Heart Disease Threats Can Cut Lifespan?

Smoking, high cholesterol and hypertension (high blood pressure) are 3 risk factors that can lead to heart disease. This statement can hardly arouse any objection.

In fact, many studies have confirmed that people, who do not smoke, eat healthily, and exercise, can cut their risk of developing heart disease. However, very few of these studies actually tackled and answered the question: ‘to what extend does having these heart disease risk factors shorten life expectancy?’

In order to seek the answer, researchers from the University of Oxford analyzed the data of 19,000 male British civil servants who were examined in the late 1960s when they were between 40 and 69 years old.

They found out that those male smokers with high cholesterol and hypertension die, on average, a decade sooner than those without any of these risk factors for heart disease. The findings were published on September 18, 2009 in the British Medical Journal (BMJ).

The detailed information on medical history, lifestyle and smoking habits were provided by the participants at the outset of the study. Their weight, blood pressure, cholesterol level, blood sugar level and lung function were recorded by the doctors.

In 1997, or 28 years after the initial examination, more than 7,000 of those surviving participants were re-evaluated. It was found that those men who had a triple risk threat at the beginning of the study were 2 to 3 times more likely to have died of heart disease than men who were free from all the 3 risk factors. In other words, their lives were shortened, on average, by a decade.

According to health experts, the percentage of people having fatal stroke or heart attack does decline by about a quarter in many rich countries over the last decade. However, similar downtrend is not seen in many known risk factors for heart disease.

In the United States, the American Heart Association revealed that uncontrolled hypertension has fallen by only 16 percent, high blood cholesterol by 19 percent, and smoking by just over 15 percent since 1999.

Meanwhile, other risk factors of heart disease have remained either constant or even increased. For example, the number of people who exercise does not exceed than that more than 10 years ago. On the other hand, obesity rate have increased tremendously, especially among younger generation.

How Is Coffee Linked to Weight Gain?

Coffee is one of the most favorable beverages for people, especially for those staying in the United States. People not only drink coffee in the morning but also consume it in the afternoon, and even in the night. One good reason quoted by coffee lovers is that coffee can keep them awake for longer hours to help them accomplish their tasks or works.

In recent years, blended coffee beverages have gained popularity. Blended coffee beverage is one that contains milk, sugar, pre-sweetened milk, chocolate powder, etc, in addition to coffee. Latte, cappuccino, flat white, mocha and frappuccino are just a few popular examples, and there are of course many more varieties. These so-called blended coffees can be either served in hot or cold.

However, are people paying attention to the calories of the coffee they drink? A survey conducted on coffee chains by a New York City Health Department found that a black coffee or one served with milk, sugar, or both had an average calorie of 63.

Meanwhile, they also discovered that other varieties of blended coffee, with pre-sweetened milk, ice or pre-mixed, had about 239 calories, which is 12 percent of a 2000-calorie diet. In a particular coffee chain, a large blended coffee could contain as high as about 860 calories.

The findings, which were published in the online journal Preventing Chronic Disease during September 2009, included 3,000 purchases from 115 coffee and restaurant chains in the city. Nevertheless, not all drinks are filled with calories. For instance, a simple black brewed coffee or tea can have as little as 10 calories.

The calorie-loaded coffee beverages could easily cause the coffee drinkers to put on weight! As overweight is a risk factor for many other medical disorders, for example, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension (high blood pressure), etc, the Health Department in the United States suggests that consumers should order a small size beverage with low fat or skim milk, and without flavorings. This would cut down the calories and reduce the risk of weight gain.

Can Foods Rich in Magnesium Reduce Stroke Risk?

Being the leading cause of heart disease and cancer, cigarette smoking is also strongly linked to stroke.

A study that was published on March 10, 2008 in the Archives of Internal Medicine reported that diets rich in magnesium could help smokers reduce their stroke risk. Carried out by researchers from Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, the study was aim originally to look at possible lung cancer therapies.

Researchers have not figured out the mechanism behind the finding, but suspected that it might be the magnesium that helps reduce high blood pressure. High blood pressure, also known as hypertension, is a disorder that can lead to stroke if it is not treated in time.

About 26,556 Finnish male smokers were followed for more than 13 years. The study found that those who consumed an average of 589 milligrams of magnesium each day in their diets had a 15 percent lower risk for cerebral infarction than those who consumed less magnesium. Cerebral infarction is a kind of stroke that occurs when blood flow to the brain is blocked.

The effect was found to be stronger for men younger than 60 years old. Meanwhile, the study also showed that the intake of calcium, potassium and sodium was not associated with risk for any type of stroke.

Magnesium can not only lower blood pressure but also influence the cholesterol level or the use of insulin that turns glucose into energy. Any of these 2 mechanisms would affect the risk for cerebral infarction but not hemorrhagic stroke. Hemorrhagic stroke is another type of stroke that occurs when the vessel ruptures, causing blood to leak into the brain.

Foods rich in magnesium can be found in whole grains, black beans, broccoli, halibut, oysters, peanuts, rockfish and spinach. However, the researchers are not sure if taking magnesium dietary supplements would also produce the same result.

Couples Sleeping Apart To Prevent Heart Disease and Other Disorders?

Sleep plays an important role in our health. If one could not have a good night sleep, many health hazards might just occur. Evidences have already shown that poor sleep was linked to depression, heart disease, lung disorder, traffic and industrial accidents, as well as divorce. Nevertheless, people do not seem to pay much attention to the quality of their sleep.

Of course, poor sleep can be due to many causes. For instance, family or work pressure, frequent passing of urine during the night, snoring from the partner sharing the same bed, and so on and so forth.

An interesting finding, revealed on September 10, 2009 at the British Science Festival, indicated that couples actually sleep better when they sleep separately. This seems to be opposite to what people generally feel: they tend to sleep better when a partner accompanies them.

In order to compare how well couples slept when they shared a bed versus slept separately, the researchers from the University of Surrey studied the sleep patterns of 40 couples. They found that when couples slept together in the same bed and if one of them moved in his or her sleep, there was a 50 percent chance that their partners on the same bed would badly be disturbed.

They also revealed that even with the evidence they gathered, couples are reluctant to sleep apart. There is only 8 percent of those couples who are in their 40s and 50s are sleeping in separate rooms. Perhaps, the thinking that couples do not sleep in the same bed only when they have problem in their relationship still firmly instilled in the mind of most people.

One sleep specialist, who sleeps separately with his wife, argues that people were never meant to share their beds.

Why?

According to his explanation, the concept of modern martial bed only started with the industrial revolution. This is because people were moving to overcrowded towns and cities where living space was scarce. He further pointed out that married couples sleeping apart were rather common before the Victoria era.

So what should the couples sharing the same bed do now?

The advice from the experts is that if couples sleeping together can sleep perfectly well, then they should stick to it, otherwise they should not be afraid to do something different.

Why Is There a Reduction in Heart Attack Deaths in United States?

When heart attack victims are admitted into hospitals, the doctors therein might have different alternatives to treat their patients. For example, they could use angioplasty to clear out clogged arteries, perform heart bypass surgery, or prescribe medications to lower the cholesterol levels, reduce clotting and regulate heart beat. As such, the success rate of treating these patients could vary widely among various hospitals.

According to a study that was published on August 18, 2009 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, there has been a noticeable reduction in heart attack deaths over the period between 1995 and 2006 as a result of clearer United States guidelines on how to treat elderly heart attack patients.

The researchers from the Yale University School of Medicine in Connecticut found a reduction of 3 percent in the number of patients who died within a month of having a heart attack after the introduction of clearer standards on treatments by Medicare.

Medicare is a social insurance program administrated by the United States government to provide health insurance coverage to people who are of 65 years old and above or who meet other special criteria.

In 1990, the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association published joint guidelines on which care was suitable and when. 2 years later, Medicare followed the guidelines.

The researchers studied the records of 2.7 million patients discharged from 4,000 hospitals after having heart attack between 1995 and 2006, and found that among Medicare beneficiaries, there was 1 additional patient survive at 30 days for every 33 patients admitted in 2006 compared with 1995.

The 30-day mortality rate decreased from 18.9 percent in 1995 to 16.1 percent in 2006, and in-hospital mortality decreased from 14.6 percent to 10.1 percent,

Meanwhile, they also discovered that a lot less variation in death rates among the hospitals. Such finding might support the argument that healthcare reform efforts should include more standardized guidelines on patients’ care.

The cause of the reduction has yet to be determined with certainty. Nevertheless, the finding of this study might have already reflected one thing: individuals and organizations dedicated to improving health care during the period begin to see some positive and encouraging results.

Back in 1995, 24 percent or more of heart attack patients died within a month after being treated at 39 hospitals.

Is The Number of Young Diabetics Rising in Asia?

Diabetes mellitus, more often referred to as diabetes, is a condition in which the body does not produce enough or properly respond to insulin. Being a hormone produced in the pancreas, insulin has the function of enabling cells to absorb glucose and turning it into energy. When a person has diabetes, the glucose will accumulate in the blood and this will eventually lead to various complications. For instance, diabetes has been identified as a risk factor for heart disease.

There is no doubt that diabetes has turned into a global problem. It is expected that the number of victims will grow from 240 million in 2007 to 380 million in 2025.

In Europe and North America, overweight and obesity have long been thought to lead to Type-2 diabetes. However, a study, published on May 27, 2009 in the Journal of American Medical Association, reported that the number of diabetics is rising in Asia affecting those who are relatively young and less likely to be struggling with obesity, unlike in the West.

Based on the figures from the International Diabetes Federation, more than 60 percent of diabetics will reside in Asia, the fastest growing region in the world. Countries with low- and middle-income will face the hardest hit. The number of diabetics will grow from 40 million to nearly 70 million in India; 39 million to 59 million in China; and 3.8 million to 7.4 million in Bangladesh.

While the trends of diabetes could be influenced from genetic makeup and cultural differences to smoking and degrees of urbanization, the most startling result was still related to body mass and age.

Despite lower obesity rate, the waistlines of Asian population keep expanding as a result of rapid economic development, changing diets and more sedentary lifestyle. Expanding waistline is considered to be harmful to diabetes. This is because fat around the abdomen stores excess energy and releases chemicals that control metabolism and use of insulin.

Although people across Asia generally have lower body mass index (BMI), which is the ratio of weight (kg) divided by the square of height (cm), they can have a similar or even higher chance of developing diabetes, according to the study.

The Number of Diabetics Rises In Europe!

According to IDF (International Diabetes Federation), diabetes affects 246 million people worldwide and the figure is expected to rise to some 380 million by 2025.

People should never treat diabetes lightly because it could lead to fatal consequences. Diabetics might have symptoms such as frequent urination, thirst, unexpected weight loss, extreme hunger, and frequent fatigue. If the blood glucose is too high, they can develop comatose.

If the blood sugar level is not controlled effectively, diabetes can lead to blindness, neuropathy (damage to nerves), and even lower-limb amputations. Patients, who also have hypertension (high blood pressure), can have a higher chance of getting kidney failure. Meanwhile, one should not forget that diabetes has been a known risk factor for cardiovascular and heart disease, too.

A study, published on May 28, 2009 in the British Journal ‘The Lancet’, revealed that incidence of Type-1 diabetes in children aged below 5 in Europe is expected to double and those aged below 15 will increase by 70 percent by 2020 over the 2005 levels.

Based on diagnosed cases between 1989 and 203, the researchers warned that the trend will be highest in the former Communist countries of Eastern Europe. The dramatic increase could be attributed to genes as well as the modern lifestyle habits.

In general, there are 2 types of diabetes, namely Type-1 and Type-2 diabetes. Type-1 diabetes generally begins during childhood and early adolescence. The immune system destroys cells in the pancreas that make insulin, and this does cause the glucose level in the blood to rise dangerously. Insulin is the hormone, which breaks down glucose into other forms of energy.

A mix of genetic vulnerability and environmental factors, such as increases in weight and height, less exposure to early infections in childhood and delivery by caesarean, might cause such disorder, according to health experts.

On the other hand, Type-2 diabetes occurs when there is insufficient insulin or cells become insensitive to the insulin that is produced. It is closely linked to chronic obesity, resulting from sedentary lifestyles and the consumption of sugary and fatty foods. The number of Type-2 diabetics is far more than Type-1 diabetics.

How Can Recession Obesity Affect The American Children?

In 2008, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), reported that nearly 32 percent of American children were overweight and 16 percent were obese.

Meanwhile, between 1980 and 1999, the obesity rate had tripled and this no doubt had created an epidemic. Poor diet that is heavy on fat and sugar with little consumption of fruits and fresh vegetables, and lack of exercise were blamed to be responsible for such phenomenon.

Obese children not only have a higher chance of becoming obese adults but are also at a higher risk of developing heart disease, high cholesterol and Type-2 diabetes.

Now, there is another possible force, which in the opinion of researchers, will help increase the obesity rate. Researchers from Duke University argued that the prevailing economic downturn would probably put American children at risk of ‘recession obesity’.

‘Recession obesity’ is a term for unhealthy side effects of people who lose their jobs and health insurance, then drop their gym memberships, delay medical treatment, and eat cheaper but less healthy meals. As fast food is cheap and filling, its consumption is on the rise during the economic downturn. The researchers fear that parents would substitute for their children fast food, high carbohydrate and high sugar-content food for healthy food. This would surely cause an uptick in the rate of overweight children and adolescents.

After analyzing dozens of indicators, the researchers compiled the 2009 Child Well-Being Index. The index tracks how American children are faring socially, emotionally, in terms of education and health. It aims to assess how American children are faring today, comparing their current situation with the past. They also project what these children might face in the future. This year’s index includes a special report on the impact of the current recession on the American children.