Heart Failure Archive

Although the two conditions seem unrelated, Alzheimer’s and heart disease actually share a genetic link. People who have a certain gene variant have both a somewhat elevated heart disease risk and a significantly elevated Alzheimer’s risk. Fortunately, a recent study has suggested that when people know they have this variant, they’re more likely to make healthy lifestyle choices that benefit their heart — and what’s good for the heart is good for the brain.

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.

When it comes to preventing cardiovascular disease, some experts feel the recommendations may not go far enough.

Image: Bigstock

Every five years, the U.S. government issues a new edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, a report that "helps Americans make healthy choices for themselves and their families." But if you're concerned about having a heart attack or stroke, the advice in the latest update doesn't entirely agree with what many nutrition experts—as well as the American Heart Association—recommend.

We asked Dr. Walter Willett, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, to share his thoughts about where the new guidelines may not be aggressive enough for people at risk for heart disease. Here's his advice on five dietary components of note.

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.

Image: Thinkstock

Ask the Doctor

Q: I recently turned 86 and my angina is getting worse, even though I'm taking several different medications for it. Am I too old to have an angioplasty and a stent?

A: Not necessarily. During an angioplasty, a doctor threads a thin tube into a heart blood vessel and inserts a tiny mesh scaffold (called a stent) to keep the vessel open and restore blood flow. This can often improve chest pain, or angina. However, many studies of angioplasty haven't included large numbers of people over 80. That's primarily because older people tend to have more health problems than their younger counterparts, so including more elderly people in a study could skew the results.

New findings link cardiovascular fitness to better thinking skills and memory in older people.

Image: Thinkstock

Exercise that speeds up your heart rate and breathing keeps your heart and blood better cardiovascular fitness to a sharper brain is providing new clues about this heart-mind connection.

"It's not just about delivering more oxygen to the brain, although that's part of it," says Dr. John Ratey, associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and author of Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain. Having a fit, healthy cardiovascular system also protects against vascular dementia, which happens when blood vessels feeding the brain are blocked or narrowed, leading to memory problems and other cognitive trouble.

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.

A mail-order saliva test marketed to consumers may make some promises it can't deliver.

A new mail-order genetic test called StatinSmart bills itself as the first test to identify a person's risk of experiencing muscle pain from a statin. That sounds like potentially helpful information, given that up to half of people who are prescribed statins quit taking them because of perceived side effects—most often muscle pain. Others avoid statins altogether because of that worry.

But here's the rub: muscle problems can range from mild to serious, and the terms experts use to describe them can be confusing. The StatinSmart website says 29% of people who take a statin develop "statin-induced myopathy," which they define as muscle aches, pains, weakness, or cramps.

Drinking caffeinated coffee or tea may help you feel more awake and alert. But for healthy people, it probably won't cause palpitations—a noticeably strong, fast, or irregular heart beat. That's according to a new study of nearly 1,400 older adults in the Jan. 26, 2016, Journal of the American Heart Association.

Researchers relied on data from food questionnaires and Holter monitors, which recorded each participant's heart rhythm for a 24-hour period. About 60% of the people in the study said they consumed more than one caffeinated product (coffee, tea, or chocolate) a day. People who consumed more of those products were no more likely to have palpitations than those who imbibed less, the authors found.

Image: Thinkstock

A heart attack or unstable angina (sudden chest pain that happens at rest) usually requires a hospital stay. After such events—which doctors call acute coronary syndromes—about one in five people ends up back in the hospital with heart disease or dies in the following year. But there's a bright side: new research suggests that survivors with an optimistic attitude are less likely to be readmitted to the hospital with heart problems.

The study, published in the January 2016 Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, included 164 people, mostly men, who were hospitalized for acute coronary syndromes. Two weeks after the event, they filled out questionnaires designed to measure their sense of optimism and gratitude.