or cycled for at least 40 minutes a day and did other exercise at least a hour per week had a 3 percent lower risk. Those who had a waist circumference below 37 inches had a 12 percent lower risk, and those who drank no more than about 2 drinks a day had a 11 percent lower risk. For those who ate a lot of fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, reduced-fat dairy products, whole grains and fish, their risk was 18 percent lower. 

But sadly to note, only 1 percent of the population belonged to the low-risk group that adopted this set of healthy lifestyle practices on their own. Lowering heart attack risk by following healthy lifestyle is not surprising. It is the drastic degree of magnitude dropped that surprised the researchers.

Since changing from high-risk to low-risk behaviors could actually have great impact on cardiovascular health, it is best for people to start adopting healthy lifestyle choices early in their life.

Would Mediterranean Diet Benefit Elderly?

Mediterranean diet is a nutritional recommendation that is built on high proportion of olive oil, fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, whole grains and fish. It follows closely the traditional dietary patterns of people living in the areas surrounding the Mediterranean Sea including Greece, southern Italy and Spain, and is also characterized by a moderate consumption of wine, dairy products, and poultry, together with a low consumption of red meat, sweet beverages, creams, and pastries.

Being low in saturated fat and high in monounsaturated fat and dietary fiber, Mediterranean diet has been praised for increasing longevity and preventing chronic disease and cognitive decline. In fact, initially healthy middle-aged adults in the Mediterranean region have found to have low incidence of fatal and non-fatal heart disease if they adhere closely to the Mediterranean diet.

In 2011, a systematic review found that a Mediterranean diet appeared to be more effective than a low-fat diet in achieving long-term changes to cardiovascular risk factors like lowering cholesterol level and blood pressure.

On April 17, 2013, a group of Spanish researchers reported in the ‘Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences’ that adherence to a Mediterranean diet is associated with a lower risk of hyperuricemia.

Hyperuricemia is defined as a serum uric acid (SUA) concentration higher than 7 mg/dl in men and higher than 6 mg/dl in women. It is associated with metabolic syndrome, hypertension (high blood pressure), Type-2 diabetes mellitus, chronic kidney disease, gout and, cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. It is believed that the Mediterranean diet might help lower SUA concentration because of its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.

7,447 male participants aged between 55 and 80 years old were examined in the 5-year study. These men were free from cardiovascular disease but had either Type-2 diabetes mellitus or were at risk of coronary heart disease. They were assigned to 1 of the 3 intervention diets: 2 were Mediterranean diets enriched with extra virgin olive oil or mixed nuts, and 1 was a control low-fat diet.

Only 4,449 participants were included in the analysis. Their concentrations of uric acid at baseline were available (of these, 1,551 were assigned to the Mediterranean diet plus olive oil group, 1,407 to the Mediterranean diet plus nut group, and 1,491 to the control low-fat diet group).

The findings of the study revealed positive health effects of a Mediterranean diet in older adults. The rates of reversion were higher among hyperuricemic participants at baseline who had greater adherence to the Mediterranean diets. Meanwhile, the researchers also found that the reversion of hyperuricemia was achieved by adherence to the Mediterranean Diet alone, without weight loss or changes to physical activity.

Be Happy To Lower Heart Disease Risk!

Are you happy with your life? If your answer is yes, then probably you will be at a lower risk of getting heart disease.

Researchers from Harvard School of Public Health in Boston found that people who were most content with their lives had 13 percent lower risk of heart disease. Their findings were published online on July 4, 2011 in the ‘European Heart Journal’.

According to them, participants' level of satisfaction with their job, family, sex life and with themselves was linked to their risk of coronary heart disease. The higher the satisfaction, the greater the risk reduction.

About 8,000 British government workers were asked about 7 specific areas of participants' everyday lives, including love relationships, leisure activities, standard of living, job, family, sex and one's self. They rated their satisfaction level in each area on a scale of 1 (very dissatisfied) to 7 (very satisfied).

The participants’ health records for coronary related death, non-fatal heart attack and angina, or chest pain were tracked over the next 6 years. It seemed that satisfaction with one’s job, family, sex and self were most paramount for heart disease prevention, after taking into account of other heart disease risk factors including hypertension (high blood pressure) and body mass index (BMI).

Health experts have long regarded depression and anxiety as risk factors for heart disease, but there has not been much evidence found that supported benefits of a positive psychological state like feeling content with one’s life.

The new findings suggested effort to encourage positive psychological states could be as relevant as to lessen negative psychological states for those who are at high risk of heart disease.

Nevertheless, being happy alone might not be enough to keep heart disease away as there are many other risk factors that can cause people to develop heart disease. The basic rules remain: a healthy diet and regular physical activities are still a must for people who wish to be heart healthy.

Why Fish Should Be On Your Diet List?

Fish, like salmon, mackerel and albacore tuna, that high in omega-3 fatty acid is good for the heart because omega-3 fatty acid could reduce the risk of coronary heart disease. Perhaps this is why American Heart Association (AHA) advice people to eat at least 2 servings of fish a week.

Despite concerns on the impact of increased exposure to mercury in fish, Swedish researchers from Umea University in Sweden argued in their paper published in November 2010 in ‘American Journal of Clinical Nutrition’ that the benefits of consuming fish still outweigh the harmful effects of mercury. However, they also advised people to avoid eating fish high in mercury, which include perch, shark, swordfish and halibut.

More than 900 Swedish men and women took part in a study that required them to answer questionnaires about the amount of fish in their diet. Their mercury and selenium levels in red blood cells were analyzed.

While the mercury levels were generally low for Scandinavians, participants who had higher mercury level in their red blood did not have a higher risk of cardiac problems. It is possible that the protective nutrients in fish offset any harmful effect of mercury at these low levels of mercury, as explained by the researchers.

Meanwhile, the researchers admitted that relying on the participants’ memories on the amount of fish consumed could have drawbacks as this could have an impact on the results obtained. They also highlighted one finding from their study: participants who had elevated traces of selenium in their red blood cells appeared to have higher risk of sudden cardiac death.

Selenium is a trace mineral that is essential to good health but only small amounts are needed. It appears to act as an antioxidant that can reduce risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Nevertheless, previous findings on effect of selenium on heart were mixed. Several studies suggested risk of heart disease and stroke might be reduced by about 40 percent by an added 100 mg per day of dietary selenium. On the other hand, a study by researchers from University of Warwick found that total cholesterol levels increased by 8 percent with an increase of 10 percent in LDL (so called bad cholesterol) in participants having more than 1.2 mol/L of selenium in their blood, leading to increase in risk of cardiovascular disease.

As such, the Swedish researchers felt that the health effect of selenium should further be probed.

Why Long-Term Weight Loss Is Not Desirable?

The obesity epidemic has been a pressing issue for the world as overweight or obesity would bring about many medical disorders including diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke. The consequence is huge amount of health expenses would be required to cover these diseases.

Naturally, no one would like being overweight or obese and if someone makes a statement like “weight loss is always beneficial, and weight gain is always harmful”, I am quite certain that not many people would raise their hands to object.

However, a paper published in the International Journal of Obesity on September 7, 2010 by researchers from Kyungpook National University in Daegu in South Korea revealed that long-term weight loss might release into the blood industrial pollutants, which is linked to diseases such as Type-2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, hypertension, periodontal disease and rheumatoid arthritis. These hazardous compounds are normally stored in the fatty tissues, but when fat breaks down during weight loss, they get into the blood stream and can reach vital organs.

After studying concentrations of 7 such compounds in blood of 1,099 participants in the United States, they found that those who lost weight over 10 years had the highest concentrations of the compounds, known as persistent organic pollutants (POPs), compared to those who gained or maintained a steady weight.

The findings totally opposed to the overwhelming data showing attaining a healthy weight is good for preventing many diseases. When a study that goes against the common sense, it would naturally arouse doubts or even opposition from other health professionals.

Some of them feared that overweight or obese people might use such findings as an excuse to stop trying to reduce their weights through healthy diet and exercises, while others suggested people should figure out if the study seems sound and applies to the average population.

In fact, even the researchers themselves acknowledged that further studies are required to establish the link between long-term weight loss and health problems.

Will Dairy Prolong or Shorten Life?

Most people would have the impression that consumption of high volume of dairy products would have a higher chance of getting heart disease. This is because dairy products are always considered as sources of artery-clogging cholesterol.

A study by researchers from the Queensland Institute of Medical Research argued that calcium-rich dairy products consumed during childhood might in some cases prolong one’s life. The findings were published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) on July 28, 2009.

The study, which took a long period of 65 years following a 1930’s survey of more than 1,300 families in England and Scotland, showed that diet that was high in milk, cheese and butter did not actually lead to a higher rate of cardiovascular disease. Their report also indicated that children with the largest intake of calcium from dairy enjoyed a lower death rate from strokes.

It is believed among some experts that heart disease risk factors start from childhood. Some of them even argued that diet rich in high fat content dairy products during childhood would contribute to heart disease later in life. However, there is no conclusive evidence to show whether dairy consumption at early ages would help or hurt.

A total of 4,374 people (in more than 1,300 families), who participated as children in the late 1930s’ study of food consumption, were followed up. By 2005, it was found that 34 percent of them (or 1,468 individuals) had died, of which 378 from coronary heart disease and 121 from strokes.

The researchers could not find any evidence showing relationship between intake of dairy products and either of the 2 causes of death. Instead, they discovered that children consuming calcium-rich milk and milk-derived products had a lower rate of death by stroke. Moreover, they also found that children having diets rich in dairy or calcium were linked to lower all-cause mortality in adulthood.

Nevertheless, the researchers did suggest that further studies are necessary to confirm the findings that might result partly because of other factors like income levels and occupation.

Can Exercise Alone Prevent Heart Disease for Overweight?

When one is overweight or obese, the risk of developing many health problems also raises. These include diabetes, hypertension (high blood pressure), stroke, heart disease, etc. Some health experts even link certain types of cancer to obesity.

Research shows that fat cells produce chemicals that can speed up hardening of the arteries and increase inflammation thus harming blood vessels. Meanwhile, physical activity can make for healthier blood vessels and reduce the risk of blood clots.

However, researchers from Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center found that exercise would not reduce the risk of heart disease for those who are overweight or obese unless they slim down too. The findings, which were published on April 28, 2008 in the Archives of Internal Medicine, argued that even high quantities of physical activity are highly impossible to reverse the risk of coronary heart disease in overweight or obese women unless they also lose weight.

Basing on information from a study of nearly 39,000 women that began in 1992, the study traced a number of health issues. In the study, 34 percent of the women were physically activity based on government guidelines, 31 percent were overweight and 18 percent were obese.

The researchers found that 948 women were diagnosed with heart disease. Those active women with normal weight had the lowest risk but those with normal weight and not active at all had a slightly higher risk of developing heart disease. The risk rises for those active women who were either overweight or obese. People with the highest risk of getting heart disease are those who were overweight or obese and physically inactive.

In conclusion, the researchers stressed that it is important to counseling all women to participate in increasing amounts of regular physical activity and maintaining a healthy weight in order to lower the risk of coronary heart disease.

How Is Erectile Dysfunction Related to Heart Disease?

Erectile dysfunction (ED) or impotence is a common condition worldwide. It is estimated that some 30 million men in the United States are affected by ED. Though it can occur at any age, it is more common among the older men and less seen among the young ones. In general, most men have experienced ED at least some of the time by the age of 45.

ED is often regarded by doctors as a lifestyle issue, but a recent study had rated it as an important problem that provides an early warning of a heart attack. In fact, there is evidence that such condition doubles the risk of heart disease.

British researchers from the Good Hope Hospital in Birmingham warned on October 22, 2008 in the British Medical Journal that men with ED are at a 50 percent higher risk of having heart problems, a level that is comparable to moderate smoking. Smoking has long been regarded as a risk factor of developing heart disease.

Despite the evidence, doctors normally do not screen for ED or low testosterone in patients with Type-2 diabetes or coronary heart disease. Patients with coronary heart disease are usually prescribed by their physicians with drugs that actually make ED worse. Of course, some effective drug treatments do exist, and the patients usually prefer to pay privately because ED has been treated as a recreational or 'lifestyle' issue.

Drugs for ED, such as Pfizer's Viagra or sildenafil, Eli Lilly's Cialis or tadalafil, and Bayer AG's Levitra or vardenafil, work by increasing blood flow to the genitals.

As pointed out by the researchers, the condition is the manifestation of vascular disease in smaller arteries and gives a 2 to 3 year early warning of a heart attack. Therefore, cardiologists should not feel uncomfortable discussing such issue with their patients; otherwise, their act might be regarded as clinically negligent.

How Is Obesity Paradox Related to People with Heart Disease?

As there are about 65 percent of Americans are either obese or overweight, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have in fact classified obesity as an epidemic in the United States. According to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) and National Institutes of Health (NIH), obesity costs Americans more than $117 billion annually in health care.

If a person is obese, he or she will have a higher risk, ranges from 50 to 100 percent, of premature death than people of normal weight. Obesity is a risk factor for other diseases such as high blood pressure, heart disease and Type-2 diabetes.

However, recent studies have shown that obese people with chronic diseases have a better chance of survival than normal-weight individuals do. This finding is known as “obesity paradox”. Such an unexpected decrease in illness and death with increasing body weight or BMI is originally described in people with heart failure and in patients having angioplasty.

A study by researchers from St Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital in New York City found that overweight and obese adults with high blood pressure and coronary artery disease also had a lower risk of heart attack, stroke or death, compared with the normal-weight people. Nevertheless, the rationales behind such phenomenon are still unclear. Their findings were published in the American Journal of Medicine.

The effect of overweight and obesity on heart-related outcomes was investigated in 22,576 people who participated in a large study. These people had treated high blood pressure and coronary artery disease.

People who were overweight (BMI between 25 and 30), class I obesity (BMI between 30 and 35) and class II-III obesity (BMI 35 or greater) actually had lower risk of heart disease, stroke, or death than those who weighed normal (BMI between 20 and 25).

The researchers also noted that the so-called “obesity paradox” did occur in both men and women across all age groups, even though the blood pressure was better controlled in normal-weight patients.

While improved outcomes appear to be consistently linked to increased BMI, other health experts do caution that one should not conclude that weight reduction is detrimental in overweight populations.

Despite the “obesity paradox”, findings of numerous studies still clearly support the benefits of weight reduction in obese patients with heart disease.

How Would Hostility Raise Heart Disease Risk?

Before we get into the topic, we need to understand 3 terms: free radical, antioxidant and oxidative stress. Let us look at how they are related.

Technically, oxidative stress is a condition, which occurs when production of free radicals in the human body exceeds the body's ability to neutralize and eliminate them. Free radicals would start chain reactions that disturb the body’s ability to neutralize them, hence resulting in tissue or cell damage. Oxidative stress has been associated with heart disease, cancer and other illnesses.

Antioxidants could stop these chain reactions by removing free radical intermediates and inhibit other oxidation reactions by being oxidized themselves. Antioxidant vitamins like vitamin C and E can help counteract oxidative stress. On the other hand, activities like smoking and pollution can actually increase it.

A study has indicated that hostility could raise a person’s risk of heart disease by depleting the level of certain heart-healthy antioxidants.

The researchers from the University of Minneapolis, who carried out the study, suggested that antioxidants could help explain why hostile individuals are more likely to smoke and drink, and poor diet and smoking can deplete antioxidants.

In their study, the researchers investigated 3,579 men and women of the age between 18 and 30 years old who were participating in the so-called Cardiovascular Risk Development in Young Adults study. Their levels of several different carotenoids and tocopherols (vitamin E) were measured.

It was found that people having high levels of hostility at the beginning of the study were more likely to have lower levels of several types of carotenoids 7 years later, but hostility did not predict levels of tocopherols or lycopene. The increased risk was found to be, nevertheless, small but significant.

Lifestyle factors such as diet, smoking and drinking probably play a part in explaining why hostility reduces levels of antioxidants, but the researchers are not clear whether the differences are importantly related to the risk of coronary heart disease. Therefore, further study is necessary.

Why Women Should Watch Their Level of Thyroid Function?

Thyroid is one of the largest endocrine glands in the body. Its function is to control how quickly the body burns energy, how sensitive the body should be to other hormones, and makes proteins.

In April 2008, researchers form Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine those women, who had slightly low thyroid function, might subject to a higher risk of dying of heart disease. Even women with normal thyroid function but at the low end of the range were more likely to die of heart disease.

Thyroid function can be measured indirectly, by checking a hormone called thyrotropin, or thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH for short). TSH is released by another gland known as the pituitary gland. High TSH level is an indication that implies low thyroid function, which can cause symptoms such as sluggishness, hair loss, weight gain and a feeling of being cold.

Clinically, an estimated 10 percent of older women are suffering from low thyroid function, but this can be corrected by taking a daily thyroid hormone pill.

17,311 women and 8,002 men were studied and these subjects had no known thyroid disease, cardiovascular disease or diabetes at the beginning of the study. Over the next 8 years, it was found that 1.3 percent of the women and 2.3 percent of the men died of heart disease. What strike the researches was that the higher the TSH levels, the higher the risk of heart death. The link, however, was only significant in women but not men, and it was true even for levels that had been considered normal and healthy.

This study clearly shows that mortality resulted from coronary heart disease increases in women with increasing levels of thyrotropin within the reference range. The results also indicate that relatively low but clinically normal thyroid function may increase the risk of fatal coronary heart disease.

In fact, thyroid hormones may affect the heart and arteries in several different ways: they affect heart and blood vessel muscle cells, cholesterol and other functions. As such, doctors are advised to take seriously readings of thyroid hormone levels.

Although patients who get replacement thyroid hormones do lose weight, show improved cholesterol levels and see improvements in artery health, there is no study ever conducted to determine whether replacing thyroid hormone might actually affect heart disease risk.

The researchers also recommended more studies to see if treating low thyroid function could reduce the risk of heart disease.

Is Comprehensive Screening Good Enough to Detect Sudden Cardiac Death?

Is comprehensive heart screening sufficient for young people who are engaging in aggressive exercises such as Marathon running, military training, etc? Should they also undergo additional testing with treadmill exercise and echocardiography (cardiac ultrasound)?

What is sudden cardiac death? As defined by American Heart Association, sudden cardiac death (SCD) or cardiac arrest is the sudden, abrupt loss of heart function in a person who may or may not have diagnosed heart disease. It just occurs immediately or shortly after the symptoms appear.

Every year, sudden cardiac death causes about 166,200 deaths among adults in the United States before reaching a hospital or emergency room.

For people below the age of 35, SCD has many causes. Not all of these causes are due to cardiac problems and only some of these can be detected by screening. Patients who die suddenly are commonly caused by cardiovascular disease, in particular, coronary heart disease (CAD), but it rarely happens to younger age group.

No doubt treadmill ECG stress testing can be used to detect CAD. Nevertheless, it does have its own limitations. For example, it has a false positive result of 10 to 20 percent. In other words, if CAD occurs in 1 per 1,000 people screened, out of 25,000 persons tested, 25 might have CAD. This means that 2,500 to 5,000 might have false positive stress results, and these people have to undergo further testing, such as nuclear imaging and coronary angiography, which may have other risks such as radiation exposure.

It is unjustified to place such a big percentage of people to these risks, as this would certainly outweigh the benefit of detecting a few with CAD. Obviously, stress testing should only be used for those at higher risk such as older men or those with significant risk factors for heart disease.

For youngsters, a more common cause of SCD is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). It is an inherited condition with abnormal thickening of the heart muscle. People with HCM will show ECG abnormalities.

In fact, adding ECG to a history and physical examination in athletes, and referring only those with ECG abnormalities for more tests was proved to be an effective mean to minimize the risk of SCD due to HCM. Such approach has also been shown by studies in Italy and endorsed by the International Olympic Committee and European Society of Cardiology.

Meanwhile, prevention and control of risk factors like diabetes, high cholesterol, hypertension (high blood pressure), obesity, and smoking through healthy lifestyles should be encouraged to reduce SCD.

Can One Be Fat And Free From Heart Disease?

Can one be fat and free from heart disease? This interesting question has in fact prompted numerous researches to find out whether exercise or weight has a greater influence on the risk of heart disease.

The latest study by researchers from Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre found that even high quantities of physical exercise would not eliminate the risk of heart disease for overweight or obese women, unless they also lose their body weights. They reported on April 28, 2008 in the Archives of Internal Medicine that being active could only lower but not eliminate risk of heart disease faced by heavy women.

The researcher examined the information from a study of nearly 39,000 women aged 54 on average, and tracked for 11 years on a number of health issues. In the study, 34 percent of the women were physically active based on government guidelines, 31 percent were overweight and 18 percent were obese. At the end of the study period, 948 women were diagnosed with heart disease.

The study found that active women with normal weight had the lowest risk of developing heart disease. Those with normal weight, but inactive lifestyles, had slightly higher risk. Active women who were either overweight or obese had the next highest risk. Overweight or obese women who were inactive had the highest risk of heart disease.

According to the researchers, about 2 in 5 women in the United States at age 50 will eventually develop cardiovascular problems.

When one is overweight or obese, the risk of high blood pressure, diabetes, and high cholesterol is very much higher. Physical activity does make an impact and does counteract all these 3 medical conditions. However, when one is overweight or obese, he or she just cannot get back to that lower risk entirely with just physical activity.

The new finding seems not well accepted by those proponents of ‘fit and fat’ theory. These health experts argued that the study is limited as the information collected was relied solely on women self-reporting their activity levels, a method that is not as reliable as a more objective fitness evaluation.

On the other hand, health professionals in the field of treating overweight patients do feel that the study’s message is important. As levels of obesity increase, heart disease is becoming a big problem. Therefore, anything that can motivate the public to maintain healthy weight is useful!

Fat Boys More Likely To Have Heart Disease Than Fat Girls!

No one will deny that obesity will have a higher chance of developing heart disease. This conclusion is not limited to adult only: obese teens can develop heart disease as well just like the adults. Nevertheless, are you aware that there is a gender difference for fat teens towards developing coronary heart disease?

Let us take a look of a study in Denmark of 280,000 people born between 1930 and 1976. The finding, conducted by the researchers from The Institute of Preventive Medicine in Copenhagen, suggested that fat boys are far more likely to get heart disease as adults than fat girls are. The risk is higher if boys are obese at the age of 13 than if they were obese at age 7 but had slimmed down.

What the study discovered was that a 13-year-old boy of average height who is 11.2kg heavier than the norm has a 33 per cent higher risk of getting coronary heart disease when he grows up.

An accompanying commentary by Associate Professor David Ludwig of Harvard Medical School also predicts that childhood obesity would shorten lives in the United States by 2 to 5 years by mid-century. This is an effect equal to that of all cancers combined.

Think Before Going For Weight Loss Surgery!

A new research, published in the Archives of Surgery, had shown that people who have undergone so-called bariatric surgery for obesity have a higher death rate than other people of the same age. The cause of death is due to suicide and coronary heart disease, in particular.

Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh studied the data for all Pennsylvania residents who underwent a bariatric operation such as stomach stapling or gastric bypass between 1995 and 2004. They then compared the number of death of these patients with that of those in the general population.

It was found that there were a total of 440 deaths after 16,683 weight loss procedures during the study period. Male gender and advancing age were both associated with the increased death rates.

For all age groups, the death rate was much higher in bariatric surgery patients than in the general population. But for patients between the age of 25 and 34, the difference was particularly pronounced. Their death rates for male and female patients were 13.8 and 5.0 per 1,000 persons per year, respectively. In comparison, the death rates in the general population were 1.3 and 0.6 per 1,000 persons per year.

Coronary heart disease was found to be the most common cause of death. 16 suicides were also found with 10 of them were women. Comparing with the data from the general population, researchers estimated that only 3 suicides deaths would have been expected in this number of people.

The researchers also suggested that a better control of high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, and smoking, as well as efforts to prevent weight regain by diet and exercise, and psychological support to treat depression and prevent suicide could reduce the excess deaths after bariatric surgery.

Broken Heart Can End One's Life!

Writers love to use "broken heart" to describe some of their characters who fail in their love affairs in romantic novels. But that does not actually mean that the character with a broken heart will actually die of heart disease.

But after you have read the results of a research conducted by University College London on the 9,000 British civil servants, you would probably change your perspective: one is possible to die of a "broken heart".

The study, as reported in the Archive of Internal Medicine, found that stress and anxiety of hostile, angry relationships can actually raise the risk of developing heart disease. The negative intimate relationships could influence a person's heart condition. In other words, the findings showed that coronary heart disease is associated with negative aspects of close relationship.

The selected civil servants were asked to complete questionnaires about negative aspects of their relationships with a spouse or close friend between 1985 and 1988 or between 1989 and 1990. Questions such as whether people had emotional support, a chance to talk with someone about problems or whether they could count on a partner or close friend for something as simple as ride to the grocery store were included in the study.

The entire research spanned over a period of 12 years. It was found that people, who reported that arguments and other types of conflict were common, had a 34 percent greater risk of heart attacks or chest pain.

Many of the researches done before aimed to find out the "protective effect" - more social connections can lead to a healthier life. In comparison, only few studies have actually investigated how close relationships or marriages affect health like the one mentioned here.

Let’s Talk About Fats Again – Trans Fats

Being of no health benefits at all, trans fat is often a pervasive and often hidden ingredient in many food items.

It clogs the arteries and makes them more rigid. It not only increases the bad cholesterol (LDL) but also decrease the good cholesterol (HDL).

Eating too much trans fat will make one become possible victim of coronary heart disease and Type 2 diabetes. Therefore, people are advised to consume no more than 2 g of trans fat a day, as recommended by The World Health Organization (WHO).

Though a small amount is naturally found in some animal-based foods such as meat and diary products, trans fat is mainly found in processed foods such as:

• Shortening
• Margarine
• Snack foods like crackers and cookies
• Fried food like French fries
• Fast food
• Baked goods
• Dairy creamer or coffee creamer
• Sweets
• Instant noodles, which are fried in palm oil

These foods are always sources of saturated fat as well.