Heart Health Archive

Everyone gets angry from time to time. It's a normal human response to unfair treatment and other injustices, and it's a common reaction to frustration and criticism, whether justified or not. But normal anger is one thing, excessive hostility quite another. Some people get angry without provocation, others react excessively to minor adversity, and still others experience inappropriately intense or prolonged anger to legitimate triggers.

Outbursts of anger are never pretty, and they can damage relationships and careers. Anger can also bring on heart disease. But older men are most vulnerable to heart disease, while younger men are more likely to have short fuses. Does youthful anger affect the mature heart? Studies of anger and heart disease say the answer is yes: Excessive anger at any age can take a toll on men in midlife and beyond.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death among women — and one of the most preventable. Research is giving us insights into how we can control our risk.

We've come a long way since the days when a woman's worry over heart disease centered exclusively on its threat to the men in her life. We now know it's not just a man's problem. Every year, coronary heart disease, the single biggest cause of death in the United States, claims women and men in nearly equal numbers.

Risk still underappreciated

In a survey conducted by the American Heart Association, about half of the women interviewed knew that heart disease is the leading cause of death in women, yet only 13% said it was their greatest personal health risk. If not heart disease, then what? Other survey data suggest that on a day-to-day basis, women still worry more about getting breast cancer — even though heart disease kills six times as many women every year. Why the disconnect?

Regular exercise is crucial to keeping the circulatory system functioning optimally, which in turn is beneficial to overall health and protection from heart disease.

Early treatment of the most common type of stroke, ischemic stroke, can limit brain damage and vastly improve outcomes. Ischemic stroke is the kind caused by atherosclerosis, which causes blood clots that block the blood supply to a part of the brain. Yet too few ischemic stroke patients receive important clot-busting drugs, which are most effective when given within three hours after symptoms start. Patients often arrive at the hospital after that window of opportunity has closed. They delay getting treatment because stroke symptoms may not be that pronounced or they are mistaken as coming from other, less serious problems.

As a result, doctors are looking for ways to make it easier for the layperson to identify a stroke. The Cincinnati Prehospital Stroke Scale is one such attempt. Some experts say it leaves out too many symptoms. Others say it will cause false alarms because it's not specific enough..

Learn to manage your triglyceride levels to avoid having a higher risk of heart disease and stroke.

Surviving a heart attack is cause for celebration. It's also a trigger for depression. Up to half of heart attack survivors get the blues, and many go on to develop clinical depression.

Early experiences with antidepressants weren't that promising because older tricyclic drugs such as clomipramine and nortriptyline sometimes threw off heart rhythms and further endangered the heart. This made doctors leery about recommending antidepressants, even when selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) such as Prozac (fluoxetine), and Zoloft (sertraline), and others came along.

People who take non-prescription decongestants often do not heed the warning label: "Do not use this product if you have heart disease, high blood pressure, thyroid disease, diabetes, or difficulty in urination due to enlargement of the prostate gland unless directed by a doctor."

Pseudoephedrine Decongestants

Pseudoephedrine, the old standby found in Sudafed and other cold and allergy products, can raise blood pressure. In most people the increase is small, and millions of people use it each year with no trouble.

A cell phone or smartphone can do so much more than make calls, send text messages, and play games.

Hundreds of heart-related applications are available for the iPhone, Android, Blackberry, and other smartphones. Many are little more than glorified diaries or pamphlets. A growing number, though, are tapping into the sophisticated technology packed into these phones.

When you are alone and have to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), your primary effort should be compressing the chest to help the person's heart pump blood. If there is a second person helping, providing breaths can be done at the same time as compressions are performed.

The brief review of CPR on the following pages can help you in an emergency; however, this information should not take the place of a certified course in CPR.

If you don't mind pricking a finger, you can check your cholesterol without sitting around in a doctor's waiting room or laboratory. Devices available in pharmacies or through the Internet make this easy to do at home. But is it worth doing?

The makers of home cholesterol tests rightly tout their products as faster than visiting a doctor. You prick your finger, gently squeeze a few drops of blood onto a test strip or into a small "well," and you get the results in a few minutes, instead of waiting a few days.