April 30th, 2011 by admin in Health Tips
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Extra fat that accumulates around the abdomen goes by many names: beer belly, spare tire, love handles, apple shape, middle-age spread, and the more technical “abdominal obesity.” No matter what the name, it is the shape of risk.
Abdominal obesity increases the risk of heart attack, stroke, diabetes, erectile dysfunction, and other woes. The danger zone is a waist size above 40 inches for men and 35 inches for women.
As I describe in the April 2011 issue of the Harvard Men’s Health Watch, beer is not specifically responsible for a beer belly. What, then, is to blame? Calories. Take in more calories with food and drink than you burn up with exercise, and you’ll store the excess energy in fat cells.
Many studies indicate that people who store their extra fat around the midsection (apple shape) are at greater risk for heart and other problems than people who carry it around their thighs (pear shape). An analysis of 58 earlier studies covering over 220,000 men and women suggests that excess fat is harmful no matter where it ends up. This work was published in The Lancet. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Harvard Health Blog*
April 25th, 2011 by PeterWehrwein in News, Research
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Baseball fans have the Baseball Prospectus annual. Political junkies can get their fix from Nate Silver’s 538 blog.
For those of us with geeky interest in health and medicine statistics, graphs, and charts, the Health, United States, 2010 report from the National Center for Health Statistics is that kind of treat. The 41 charts and graphs and 148 trend tables in the 2010 report (it’s dated 2010 but was released earlier this year) could keep me happily occupied for hours.
One graph that really caught my eye shows the percentage of Americans that take a statin. Statins are prescribed mainly to lower “bad” LDL cholesterol, but they may have other benefits, too. The statins include atorvastatin (sold as Lipitor), rosuvastatin (sold as Crestor), and simvastatin (sold as Zocor but also available as a generic ).
Here is the graph I am talking about:
Many Americans take statins. No surprise there. But half of men, ages to 65 to 74, and 39% of women, ages 75 and older—that’s pretty stunning. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Harvard Health Blog*
April 20th, 2011 by IsisTheScientist in Research
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These last several weeks I have been absolutely overwhelmed with science, meetings, writing, and reviews. I might complain, but I should also be flattered that I am as busy as I am. Mama is in demand, little muffin. Still, things are beginning to slow down to a tolerable level on my end, which means I will be back to blogging.
Today I was working on some writing when I had cause to review some historical texts. It gives me pause to stop and consider things that we take for granted. For example, think about how blood flows through the heart and lungs…
Figure 1: Blood flows from right to left, across the lungs.
I can’t tell you how many times a day I look at a heart and take for granted that blood should flow from the venous circulation, into the right side of the heart, across the lungs, back to the left side of the heart, and out to the arterial circulation. When all is right with the world, such is the way it should be.
But, we didn’t always know that. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess*
April 20th, 2011 by Dr. Val Jones in Humor, True Stories
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Every once in a while we physicians make an astute (or perhaps lucky) observation that becomes a turning point in a patient’s life.
I’ll never forget the time that I placed a hand on an elderly woman’s belly after she said that she felt a little bit dizzy – the pulsatile abdominal mass that I discovered set in motion a cascade of events that resulted in life-saving surgery for an disecting abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA). It was incredibly gratifying to be involved in saving her life – and now anyone who so much as swoons in my vicinity gets a tummy rub! (Yes, Dr. Groopman I know that’s not necessarily a rational response to one lucky “exam finding.”)
Last week I made a fortunate “catch” on the order of the AAA discovery from years ago. I was giving a close friend of mine a hug (he’s significantly taller than I am) when I noticed that his heart was beating rather quickly through his shirt. I instinctively grabbed his wrist to check his pulse, and voilà – it was irregularly irregular. My friend had new onset atrial fibrillation – and although he was initially resistant to my idea of going straight to the ER, I eventually convinced him to come with me. An EKG confirmed my clinical diagnosis, and blood thinners (with Pradaxa) and a rate control agent were administered. He will undergo cardioversion in a couple of weeks. We were both relieved that our intervention may well have averted a stroke, heart failure, or worse.
My peers at the hospital have been poking fun at me for my hug diagnosis, and my reputation as the “hug doctor” now preceeds me. I continue to protest that I do know how to use a stethoscope – but alas, there have been more requests for stat hugs from me than cardiopulmonary exams.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to top this clinical diagnosis, but a life of trying to find my next case of atrial fibrillation through hugging will likely make a few people smile.
April 18th, 2011 by Medgadget in Research
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A study published in journal Chest has shown that novel intra-sleep pulse oxymetry can be an effective modality in identifying cardiovascular disease risk in patients. In the study, a modified version of Weinmann‘s SOMNOcheck micro oximeter was used to observe pulse wave attenuation, heart rate acceleration, pulse propagation times, as well as respiration-related pulse oscillations and oxygen desaturation episodes. All the collected data was analyzed by an algorithm, and the prognostic results were checked against European Society of Hypertension/European Society of Cardiology (ESH/ESC) risk factor matrix.
Some details from the study abstract: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
