Heart Disease Archive

A recently published study claimed that people who ate a low sodium diet were more likely to suffer from cardiovascular disease and death. However, there were problems with this study – including difficulty with accurately measuring each study volunteer’s daily intake of sodium. Low sodium diets may be harmful for small subsets of people, but for the majority of people restricting salt intake is still important for cardiovascular health.

How many times your heart beats per minute when you’re resting — also known as your resting heart rate (RHR) — can provide important clues to your current overall health and even predict possible future health problems.

Getting immediate attention for symptoms of a transient ischemic attack can minimize the risk of a subsequent stroke.

We typically think of heart attacks as sudden, chest-clutching agony. But the reality is that nearly half of all heart attacks have no symptoms at all and go completely unnoticed by the people experiencing them — and, alarmingly, these “clinically silent” heart attacks are nearly identical to more overt heart attacks in terms of the damage they cause and the risk to a person’s future health.

Watch for an irregular heartbeat and cardiovascular disease.

Thyroid disorders are often overlooked as potential causes of heart problems, but there is a well-established link.
Image: AlexRaths/Thinkstock

The thyroid is a butterfly-shaped gland in your neck. It produces hormones—thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3)—that tell your cells if they need to speed up or slow down. But if the thyroid gland is overactive or underactive, the result is a number of consequences and symptoms, sometimes involving the heart. "The connection to the heart is well established, but thyroid problems are often overlooked as the cause," says Dr. Giuseppe Barbesino, an endocrinologist at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital.

A high blood pressure diagnosis can come as a shock due to a lack of symptoms, but the condition is manageable. Dr. Naomi Fisher explains what to do after you are diagnosed.