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Source: Harvard Health Blog
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Total 31 results found since Jan 2013.
8 ways to prevent a stroke
This year, nearly half a million women will have a stroke. The June 2013 Harvard Women's Health Watch offers eight steps women can take to limit the chances a stroke will strike.
Women can't do anything about two leading contributors to stroke—age and family history. But there are many other stroke risk factors they can control. Becoming aware of them is the first step. "Knowledge is power," says Dr. Natalia Rost, associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and associate director of the Acute Stroke Service at Massachusetts General Hospital. "If you know that a particular risk factor is sabotaging your...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - May 31, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news
Treat a mini-stroke as seriously as a big one
The term mini-stroke is often used to describe transient ischemic attack (TIA), a type of stroke. The "mini" has led to a lot of confusion about the true severity of this condition, according to the March 2014 Harvard Women's Health Watch.
"Because of what the term implies, everybody thinks it's just a tiny stroke. The truth is, the symptoms can be pretty severe," says Dr. Natalia Rost, associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and director of the Acute Stroke Service at Massachusetts General Hospital.
A TIA and a stroke are essentially the same thing—an interruption in blood flow to part of the brai...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - February 27, 2014 Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news
Check the pulse to track irregular heartbeats after a stroke
The rapid, irregular heartbeat known as atrial
fibrillation is a key cause of stroke. New research suggests that it's to blame
for more strokes than doctors realized, and that simply measuring the pulse could
help detect unrecognized atrial fibrillation and avert a second stroke, reports
the October 2014 Harvard Heart Letter.
Atrial fibrillation can come and go,
lasting from a few seconds to several days. Some people have distressing
symptoms such as palpitations, dizziness, or chest pressure. For many others, atrial
fibrillation passes silently. Either way, blood can pool in the heart's upper
chambers, or atria. This stag...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - September 30, 2014 Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news
Don't brush off early warning signs of a stroke
It's important to recognize the signs of a stroke and get to a hospital fast. Time is brain: the longer the gap between the start of stroke symptoms and treatment, the more brain cells die, reports the December 2013 issue of the Harvard Men's Health Watch.
Experts have developed the FAST (Face, Arms, Speech, Time) mnemonic device to highlight some of the more obvious signs of a brain attack. A more detailed list includes:
Face drooping. One side of the face goes slack. A smile appears uneven.
One arm is weak. When raising both arms, one arm drifts downward.
Numbness. Loss of feeling on one side of the body, or one part of...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - November 30, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News 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
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
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
Healing through music
The last time I had a mammogram, I got a big surprise — and it was a good one. A string quartet was playing just outside the doors of the breast imaging center, and my thoughts immediately shifted from “What are they going to find on the mammogram?” to “Is that Schubert, or Beethoven?” By the time my name was called, I had almost forgotten why I was there.
The unexpected concert was the work of Holly Chartrand and Lorrie Kubicek, music therapists and co-coordinators of the Environmental Music Program at Massachusetts General Hospital. But bringing music to hospital corridors is just a sideline for music therapist...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - November 5, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Beverly Merz Tags: Behavioral Health Mental Health Pain Management Surgery Source Type: news
Advantages and disadvantages of off-pump bypass surgery
When surgeons devised ways to operate on a beating heart, many believed this approach would phase out the use of the heart-lung machine, the device that paved the way for life-saving open heart surgery. Not so, reports the March 2013 Harvard Heart Letter.
The heart-lung machine, first used in 1953, adds oxygen to blood and circulates it around the body. This lets doctors stop the heart, making it safer and easier to bypass cholesterol-clogged coronary arteries or fix other cardiac problems. While the machine helped save and improve countless lives, some experts blamed the heart-lung machine (also known as the pump) for the...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - March 1, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news
High blood pressure is a silent danger in older women
Millions of American women harbor a secret even they don't know they carry. It's high blood pressure, an often silent, symptomless condition that can damage blood vessels and overwork the heart, leaving women prey to heart disease, stroke, and premature death. The April 2013 Harvard Women's Health Watch looks at the reasons why so many women don't know their blood pressure and explains how the treatment of high blood pressure has changed.
A woman's risk of developing high blood pressure is extremely high if she lives long enough, says Dr. Deepak Bhatt, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of the Int...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - April 11, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news
Taking over the counter pain relievers safely
For aching joints or a throbbing head, millions of Americans turn to aspirin, ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin), or other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) every day. They are generally safe, but if not used carefully NSAIDs can have a dark side, according to the September 2013 Harvard Women's Health Watch.
NSAIDs are widely used because they perform double duty. “They not only relieve pain, but they reduce inflammation too,” says Dr. Lucy Chen, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and attending physician in the anesthesia, critical care, and pain medicine department at Massachusetts General Hos...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - August 23, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news
