How To Save Some 2,000 Lives Each Year?

Why is British government willing to spend a huge amount of money for a national program of vascular checks for some 3 million people a year? Let us look at the statistics.

Every year, vascular diseases kill 170,000 people in England. Conditions such as stroke, diabetes, heart disease and kidney disease affect the lives of 4.1 million people and account for a fifth of all hospital admissions. According to the government estimates, earlier detection by health screening could actually prevent up to 9,500 heart attacks and strokes, and thus save the lives of 2,000 every year. Therefore, setting a national program of vascular checks is compelling.

On April 1, 2008, the Health Secretary of England announced a free health-screening program for people aged between 40 and 74 for the identification of those who are at risk of vascular diseases. This program, to be introduced in the 2009-2010 financial year, would cost the government 250 million pounds including any aftercare that results from the tests. The government believes that the benefits of a healthier population far outweigh the upfront costs. The program, when operational fully, aims to check 3 million people a year with a recall every 5 years.

Presently, only around a fifth of adults have the checks that cover cholesterol level, weight relative to height, blood pressure and smoking record. Those who are at risk will be given advice on lifestyle changes, such as stopping smoking and doing more exercise. In addition, those whose health is most seriously threatened will also be given medication.

In order to cover all parts of the population, including those most deprived, the government plans to offer the health checks in community centers, pharmacies and doctors' surgeries.

Though such program does draw some doubts in terms of its effectiveness, most still feel that the program would have positive results.

Vitamin That May Protect One Against Heart Attack!

If one’s body is deficient of certain type of vitamin, he or she may face a high risk of having heart attack. In January 2008, researchers from Harvard Medical School reported that people with low level of Vitamin D might have a higher risk for heart attack, heart failure and stroke. The study was published in June 2008 in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.

In their study of identifying possible health benefits from Vitamin D, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston found that men with low levels of Vitamin D have a higher risk of getting heart attack.

The study involved 454 health professionals ages between 40 and 75 who had suffered a nonfatal heart attack or died of heart disease, and 900 other men with no history of cardiovascular disease. These subjects were followed for 10 years after providing blood samples to measure their Vitamin D levels.

The researchers compared participants who were deficient in Vitamin D (no more than 15 nanogrammes per milliliter of blood) with participants who were in the lower end of the normal range (at least 30 nanogrammes per milliliter of blood).

Men classified as deficient in vitamin D were about 2 and a half times more likely to have a heart attack than those with higher levels of the vitamin. In fact, those with low Vitamin D, besides being at higher risk for heart attack, were at particularly high risk to have a fatal heart attack.

Vitamin D is also known as “sunshine vitamin” because body makes Vitamin D when the skin is exposed to sunlight. It can be found in milk and fatty fish like salmon. Vitamin D helps our body to adsorb calcium and benefits bone health. Vitamin D deficiency can lead to osteoporosis for adults, rickets for children.

Several recent studies have also indicated that Vitamin D may offer a variety of other health benefits. This includes protecting against colon cancer, breast cancer, peripheral artery disease and tuberculosis.

Vitamin D may protect against heart attack in a number of ways. It might lower blood pressure, regulate inflammation, reduce calcification of coronary arteries, affect the heart muscle or reduce respiratory infections in winter.

To find out whether one’s Vitamin D level is normal, just visit the family doctor and take a blood test. Those with very low levels can take Vitamin D supplements.

Blood Pressure Better Controlled Through Internet Health Care!

Patients with hypertension (high blood pressure) will usually have their blood pressure measured only at doctors’ clinics when they visit them for routine check-up. Although patients may have been advised to check and record their blood pressure at home, it seems that not many patients will actually do this. It is therefore difficult for the doctors to prescribe the relevant medications and appropriate dosage to have their patients’ blood pressure under control. High blood pressure, if not managed appropriately, can lead to stroke, heart disease, and other medical conditions.

In the last week of June 2008, a report published in Journal of the American Medical Association by researchers from Group Health in Seattle indicated that people with high blood pressure would get their condition under control when they get advice and medications delivered via Internet, along with home blood pressure monitoring.

The aim of the study is to find out whether high blood pressure could be managed over the Internet, without visiting a doctor.

778 patients with uncontrolled high blood pressure and Internet access were involved in the clinical trial. They were randomly assigned to usual care, to home BP monitoring and Web services training, or to home monitoring, Web services training, and management by a pharmacist delivered through Internet communications. The participants were middle-aged, working people for whom Web-based care is convenient.

With Web services, patients could email their doctors, refill prescriptions, request appointments, get test results, and look up health information. Meanwhile, the pharmacists in the study were also allowed to prescribe medications. By using email communication, they could also manage the patients' blood pressure and adjust medications accordingly until the target blood pressure was reached.

After 12 months, about one-third of the patients in the first 2 groups achieved a normal blood pressure, and those with the Internet-based pharmacist care, more than half of the patients got their blood pressure down to normal.

According to the researchers, Web communication could improve health care because it is always available (24 hours and 7 days a week), it allows people to respond at a time which they feel convenient, and it is in a briefer way than over the telephone or during a personal visit.

It is believed that greater use of electronic medical records, Web communications, and empowering patients to take a greater role in their care will eventually lead to improved health outcomes and lower health care costs. As such, the researchers urged more efforts should be devoted to make these services available to all.

Turn Recycled Heart Into Beating Again!

In the United States alone, approximately 50,000 patients die because of the lack of donor hearts every year. Meanwhile, some 22 million people worldwide are living with the threat of heart failure. If scientists could devise a way to develop transplantable blood vessels or whole organs that are made from human’s own cells, then many lives could be saved.

It seems that this hope should not be too far away, especially when a group of scientists from United States has coaxed recycled hearts taken from animal cadavers into beating in the laboratory after reseeding them with live cells.

The new study was carried out by scientists from the University of Minnesota and their finding was published on January 13, 2008 in the British journal Nature Medicine. There has been research in generating living heart tissue in the laboratory, but this is the first time that an entire, 3-dimensional bio-dimension bio-artificial heart has been brought to life.

If such procedure could be extended to humans, then an almost limitless supply of hearts and possibly many other organs would be made available to millions of terminally ill humans, who are waiting helplessly for a new lease on life.

In the study, a procedure called decellularisation was used. During the procedure, all the cells from an organ (in this case the heart of a dead rat) were stripped away using powerful detergents, leaving only a bleached-white scaffolding composed of proteins secreted by the cells. This matrix was then injected with a mixture of cells taken from the heart of a newborn rat and placed in a sterile laboratory setting, where the scientists hoped it would grow. After only 4 days, contractions started, and on the 8th day, the hearts were pumping. The researchers were stunned when they saw the result. Decellularisation has indeed changed the way scientists think about engineering organs.

In humans, the objective would be to inject stem cells drawn directly from the recipient of the donated organ, thus eliminating the danger of rejection of the new organ by the immune system.

Recent breakthroughs in stem cell research from non-embryo sources would mean that new tissues should be easy to generate. If organs derived from a patient's own cells would become available on a large scale, then millions of patients suffering from organ failure would benefit.

The research team is now working on making the recycled organs more efficient, and has even transplanted some of these hearts into the abdomens of rats and connected them to the animals' aortas, a standard way of testing whether a donor organ can keep an animal alive.

The Minnesota researchers have also successfully applied the new technique to pig hearts, which are closer to human hearts in size and complexity, although this was not reported in the current study.

Your Peer May Help You Quit Smoking!

Smoking is bad! It will lead to stroke, heart disease, lung cancer, and many other possible diseases. It is merely impossible to find anyone who is not aware of the ills of smoking. Despite hefty taxes, public bans and health warnings, the number of youth picking up this habit is still on the rise. Very often, once a younger starts the first cigarette, chance that he or she would be addicted is high, and this really worries many health experts.

The annual “World No Tobacco Day” was held on May 31, 2008. This year, the theme used by World Health Organization (WHO) is “Tobacco Free Youth”. It aimed to encourage teens to lead a smoke-free lifestyle.

Threats of possible health hazard are unlikely to fear youth, who tend to believe they are invincible. However, if youth is given the right information about cigarettes, they will make the right choice: smoking is bad.

Many have argued that young people smoke because of the influence from the friends surround them. However, a new study found that peer influence could in fact help smoker kick the bad habit.

From 1972 to 2003, two American professors studied thousands of smokers as a social network of relatives, friends and colleagues. Their findings, which were published in June 2008 in the New England Journal of Medicine, reported that groups of friends who smoked would quit not individually but as a whole group. When cluster after cluster of smokers disappeared, those remained would find themselves being isolated with fewer friends.

Smoking cessation groups admitted that their programs would actually work better if they focused on groups, rather than individuals.

Let us hear the confession of a youngster.

“2 months ago, I faced a dilemma. 3 of my close friends at work quit smoking. I then faced a choice: get rid of the cigarettes, or make new smoking friends. I finally chose to quit.”

He further added that he is glad that he is now part of a global phenomenon as clubs, pubs and restaurants around the world is moving to edge smoking out as a lifestyle choice.

Who Is The First Patient To Have Artificial Heart Transplant In Asia?

In 2003, Mr Venkatakrishniah, a 54-year-old Indian diabetic patient, suffered a heart attack. After the bypass surgery, his condition worsened and he could not walk beyond 6 steps. As such, he had to quit his job as an engineer at a state-owned Power Transmission Corporation because he was unable to work.

Under the guidance of a team of US experts from the University of Minnesota, a group of surgeons at Bangalore's Narayana Hrudayalaya implanted in him a ventricular assist device called Ventrassist (Left Ventricular Assist Device) in a four-hour operation on March 20, 2008.

Narayana Hrudayalaya, set up in 2001, was situated in Bangalore. The hospital is well known for its excellence and is one of the world’s largest Pediatric heart hospitals. Two of the surgeons who performed the operation had flown earlier to the University of Minnesota for 3-month training.

After the operation, Mr Venkatakrishniah revealed in an interview that he can now walk, and even climb stairs, and he is planning to work again.

What is Ventrassist? It is a device, 60 mm in diameter and weighs 298 g, is implanted in the lower part of the chest, just below the heart. In order for it to function, an external battery has to be connected to the device by a cable and the battery has to be recharged every 4 hours. Ventrassist is being manufactured by an Australian based company and is a new third generation implantable blood pump designed as an alternative to heart transplantation to people with heart failure.

Normal heart transplants, which may be out of reach for many patients because of the limited number of donor organs available. Furthermore, whether the donor organs are suitable for patients also pose a problem. In India, millions of people suffer heart failure and each year many die in absence of donors.

For the past 8 years, surgeons in the United States and Europe have already implanted such “new-generation” artificial hearts in 220 patients. Bangalore’s operation was the 221st of its kind but it also marked the first in Asia.

Ventrassist used in the Bangalore’s operation cost about 3.4 million rupees, which is certainly not cheap for the patient. Nevertheless, the hospital costs, which added up to about 600,000 rupees in Mr Venkatakrishniah's case, were waived. Despite the high cost, the hospital has already received inquiries from more than 100 patients in India and overseas since the operation.

More information about the Bangalore's operation may be viewed at

What Are the Main Causes of Death Over the Next 20 Years?

Last month (May 2008), a study by World Health Organization (WHO) revealed that the number of deaths from road accidents, cancer and heart disease would increase tremendously over the next 20 years. As indicated in its "World Health Statistics 2008", developing world’s populations get richer and live longer are reasons behind such soar.

According to WHO, the growth of low and middle-income economies will raise mortality rates from non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular disease and cancer, and road crashes due to increased car ownership; it will make up more than 30 percent of deaths worldwide by 2030.

On the other hand, deaths from factors currently associated with the developing world, such as nutritional deficiencies, malaria and tuberculosis, will fall.

Globally, deaths from cancer will increase from 7.4 million in 2004 to 11.8 million in 2030, and deaths from cardiovascular diseases will rise from 17.1 million to 23.4 million in the same period.

Deaths due to road traffic accidents will increase from 1.3 million in 2004 to 2.4 million in 2030, mainly owing to more motor vehicle ownership and use associated with economic growth in the low- and middle-income countries.

By 2030, WHO predicted that ischemic heart disease, strokes, chronic obstructive heart disease (COHD), and lower respiratory infections such as pneumonia, would be the 4 main causes of death. The rise in COHD is mainly because of the increased tobacco consumption.

In 2004, tobacco-related illnesses caused some 5.4 million deaths. The figure will increase to 8.3 million by 2030, with 80 percent of these cases in developing countries. On average, every tobacco user loses 15 years of life, and rate of smoking is particularly high in Eastern and Central Europe and Southeast Asia.

These 10 countries, namely Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Russia, Turkey, and United States, contain nearly two thirds of the world’s smokers.

The report also indicated that not more than 5 percent of the world’s population is fully covered by anti-smoking measures like advertising restrictions, health warnings and higher taxation, which do have an impact.

Also pointed out in the report, the increase in deaths from non-communicable diseases would, however, be accompanied by large declines in mortality for the main communicable, maternal, perinatal and nutritional causes, including HIV infection, tuberculosis and malaria.

Nevertheless, deaths worldwide from HIV/AIDS are expected to rise from 2.2 million in 2008 to a maximum of 2.4 million in 2012 before declining to 1.2 million in 2030.

New Way To Predict Heart Disease For Women!

When a person is suspected of having heart disease, he or she would normally be asked to undergo a procedure called angiogram or go for the latest CT scan known as ’64-sliece CT so as to ascertain whether treatment is needed for the potential patient..

However, there is a new way to identify a woman’s heart disease risk by analyzing the nicotine content of her toenail clippings. This new means was revealed in June 2008 in the American Journal of Epidemiology by researchers from the University of California in San Diego.

For the 62,641 women participating in the Nurses' Health Study, researchers correlated their nicotine content in toenail clippings collected in 1982 to the risk of being diagnosed with heart disease between 1984 and 1998.

Women, who were in the top fifth for toenail nicotine content, were thinner, less active, heavier drinkers, more likely to have high blood pressure or diabetes, and a family history of heart attack, comparing with those with lesser nicotine in their toenails. Furthermore, the nicotine content found in the toenails for the 905 women, who had been diagnosed with heart disease, were twice as much on average than those similar women without heart disease. After adjusting for other risk factors, the women in the top fifth for toenail nicotine were nearly 4 times more likely to have heart disease compared to those in the bottom fifth.

The prevailing biomarkers of cigarette smoke exposure such as the amount of cotinine (a nicotine breakdown product) in urine or saliva could only reflect exposure within the past few days. As toenails grow slowly, they may offer a longer-term, more stable estimate of a person's total level of exposure to tobacco smoke.

Toenail analysis could become a useful test to identify high-risk individuals in the future, especially in circumstances where smoking history is unavailable or is subject to bias. Such analysis may also aid our understanding of other tobacco-related illnesses.

As the current study involved only female participants, perhaps future studies should consider including male participants to find out whether similar analysis could be applied to men as well.