Watch Out Your Belly Fat!

Overweight or obese persons might be likely victims of heart disease. But normal weight people who carry extra fat around their belly could have a higher risk of dying from heart disease than the obese. Fat around stomach and abdomen is called visceral fat. An excess of visceral fat is known as abdominal obesity or central obesity.

 

At the European Society of Cardiology meeting in Munich on August 27, 2012, researchers from Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota warned that there is no assurance that a person with a norma

 

BMI would have a low risk of heart disease. It all depends on where the fat is distributed on the body. BMI stands for body mass index, which is considered as a crude measure of both fatness and fat distribution. It is calculated by dividing the weight in kilos by the square of the height in meters.

 

12,785 American adults, who participated in a national survey, were involved in the study. These participants were followed for an average of 14 years. Within that period, 2,562 participants died, including 1,138 from heart disease.

 

The participants were classified as ‘normal weight’ if BMI was between 18.5 and 24.9, ‘overweight’ if BMI was between 25 and 29.9, and ‘obese’ if BMI was above 30. Waist-to-hip ratio was used to determine the amount of weight they carried around their waist.

 

They were divided into 6 groups based on which of the BMI groups they were in and whether they had a normal or high waist-to-hip ratio. Men with waist measurement that is 90 percent or more of their hip measurement were considered to have a high waist-to-hip ratio. For women, if the waist measurement is 85 percent or more of their hip size, they are said to have a high waist-to-hip ratio

 

It was found that participants of normal BMI but with a high waist-to-hip ratio had the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, and they also had the highest risk of dying from any causes among the 6 groups. These participants were 2.75 times more likely to die from cardiovascular disease and 2.08 times more likely to die from any causes than those of normal-weight with normal waist-to-hip ratio.

 

According to researchers, the higher risk of death could be related to a higher visceral fat accumulation, which is associated with insulin resistance and other risk factors.

Repair Heart With Strangers’ Stem Cells?

Stem cells have the potential to become any type of cell in the body. Its ability of self-renewing or multiplying while maintaining the potential to develop into other types of cells makes them possible to become cells of the blood, heart, bones, skin, muscles, brain etc.

 

There are a number of adult stem cell therapies available, particularly bone marrow transplants that are used for treating leukemia. It is expected that stem cell therapies could eventually be used to treat various types of disease including cancer, Parkinson's disease, diabetes, heart failure, heart disease and other chronic ailments.

 

In contrast with previous findings, a study led by researchers from University of Miami found that stem cells donated by strangers could help restore heart tissues damaged by heart attack. The news was disclosed on November 6, 2012 during the American Heart Association’s (AHA) Scientific Sessions 2012. The findings were then published on December 12, 2012 in the ‘Journal of the American Medical Association’.

 

Only 30 patients in Miami and Baltimore were involved in the study. All of them had suffered heart attack years earlier, some as long as 30 years ago, and developed heart failure because the scar tissue from the heart attack had weakened their hearts making them unable to pump blood effectively.

 

Researchers advertised for people to supply marrow. A specific type of stem cells were removed from bone marrow using a needle into the hip and then amplified for about a month in a laboratory at Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins University. According to researchers, recipients would not reject these stem cells as they lack a key feature on their surface that makes the immune system see them as foreign tissue and attack them.

 

The cells were then returned to Miami and delivered through a tube pushed through a groin artery into the heart near the scarred area. Cells from own marrow were given to 15 patients and cells from strangers were given to the other 15.

 

After about a year, scar tissue had been reduced by about one-third. Improvements in how far patients could walk and in quality of life were noted in both groups. There was no significant difference on how well their hearts were able to pump blood.

 

This definitely is a breakthrough because cells supplied by others can now be used without blood or tissue matching. Cells could be made ready in the blood bank so needed patients could just come in for a therapy without much delay. Moreover, it is also cheaper to make the donor cells as a single marrow donor could supply enough cells to treat as much as 10 people.

Rising Stroke Cases Among Younger Age Groups

A stroke is the rapid loss of brain function as a result of disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. It is known as ischemic stroke when the cause is blockage in the arteries, or it is called hemorrhagic stroke when a blood vessel leaks or bursts. The latter is less common.

 

High blood pressure is the number one risk factor for strokes. The other major risk factors are diabetes, atrial fibrillation, high cholesterol, increasing age, heart disease, obesity, and family history of stroke. People aged beyond 55 used to be the likely victims for stroke, but it appears that stroke cases are rising among young and middle-aged adults.

 

According to a study of stroke rates in a 4-county region of Ohio and Kentucky, 12.9 percent of strokes occurred in adults in the age group between 20 and 55 in 1994 but the figure was increased to 18.6 percent in 2005.

 

In the paper published online on October 10, 2012 in journal ‘Neurology’, researchers from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in Ohio also showed that the average age of people who experienced a stroke fell from 71 in 1994 to 69 in 2005.

 

Researchers examined data on all stroke patients aged between 20 and 54 seen in hospitals, clinics and nursing homes during 3 separate, yearlong periods: July 1993 through June 1994, 1999, and 2005. They only included patient’s first stroke in the analysis.

 

It was found that the stroke rate among people aged above 75 declined from 1994 to 2005, which was agreed with other studies. For instance, the Framingham Heart Study reported a decrease in stroke rates between 1950 and 2004.

 

Such decline is no doubt encouraging but unfortunately, it is counterbalanced by the rising trend of younger strokes. Having stroke at younger ages means a greater loss of productive life years and greater health care expenses over time.

 

Reasons for the increase were not clear, but several findings revealed during the study period might explain the why. Surveys of people by other institutions in the same region showed an increasing number of people had high cholesterol. Moreover, data from national surveys also indicated an increased rate of diabetes, high cholesterol and obesity over the study period. The increase could also be partly due to better diagnoses of stroke using MRI as a diagnostic tool, according to some experts not involved in the study.

How About A Biological Pacemaker?

Pacemakers are, small devices placed in the chest or abdomen, used to treat arrhythmias. Arrhythmias are problems about the rate or rhythm of the heartbeat: the heart can beat too fast, too slow or with an irregular rhythm.

While most arrhythmias are harmless, some can be serious or even life threatening. The inability of the heart to pump enough blood to the body during arrhythmias could damage the brain, heart and other organs. By using electrical pulses, a pacemaker can prompt the heart to beat at a normal rate.

In a recent study, researchers from Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in Los Angeles, California found that inserting a gene into ordinary heart cells of guinea pigs can turn the cells into rare biological pacemakers that regulate cardiac rhythm. The findings, which were published on December 16, 2012 in the journal ‘Nature Biotechology’, showed that out of a total 7 guinea pigs being injected with the virus, 5 later had heartbeats that were originated from their new pacemaker.

While 10 billion cells are found in the heart, fewer than 10,000 of them are pacemaker cells that can generate electrical activity to spread to other cardiac cells making the heart contract rhythmically and pump blood.

A virus was used to deliver human gene called Tbx18, whose normal role is to transform immature cells into pacemaker cells. These new cells generate electrical impulses spontaneously and were indistinguishable from native pacemaker cells. Tbx18 is normally active when pacemaker cells are formed during normal development in an embryo.

Besides limited battery life that require regular recharging, electronic devices also have other complications like displacement, breakage, entanglement of the leads that could be life threatening. Moreover, there are a growing number of patients contracting bacterial infection because of using electronic pacemakers. The biological pacemaker created, on the other hand, could solve most of these problems.

Building on the decade-long research into biological pacemakers, the technique has so far been tested on animals like pigs and rats. It is, however, expected this to work in humans as well. Hopefully in another 2 to 3 years, the technique can be used with the first target patients who have pacemaker device infection, according to researchers.

Until then, it is important that more studies should be carried out to understand if these findings could really help people with heart disease in the future.

Stay Away From Sugary Drinks To Prevent Stroke!

Numerous studies had shown that sugary drinks would lead to various health hazards including heart disease, obesity and diabetes. Such findings have prompted some legislative moves, for instance, ban is imposed in New York on super-sized sodas.

 

A group of researchers from Egypt and Japan conducted a study in Japan and found similar results. In their paper published on October 17, 2012 in ‘The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition’, they stated that women who consumed sugary drinks almost everyday were 83 percent more likely to develop ischemic stroke.

 

Ischemic stroke is a medical condition in which a blood vessel supplying blood to an area of the brain is blocked by a blood clot. It accounts for about 80 percent of all strokes, and it is the most common type of stroke in older adults.

 

In the study, only sugar-sweetened sodas and juices were considered as soft drinks, and so diet sodas or 100 percent fruit juices were excluded.

 

39,786 Japanese men and women aged between 40 and 59 years old answered a dietary, health and lifestyle questionnaire in 1990, 1995 and 2000. These participants were divided into 4 groups: those who rarely drank soft drinks, those who had 1 to 2 drinks a week, those who had 3 to 4 drinks a week, and those who had a soft drink almost everyday.

 

Until 2008, out of 11,800 women who rarely had a soft drink, 205 (1.7 percent) had an ischemic stroke. For 921 women who had a soft drink a day, 28 (3 percent) of them had such a stroke.

 

It could be the beverages’ effects on metabolism that raised the risk of stroke among women who favored soda drinking. High soft drink intake can cause weight gain, higher blood sugar and fats, as well as hypertension. This would in turn increase the risk of ischemic stroke.

 

However, no link between soft drink consumption and stroke risk was found in men. According to researchers, this could be because men with early signs of cardiovascular disease might have already reduced their intake of soda drink.

 

Meanwhile, the study did not find any association between soft drink and increased risk of heart disease. This probably because the underlying metabolic problems tied to soft drinks are more of a risk factor for stroke than for heart disease, as explained by researchers.

Job Strain Is Another Risk Factor For Heart Disease!

There are numerous risk factors, including diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, excessive alcohol drinking, overweight, sedentary lifestyle and smoking, that might lead to heart disease. Recently, researchers from University College of London and various institutions in Europe further confirmed that job strain could be another risk factor for heart disease.

 

In a paper published online on September 14, 2102 in the journal ‘The Lancet’, the researchers reported that job strain is associated with a small, but consistent, higher risk of getting a first coronary heart disease (CHD) event such as heart attack. Workers under job stress were 23 percent more likely to get a heart attack than their stress-free counterparts. The risk, however, was found to be much smaller than smoking or a sedentary lifestyle.

 

The aim of the study was to find out the link between job strain and heart disease risk of workers. Job strain, as defined in the study, is a combination of a demanding job with little freedom to decide how work should be done. Such combination was found by previous study to raise psychological stress.

 

Results of 13 large studies (3 studies each in Denmark and Finland, 2 each in the Netherlands and Sweden, and one each in Belgium, Britain and France) conducted between 1985 and 2006 in 7 European countries were used to perform a meta-analysis. All the studies adopted similar approach: participants who had no CHD were first interviewed and their health conditions were then monitored for an average of 7.5 years.

 

A total of 194,473 participants with mean age of 42.3 years were involved, and half of them were women. Dependent on the study, between 12 and 22 percent of participants had job strain. During the monitoring period, 2,358 heart attacks, either fatal or otherwise, were recorded.

 

The risk of getting heart attack for participants with job strain were 23 percent higher than those with job strain, even after taking into account of conventional risk factors such as age, sex, smoking, alcohol, body mass index (BMI), socio-economic factors and physical activity.

 

There is no doubt that the findings were significant, and the work-related health issues in Europe will definitely increase as a result of the job insecurity driven by the economic crisis.

 

While measure to prevent stress in the workplace might possibly reduce heart disease risk, such measure could be less effective than efforts to tackle smoking and physical inactivity, where the risk of CHD is more than 10 and nearly 4 times greater respectively.

How Can Testosterone Therapy Help Heart Failure Patients?

When a male grows older, his testosterone level gradually declines. The aim of using testosterone therapy is to increase the muscle mass, sharpen memory and concentration, boost libido and improve energy level.

But testosterone supplements might also be able to improve the quality of life for heart failure patients, according to a group of Canadian and American researchers. Heart failure is a condition in which the heart is incapable of pumping enough blood to the rest of the body. Their findings were published on April 17, 2012 in the journal ‘Circulation Heart Failure’.

Researchers from University of British Columbia, University of Alberta and Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston analyzed data from 4 previous studies in which patients were randomly assigned to receive either testosterone therapy or a placebo for a period of 12 to 52 weeks. Testosterone patches and injections were used to improve the breathing and exercise abilities of participants.

Among a total of 198 participants whose average age was 67, 84 percent were men. These participants were taking standard medical treatments for heart failure. Some of these participants had symptoms even after receiving standard therapies, and physically they could not walk, as far as or as much as, they could when they were healthy.

During a 6-minute walking test, participants who took testosterone therapy walked an average of 177 feet (54 meters) more than those who took placebo. For participants taking testosterone therapy, there was also an increase in VO2 max, which is the amount of oxygen used per minute of exercise. VO2 max is a general indicator of a person’s fitness level. Meanwhile, there were no adverse effects found on the heart.

According to researchers, testosterone did not affect the heart itself. Instead, it might target the peripheral tissues such as the skeletal muscles. The hormone has been shown to widen blood vessels, allowing more blood to reach peripheral tissues. It might also raise the levels of hemoglobin, which is a protein in red blood cells that transport oxygen.

While the majority of the participants were males, the results could also apply to women through much smaller doses of testosterone.

It seems that testosterone is a promising therapy, but it is not advisable to use testosterone therapies right away just based on their results. Researchers revealed that there was a small increase in levels of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) among men who took testosterone therapy in the study. High PSA levels indicate that there is a risk of prostate cancer. Previous studies did find a link between high doses of testosterone and increase cases of prostate cancer.

Hence, larger studies are required to confirm the findings and find out the best method of delivery and the appropriate doses, but more importantly, the long-term effects of testosterone therapy, especially their effect on prostate cancer.

Another Way To Tackle Weight Gain!

When people gain weight, most of them would start worrying and find ways to stop the trend. This is because once the weight gain are large enough for them to become overweight or obese, the likelihood of developing chronic diseases, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, stroke and Type-2 diabetes, would be much higher than those of normal healthy weight.

Besides conventional methods of losing weight, there is another way to help people lose weight. A study published online on November 11, 2011 in the ‘Journal of Consumer Research’ found that choosing the right size and color of the bowls and plates could help people eat less.

According to researchers from Georgia Institute of Technology and Cornell University, the bigger the dinnerware, the bigger the portion people will consume. People who use larger plates could end up serving 9 percent to 31 percent more than they actually would.

Research showed that since 1900, average size of dinner plates has increased by almost 23 percent. Eating only 50 more calories a day could raise the weight by 5 pound each year.

225 students participated in the study and were asked to pour a specified amount of tomato soup into 1 of 7 different sized bowls. Out of the 7 bowls, 3 were smaller, 3 were larger and 1 was the control bowl. Observations showed that less than the target serving size of soup was served into the smaller bowls and more was served into the larger bowls.

It was found in the follow-up experiments that even with education, awareness or practice, the bowl bias was nearly impossible to eliminate. People tended to over-serve in larger bowls up to 31 percent more than normal.

Such phenomenon might be explained by Delboeuf illusion, which is an optical illusion of relative size perception. People are likely to believe size of a circle is much smaller when surrounded by a large circle. When people place food onto a small plate, the serving size looks relatively larger than it is. This would lead people to underserve.

However, reduction of bowl bias is possible through changing color of tablecloth or plate. On average, people would reduce serving by 21 percent when color of plate was changed, and by 10 percent when color of tablecloth was changed.

In the presence of the perception biases, researchers concluded that the best solution is to replace larger dinnerware by smaller ones or contrast ones.