Heart Attack or Not? Test Might Tell

A Blood Test To Rule Out Heart...More Health HeadlinesAcuFacial: Look Years Younger Without...'Extreme Makeover': Sally Adams Loses 138...Swine Flu Cases SpikeDiscovery May Hold Key for Universal Flu...Bullied 14-Year-Old Girl Gets Plastic SurgeryIn The NewsArthritisAllergiesDr. Richard BesserCold & Flu Home> HealthHeart Attack or Not? New Test Might TellBy DR. SHARI BARNETT, ABC News Medical UnitAug. 13, 2012

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Exercise, meds both help depressed heart patients

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Late Shift Boosts Heart, Stroke Risk

Extreme Tanning: Cancer Scare Doesn't...More Health Headlines90 Arrests in War on Synthetic DrugsWhy Boomers Need Hep C TestingMother and Daughters Bond Over 'Russian...Drug Ecstasy May Cause Memory LossTest a Condom, Win a Year's SupplyIn The NewsArthritisAllergiesDr. Richard BesserCold & Flu Home> HealthLate Shift Boosts Heart Attack, Stroke RiskBy STACEY SCHOTT, M.D., ABC News Medical UnitJuly 26, 2012

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More Evidence That Shift Work Might Raise Heart Risks

HealthDay – 1 hr 11 mins ago THURSDAY, July 26 (HealthDay News) -- People working evening shifts, irregular shifts, night shifts and rotating shifts are at an increased risk for heart attack and stroke, a large, new review finds.

The best way to lower the risk of heart attack and stroke associated with shift work is to keep the usual risk factors -- such as blood pressure, cholesterol, weight and diabetes -- under control, experts say.

"Given the commonness of shift work in modern industrialized nations, and industrializing nations, many heart attacks and strokes are likely directly attributable to the effects of shift work," said lead researcher Dr. Daniel Hackam, a clinical pharmacologist at the Stroke Prevention and Atherosclerosis Research Centre in London, Ontario, Canada.

Employers and employees must be aware of this problem, as should doctors and others who see shift workers, he said.

"Shift workers should receive cardiovascular risk factor screening and prevention, and this should be ongoing and regular," Hackam added.

Particular attention should be paid to risk factors that may be worsened by shift work, such as blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes, he noted.

"Since we are now in a 24/7 society, this problem is not likely to go away any time soon," Hackam pointed out.

The report was published online July 26 in the BMJ.

To look at the connection between heart attack, stroke and shift work, Hackam's group analyzed 34 studies that included more than 2 million people.

This process of pooling results from different studies is called a meta-analysis, and is used by researchers to uncover patterns that are consistent across a large population.

Among the people in these studies, more than 17,000 had some kind of cardiovascular problem. More than 6,500 had heart attacks and almost 1,900 had strokes, the research showed.

Hackam's team found that shift workers had a nearly 25 percent increased risk of having a cardiovascular problem, a 23 percent increased risk of a heart attack and a 5 percent increased risk of a stroke when compared to non-shift workers.

People working night shifts had the highest risk of a coronary event (41 percent), they added.

Although the increased risks are small, because many people are shift workers the number of people at risk is substantial, the researchers explained.

In Canada, for example, almost 33 percent of workers were shift workers in 2008-2009. In all, during that time, 7 percent of heart attacks, 7 percent of all coronary events and almost 2 percent of strokes could be attributed to shift work, the investigators noted.

While this type of study can show an association between two factors, it does not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

Dr. Gregg Fonarow, a professor of cardiovascular medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, said that "a number of prior studies have suggested that working outside of regular daytime hours may be associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular events and stroke."

This new study finds shift work is associated with a higher risk of coronary events and stroke, he noted. But an increase in all-cause mortality with shift work was not seen.

"While the increase in cardiovascular risk was modest, with as many as 15 million Americans working full-time on evening shift, night shift or other irregular schedules, these findings may have important public health implications," Fonarow said.

"Individuals with these types of work schedules should recognize the potential increase in risk for cardiovascular events and stroke, and take proactive steps to improve their cardiovascular health," he added.

More information

For more on heart disease, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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Half of heart patients don't stick to their meds

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Two out of three very obese kids already have heart disease risk factors: High blood pressure, cholesterol, blood glucose evident even in under-12s

ScienceDaily (July 23, 2012) — Two out of three severely obese kids already have at least one risk factor for heart disease, suggests research published online in Archives of Disease in Childhood.

See Also:Health & MedicineHeart DiseaseObesityHypertensionCholesterolChildren's HealthDiet and Weight LossReferenceDiabetes mellitus type 2Body mass indexAdipose tissueLow density lipoprotein

The prevalence and severity of childhood obesity has been rising worldwide, but little research has been carried out on the underlying health problems that children with severe weight problems have, say the authors.

They base their findings on data supplied by pediatricians to the Dutch Paediatric Surveillance Unit between 2005 and 2007.

During this period, doctors treating all new cases of severe obesity in children from the ages of 2 to 18 across The Netherlands were asked to supply information on their patients' cardiovascular risk factors, including high blood pressure, fasting blood glucose levels, and blood fats (lipids).

The definition of severe obesity started at a body mass index (BMI) of 20.5 for a 2 year old, at 31 for a 12 year old, and at 35 for an 18 year old.

Over the three years, most (87% to 94%) of pediatricians submitted their monthly findings on every severely obese child they treated to the surveillance unit, providing information on 500 children in all.

When pediatricians were contacted again, with a request for further data, 363 responded and 307 of their children were correctly classified as severely obese.

Just over half (52%) of these 307 children were boys. They tended to be more severely obese at the younger end of the age spectrum; the reverse was true of girls. Full information on cardiovascular risk factors was available for 255 (83%).

Two out of three (67%) had at least one cardiovascular risk factor. Over half (56%) had high blood pressure; a similar proportion (54%) had high levels of low density 'bad' cholesterol; one in seven (14%) had high fasting blood glucose; and just under 1 per cent already had type 2 diabetes.

And "remarkably" say the authors, almost two thirds (62%) of those aged 12 and under had one or more cardiovascular risk factors. Only one child's obesity was attributable to medical rather than lifestyle factors.

Nearly one in three severely obese children came from one parent families.

"The prevalence of impaired fasting glucose in

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Joint Replacement Boosts Heart Attack Risk Right After Surgery: Study

HealthDay – 1 hr 40 mins ago MONDAY, July 23 (HealthDay News) -- People who have total hip or knee replacement surgery are about 30 times more likely to have a heart attack in the two weeks after the procedure, a new study finds.

Both surgeries are common treatments for arthritic hips and knees, with almost 2 million done around the world each year, the researchers noted.

"This study confirms the increased cardiac risk in the period following total hip and knee replacement," said lead researcher Dr. Arief Lalmohamed, from Utrecht University in the Netherlands. "Risk assessment and preoperative use of cardiovascular drugs may be necessary to reduce the risk of heart attack."

The effects of the operation are likely responsible for the increased risk of heart attack, Lalmohamed added. While the study showed an association between the two events, it did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

These side effects of surgery include the aftereffects of anesthesia on the cardiovascular system, blood loss, arrhythmias (irregular heartbeat) and lack of oxygen, all of which are known to increase risk of heart attacks, he said.

"In addition, the period before surgery itself is a very stressful time for the patient, even thinking about surgery increases cardiac risk," Lalmohamed said.

The report was published online July 23 in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

For the study, Lalmohamed's team used Danish registries to estimate the risk of heart attack after these operations.

In total, the researchers had data on more than 95,000 patients who underwent total hip or knee replacement surgery between January 1998 and December 2007.

The investigators compared the heart attack risk in these patients to more than 286,000 similar patients who didn't have surgery.

During the first two weeks after surgery, the risk for a heart attack was increased 25-fold for total hip replacement patients and 31-fold for total knee replacement patients, the study authors found.

The risk decreased rapidly after that, the researchers noted.

Six weeks after surgery, the absolute risk of a heart attack had dropped to 0.51 percent in patients who had a total hip replacement and 0.21 percent for those who had a total knee replacement, the investigators found.

The risk of having a heart attack was highest in those aged 60 and older, particularly patients aged 80 and older, and those who had experienced a heart attack in the six months before surgery. The latter increased the risk fourfold in the six weeks after the procedure, the authors noted.

"There is cardiac risk when a patient has a major operation," said Dr. Arthur Wallace, chief of the Anesthesia Service Veterans Affairs Medical Center in San Francisco.

"Anesthesiologists, surgeons and hospitalists need to use preoperative cardiac risk reduction to reduce that risk," added Wallace, who wrote an accompanying journal editorial.

Dr. Gregg Fonarow, a professor of cardiovascular medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, said that "total hip replacement and total knee replacement are commonly performed surgeries, yet the risk of heart attacks occurring during or in the weeks following surgery have not been well-defined compared to the general population."

This new study shows the risk of a heart attack after these surgeries is small in absolute terms (one in 200 to one in 500 patients), he said.

"This increased heart attack risk may be lessened by careful preoperative cardiovascular risk assessment, continuation of aspirin, use of statin medications and careful monitoring in the first two to six weeks after orthopedic surgery," Fonarow said.

More information

For more information on joint replacement, visit the U.S. National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases.

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Stem Cells Show Promise as Heart Failure Treatment

HealthDay – 1 hr 40 mins ago MONDAY, July 23 (HealthDay News) -- Scientists who used modified stem cells to rejuvenate damaged and aged heart cells from elderly heart failure patients say their research could one day lead to new treatments for the illness.

"Since patients with heart failure are normally elderly, their cardiac stem cells aren't very healthy," Sadia Mohsin, one of the study authors and a postdoctoral research scholar at San Diego State University's Heart Institute, explained in a news release from the American Heart Association (AHA). "We modified these biopsied stem cells and made them healthier. It is like turning back the clock so these cells can thrive again."

The study was to be presented Monday at an AHA meeting, in New Orleans, and published simultaneously in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

The stem cells taken from the patients were modified with a protein called PIM-1, which promotes cells survival and growth. The modified stem cells helped the signaling and structure of the patients' heart cells by boosting the activity of an enzyme called telomerase, which elongates telomeres.

Telomeres are the caps on the ends of chromosomes that are involved in cell replication. Aging and disease occur when telomeres break off.

"There is no doubt that stem cells can be used to counter the aging process of cardiac cells caused by telomere degradation," Mohsin said.

While the study did use human heart cells, it was conducted in the laboratory and remains in its early stages. However, tests conducted in mice and pigs also found that telomere lengthening resulted in new heart tissue growth in just four weeks.

"Modifying aged human cardiac cells from elderly patients adds to the cell's ability to regenerate damaged heart muscle, making stem cell engineering a viable option," Mohsin said. "This is an especially exciting finding for heart failure patients. Right now we can only offer medication, heart transplantation or stem cell therapies with modest regenerative potential, but PIM-1 modification offers a significant advance for clinical treatment."

One expert called the research "exciting."

The stem cell technique "is enabling endogenous

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Childhood Abuse Linked to Diabetes, Heart Disease in Middle-Aged Women

HealthDay – 1 hr 23 mins ago FRIDAY, July 20 (HealthDay News) -- Middle-aged women who suffered physical abuse as children may be at increased risk for diabetes and heart disease, a new study suggests.

Researchers examined nearly 350 black and white women in the Pittsburgh area who were between 42 to 52 years old at the start of the study. About 34 percent of the women said they had been victims of some form of childhood abuse.

Compared to other women in the study, which was published online in the journal Health Psychology, those with a history of childhood physical abuse were about twice as likely to have high blood pressure, high blood sugar, a larger waistline and poor cholesterol levels.

Collectively, these health issues are known as metabolic syndrome. Previous research suggests that people with metabolic syndrome are at increased risk for heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

The link between childhood physical abuse and metabolic syndrome was separate from traditional risk factors for the syndrome, such as smoking, lack of physical activity, menopause, alcohol use and depression. This persistent association suggests that abuse plays a unique role in women's cardiovascular health, the researchers said.

"Our research shows us that childhood abuse can have long-lasting consequences -- even decades later -- on women's health, and is related to more health problems down the road," study co-author Aimee Midei, a graduate student in psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, said in a journal news release.

"It's possible that women with histories of physical abuse engage in unhealthy eating behaviors or have poor stress regulation," Midei said. "It appears that psychology plays a role in physical health even when we're talking about traumatic incidents that happened when these women were children."

Although the study found an association between childhood physical abuse and an increased occurrence of metabolic syndrome later in life, it did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship. The study also found no association between childhood sexual and emotional abuse and metabolic syndrome.

More information

The American Academy of Family Physicians has more about metabolic syndrome.

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Many Medicaid Patients Skip Drugs That Could Prevent Heart Trouble

HealthDay – 1 hr 22 mins ago FRIDAY, July 20 (HealthDay News) -- Many Medicaid recipients with chronic health conditions that can lead to heart disease -- diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol -- do not take their prescribed medications, a new study has found.

The researchers said failure to take medications leads to higher costs of care and an increased risk of hospitalization and even death.

They looked at 2008 and 2009 data from more than 150,000 Medicaid patients in New York City, aged 20 to 64, and found that only 63 percent of those with the three chronic conditions took their prescribed medications. Older patients and white and Asian patients were most likely to take their medications, while black and Hispanic patients were least likely.

"The outcome of this study is concerning, as it shows a large number of people with chronic conditions that lead to cardiovascular disease aren't taking prescribed medications, which could prevent a potential stroke or heart attack," lead author Dr. Kelly Kyanko, an instructor in the department of population health at the NYU Langone Medical Center, said in a center news release.

"We hope these findings will help local health authorities in the New York City area address this problem by creating programs to increase adherence rates, specifically in patient populations most at risk," Kyanko added.

The study was published online recently in the Journal of Urban Health.

"We believe that patients and their doctors can work to improve medication adherence through simple measures such as switching to once-a-day or combination pills, keeping a pill box and obtaining 90-day refills instead of 30-day refills for medications they take on a regular basis," Kyanko said.

High-risk patients may require more intensive interventions, such as working with a nurse or pharmacist to ensure they take their prescribed medications, she added.

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death both in New York and in the United States, according to the release.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention outlines ways to prevent heart disease.

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Dr. Oz: Different Side of Famed Heart Surgeon

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Obesity, larger waist size associated with better outcomes in heart failure patients

ScienceDaily (July 3, 2012) — A slim waist and normal weight are usually associated with better health outcomes, but that's not always the case with heart failure patients, according to a new UCLA study.

See Also:Health & MedicineObesityHeart DiseaseCholesterolStroke PreventionDiseases and ConditionsDiet and Weight LossReferenceArtificial heartIschaemic heart diseaseRheumatic feverHypertension

Researchers found that in both men and women with advanced heart failure, obesity -- as indicated by a high body mass index (BMI) -- and a higher waist circumference were factors that put them at significantly less risk for adverse outcomes.

The study findings are published in the July 1 online issue of the American Journal of Cardiology.

Heart failure affects 5.8 million people, including 2.5 million women. Approximately one-half to two-thirds of heart failure patients are overweight or obese.

Women and men are known to have differences in body composition and body-fat distribution, and this study is one of the first to specifically assess the impact of BMI and waist circumference on women and compare it with men.

The findings also offer further insight into an observed phenomenon in chronic heart failure known as the "obesity paradox": Obesity is a known risk factor for developing heart disease and heart failure, but once heart failure has manifested, being overweight may provide some protective benefits.

"The study provides us with more insight about how both genders of heart failure patients may be impacted by the obesity paradox," said senior author Dr. Tamara Horwich, an assistant professor of cardiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. "Heart failure may prove to be one of the few health conditions where extra weight may prove to be protective."

For the study, researchers analyzed data on advanced heart failure patients treated at UCLA Medical Center from 1983 to 2011. The team assessed 2,718 patients who had their BMI measured at the beginning of heart failure treatment and 469 patients who had their waist circumference measured at the beginning of treatment.

Using standardized measures, the researchers identified men or women as having a high BMI if they were greater or equal to 25 kg/m² -- this included both overweight patients (25 to 29.9 kg/m²) and obese patients (30 kg/m² or greater).

For men, a high waist circumference was considered 40 inches (102 cm) or greater, and for women, 37 inches (88 cm) or greater. This assessment also included patients who were either overweight or obese.

At the two-year follow-up, researchers used statistical analysis and found that in men, a high waist circumference and high BMI were associated with event-free survival from adverse outcomes like death, the need for a heart transplant, or the need for ventricular assist device placement.

Women with a higher BMI also had better outcomes than their normal-weight counterparts, and women with a high waist circumference also trended toward improved outcomes.

Both men and women with a normal BMI and waist circumference were at a substantially higher risk for these adverse outcomes. In fact, a normal BMI was associated with significantly worse outcomes -- a 34 percent higher risk in men and a 38 percent higher risk in women -- than a high BMI.

Normal waist circumference was also associated with an increased risk of adverse outcomes in both genders, with men's risk doubling and women's risk tripling.

"We knew that obesity might provide a protective benefit for heart failure patients, but we didn't know whether this obesity paradox applied specifically to women with heart failure, as well as men -- and it does," Horwich said.

BMI measurement has been used for years as a surrogate measure of body fat. Since it measures all mass -- including lean muscle, which weighs more than fat -- the measurement may not be specific for total body fat. Waist circumference is a newer addition that may provide a more direct connection to body fat, since it measures the fat accumulated around the belly.

"The study also demonstrates how BMI and waist circumference can be used together to provide a more accurate measure of fat in the body to help determine obesity and assess risk," said the study's first author, Adrienne L. Clark, a resident in the department of medicine at the Geffen School of Medicine.

According to Horwich, no one knows exactly why the obesity paradox exists for heart failure patients, but there are several possible explanations.

Being underweight is traditionally associated with a poorer prognosis in heart failure patients. Obesity may be at the other end of the spectrum, and patients may thereby benefit from increased muscle mass, as well as metabolic reserves in the form of fatty tissue. In addition, increased levels of serum lipoproteins that are associated with increased body fat may play an anti-inflammatory role, neutralizing circulating toxins and inflammation-related proteins.

Obese patients also present at an earlier stage of heart failure due to increased symptoms and functional impairment caused by excess body weight, so they may be getting help sooner, which also could improve outcomes, the researchers said.

The next steps in research will include larger studies with longer follow-up times, as well as a closer look at the physiology behind the obesity paradox.

The study was funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health (grant 1K23HL085097).

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Half of all heart patients make medication errors

Reuters – 11 hrs ago NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Half of all heart patients made at least one medication-related mistake after leaving the hospital, and guidance from a pharmacist didn't seem to reduce those errors, in a new study.

Consequences of mistakes - such as forgetting to take certain drugs or taking the wrong dose - can range from side effects like constipation to more serious drops in blood pressure. Two percent of errors were life-threatening.

Hospitals involved in the study were already taking steps to prevent medication mistakes in addition to the extra pharmacist intervention, said Dr. Sunil Kripalani, the study's lead author from the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.

"We were surprised to see that in spite of these efforts that 50 percent (of patients) were still having these medication errors," he told Reuters Health.

Although the pharmacist visits didn't help the average patient, he added, certain ones seemed to benefit - such as patients who were on multiple drugs or had trouble understanding health information.

As for traditionally lower-risk patients, he said other strategies to prevent errors may be needed.

ONE-ON-ONE MEETINGS

For their study, Kripalani and his fellow researchers followed patients who had been hospitalized for heart conditions at Vanderbilt University Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

Half of the patients were randomly assigned to attend two visits with a pharmacist, who looked at which medications patients were taking and instructed them on what to do once they left the hospital to manage their prescriptions and reduce side effects.

The patients also received tools, such as a medication chart and pillbox, to use at home.

After leaving the hospital, the patients received a phone call within a few days from one of the study's coordinators who was able to identify medication-related problems over the phone. If any were found, a pharmacist made a follow-up call.

The other heart patients did not receive any special treatment outside of normal hospital procedure, which is for a nurse or doctor to spend a few minutes with patients before they leave the hospital to discuss their medications.

One month later, 432 out of the 851 patients had made at least one harmful or potentially-harmful medication error, including missing doses, taking the incorrect dose, stopping a drug too early or continuing it for too long.

Just under one-quarter of those errors were judged to be serious and about two percent were life-threatening. And there was no difference in the number of errors made by patients who did or didn't get extra pharmacist advice.

One limitation, the researchers note in their Annals of Internal Medicine report, is that not all patients in the intervention group had two pharmacist visits or a follow-up call as intended. It's also unclear whether the findings would apply to patients being treated for other, non-heart conditions.

KEEP A LIST

Kevin Boesen, director of the Medication Management Center at the University of Arizona College of Pharmacy in Tucson, told Reuters Health he's not surprised that many people are confused after leaving the hospital.

"To me, I think (the finding) highlights the challenge for the transition from hospital to home," he said.

Boesen added that it's important for patients to meet with their regular pharmacist and primary care doctor after they get out of the hospital or fill a prescription somewhere else.

"I think there is the assumption that when a patient goes to a pharmacy the pharmacist will have a list of all the medication they're on," he said. But that's not always the case.

A key safety step patients can take, Boesen and Kripalani agreed, is to keep track of all of the drugs they're taking and carry a list.

"The single most important thing patients and families can do to promote safety with their medications is to always keep a medication list with them," Kripalani said. That list should include drug doses and patients' reason for taking each medication, he added.

"If a patient simply carries that medication list, so everyone is working off of one list, that definitely helps," said Boesen.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/P65Kp7 Annals of Internal Medicine, online July 2, 2012.

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Fast food intake increases risk of diabetes and heart disease in Singapore

ScienceDaily (July 2, 2012) — The dangers of fast food are well documented; the portions are often larger and the food is generally high in calories and low in nutrients. Now, University of Minnesota School of Public Health researchers have examined the eating habits of residents in Singapore and found new evidence that a diet heavy in fast food increases the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease.

See Also:Health & MedicineDiet and Weight LossNutritionDiabetesStaying HealthyCholesterolHealth PolicyReferenceOily fishFast foodHealth benefits of teaBran

The latest research, published online July 2 by the American Heart Association's journal Circulation, found that people who consume fast food even once a week increase their risk of dying from coronary heart disease by 20 percent in comparison to people who avoid fast food. For people eating fast food two-three times each week, the risk increases by 50 percent, and the risk climbs to nearly 80 percent for people who consume fast food items four or more times each week.

Eating fast food two or more times a week was also found to increase the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes by 27 percent.

According to University of Minnesota researchers, the few existing studies on the association of fast food and metabolic risk have looked almost exclusively at Western-Caucasian populations from the United States.

"We wanted to examine the association of Western-style fast food with cardio-metabolic risk in a Chinese population in Southeast Asia that has become a hotbed for diabetes and heart disease," said the study's lead researcher, University of Minnesota post-doctoral researcher Andrew Odegaard, Ph.D., M.P.H. "What we found was a dramatic public health impact by fast food, a product that is primarily a Western import into a completely new market."

To arrive at their results, School of Public Health researchers worked alongside researchers from the National University of Singapore. Together, they examined results of a study conducted over a period of 16 years beginning in 1993, which looked at the eating habits of 52,000 Chinese residents of Singapore who have experienced a recent and sudden transition from traditional foods to Western-style fast food.

"What's interesting about the results is that study participants who reported eating fast food most frequently were younger, better educated, smoked less and were more likely to be physically active," said Odegaard. "This profile is normally associated with lower cardio-metabolic risk."

According to the study's senior researcher, Mark Pereira, Ph.D., M.P.H., of the School of Public Health's Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, the new research provides an important perspective on global health and the nutrition transfer when cultures developing in different parts of the world start moving away from their traditional diet and mode of exercise.

"The big picture is that this

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Hot Flashes Don't Signal Poor Heart Health for Most Women: Study

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'Atkins'-Type Diets May Raise Risk of Heart Problems: Study

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PTSD and Heart Patients: More Common Than Once Thought

Yahoo! Contributor Network – 6 hrs ago

Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, is something we associate with military veterans and civilians who have been the victims of violet crimes.

New research, however, is finding that this disorder is actually quite prevalent among those who have experienced a heart attack or other significant cardiac event. Having this disorder can actually increase the risk of a subsequent heart attack or significant cardiac event, making this research critical for protecting patients.

The study "Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Prevalence and Risk Recurrence in Acute Coronary Syndrome Patients: A Meta-analytic Review" was conducted by Columbia University Medical Center and headed by Dr. Donald Edmondson. The results were submitted on February 20 and published on Wednesday.

Here's a closer look:

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Risk factors for heart attack remain low seven years after gastric bypass

ScienceDaily (June 20, 2012) — Total cholesterol, triglycerides and C-reactive protein levels are among 11 risk factors for heart attack that remained greatly reduced up to seven years after gastric bypass surgery, according to a new Stanford University study

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Study debunks belief insulin puts people with diabetes at risk of heart disease

ScienceDaily (June 11, 2012) — Researchers at McMaster University have discovered that long-term insulin use does not harm people with diabetes or pre-diabetes or put them at risk of heart attacks, strokes or cancer.

See Also:Health & MedicineDiabetesChronic IllnessHormone DisordersCholesterolHypertensionPersonalized MedicineReferenceBlood sugarDiabetes mellitus type 2Diabetic dietDiabetes mellitus type 1

This is contrary to concerns that long-term use of insulin may cause heart disease, says Dr. Hertzel Gerstein, principal investigator of the study, professor of medicine at McMaster's Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine and deputy director of the Population Health Research Institute at McMaster University and Hamilton Health Sciences.

"People have been debating the question of whether there are adverse consequences to long-term insulin use for years," he said. "This study provides the clearest answer yet to that question: No, there are not."

Gerstein recently presented the findings of the ORIGIN study (Outcome Reduction with an Initial Glargine Intervention study), at the scientific sessions of the American Diabetes Association in Philadelphia. The results were also recently published in two papers in the medical journal New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

A second important finding of the study is that people with pre-diabetes who received daily basal insulin injections with insulin glargine had a 28 per cent lower chance of developing type 2 diabetes, even after the injections stopped.

Gerstein jointly led the study with Dr. Salim Yusuf, professor of medicine and director of the Population Health Research Institute.

Today, more than nine million Canadians are living with diabetes or pre-diabetes. Diabetes is a chronic condition, often debilitating and sometimes fatal disease, in which the body either cannot produce insulin or cannot properly use the insulin it produces. This leads to high levels of glucose in the blood which can damage organs, blood vessels and nerves. The body needs insulin to use glucose as a source of energy.

In the ORIGIN study, more than 12,500 people at 537 sites in 40 countries with an average age of 64, who are at high risk for, or in the early stages of type 2 diabetes, were randomized to either one daily injection of insulin (glargine) or no insulin (standard care) for an average of six years.

Researchers found no difference among the two groups in cardiovascular outcomes or in the development of any type of cancer. This suggests daily insulin injections (with insulin glargine) to normalize glucose levels are not harmful when taken over long periods of time. Throughout the study, most of the participants given insulin maintained normal fasting glucose levels (below 6 mmol/l).

The study confirmed the presence of two previously known side effects of insulin -- hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) and modest weight gain. Both were considered minor from a medical point of view, with participants gaining an average of 3.5 pounds during the study and experiencing a low, 0.7 per cent higher risk of severe hypoglycemia per year than the people not on insulin.

"We now know what the risks are of taking insulin on a long-term basis, and they are low," Gerstein said.

The study also discovered that daily doses of one-gram omega-3 fatty acid capsules did not prevent cardiac-related deaths in people with type 2 diabetes or prediabetes.

"There was neither benefit nor harm in the participants who were studied," said Jackie Bosch, associate professor of McMaster's School of Rehabilitation Science and project manager for the trial. "However, the effect of these supplements in other groups, and the effect of a diet rich in omega 3 fatty acids was not studied."

The study was funded by the drug company Sanofi Inc. and the omega-3 supplement was provided by Pronova Biocare AS, the Norwegian manufacturer of omega-3, and independently conducted by the Population Health Research Institute at McMaster University and Hamilton Health Sciences.

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Birth Control Linked to Heart Attack, Stroke

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