This is in accordance with the fact that risk for cardiovascular disorders is much higher among males than females.

For comparison, money spent on oral hygeine was $5.3 billion, mental health $4.1 billion and for musculoskeletal disorder $3.9 billion. The data also showed that expenditure on healthcare was much higher in people aged over 85 years.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/myklroventine/ / CC BY 2.0

According to the world health organisation, 17 million people die every year from heart attack and stroke. What if we could cut this in half just by using the existing resources? Well, thats what the ‘Red heart pill’ is all about. It is a combination of 4 drugs – aspirin which helps prevent the formation of clots within the blood vessels, a statin which helps lower cholesterol, an ACE inhibitor and a thiazide which helps lower blood pressure. There are low cost drugs but are very effective in the prevention of heart attacks.

Presently, a person who has had a heart attack has to take multiple drugs every day, the cost of which amounts to a few hundred dollars every year. Compare this to the ‘Red heart pill’ which would cost about $1 for a full month. The polypill had been the dream of doctors for a long time. Widespread use of the Red heart pill could translate into heavy losses for the pharmaceutical industry, which explains why they are reluctant to back this initative. The Red Heart Pill has had backing in the UK from the Wellcome Trust and the British Heart Foundation.

The polypill is about to go into a 12 week pilot trial, with about 700 people in 6 countries. If all goes well, a main trial involving upto 7000 people will be conducted to further assess the benefits of the drug. The typical patient who would be prescribed the polypill would be a 55-year-old man, or slightly older woman, who smokes and is overweight. The red heart pill could be much beneficial especially in the developing countries where the low cost drug will be accessible to all sections of the society.

Photo by newtype2011

The study was conducted on 809 members of the Old Order Amish community. It involved going to the clinic in Lancaster and drinking a rick milk shake made mosty of heavy cream. Their blood was sampled over the next six hours and the amount of triglcerides – a type of fat –  in their blood stream was assessed.

Most of them responded as expected. The blood level of triglycerides rose for 3-4 hours and then decreased. But nearly 5% of them responded differently. Their triglyceride level started out at a low level and showed hardly any increase.

The researchers have linked this interesting phenomenon, to a mutation in a gene – apoC-III. This is the gene which is responsible for production of the protein APOC3, which slows down the metabolism of triglycerides.

In the individuals with the mutated copy of the gene, the breakdown of triglycerides occured extremely quickly and hence resulted in hardly any increase in the blood level of triglycerides. Also, they had low levels of LDL – the bad cholesterol – high levels of which tends to be bad for the heart. Their HDL – the good cholesterol – was at a higher level too. This coincided with a lower level of arterial plaques – the factor responsible for heart attacks and strokes.

The gene responsible for this was identified after rigorous research led by Toni I. Pollin, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Dr. Alan R. Shuldiner, head of the division of endocrinology, diabetes and nutrition at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore suggested that the Amish were ideal for the research as they were an isolated population living in this country for 14 generatoins and they shared many genes. The gene mutation was traced back to a member of the Amish community who lived in the 18th century.

The gene is also influenced by insulin, said Dr. Daniel J. Rader, a heart disease researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, and individuals with diabetes have higher levels of APOC3 protein, resulting in high levels of triglycerides and inturn an increased risk of heart disease.

This discovery opens up a new area of research. This could possibily help in decreasing the incidence of heart disease in the population and also for the treatment of heart disease. Clinical applications of this new discovery may take many years to be made available to the public.

Image credits: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kyz/ / CC BY 2.0

Vitamin D plays an major role in the prevention of heart disease.

End stage heart disease is and advanced form of heart disease. The patient is very sick and can perform only limited activities. It is a chronic condition. The person may have suffered many heart attacks and have most probably undergone surgical intervention. 

Diet is an important factor in the development of ischemic heart disease. To reduce the risk of heart attacks, one should take low fat food will less cholesterol. Regular exercise is also very important in its prevention. About 30 minutes of aerobic exercise atleast 5 days of the week is recommended. 

The treatment options include open heart surgery techniques such as coronary bypass surgery. There is also minimally invasive bypass surgery, which can be performed without the use of heart lung machine. The bypass surgery can help correct the ischemia for upto 15 years. After the above said time period, there is a higher chance of recurrence of ishcemic events.

Heart transplant is done for paitents with end stage heart disese. The problem may not be corrected with other treatment modalities.

Tracy Wang, MD, MS from the Division of Cardiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina; speaks on the diagnosis of Ischemic heart disease

Photo by Fillmore Photography

Hormone replacement patches were found to decrease risk for heart disease upto 40%

Women tend to have a lower risk for heart disease. But all that changes after menopause. Estrogen – the hormone reponsible for the feminine characters – also helps to decrease the heart disease risk in women. But after menopause, when the estrogen production decreases dramatically, the risk for having a heart attack also rises. This change in hormone production is also responsible for what is known as post menopausal syndrome, which includes hot flashes, head ache, stomach upset, fatigue and anxiety.
Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is a system of  supplementing the hormones so as to alleviate the symptoms experienced by post menopausal women. The various methods of hormone supplementation include estrogen pills, estrogen and progesterone pills, patches, vaginal gels etc. Earlier research ( The Women’s Health Initiative Study conducted in the US on nearly 20,000 post menopausal women.) suggested that long term use of HRT (more than 4 years) significantly increased the risk for breast cancer and heart disease. 
But a new study published in the European Heart Journal conducted on 700,000 Danish women over 50 suggests that hormone patches and gels are safer than the hormone pills that are mostly in use in America.
It was found that while women who took estrogen plus progesterone pills had increased risk of heart attacks by upto 35%, those who used hormone patches and vaginal gels had nearly 40% lower risk of heart disease. Thus HRT patches and gels provide a safer alternative for combating the symptoms of post menstrual syndrome.

Photo by Burning Image

According to the American Heart Association, people with heart disease have a high risk of depression.

Living with heart disease is not easy. Having an episode of heart attack can be devastating for many people. Temporary feelings of sadness are normal and most people get back to their normal routine within a few weeks. But if these feelings persist beyond a few weeks, this can have serious impact on the quality of life.

Heart attack patients are three times more likely to suffer from depression than their healthy counterparts. Studies have found that 15-20% of patients hospitalised with heart attack show signs of depression. People with depression often forget to take their prescribed medications, have a poor diet, forget to exercise and in general, do not stick to a heart healthy lifestyle. About 16 million people have heart disease in the U.S., including 8.1 million who have suffered a heart attack.

The persent recommendations suggest that people with heart disease should be screened for depression by their doctor. Those showing signs of mood disorder should be referred to a mental health professional. Proper management of depression can help the person to return to their normal routine and significantly reduces the chances of a second episode of heart attack.

Photo by trekkyandy

A recent study published in ‘Circulation’ suggests that eating dark chocolate can decrease your risk for heart attack.

Heart attack is caused by blockage in the blood vessels supplying the heart. High oxidative stress and limited availability of antioxidants lead to the damage of the blood vessels, leading to increased chances for a blood clot. But dark chocolates (which contain 70% cocoa) have lots of flavinoids – potent antioxidants which helps to overcome the oxidative stress present in our body. They also decrease the activation of blood platelets – the blood cells responsible for blood clotting. The study which was conduted by a team of scientists in Switzerland, found that within two hours of eating 40g dark chocolate, the size of the coronary blood vessels increased by 6%.

Photo by ShutterCat7

Can’t you get more flavinoids from other foods? – you may ask. But the fact remains that dark chocolate contains greater amounts of flavinoids than any other food like green tea and blueberries. And companies have perfected their techniqes for the preparation of dark chocolate that upto 95% of flavinoids are preserved!

And before you reach out for that delicious dark chocolate bar, here’s something that you should remember – Although eating some dark chocolate is good for the heart, it’s still full of calories. So you’ve got to cut down on some other food stuffs.