December 28th, 2011 by HarvardHealth in Health Tips, Research
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When you sit quietly, your heart slips into the slower, steady pace known as your resting heart rate. A new study suggests that an increase in this rate over time may be a signal of heart trouble ahead.
Your heart rate changes from minute to minute. It depends on whether you are standing up or lying down, moving around or sitting still, stressed or relaxed. Your resting heart rate, though, tends to be stable from day to day. The usual range for resting heart rate is anywhere between 60 and 90 beats per minute. Above 90 is considered high.
Many factors influence resting heart rate. Genes play a role. Aging tends to speed it up. Regular exercise tends to slow it down. (In his prime, champion cyclist Lance Armstrong had a resting heart rate of just 32 beats per minute.) Stress, medications, and medical conditions also influence the heart rate.
In today’s Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers from Norway report Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Harvard Health Blog*
November 7th, 2011 by Michael Craig Miller, M.D. in Research
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If your child is being treated for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), you may have one less thing to worry about today. A study involving 1.2 million children and young adults provided reassuring evidence that the drugs used to treat ADHD do not increase the risk of death from heart disease.
Researchers, who published their results yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine, analyzed medical records from a nationwide private insurance plan along with health plans based in Tennessee, California, and Washington State. They compared children taking stimulant drugs (like Ritalin and Adderall) that are commonly used to treat ADHD to children not taking these drugs.
Among all of the children, heart attack, stroke, or sudden death were rare, affecting a little more than 3 in every 100,000 children per year. Cardiac problems were no more common among children using a stimulant as among those not taking one.
The study Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Harvard Health Blog*
October 19th, 2011 by Iltifat Husain, M.D. in News
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Researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute have developed a smartphone app that uses a camera to measure key vital signs. The type of technology used by the Worcester researchers is far and above more useful than a simple heart rate monitor, such as the Instant Heart Rate app.
Recently, the Instant Heart app makers received millions in funding – I hope it wasn’t based solely on the heart rate monitor app they have developed. Having a a patient’s heart rate alone isn’t that useful for a clinician, and it’s extremely easy to measure your heart rate on your own, just put your fingers to your wrist or neck.
But the work by Worcester researchers is completely different, exciting, and unlike the Instant Heart Rate app, Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at iMedicalApps*
August 19th, 2011 by John Mandrola, M.D. in Health Tips
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The “normal” number of heartbeats per minute is very much a frequently asked question. People, especially medical people, like well-defined lows and highs. Parameters which can be assigned an ‘L’ or ‘H’ makes life easier.
2009 National Championship Masters (45-49) Road Race
As a modern-day competitive cyclist, I am immersed in a sea of information. In our quest for weekend glory, minutia like speed, wattage outputs, RPMs, torque, elevation gain and of course, heart rates (highs, lows, and averages) get recorded, downloaded, and then studied intensively.
As a heart rhythm specialist, it is a frequent occurrence to see patients referred for low or high heart rates. More often than not, heart doctors are called upon to adjudicate patients who fall outside the “normal” values.
The old school teaching holds that the normal resting heart rate is greater than 55 and less than 100 beats per minute (bpm). Maximal heart rates are estimated by the Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr John M*
August 6th, 2011 by John Mandrola, M.D. in Health Tips, True Stories
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Dehydrated, cramped, limping? on a bike. Road nationals 2010.
People who exercise outdoors face a new threat.
It’s unrelenting.
Consistent.
Inescapable.
Perhaps, even more dangerous than distracted or mean motorists.
It’s the heat. Gosh, is it hot. If only I had a dollar for every time I heard someone say, “Doctor M, you aren’t riding in this heat; are you?”
Well…Other than the fortunate souls smart (or lucky) enough to live in cooler climates, most of us are facing an extreme wave of hotness. As a Kentuckian, I live in the epicenter of this summer’s cauldron. Louisville sits in a wind-protected valley alongside the heat sink that is the Ohio River. Think hot and steamy.
The excessive heat smacked me hard last evening. Normally, my highly-veined skin and northern European heritage serves me well in the heat. But last night, while riding in sight of our city’s skyline, it started: My mouth grew dry and my breathing labored. And why was that helmet feeling so tight? Next came the sensation of tingles—not the pleasant kind of tingles, like when your teenager hugs you. And then came the deal-breaker: chills. I stopped, swallowed my pride and called for a ride home. (Here’s an always for you all: When it’s ninety degrees out and you feel cold–stop exercising, immediately.)
After last night’s brush with heat exhaustion, I thought it reasonable to ramble on about the dangers of exercising in the heat. And of course, I will offer some nuggets of wisdom for beating the heat. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr John M*
