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Yes, Wright saw, the drugs can be life-saving in patients who already have suffered heart attacks, somewhat reducing the chances of a recurrence that could lead to an early death. But Wright had a surprise when he looked at the data for the majority of patients, like Winn, who don't have heart disease. He found no benefit in people over the age of 65, no matter how much their cholesterol declines, and no benefit in women of any age. He did see a small reduction in the number of heart attacks for middle-aged men taking statins in clinical trials. But...

Another year ends, and still the war drags on. In the final salvo of 2010, the combatants are lobbing fruit. Not literally, of course, though they might like to: The long war of the weight-loss diets has aroused passions just about as overheated as those of any military conflict. How is a person best advised to lose extra weight and retreat from diabetes and heart disease? Count calories, cut fat and fill up on fruits and vegetables? Or turn instead to a high-protein, high-fat... --snip-- In the opposite corner we have Gary Taubes, the science journalist who has thrown in...

I found out Wednesday that Mr. MWestMom has some blocked arteries. That explains the fatigue, shortness of breath and eventually, the gripping chest pain. I finally talked him into the doc and they wasted no time in testing lungs and heart. Lungs fine, heart has two blocked arteries. So, Wed. the 5th he'll be undergoing angioplasty and hopefully they can fix the issue with stints. We would appreciate any and all prayers that the procedure is all that is needed and goes well. Thank you so much in advance for your thoughts and prayers! Ladies, make sure you lean on...

Can eating red onions lower your risk for heart attack and stroke? A new study suggests the answer to that question may be yes. At least if you're a hamster. Scientists in Hong Kong fed crushed onions to hamsters that had been on a high-cholesterol diet. After eight weeks, the little guys' levels of low-densitiy lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol fell by 20 percent, the Daily Mail reported. That's good news, because elevated LDL cholesterol levels are linked to cardiovascular disease. At the same time, there was no decline in the hamsters' levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol - the good...

In as little as five years, researchers hope to be able to coax the heart into regenerating itself, repairing the damage caused by cardiac arrests and old age. The revolutionary treatment could be possible after scientists discovered a technique for turning ordinary connective tissue into muscle cells inside the heart. It works in a similar way to stem cells but instead of the new cells being grown outside the body and then injected back in, the technique simply makes the cells switch at the point where they are needed. Around 700,000 people in Britain suffer from heart failure because it...

Every five years, the federal Department of Agriculture and Department of Health and Human Services revise their Dietary Guidelines for Americans, a publication that sets the direction for federal nutrition-education programs. In an age when aggressive government agencies in places like New York City seek a greater hand in shaping Americans’ diets, the next set of guidelines, published later this year, could prove more controversial than usual because increasing scientific evidence suggests that some current federal recommendations have simply been wrong. Will a public-health establishment that has been slow to admit its mistakes over the years acknowledge the new research...

When it comes to heart health, virgin olive oil may have an edge over other vegetable fats, new research suggests. Reporting in the Annals of Internal Medicine, European researchers say virgin olive oil may be particularly effective at lowering heart disease risk because of its high level of antioxidant plant compounds. In a study of 200 healthy men, the researchers found that virgin olive oil -- rich in antioxidants called polyphenols -- showed stronger heart-health effects than the more extensively processed "non-virgin" variety. The findings suggest that virgin olive oil has more going for it than its supply of heart-healthy...

Eat less saturated fat: that has been the take-home message from the U.S. government for the past 30 years. But while Americans have dutifully reduced the percentage of daily calories from saturated fat since 1970, the obesity rate during that time has more than doubled, diabetes has tripled, and heart disease is still the country’s biggest killer. Now a spate of new research, including a meta-analysis of nearly two dozen studies, suggests a reason why: investigators may have picked the wrong culprit. Processed carbohydrates, which many Americans eat today in place of fat, may increase the risk of obesity, diabetes...

<p>The Atkins low-carb, high-fat diet is supposed to be simple, but it's raising complex medical and nutrition questions. Now two new studies show that those who follow the diet can lose significant amounts of weight, but other research is raising concerns about the safety of the program, linking it to an increased risk of kidney stones and bone loss.</p>

<p>With courage and care Dr. Ravnskov exposes the lack of experimental evidence for the diet-heart theory, which claims that eating less fat and cholesterol will prevent atheroslcerosis (hardening of the arteries) and myocardial infarctions (heart attacks). By examining original peer-reviewed literature, the author finds no support for the diet-heart theory. He gives examples of scientific fraud among efforts to support the theory, including the deliberate selective omission of data points, and the deliberate assignment of subjects in a clinical trial to treatment or to control groups by physicians with the subject's medical records in hand. He shows how the abstract or conclusions of a number of papers are at odds with the actual data in the papers. He demonstrates how the use of one statistical method in preference to another can give a false impression that there is an effect, where there is, in fact, none. He shows how the reporting of differences in fatality rates by per cent reduction (say, a 50% reduction in relative risk) is actually misleading when the actual death rates are quite small in both the treatment and control groups of subjects in diet or drug studies. For example, a treatment that changes the absolute survival rate over a multi-year period from 99.0% to 99.5% represents a 50% reduction in relative risk, from 1% to 0.5% absolute. This is often described in papers as a 50% reduction in death rate. However, when the difference is barely significant statistically, as was often the case, Ravnskov points out that there is no real reason to recommend adoption of the treatment, especially if there are serious side-effects.</p>

... A new study from the Harvard School of Public Health suggests that the heart risk long associated with red meat comes mostly from processed varieties such as bacon, sausage, hot dogs and cold cuts—and not from steak, hamburgers and other non-processed cuts. The finding is surprising because both types of red meat are high in saturated fat, a substance believed to be partly responsible for the increased risk of heart disease. But the new study raises the possibility that when it comes to meat, at least, the real bad actor may be salt. Processed meats generally have about four...

Tens of thousands of Vietnam veterans with ischemic heart disease, Parkinson’s disease or B cell leukemia should file claims now with the Department of Veterans Affairs for disability compensation, and not wait until VA publishes a regulation officially linking these diseases to wartime service. Advocacy groups are urging the swift filing of claims because veterans eventually found eligible for disability pay for these diseases will be able to receive compensation back to the date their claims were filed. Those who wait for a regulation to add these ailments to VA’s list of diseases presumed caused by exposure to Agent Orange...

A study of 130,054 adults found that people who drank four cups or more of coffee daily had an 18 percent lower risk of being hospitalized for irregular heartbeats and other heart- rhythm conditions than noncoffee drinkers, researchers at Kaiser Permanente, an Oakland, California-based health system, said today. The risk of hospitalization was 7 percent lower for people who drank one to three cups of coffee daily... Cardiac rhythm disorders are problems in the heart’s electrical systems that cause it to beat too fast, too slow or irregularly. Atrial fibrillation, a rapid, irregular heart beat that is the most common...

Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating the association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease1,2,3,4,5Patty W Siri-Tarino, Qi Sun, Frank B Hu and Ronald M Krauss1 From the Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute Oakland CA (PWS-TRMK)the Departments of Nutrition (QSFBH)Epidemiology (FBH) Harvard School of Public Health Boston MA. 2 PWS-T and QS contributed equally to this work. 3 The contents of this article are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official view of the National Center for Research Resources (http://www.ncrr.nih.gov) or the National Institutes of Health. 4 Supported by the National Dairy Council (PWS-T and...

Those curves are making cardiologists smile. A new study out of Oxford University in England found women with "pear-shaped" figures -- ample extra padding around the hips, buttocks and thighs -- are actually at a lower risk for heart and metabolic diseases. "It is shape that matters and where the fat gathers," said Oxford's Dr. Konstantinos Manolopoulos, explaining that fat stored on the hips and in the rear absorb harmful fatty acids and further prevent arteries from clogging. "Fat around the hips and thighs is good for you, but around the tummy is bad," he told BBC News, noting that...

A major medical paper on primary heart disease prevention admitted that cardiovascular disease risk factors have proven useless for predicting heart disease among our population and that reducing risks factors doesn’t translate into reduced clinical disease or fewer premature deaths. But the solutions to this conundrum were the most unbelievable examples of ad-hoc reasoning.

As Montana bars dealt with their first smoke-free weekend since the state’s indoor smoking ban went into effect, ingenuity ruled. In Missoula, according to a great piece by Michael Moore in the Missoulian, the Rhino Bar gave smokers their very own place to light up: a Butt Hutt, created by Dave Golden of Well Done Welding and Jim Bell, a general contractor. Moore describes the hut as a 4-by-8-foot “metal smoking dugout” in the alley behind the Rhino in Missoula. The no-smoking laws spark the type of debate that never seems to get extinguished. Pro-smokers argue that the bans hurt...

A new study by researchers at the University of Colorado Denver and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) shows vitamin D plays a vital role in reducing the risk of death associated with older age. The research, just published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, evaluated the association between vitamin D levels in the blood and the death rates of those 65 and older. The study found that older adults with insufficient levels of vitamin D die from heart disease at greater rates that those with adequate levels of the vitamin. "It's likely that more than one-third of older adults...

Leg size may be a more accurate indicator of risks than the waistline. We know having a large waistline is unhealthy. But larger thighs, it appears, may protect against heart disease and premature death. A study published on BMJ.com, the website of the British Medical Journal, found that men and women whose thighs are less than 23.6 inches have a higher risk of premature death and heart disease compared with those with thighs exceeding that size. Having thighs that are even bigger, however, confers no added benefit. The study is the first to suggest that thigh size matters. The measurement...

My cousin is not a freeper, but he's a good fella and the father of two