Battling Heart and Stroke

My husband and I watched “The Namesake” the other day and I remember that scene where the father Ashoke presented himself at the ER and had to stand in line for a long time, leading to his death due to a heart attack. Unfortunately, this scenario does not only happen in movies but in real life as well. In a  CVD news item last week, I cited that the average waiting time in an ER is almost an hour - 60 minutes which can make the difference between recovery and disability, between life and death.

This study reported in the journal Stroke looked at 15,117 stroke victims from 46 hospitals listed in the North Carolina Stroke Registry (January 2005 to April 2008) and the findings are as follows: More →

In a previous post, I’ve discussed about how lack of sleep can adversely affect women’s hearts much more than men’s.

In another study on sleep, too much or too little sleep seems to increase the risk of ischemic stroke among postmenopausal women.

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Having problems with your hearing? Maybe it is time to check your stroke risk.

A nation-wide research study in Taiwan based on health insurance records indicates that sudden loss of hearing might be an early sign of risk to stroke. In fact, this symptom may be able to predict the actual stroke two years before it happens.

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Is there a link between dementia and ministrokes? This seems very likely, according to researchers who conducted studies on several people with dementia or cognitive impairment.

What is dementia?

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When it comes to stroke rates, Europeans are way better off than Americans, according to a Dutch study.

The researchers looked at data from 2004 on 13,667 Americans and 30,120 Europeans from 11 countries. Their analysis shows that American men have 61% higher likelihood of suffering from stroke than their European counterparts. Also, American women were almost twice more likely to suffer from stroke than European women. This difference in stroke rates in the two sides of the Atlantic is most evident among the poor segment of the two regions’ population but less visible among the rich. More →

By Keysha Karina

Ischemic Heart Disease we can include people with personal or family history of:
~heart attack (myocardial infarction)-when a part of heart muscle is permanently damaged or actually dies because there’s not enough oxygen.
~unstable angina-is an intermediary between myocardial infarction and stable angina.It’s manifestation is a severe chest pain that lasts more than stable angina and it doesn’t respond very well to medication.
~angina-is a chest discomfort which occurs when the coronary vessels receive an inadequate blood flow.
~atherosclerosis-occurs when fatty material deposite into the arteries walls. This can lead to a blockage of the arteries.

Other risk factors for Ischemic Heart Disease are:
~hypertension (high blood pressure)- blood pressure can vary with activity and with age, but a healthy adult who is resting generally has a systolic pressure reading between 120 and 130 and a diastolic pressure reading between 80 and 90 (or below).
~diabetes-heart problems are the leading cause of death among people with diabetes, especially in the case of non-insulin-dependent diabetes also known as Type II diabetes.

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By Eric Hartwell

Heart attacks are a common form of ischemic heart disease. The World Health Organization estimated in the year 2002 that over twelve percent of all worldwide deaths arose as a result of ischemic heart disease. In developed countries, it is the leading cause of death. In developing countries, however it comes third behind AIDS and lower respiratory infections.

Heart attacks, known by their medical name of acute myocardial infarction, is a state of disease that involves the interruption of the bloody supply to part of the heart. The result is a shortage of oxygen that can damage the heart tissue and potentially kill. Heart attacks are the leading cause of death all over the world. Major heart attack risk factors include a history of angina or vascular disease, a previous stroke or heart attack, old age, excessive alcohol, the abuse of illegal drugs, smoking, episodes of abnormal heart beat, obesity, high levels of stress, high or low cholesterol, high triglyceride levels, high blood pressure, and diabetes.

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By Eric Hartwell

Coronary Heart Disease is also known as atherosclerotic heart disease, coronary artery disease, and ischaemic heart disease. It comes about as the result of atheromatous plaques clogging the arteries that supply the heart’s muscle, which is known as the myocardium. The symptoms of coronary heart disease often do not reveal themselves until several decades after the fact, oftentimes in the result of a severe heart attack. After years of accumulation the plaques can rupture, and thus limit the amount of blood that flows to the heart muscle, resulting in the heart attack. Coronary heart disease is the leading cause of sudden death. For men and women of advanced age, it is the most common cause of death.

When it comes to heart disease, atherosclerotic heart disease entails a wide spectrum. At one end you have asymptomatic people whose disease is characterized by atheromatous streaks inside the walls of the coronary arteries. The streaks do not obstruct the blood flow, but rather represent the earliest stage of atherosclerotic heart disease. During this phase of the disease, a coronary angiogram may or may not show any signs that it is present. This is due to the fact that the coronary artery’s lumen has not decreased in caliber.

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by: Rita Jenkins

The type of stroke that results when a blood clot travels to the brain — called an ischemic stroke — is more likely to occur on days when the air contains a larger concentration of particulate matter, according to a study published online in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) examined air quality on a total of 37,000 days in nine cities. Risk of hospitalization for ischemic stroke was 1 percent higher on days with relatively high levels of air pollution, compared with low-air pollution days, reports lead author Gregory Wellenius, ScD, postdoctoral fellow in cardiology at BIDMC.

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By Jonathon Hardcastle

Hopefully you never had to endure a situation of someone close to you to suffer from transient ischemic attach (TIA), also known as mini stoke, or from a stroke. In any case, you should be familiar with both kinds of stroke as they both destroy brain tissue and can produce similar long-term effects. But there are important differences in what causes them and in the symptoms that tell you which kind of stroke is happening.

Ischemic Stroke:

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