Posted on 06/17/2008 6:03:22 PM PDT by neverdem
Given the great strides that have been made in preventing and treating heart disease, what explains Tim Russert’s sudden death last week at 58 from a heart attack?
The answer, at least in part, is that although doctors knew that Mr. Russert, the longtime moderator of “Meet the Press” on NBC, had coronary artery disease and were treating him for it, they did not realize how severe the disease was because he did not have chest pain or other telltale symptoms that would have justified the kind of invasive tests needed to make a definitive diagnosis. In that sense, his case was sadly typical: more than 50 percent of all men who die of coronary heart disease have no previous symptoms, the American Heart Association says.
It is not clear whether Mr. Russert’s death could have been prevented. He was doing nearly all he could to lower his risk. He took blood pressure pills and a statin drug to control his cholesterol, he worked out every day on an exercise bike, and he was trying to lose weight, his doctors said on Monday. And still it was not enough.
If there is any lesson in his death, his doctors said, it is a reminder that heart disease can be silent, and that people, especially...
--snip--
Even so, Dr. Newman said, “the autopsy findings were a surprise.”
In an interview, Dr. Newman and Mr. Russert’s cardiologist, Dr. George Bren, said the autopsy found significant blockages in several coronary arteries, which feed blood to the heart muscle.
Blockages start out as cholesterol deposits in the artery walls that turn into lesions or plaques, narrowing the vessels. Heart attacks occur when a plaque ruptures, causing a blood clot that quickly closes the artery and pinches off the blood supply to part of the heart...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Indeed. Dad was at a party, got up to use the restroom and didn’t come back, so he’d been out for quite a while by the time they figured out there was a problem. There was a nurse there though, who started CPR but to no avail. That was twenty years ago.
WWII Marine Iwo Jima vet. He’d always said he wanted to go “with his boots on.”
Yet the entire world isn't trying to find "meaning" in his death.
When He decides your days on this Earth are over, they are over. End of story.
A couple related googles:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=cayenne+heart&btnG=Google+Search
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=pauling+lysine+heart&btnG=Google+Search
“If I was a doc, I’d refuse to treat VIPs and celebs.”
When you’re a doc you don’t have that option, generally
The docs who treated President Reagan or VP Cheney or Sen. Tim Johnson didn’t have much choice when those VIPs were brought in to their care. In fact it worked out quite well for their hospital that received over $10M from the Reagan and Cheney families.
Thanks for the links. I fell in love with chili, red peppers and hot sauce a long time ago.
During my internal medicine training I did a couple of months at the coroner’s office. I loved it and learned a ton. It was fascinating to see how many people got murdered over stupid things. One guy was 22 and got into a bar fight with the wrong guy and got shot. Another guy was robbed by some thugs in his apartment and was killed with the claw end of a hammer. The only thing I couldn’t handle was babies. It was too sad and I had to leave the room.
John Candy was also a heavy smoker. He was a notoriously big beer drinker too. Sad. He was one of the funniest actors out there.
I forgot to add that John Candy’s dad died young too. Age 38 I think.
In looking at Tim, I always suspected he was a heavy drinker. Alcohol can really wreak havoc on a person.
I’ve read accounts where they cured varicose veins and other circulatory problems.
Trouble with some of the naturopathic stuff is, yes, it may work. But you got to take a lot! I mean a whole lot!
Just like glucosamine. One gram of glucosamine a day isn’t gonna do squat for you. Five or ten probably will.
You wanted echocardiogram there, not angiogram. They do stress echos. If there is an area of the heart with an impaired blood supply, it shoes up as abnormal wall motion. That's a good reason for further testing, possibly an angiogram, the gold standard. You usually get it from an interventional cardiologist. A contrast agent is injected into the blood to show the inside of the coronary arteries. It gets snaked through a femoral(leg) artery right next to your groin, and worked backwards through the aorta to the heart. The coronary arteries begin at the origin of the aorta as it comes out of the heart's aortic valve.
Echocardiograms, ultrasounds and sonograms are names for basically the same technology developed from sonar in the Navy.
They also do stress studies with radioactive thallium and other elements that can show perfusion defects. I'm not a cardiologist, just a FP doc.
Wow .. that’s really interesting and worthwhile. Thank you for posting. They stipulate that you shouldn’t buy it as the spice in your grocery store, as those are typically radiated.
Do you use any particular sources ?
Looks like he had a CTA, if I am reading this correctly.
You are incorrect.
A coronary calcium score is not a coronary CT angiogram. The calcium score does not use dye and does not visualize the lumen (inside) of the artery. The calcium score only detects that amount of calcified plaque in the arteries. It is a measure of plaque burden but does not tell you anything about the presence of soft plaque, which is the type of plaque that erodes and thrombosis the artery leading to an acute heart attack and in Russert's case leads to a fatal arrythmia (e.g. V-fib).
Last year an article from the New England Journal of Medicine demonstrated that the plaques that kill people do not necessarily critically narrow the arteries. It may be a modest plaque that does not narrow the artery enough to cause ischemia or chest pain with vigorous exercies. That is why you can have a normal stress test today and die of a heart attack tomorrow.
Nothing in particular. Just the herb rack, whatevers available. Radiated or not, believe me, it’s got capsaicin in it!
With all due respect, calicum scoring is old technology. If the patient can handle the contrast load you might as well do a coronary CTA on a 64 slice CT scanner at an imaging center that knows what they're doing.
Soft plaque is the killer and not detectable on a noncontrast cardiac ct. I've seen plenty of guys under 50 with zero calcium scores and lots of soft plaque including widow maker lesions in the proximal LAD.
Oh .. ok. And you’re noting that it’s beneficial?
I’m not a doctor nor do I play one on TV.
But Pubmed has about 8,000 abstracts on capsaicin indexed, many of them talking about positive, anti inflammatory effects.
DYODD.
Thank you. My gut suffers with hot peppers or seasoning. It just slays me. One article says you can start with a small amount and increase as you get used to it in time. Have you ever drank the cayenne tea with lemon juice added? I’m definitely going to give it a go, one way or another.
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