Heart Health Archive

Learn how these high-tech devices can save — and change — your life.

Defibrillators are devices that can detect — and correct — potentially deadly heart rhythms. The most common is ventricular fibrillation, which makes the heart's lower chambers (ventricles) quiver without actually squeezing and pumping. Blood stops flowing to the brain and other organs, causing the person to pass out. Death can occur within minutes.

A quick jolt of electricity can restore the heart's normal rhythm, however. The shock can be delivered from outside the chest with an automated external defibrillator (AED). Located in many public places, these portable devices can be used by medical personnel as well as untrained people, thanks to audible prompts that explain what to do. But some people are candidates for an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD), a miniature electronic device placed under the skin below the collarbone (see illustration).

When you were a kid, you may have lumped peas into the same category as broccoli, spinach, or any other green plant on the plate. But green peas aren't the same as leafy greens. In fact, their classification is a little tricky.

Mature green peas — typically sold dried and split in half — are more like beans. But fresh or frozen green peas are classified as a starchy vegetable by the U.S. Dietary Guidelines.

Research we're watching

Sitting is sometimes called "the new smoking" because of its detrimental effects on heart health. But some types of sitting may be worse than others, according to a study in the July 2 Journal of the American Heart Association.

Researchers interviewed 3,592 African American adults about their daily activities and followed them for roughly eight years. About one-third watched fewer than two hours of TV a day. Another third watched two to four hours daily, while the remaining third watched more than four hours. People in the latter group had a 49% higher risk of heart attack, stroke, and death than those in the first group. However, there was no difference in heart-related events between people who spent most or all of their day sitting at work and those who rarely or ever sat at work.

Research we're watching

Yet another study has found that most vitamin, mineral, and other nutritional supplements provide no protection against heart disease.

The new analysis, published July 8 in Annals of Internal Medicine, reviewed data from hundreds of clinical trials that pitted 16 different vitamins or other supplements against placebos. Most of them — including vitamin A, vitamin B₆, vitamin D, multivitamins, calcium, iron, and selenium — showed no association with a higher or lower risk of heart disease or death.

Research we're watching

Although people tend to focus more on the first number in a blood pressure reading, the second number is also important for predicting heart disease risk. That's according to a study based on 36 million blood pressure readings from more than 1.3 million adults, published in the July 18 New England Journal of Medicine.

Systolic pressure (the first number in a blood pressure reading) measures the force with which the heart pumps blood into the arteries. Diastolic pressure (the second, lower number) reflects the pressure in the arteries when the heart rests between beats. Over eight years, more than 44,000 people in the study had a heart attack or stroke. The risk of those events rose among people with systolic readings of 130 and higher, but also in those with diastolic readings of 80 and higher. The findings are a reminder to pay attention to both numbers in your blood pressure reading, and that for most otherwise healthy people, lower blood pressure is better.

A recent 15-year follow-up to the Veterans Affairs Diabetes Trial found that short-term intensive blood sugar control did not lead to significant reduction of risk of cardiovascular events in the long term.

Leg pain when walking that eases with rest may be a sign of peripheral artery disease, which raises risk for other cardiovascular problems. Lifestyle changes — keep walking! — and treatment help.

Adding short bursts of ramped-up exercise to your workout may be good for your waistline as well as your heart health.

For decades, competitive athletes have added brief bouts of strenuous exercise to their workouts to boost their performance. Known as interval training, this practice is now moving into the mainstream, bolstered by emerging evidence of its health benefits for all sorts of people, including those with heart disease.

"There's a growing consensus that interval training helps people lose weight and may have cardiovascular benefits," says cardiologist Dr. Stephen Wiviott, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Also known as high-intensity interval training (HIIT), these workouts alternate between periods of high-intensity and lower-intensity activity. You can do intervals during any type of exercise — walking, running, cycling, swimming, or even while doing calisthenics, such as jumping jacks, push-ups, or squats. A longtime distance runner, Dr. Wiviott started doing HIIT workouts at his local CrossFit gym about a year ago. "Even though I was exercising for shorter periods of time, I lost body fat and felt better," he says. His positive experience spurred him to explore the evidence supporting HIIT.

Ask the doctor

Q. My 2-year-old grandson has a heart murmur. His pediatrician says it's likely nothing serious and will probably disappear when he's older. What causes heart murmurs in children? Are they different than those found in adults?

A. A heart murmur refers to a noise heard through a stethoscope that occurs between the heart's regular beats. Often described as a whooshing sound, murmurs are caused by turbulent blood flow. They can be separated into two categories: functional (also called innocent or benign murmurs) and structural (also known as pathologic murmurs).