Skinny-Thigh Could Cause Heart Disease

Overweight or obesity has been shown by earlier studies to be one of the many risk factors, like diabetes, smoking, hypertension, and high cholesterol, of heart disease.

A study appeared in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) on September 4, 2009 reported that women and men with thighs smaller than 60 cm (or about 23.6 inches) in circumference would face a much higher risk of premature death and heart disease. It is believed that this is the very first to examine the implications of thigh size on heart disease.

Danish researchers from Copenhagen University Hospital looked at data obtained from 1,436 men and 1,380 women. The body measurements of these participants were taken in Demark in the late 1980s. Over the next 12 years, more than 400 participants died and another 540 suffered either cardiovascular or heart disease, and the ratio of men to women was roughly 2 to 1.

The findings showed that survivors without any heart disease had significantly thicker thighs, after taking into account of other risk factors of heart disease. People with thigh size smaller than 60 cm had a much higher risk of premature death.

Nevertheless, 60 cm was the threshold. This means that larger (than 60 cm) thigh size did not seem to offer any additional benefit for either sex. In fact, those with the thinnest thighs (less than 18 inches around) were more than 3 times more likely to die compared with those with the 60-cm thighs, and more than twice as likely to have heart disease.

It is possible that, according to researchers, a lack of lower body muscle mass could affect a proper glucose and lipid metabolism, which in turn put the body at risk of developing disease. As such, they proposed further study to find out the reasons.

Meanwhile, suggestion by the researchers to use thigh size for assessing heart disease risks together with other measures like body mass index (BMI) and waist and hip circumference met objection from some health experts. The opposers doubted that the thigh size could be clinically useful.

What Else Can Cause Obesity?

While many studies have blamed the increasingly sedentary lifestyle and the availability of low-cost high-calorie foods to be the culprit for obesity epidemic in the developed countries, there might be other reasons behind this.

Researchers from Emory University School of Medicine and the University of Colorado at Boulder found that the bugs that help digest food could also cause the body to gain weight if they are not properly regulated. If wrong kinds of bacteria were dominant, they could cause a low-level inflammation leading to a pre-diabetic condition and an elevated appetite, as explained in a paper published on March 4, 2010 in the Journal “Science”.

In the study, researchers examined mice that were genetically engineered to be deficient in a key immune system protein, namely TLR5, which helps cells sense the presence of bacteria. Such protein plays an important role in the intestinal community, meaning it knows not to apply too much force and does not harm the good bacteria.

In the absence of TLR5, the immune system can still regulate bacteria but it just could not do it properly. When the bacterial composition changes, a low level inflammation sets in and insulin receptors are desensitized.

To justify the theory, a series of experiments were preformed on mice. The results showed that if the TLR5-deficient mice were given unrestricted diets, they ate 10 percent more and gained 20 percent more weight than the normal mice. Even if their food was limited, the TLR5-deficient mice were still less sensitive to insulin than the normal mice.

The TLR5-deficient mice also developed metabolic syndrome, which could cause weight gain, high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels, and it could raise the risk for developing diabetes and heart disease.

While the study was limited to mice, experts still believe they might applicable to humans as well. The findings suggested that excess caloric consumption is not only the result of undisciplined eating style but also changes in appetite and metabolism caused by the intestinal bacteria.

It Is Not Too Difficult To Prevent Hypertension!

Hypertension, or more commonly known as high blood pressure, is the second-leading cause of death in the United States. It usually has no symptoms but it can lead to development of many complications including heart disease, kidney failure and stroke, if the condition is not controlled. Many people can have hypertension for years even without knowing it.

Yet, hypertension is regarded as a “neglected disease”! This is what a report, commissioned by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and published on February 22, 2010 in the Institute of Medicine, suggested.

The report showed that nearly one-third of the American adults have hypertension, and the number is on the rise. Every year, hypertension also accounts for about one-sixth of adult deaths, which is a 25 percent increase from 1995 to 2005.

The prevailing measures for hypertension prevention is definitely inadequate: doctors do not treat it aggressively and governments have not sufficiently prioritized their task. But the report stressed that prevent and treat hypertension is not difficult at all. Some means that would help manage and even prevent hypertension were outlined in the report.

The first priority is to cut the salt intake. It is estimated that some 80 percent of Americans are consuming more than the recommended amount of salt and the number is increasing! As some 70 percent of Americans had their sodium (salt) intake from package foods and restaurants, and not from their family meals, it is important for the food industry to manufacture and supply foods that contain less salt to the public.

Health experts are required to do their part, too. It is known that only one-third of people who have hypertension have the condition controlled. Many people who either are not aware that hypertension has struck them or have hypertensive condition not appropriately controlled by the health care providers who have diagnosed it.

Effort should be made to break the economic barriers that prevent patients from taking their medication. It is recommended that CDC need to work closely with various relevant parties to help hypertensive patients who need the medications.

Besides cutting salt, people should also eat more potassium, get some exercise and lose some weight. These steps would surely make a big difference in how many people suffer hypertension.

Be Happy for Heart Disease Prevention!

There are about 2.5 million people in Britain with heart disease, which is the single biggest killer, causing 94,000 deaths a year.

While “do not smoke, have a healthy diet and exercise regularly” are the 3 basic things that people could do to maintain a healthy heart and avoid heart attack, a paper published online on February 18, 2010 in the European Heart Journal indicated that happiness might help to keep a healthy heart!

Researchers from Columbia University Medical Centre in New York, America used a 5-point scale to measure happiness levels of more than 1,700 adults in Canada with no heart disease in 1995. After a decade, they examined the 145 people who developed heart disease and found that happier people were less likely to have had heart problem.

After statistically adjusting to account for other factors like age, gender and smoking, it was found that for every point on the happiness scale, people were 22 percent less likely to develop heart disease.

It has been known that depression and stress would significantly raise people’s risk of developing heart disease, but this study is believed to be the first to suggest happiness could lessen heart disease risk.

Happy people tend to be more likely to have a healthier lifestyle. This could be owing to an unknown genetic trait embedded in these people making them happy and have less heart disease.

According to researchers, even if one is not naturally a happy person, just try acting like one; it could really help the heart!

Ordinary people can ensure they engage with some activities that they like in their daily lives. For example, spending 15 minutes or so to read a book or incorporate activities like walking or listening to music in the daily schedule if these activities could improve one’s mood.

Nevertheless, as this study used an experimental design that is good for observation of trends and associations, it does not prove cause and effect nor confirm lowering risk of heart disease by changing one’s mood. Perhaps, more studies should be carried out to find out more from the cause and effect perspective.

Why A High-Fat Diet Should Be Avoided?

People are usually advised not to have high-fat diet, as this would very likely make people become overweight or even obese. At the same time, it would increase the chance of developing many diseases including heart disease, high blood pressure, and stroke.

A study, believed to be the largest to look at stroke risk in women and across all types of fat, revealed that eating a high-fat diet especially trans fats, could raise the risk for ischemic stroke in postmenopausal women. Ischemia stoke is the most common type of stoke caused clogged blood vessels supplying the brain.

Women who aged 55 and above and ate the most total fat, including monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats as well as trans and saturated fats, had a 44 percent higher risk of ischemic stroke, as compared to those who ate the least. Meanwhile, women who consumed the highest amount of trans fat had a 30 percent more likely to get ischemic stroke, compared with those who consumed the least.

Researchers from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill presented their findings on February 24, 2010 at the American Stroke Association International Stroke Conference 2010.

Previous studies had linked trans fat to the development of coronary heart disease, but studies on the association of ischemic stroke and fat have been inconclusive.

87,230 participants in the Women's Health Initiative, which is a federally funded study for revealing health risks from taking hormone pills for menopause symptoms, were involved. Participants, between the age of 50 and 79, were asked to fill out detailed surveys on their diets when they enrolled. They were divided into 4 groups based on how much fat they ate, and were followed for an average of 7.6 years to see how many had suffered ischemia stroke. A total of 1049 ischemic strokes were found among the women.

It has been known that postmenopausal women would face a higher risk of ischemic stroke than men of the same age. Before menopause, women have a lower risk of stroke than men of similar age. Nevertheless, their risk doubles every 10 years after the age of 55.

Can Fish Oil Really Prevent Heart Disease?

Omega-3 fatty acid is healthy for all from growing children to heart disease patients. This is the message conveyed to people for years by many health professionals and doctors. In recent years, omega-3 has even been added to some foods such as margarine and eggs.

However, Dutch researchers found in their study of about 5,000 heart attack survivors that eating about 400 milligrams of fish fatty acids per day did not significantly decrease the risk of getting heart attack, stroke, heart failure and other cardiovascular events for those patients who were already getting good care. 400 milligrams of fish fatty acids is the equivalent of 2 fatty fish meals.

At the end of 3 and half years, there was no change in death, heart attack and other heart problems between those who consumed margarine with added omega-3 fatty acids and those who did not.

The findings were presented by researchers from Wageningen University in the Netherlands during the month of August 2010 at the European Society of Cardiology meeting in Stockholm, Sweden, and published online by the New England Journal Of Medicine.

Does the results mean that getting more of the fatty acid does not has any benefit? Of course NO!

As confirmed by several studies, omega-3 fish fatty acid (mostly from fish oil) help reduce heart disease. It would reduce the risk of abnormal heartbeats (arrhythmias) that can lead to sudden death, decrease triglyceride (harmful fats) levels, slow the growth of atherosclerotic plaque that could clog arteries, and lower blood pressure (slightly).

The reason that adding a low-dose of omega-3 fatty acid did not offer extra protection, as explained by the researchers, is that the participants were taken good care by their doctors: they were taking the best medicines to prevent future heart problem. Among the participants, about 98 percent were on anti-platelet treatments, 90 percent were taking blood pressure lowering agents and 85 percent were taking lipid-lowering agents.

As compared to those heart patients in earlier research who did benefit by taking fish oil pills, the participants in this study were also older (aged between 60 and 80) and took part in the study years after their heart attack.

Higher Vitamin-B Intake Could Reduce Cardiovascular Disease Risk!

In order to prevent heart disease and stroke (cardiovascular disease), people might need to consume more foods that contain folate and Vitamin-B6.

Folate, also known as Vitamin-Bg, is a water-soluble Vitamin-B that is contained naturally in food. The synthetic form of folate found in supplements is known as folic acid. Folate can be found in leafy vegetables (like spinach and turnip greens), fruits (like citrus fruits and juices), fortified cereals, and dried beans and peas. Vegetables, fish, liver, meats, whole grains, and fortified cereals are good sources of Vitamin-B6.

A group of researchers from Osaka University, who published their findings in Stroke (Journal of the American Heart Association), reported that eating more foods rich in folate and Vitamin-B6 could lower the risk of death from cardiovascular disease for Japanese women and might cut the risk of heart failure in Japanese men.

The dietary consumption of Vitamin-B6 is generally considered low in Japan than in the United States but the findings were consistent with those studies conducted in Europe and North America.

As part of the large Japan Collaborative Cohort (JACC) Study, data collected through completed food frequency questionnaires from 23,119 men and 35,611 women, aged between 40 and 79, were analyzed. All the participants were followed for a period of 14 years and it was found that 986 died from stroke, 424 from heart disease and 2,087 from all diseases related to cardiovascular system.

Based on intake of folate, Vitamin-B6 and Vitamin-B12, the participants were divided into 5 groups. The researchers found that with higher intake of folate and Vitamin-B6, number of men died of heart failure was significantly lower, and number of women died from stroke, heart disease and total cardiovascular diseases was significantly fewer. However, people taking higher Vitamin-B12 were not associated with lower death risk.

According to the researchers, folate and Vitamin-B6 might reduce homocysteine levels in the body by breaking them down thus help prevent cardiovascular disease.

Homocysteine is an amino acid in the blood that is affected by diet and genetic factors. A high level of homocysteine might raise the risk of getting coronary heart disease, stroke and peripheral vascular disease.

How Is Intelligence Associated With Heart Disease?

Heart disease is the leading killer of men and women not only in the United States but also in Europe and most industrialized countries. The data collected by the World Health Organization showed that cardiovascular disease (includes heart disease and stroke) and diabetes accounted for 32 percent of all death around the world in 2005.

Diabetes together with high blood pressure, obesity, smoking, lack of physical activity are some of the known risk factors for heart disease. Interestingly, researchers from Britain's Medical Research Council (MRC) and Social and Public Health Science Unit in Glasgow, Scotland, recently declared intelligence as a predictor of heart disease.

Published in the February 2010 issue of the European Journal of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation, the findings of a study derived from the West of Scotland Twenty-07 Study indicated that lower intelligence quotient (IQ) scores were associated with higher likelihood of getting heart disease and death, and IQ scores were ranked second among other indicators of heart disease after smoking. The top 5 heart disease risk factors identified in the study were cigarette smoking, IQ, low income, high blood pressure and low physical activity.

The study analyzed data collected in 1987 of 1,145 men and women who aged around 55 and were followed up for 20 years. The data collected including height, weight, blood pressure, smoking habits, physical activity, education and occupation, cognitive ability (IQ). The IQ scores were assessed using a standard test of general intelligence.

From the point of view of researchers, there are a number of possible reasons that could explain why lower IQ scores could raise the risk of cardiovascular disease. For instance, a person's approach to healthy behavior (like smoking or exercise) and its correlates (includes obesity, blood pressure) do have something to do with his or her intelligence.

Based on the results of the study, the researchers suggested that health promotion campaigns should be planned with consideration of individual cognition ability (IQ).