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Source: Harvard Health Blog
Condition: Heart Attack
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Total 39 results found since Jan 2013.
FDA strengthens warning that NSAIDs increase heart attack and stroke risk
Back in 2005, the FDA warned that taking nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) like ibuprofen and naproxen increased the risk of having a heart attack or stroke. Last week it took the unusual step of further strengthening this warning. This was done on the advice of an expert panel that reviewed new information about NSAIDs and their risks. Because NSAIDs are widely used, it’s important to be aware of downsides of taking an NSAID and to take steps to limit the risk.
Many people take NSAIDs to relieve mild to moderate pain. These medications may be particularly effective in conditions in which pain results pri...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - July 13, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Gregory Curfman, MD Tags: Heart Health heart attack heart disease NSAIDS Stroke Source Type: news
Folic acid, a B vitamin, lowers stroke risk in people with high blood pressure
If you’re among the one in three American adults with high blood pressure, be sure you’re getting plenty of the B vitamin known as folate. Doing so may lower your odds of having a stroke, an often disabling or deadly event linked to high blood pressure, a new study suggests.
Folate occurs naturally in many foods, but especially green leafy vegetables, beans, and citrus fruits. Here in the United States, add to the list most grain products, including wheat flour, cornmeal, pasta, and rice. They are fortified with the synthetic version of folate, known as folic acid.
That’s not the case in many countries ar...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - March 18, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Julie Corliss Tags: Drugs and Supplements Hypertension and Stroke high blood pressure Source Type: news
Combination of a cholesterol-lowering statin and ezetimibe lowers risk of a heart attack or stroke
High cholesterol is a key culprit in the development of cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in the United States and many other developed countries. We know that lowering cholesterol helps prevent heart attacks and strokes. But an unanswered question remains: how low should you go? New research published online today in The New England Journal of Medicine suggests that lower is better.
Cholesterol and cardiovascular disease
Cholesterol travels through the bloodstream in two main particles: high-density lipoprotein (HDL) and low-density lipoprotein (LDL). HDL scavenges cholesterol from the bloodstream and fro...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - June 4, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Gregory Curfman, MD Tags: Drugs and Supplements Heart Health cholesterol ezetimibe Source Type: news
Reversing the effects of the new anti-clotting drugs
The oral anticoagulant warfarin (Coumadin) became available for prescription in 1954. This anti-clotting drug commanded national attention when President Dwight Eisenhower received the drug as part of his treatment following a heart attack. No other oral anticoagulant was successfully developed and marketed in the United States until 2010.
Warfarin is a dangerous drug. Along with insulin, it is responsible for the most emergency hospitalizations due to adverse drug reactions. Whereas insulin causes low blood sugar, warfarin is notorious for the complication of major bleeding. Warfarin is plagued by hundreds of drug-drug an...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - December 9, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Samuel Z. Goldhaber, MD Tags: Drugs and Supplements Health Heart Health Hypertension and Stroke anti-clotting coumadin deep-vein-thrombosis DVT Source Type: news
Only the overworked die young
Follow me at @JohnRossMD
Billy Joel was on to something. As the singer-songwriter suggested in “Movin’ Out,” working too hard really can give you a “heart attack-ack-ack…” And, as a recent study has also shown, stroke may be an even bigger problem than heart attack in people who are overworked.
For the study, researchers from University College London compiled data on the relationship between working hours and heart attack risk in over 600,000 workers, as well as similar data on stroke risk in over 500,000 workers. They adjusted their data to compensate for individual workers’ differences due to healt...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - December 14, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Ross, MD, FIDSA Tags: Behavioral Health Heart Health Hypertension and Stroke Prevention Stress overworked Source Type: news
Update on the SPRINT trial: Preliminary results pan out
In a previous blog, I reported on the preliminary results from SPRINT, a clinical trial that examined whether a systolic blood pressure target of 120 mm Hg or less would be better than a target of 140 mm Hg in patients with hypertension (high blood pressure). The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health issued a press release with the exciting results. Now, the full paper has been published in The New England Journal of Medicine, and the results appear to be as practice-changing at it initially seemed, demonstrating a stricter blood pressure goal can reduce the likelihood of dying. In ...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - November 9, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Deepak Bhatt, MD, MPH Tags: Health Heart Health Hypertension and Stroke Source Type: news
High blood pressure: Why me?
“I go to the gym, and I never add salt. So why do I have high blood pressure?” Despite its astonishing prevalence of one in three Americans, many people struggle with the diagnosis of high blood pressure, or hypertension. It’s worth exploring why, because being an active participant in your care is crucial for optimal blood pressure control.
Certain features make any diagnosis easier to accept:
First, people are more likely to accept a diagnosis if they have symptoms. A person with cough and fever will believe a diagnosis of pneumonia. But someone who feels fine would not.
Next, people more readily accept a diagnosi...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - May 2, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Naomi D. L. Fisher, MD Tags: Behavioral Health Health care Heart Health Hypertension and Stroke Prevention Screening high blood pressure Source Type: news
Daily low-dose aspirin can prevent heart attack and stroke but is often misused
Aspirin is often hailed as a wonder drug, thanks to its ability to help stave off heart attacks and clot-caused strokes. But fewer than half of people who could benefit from a daily low-dose aspirin take it, while many others take it when they shouldn't, reports the January 2014 Harvard Heart Letter.
If you don't have heart disease, but do have high blood pressure, diabetes, or other risk factors for heart disease, don't automatically assume that taking aspirin every day is a good idea. "A lot of people take aspirin who really shouldn't," says Dr. Christopher Cannon, a cardiologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital and profe...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - December 20, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news
Daily aspirin is good for some men, not others
For men who have had a heart attack, stroke, or other
problem related to clogged arteries, the benefits of taking aspirin outweigh
the risks. In this group, the benefits include preventing a first or repeat
heart attack or stroke or dying prematurely from cardiovascular disease. But in
otherwise healthy men, the balance of benefits and risks shifts, according to
the October 2014 Harvard
Men's Health Watch.
The best research to date shows that men who have not been
diagnosed with cardiovascular disease glean no overall benefit to taking
aspirin every day—including men at higher risk, like those with diabetes.
In other...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - September 30, 2014 Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news
PCSK9 inhibitors: a major advance in cholesterol-lowering drug therapy
Every so often a medical advance comes along that rewrites the script for treating a disease or condition. After today’s announcements of impressive results of a new type of cholesterol-lowering drug, that scenario just might happen in the next few years.
The new drugs, called PCSK9 inhibitors, are monoclonal antibodies. They target and inactivate a specific protein in the liver. Knocking out this protein, called proprotein convertase subtilisin kexin 9, dramatically reduces the amount of harmful LDL cholesterol circulating in the bloodstream. Lower LDL translates into healthier arteries and fewer heart attacks, stro...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - March 15, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Gregory Curfman, MD Tags: Drugs and Supplements Heart Health Medical Research alirocumab cholesterol evolocumab PCSK9 inhibitors Source Type: news
Tight blood sugar control in type 2 diabetes linked to fewer heart attacks and strokes
Diabetes damages every part of the body, from the brain to the feet. High blood sugar, the hallmark of diabetes, wreaks havoc on blood vessels. It makes sense that keeping blood sugar under control should prevent diabetes-related damage — but how low to push blood sugar is an open question.
A study published in today’s issue of The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) provides reassuring evidence that so-called tight blood sugar control is good for the heart and circulatory system.
“Tight blood sugar control represents a new age of diabetes care,” says Dr. David Nathan, professor of medicine at Harvar...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - June 4, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Urmila Parlikar Tags: Diabetes blood sugar blood sugar control Source Type: news
Studies support broader use of cholesterol-lowering statins
The latest guidelines used to determine who should take a cholesterol-lowering statin to prevent heart disease appear to be more accurate and cost-efficient than the previous guidelines. That’s according to two studies led by Harvard researchers, both published in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association.
For many years, the main deciding factor in who needed to take a statin was the level of an individual’s harmful low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL). Updated guidelines published in 2013 by the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association moved away from LDL and ...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - July 16, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Julie Corliss Tags: Drugs and Supplements cholesterol high cholesterol statins Source Type: news
Diabetes drug pioglitazone could get personal: Neither panacea, nor peril
When I was in training, one of my beloved mentors declared, “I never use a drug until it’s been on the market for 20 years.” I was young enough then that I couldn’t fathom being a doctor for 20 years, let alone waiting two decades to use a new drug. As my career has progressed, I’ve seen many new drugs released to the market. Some of them are truly miraculous, bringing people longer, healthier, and more productive lives. Many of them have not withstood the test of time. More than a few have even been taken off the market. Even though the Food and Drug Administration diligently reviews each new medicine before it...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - May 5, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Lori Wiviott Tishler, MD, MPH Tags: Diabetes Drugs and Supplements pioglitazone thiazolidinediones Source Type: news
This year's top 10 advances in cardiovascular disease
Progress in the fight against heart
disease and stroke came on many fronts during 2014, from novel drugs and
procedures to improvements and newfound benefits from existing treatments. In
the December 2014 Harvard Heart Letter, Editor in Chief Dr. Deepak L. Bhatt selected
10 of the most important advances.
New drugs cut cholesterol
levels by half. A new class of drugs, given by injection just once or twice
a month, can slash harmful LDL cholesterol levels by about 50%. Studies are
under way to see if any of these experimental agents, called PCSK9 inhibitors,
prevent heart attacks or improve heart disease survival.
Replacing...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - November 24, 2014 Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news
Millions of adults skip medications due to their high cost
Medications can do wonderful things, from fighting infection to preventing stroke and warding off depression. But medications don’t work if they aren’t taken. Some people don’t take their medications as prescribed because they forget, or are bothered by side effects. A new report from the National Center for Health Statistics shines the light on another reason: some people can’t pay for their medications.
The survey, by NCHS researchers Robin A. Cohen and Maria A. Villarroel, found that about 8% of adult Americans don’t take their medicines as prescribed because they can’t afford them. I...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - January 30, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Howard LeWine, M.D. Tags: Drugs and Supplements medication costs Source Type: news
