Battling Heart and Stroke

We have all heard and used the idioms “my heart is racing”and “my heart missed a beat”. However, they are not just figures of speech. They happen literally  - with a condition called atrial fibrillation or AF for short.

The general term for irregular heartbeat is arrhythmia and AF is the most common form of arrhythmia in the United States, according to a recent review in the ScienceDaily. A normal adult heart at rest beats around 50 to 100 beats per minute. A heart with AF beats much faster and very irregularly, making it “race” and “miss a beat.” More →

Last May 21, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the government agency that is in charge of civil aviation safety issued a ban on the use of the smoking cessation drug varenicline by airline pilots and air traffic controllers, as reported by the New York Times.

The following day, on May 22, the US Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the agency in charge of safety in the interstate trucking and bus industry also issued the ban for bus and truck drivers.

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