Alzheimer's Disease Archive

A negative attitude about aging appears to be associated with a higher likelihood of Alzheimer's disease.

A study in the journal Psychology and Aging examined healthy, dementia-free subjects from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging, the nation's longest-running scientific study of aging.

Heart palpitations can be alarming, but are they dangerous?

Do you ever feel that your heart is pounding, skipping, or racing so fast that you're certain it will explode from your chest at any moment? That's how many people describe the experience of heart palpitations. In the most literal sense, palpitations are simply an awareness of your heart beating, says Dr. William Stevenson, professor of medicine at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital. The most familiar trigger for palpitations is heavy exercise, such as when you pedal extra hard to summit the last computerized hill in your indoor cycling class.

Skipping a beat

Although common, palpitations alarm many people, in part because they tend to come on unexpectedly. Isolated palpitations typically occur when a small rush of adrenaline courses through your body, causing your heart to beat more forcefully than usual. These surges can be generated by a strong emotion such as excitement, fear, or anger. They also can come on after consuming a stimulant such as caffeine.

As you've gotten older, have you noticed that you often find yourself marching around the house in a huff, searching for misplaced car keys or eyeglasses, or you just cannot remember the name of that new neighbor you met when walking the dog? It's frustrating, to be sure, but not inevitable — and there are things you can do to help keep your memory sharp.

"Most people get a little more forgetful with aging, but there are some simple things you can do to prevent memory slips and help your brain to learn and remember better," says Dr. Anne Fabiny, chief of geriatrics at Cambridge Health Alliance and an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Mosquitoes can transmit many viruses, such as, Zika, West Nile, dengue, and yellow fever.
Image: Thinkstock

Ask the Doctor

Q. Why is it that we suddenly have epidemics of things like Zika virus that we've never heard about, and that we have no treatments or vaccines for? It feels like we should be better prepared than we apparently are. This worries me more than terrorism.

Ask the Doctor

Q. My primary care doctor referred me to a cardiologist, and I just found out that I have a bicuspid aortic valve. What does that mean for me?

A. The aortic valve sits between the heart and the aorta, the main artery from the heart that distributes oxygen-rich blood throughout the body. A normal aortic valve has three leaflets, or flaps, that open and close tightly to regulate the flow of blood. But between 1% and 2% of people are born with an aortic valve that has only two flaps, known as a bicuspid valve. This defect is twice as common in males as in females and often runs in families.

Even the newer, targeted cancer therapies may harm the heart.

Image: Bigstock

About 14 million people in the United States are living with cancer, a number that reflects the steady rise in cancer survivorship in recent decades. In 1980, only about half of people with cancer lived five years after diagnosis. Today, five-year cancer survival rates are greater than 70%.

Unfortunately, many cancer-suppressing treatments can have undesirable effects on the heart and blood vessels. The increasing awareness of these effects—coupled with the surge of older people being diagnosed with and surviving cancer—has spurred a new specialty known as cardio-oncology. Experts in this burgeoning field focus on promoting heart health in people with cancer, both during and after their treatment.

Ask the doctor

Q: I have developed numerous small, thin veins over my legs. I would like to get rid of them. What is the most effective treatment?

A: Dilated superficial veins, known as reticular or "spider" veins, are a common problem as men get older. The preferred treatment is sclerotherapy, but laser therapy is gaining popularity. Sclerotherapy involves injecting fluid into the veins with a small needle. This liquid causes irritation and inflammation of the vein, leading to its collapse. Laser therapy uses intense pulsed light to cause heat-related damage to the veins. Both treatments involve some discomfort. Wearing compression stockings afterwards appears to help improve outcome.

Ask the doctors

Q: I went for my usual check-up, and in addition to taking my blood pressure, the medical assistant handed me a form to fill out with nine questions related to my mental health. I've never had this happen before. Is this new?

A: Yes, it is new for most people. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has just released an important depression screening recommendation. The USPSTF recommends regular depression screening for all adults, which is a modification from advice originally given in 2009, in which screening was recommended only for clinics or doctors who had adequate support systems to provide mental health care for those who were identified with depression. Since that time, multiple studies have found that mental health care from primary care clinicians works very well, and probably just as well as specialist care from psychiatrists. That isn't to say we don't need care from psychiatrists, but rather that not everyone needs a psychiatrist, especially those with mild to moderate depression.

Men are more likely than women to develop atrial fibrillation (afib)—a rapid, erratic beat in which the heart's upper chamber doesn't contract forcefully, allowing blood to pool and increasing the risk of clotting. However, some—but not all—studies have indicated that afib poses a greater stroke risk in women than in men. To settle the question, an international team of researchers looked at 30 studies with 4.4 million participants. They found that compared with men who have afib, women with afib have a 12% higher risk of death from all causes and almost double the risk of having a stroke or dying from one. The results were published online Jan. 20, 2016, by the journal BMJ.

Women notoriously neglect the symptoms of afib—feeling weak, breathless, or unusually fatigued. If you have afib symptoms, get medical attention, even if you think it's only a virus. There are several successful treatments for afib as well as for preventing stroke in women who have afib.

A painful, blistering rash known as shingles may temporarily increase a person's risk of a stroke or heart attack, according to a study in the Dec. 15, 2015 PLOS Medicine. Also known as herpes zoster, shingles results from a reactivation of the virus that causes chickenpox, which most adults had during childhood.

For the study, researchers analyzed the records of more than 67,000 people ages 65 and older diagnosed with shingles and either a heart attack or stroke from 2006 through 2011. They then compared the rates of cardiovascular events before and after a shingles attack. In the first week after a shingles diagnosis, the risk of a stroke rose 2.4 times and the risk of a heart attack increased 1.7 times compared with baseline risk.