Filtered By:
Specialty: Consumer Health News
Education: Harvard
This page shows you your search results in order of relevance.
Order by Relevance | Date
Total 178 results found since Jan 2013.
Special MRI scan could identify stroke risk in people with atrial fibrillation
Atrial fibrillation is a heart rhythm disorder that affects millions of people. It can make you feel lousy. Even worse, it can cause potentially disabling or deadly strokes. A special MRI scan may — I stress the “may” — help identify people with atrial fibrillation who are at high risk of having a stroke. This could help many people with this condition to avoid taking warfarin or other clot-preventing medications for life.
A normal heartbeat starts in a cluster of cells called the pacemaker. It sits in the heart’s upper right chamber (the right atrium). These cells generate a pulse of electricity that...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - April 28, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Howard LeWine, M.D. Tags: Heart Health atrial fibrillation MRI prevention special MRI scan Stroke Stroke Risk Source Type: news
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
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
10 steps to lower stroke risk
More than two dozen factors influence the odds of having a stroke. Some can't be changed, like getting older or having a family history of stroke. But a surprising number of these factors can be controlled, even when an underlying medical condition further ups the risk of stroke, reports the August 2013 Harvard Heart Letter.
"Stroke is potentially one of the most devastating illnesses that we see, and it's especially tragic when simply taking good care of one's blood pressure or some other preventive measure might have averted it," says Dr. Thomas Lee, MD, co-editor in chief of the Harvard Heart Letter.
There are two basic...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - August 1, 2013 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
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
Mild high blood pressure in young adults linked to heart problems later in life
Editor’s note: Since 2000, Dr. Howard LeWine and other other experts from Harvard Health Publications and Harvard Medical School have been writing daily News Reviews for InteliHealth.com. Sadly, InteliHealth shuts down tomorrow. This is the final (4,255th) news review written by the Harvard Health team.
Young adults with even slightly above-normal blood pressure may be more likely to have heart problems later in life, according to a new study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. The study focused on nearly 2,500 men and women who were 18 to 30 years old when the study began. Researchers kept track o...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - June 23, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Howard LeWine, M.D. Tags: Heart Health Hypertension and Stroke prehypertension 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
Antioxidants In Diet Do Not Reduce Stroke Or Dementia Risk
The level of antioxidants in our diet does not affect our risk of stroke or dementia, researchers from the Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA, and Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, Netherlands, reported in the journal Neurology. Their findings contradict what other studies have shown. Elizabeth E. Devore, ScD, said: "These results are interesting because other studies have suggested that antioxidants may help protect against stroke and dementia...
Source: Health News from Medical News Today - February 21, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Nutrition / Diet Source Type: news
Antioxidants Do Not Reduce Stroke Or Dementia Risk
We all thought that if we ate heaps of foods rich in antioxidants, our risk of developing serious diseases would be reduced. It appears that this is not the case for stroke and dementia, researchers from the Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA, and Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, Netherlands, reported in the journal Neurology. Their findings contradict what other studies have shown. Elizabeth E. Devore, ScD, said: "These results are interesting because other studies have suggested that antioxidants may help protect against stroke and dementia...
Source: Health News from Medical News Today - February 21, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Nutrition / Diet Source Type: news
