Harvard Heart Letter: September 2008

Why don't you ever tell your readers that everyone who takes a statin to lower cholesterol should be taking coenzyme Q10, too?

Regular home blood pressure monitoring, for people with hypertension or those who are at risk for it, is a recommended health practice that can help keep blood pressure under control.

About ten percent of people who start taking a statin experence muscle pain. Usually this will go away on its own, or by adjusting the dosage of the medication or switching to a different one.

Long-term research finds that following a Mediterranean diet, which emphasizes vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and fish, can reduce the risk of heart disease, benefit heart attack survivors, and help with weight loss.

A study found that a year after a heart attack, about 20% of people were still suffering from angina. A program of cardiac rehabilitation can strengthen the heart and help eliminate angina's pain.

People living with HIV are more susceptible to heart disease, so it is important for them to stay healthy and fit, in order to ward off risk factors like high triglycerides, low HDL cholesterol, and hypertension.

Brief updates on controlling heart rate with medication, quality of heart attack care at night and on weekends, and vitamin D's importance to the heart and arteries.

In your article on blood sugar control, you kept talking about hemoglobin A1c. I measure my blood sugar all the time, but my meter doesn't have a setting for a percentage reading. Is there a simple connection between blood sugar and hemoglobin A1c?

There are wrong ways and right ways to measure your blood pressure. In this video, Harvard Heart Letter Editor Patrick Skerrett demonstrates both.