Living in the net » Heart

High salt diet or low salt diet good for your heart?

admin — Thu, 05 May 2011 08:39:07 +0000

Doctors have been telling us for long that too much salt is bad for our health. However, the controversial results of an eight-year study by Belgium scientists have suggested that eating a diet high in salt is not only good for you, but could also reduce the risk of dying from a heart attack or a stroke.

The current study fuels the brewing debate over whether low-salt standards should apply equally to everyone. Some experts suggest that certain people may be more sensitive to salt than others, or that people with normal blood pressure may not benefit from lowering their sodium intake. Most of the gold-standard studies on salt — in which people are randomly assigned to consume diets high or low in sodium — have involved people who either have hypertension or are at high risk of developing it. Based on that data, scientists just assumed that the same low-salt principle would benefit people at lower risk as well.

It should be noted that the study was done on Finish people, which is not to say it is flawed, but just that it is a fairly narrow. In other articles such as “Salt usage behaviors are related to urinary sodium
excretion in normotensive Korean adults” in 2007 it points out that urinary sodium excretion tests are not very predictive to how much sodium a person actually injests. An interesting study though.

Salt is essential to life; you simply can’t live without it. The real key to enjoying salt in your diet is to know what type to buy. Avoid buying common table salt, and instead opt for a natural mineral salt. Try to find things such as Himalayan Salt or Celtic Sea Salt and make them a part of your heart-healthy diet.

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Take care of your heart in the morning

admin — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 02:22:23 +0000

Heart attack is a life threatening condition requiring urgent medical attention.

People who have a heart attack in the morning tend to fare worse than those who have one at other times of the day and night, experts have discovered.

Patients struck down between 6am and midday suffer a fifth more damage to their heart muscle compared with those who have an attack later on.

Scientists believe the phenomenon may be due to the changes in the body’s blood pressure, hormone levels and metabolism rates that naturally occur when a person wakes up.

In total, 269 patients had their heart attack during the morning danger period. Another 240 suffered attacks between noon and 6pm, 161 between 6pm and midnight, and 141 between midnight and 6am.

The findings were published online in the journal Heart.

Risk Factors for Heart Attacks and Some Ways to Eliminate it

admin — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 04:58:54 +0000

What is a heart attack (myocardial infarction)?

A heart attack, or myocardial infarction, occurs when one or more regions of the heart muscle experience a severe or prolonged lack of oxygen caused by blocked blood flow to the heart muscle.

The blockage is often a result of atherosclerosis – a buildup of plaque composed of fat deposits, cholesterol, and other substances. Plaque ruptures and eventually a blood clot forms. The actual cause of a heart attack is a blood clot that forms within the plaque-obstructed area.

If the blood and oxygen supply is cut off severely or for a long period of time, muscle cells of the heart suffer damage and die. The result is dysfunction of the muscle of the heart in the area affected by the lack of oxygen.

There are two types of risk factors for heart attack, including those that are inherited (or genetic), or acquired.

* Inherited or genetic risk factors are risk factors you are born with that cannot be changed, but can be improved with medical management and lifestyle changes.
* Acquired risk factors are caused by activities that we choose to include in our lives that can be managed through lifestyle changes and clinical care.

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First heart transplant

admin — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:26:42 +0000

The World’s First Heart Transplant
As of April 1985, only two heart transplants had been performed in the Carolinas, both at Duke University Medical Center in Durham. That all changed on Jan. 6, 1986. At Charlotte Memorial Hospital (now Carolinas Medical Center) in Charlotte, Sanger Clinic physicians performed Charlotte’s first successful heart transplant. It took seven hours.

First Heart Transplant

Mr Washkansky Groote Schuur Hospital was placed centre stage in the world’s spotlight when Professor Christiaan Barnard performed the first human heart transplant on the third of December 1967. Sadly, Mr Louis Washkansky (pictured left) only lived for 18 days, succumbing in the end to pneumonia. His new heart beat strongly to the end.

London, July 14 : In a world’s first recovery of its kind, a Brit girl who had her heart transplant operation reversed after her own heart was deemed fit is now healthy enough to play, swim, and run.

TECH: Heart Transplant Surgery

admin — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:13:21 +0000

Heart transplantation, or cardiac transplantation, is a surgical transplant procedure performed on patients with end-stage heart failure or severe coronary artery disease. The most common procedure is to take a working heart from a recently deceased organ donor (allograft) and implant it into the patient. The patient’s own heart may either be removed (orthotopic procedure) or, less commonly, left in to support the donor heart (heterotopic procedure); both are controversial solutions to one of the most enduring human ailments. Post-operation survival periods now average 15 years.

When does a person need a heart transplant?
A heart may be irreversibly damaged by long-lasting heart disease or viral infection. People with long-term heart failure, heart muscle disease, or other irreversible heart injury from coronary artery disease and multiple heart attacks that can’t be treated by any other medical or surgical means may be candidates for heart transplants.

When the heart no longer can adequately work and a person is at risk of dying, a heart transplant may be indicated. It involves removing a diseased heart and replacing it with a healthy human heart. Cardiac transplantation is recognized as a proven procedure in appropriately selected patients.

How many people need and receive heart transplants?
There were 2,210 heart transplants performed in the United States in 2007 and 2,192 in 2006.
Each year thousands more adults would benefit from a heart transplant if more donated hearts were available.
In the United States, 73.7 percent of heart transplant patients are male; 67.6 percent are white; 19.9 percent are ages 35–49 and 54.7 percent are age 50 or older.
As of May 30, 2008, the one-year survival rate was 87.5 percent for males and 85.5 percent for females; the three-year survival rate was about 78.8 percent for males and 76.0 percent for females. The five-year survival rate was 72.3 percent for males and 67.4 percent for females.

What is the future of heart transplant?
There are several ways to help patients with end-stage heart disease. One is to get more donors for heart transplant. This will require teaching people the benefits of transplantation in hope of changing society’s attitudes. Better methods of preserving organs and preventing and treating rejection are constantly being developed. In the end, however, there will never be enough donor hearts. Indeed, artificial hearts already exist but have a limited life-span. Patients with artificial hearts are at high risk of developing infection and blood clots related to the device. Better devices are being developed all the time. What about the use of animal organs, also called xenotransplantation? These organs are too “foreign” and thus the problems with rejection are currently insurmountable.

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