Posted on 11/16/2019 12:19:27 PM PST by Olog-hai
People with severe but stable heart disease from clogged arteries may have less chest pain if they get a procedure to improve blood flow rather than just giving medicines a chance to help, but it won’t cut their risk of having a heart attack or dying over the following few years, a big federally funded study found.
The results challenge medical dogma and call into question some of the most common practices in heart care. They are the strongest evidence yet that tens of thousands of costly stent procedures and bypass operations each year are unnecessary or premature for people with stable disease.
That’s a different situation than a heart attack, when a procedure is needed right away to restore blood flow.
For non-emergency cases, the study shows “there’s no need to rush” into invasive tests and procedures, said New York University’s Dr. Judith Hochman.
There might even be harm: To doctors’ surprise, study participants who had a procedure were more likely to suffer a heart problem or die over the next year than those treated with medicines alone.
Hochman co-led the study and gave results Saturday at an American Heart Association conference in Philadelphia. …
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
Last I knew the medical profession makes most of its money off folks with chronic illness. Elderly, if you’re thinking the last year of life, come second.
LOL! Get ready, old people. Here it comes.
I was in cardiac rehab for several months. I was shocked that most men who had worse events than I were not making recommended changes in diet or exercise.
How about eating food that actually tastes good instead of that vegetarian crap that has all the appeal of sawdust and packing foam?
Of course that’s only for us peasants. I notice Bernie Sanders had his heart surgery, and he’s up there in age.
Part of it is, what then do you do with extensively trained, highly paid cardiologists whose day in the hospital consists of mostly elective procedures? Subsidize them to reduce their cases by 80%?
Maybe Liz Warren can retrain them to be Medicare-For-All lobbyists.
Thanks for summing things up.
I also had 5 stents installed, no heart attack but 3 of 4 arteries 40-50% occluded, in July 2018, after 23 days of acute-severe Pancreatitis, which decimated me 134lbs and too weak for a bypass.
You have FRmail.
Did the docs recommend carbohydrate reduction?...if not, I think they’re blowing smoke
“Stable heart disease” is not the same thing as calling heart disease normal. A person with diabetes may have stable diabetes but diabetes is not a normal state of health.
I remember when one of Obama’s cronies went on TV and said that a person should just die after age 60, so I guess Bernie Sanders is a goner
“Sounds like liberal socialism doesn’t want medical procedures.”
exactly right ... i’ve almost lost count of the number of times stenting restored my life after both heart attacks and near heart (unstable angina) attacks.
medications don’t do shit to unblock coronary arteries ...
AND there’s already a standard of when NOT to stent, namely for any blockage that’s not over 60% blocked ...
cue R.E.M. “It’s the end of my heart as I know it (and I feel fine).
You are exactly what the article claims. The ones unnecessary are the ones coming in for just chest pain. Thanks for proving this study.
“When you don’t have enough doctors to serve everyone you pretend that a lot of patients don’t really need service.”
You nailed it!
Yep
Incredibly massive study fully vindicates rate of heart procedures:
What is the average life span of people with a family history of heart problems, and what was that lifespan in 1957?
“Sounds like liberal socialism doesn’t want medical procedures.”
Yes because this study does not even make sense if you think about what the “Procedures” correct. Medicines can’t do that.
study participants who had a procedure were more likely to suffer a heart problem or die over the next year than those treated with medicines alone...
No what it said is that OF COURSE they were more likely to suffer a heart problem because doctors thought their situation was BAD ENOUGH to require surgery whereas the people on meds...their situation obviously wasn’t bad enough to require surgery to begin with.
Making their situation obviously less life threatening.
He didn't say a pain pill, he said give grandma a pain kill her.
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