Last posts on heart

Long-Term Lead Exposure Linked to Heart Deaths

2009-11-22T08:57:00+01:00

Exposure to lead over a lifetime may increase the risk of dying from heart disease, new research shows.Researchers analyzed lead concentrations in the blood and bones of 868 mostly white men from the Boston area who participated in a veterans' aging study.The men, whose average age was 67 at the start of the study, had lead concentrations in their blood and the bones of the patella (kneecap) and tibia (shin) measured over a nine-year period. During the course of the study, 241 died.Researchers found that men who had the highest concentrations of lead in their bones had a six times greater chance of dying from cardiovascular disease than men with the lowest concentrations.Men with the highest levels of lead had a 2.5 times greater chance of dying from all causes than men with the lowest levels."Cumulative exposure to lead, even in an era when current exposures are low, represents an important predictor of cardiovascular death," said study author Marc Weisskopf, an assistant professor of environmental health and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. "The findings with bone lead are dramatic. It is the first time we have had a biomarker of cumulative exposure to lead, and the strong findings suggest that it is a more critical biomarker than blood lead."The study appears in the Sept. 8 issue of Circulation.Typically, lead exposure is measured through blood samples. For instance, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys use blood to measure lead.But blood, because it has a half life of about 30 days, reveals recent exposure. To determine cumulative exposure, bone is the better method, according to the study.Bone has a half life ranging from years to decades, including eight years in the knee cap and possibly decades in the shin. To determine bone lead concentration, researchers used a technique similar to a chest X-ray.Researchers said the link to cardiovascular disease underscores the need for regulatory bodies and surveillance agencies to track potential sources of lead exposure."Researchers studying cardiovascular deaths worldwide have generally not considered lead as one of the risk factors that contributes to the risk of death from cardiovascular disease," Weisskopf said.Overall, study participants had blood levels of lead that were slightly higher than the average of similar U.S. men.While few if any participants in the study were occupationally exposed to lead, occupations such as construction and painting put men at higher risk.The current OSHA standards, which are based on blood lead levels and permit up to 40 micrograms of lead per deciliter, are probably inadequate, Weisskopf said.Before being banned in the mid-1990s, leaded gasoline was a major source of U.S. environmental lead exposure.Current sources of exposure are chipping, flaking lead in paint in older homes, water pipes in older homes, lead in food and drinking water and hobbies that involve casting ammunition, toy soldiers, fishing weights, lead in solder for making stained glass and some ceramic glazes.

Severe, Lasting Depression Tied to Heart Patient Deaths

2009-11-21T19:40:00+01:00

Certain depressed patients who suffer from heart disease have nearly double the risk of dying over a seven-year period compared with other depressed patients, researchers say. The patients most at risk are those who suffer from the most severe depression within a few weeks of being hospitalized for a cardiac event, such as a heart attack, and those whose depression doesn't get better within six months, according to study findings published in the September issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.The study authors noted that about one out of every five people who survive a heart attack hit a patch of major depression over the next few weeks. Depression has been known to boost the risk of death after an acute coronary syndrome event, such as heart attack or the chest pain known as unstable angina.In the new study, Dr. Alexander H. Glassman of Columbia University Medical Center and the New York State Psychiatric Institute in New York City and colleagues examined the medical records of 361 participants in a study of antidepressant use after heart attack.Regardless of whether the patients took antidepressants, those whose depression didn't improve within six months were more likely to die: 15.6 percent of those whose depression improved died, compared with 28.4 percent of those who had little or no improvement, the researchers reported. "Depression is a syndrome with multiple pathways to a similar clinical picture. In patients with active coronary heart disease, it seems likely that the association with depression is a two-way street, and each can aggravate the other," the study authors concluded.

Eat better to protect your heart

2009-04-07T02:09:00+02:00

Your heart is a muscle. Exercise makes it beat faster, enabling blood to flow quicker, carrying more oxygen and nutrients to your cells and drawing away toxins and excess cholesterol. REMEMBER, FATS ARE GOOD Your body needs fat – but preferably only good fats, the ones with essential fatty acids that are found in seeds, nuts and oily fish. These fats may actually protect against heart disease by making your blood less sticky and reducing the likelihood of clots forming. FOOD RICH IN VITAMIN E Vitamin E is fat-soluble, so you need to eat fat to be able to absorb this valuable vitamin. Vitamin E-rich foods reduce platelets sticking together, lower blood pressure and help strengthen blood vessels. Stock up on avocados, green vegetables and wholegrains as well as nuts and seeds, which are all rich sources of vitamin E. more...

The Center

2009-03-30T18:01:00+02:00

If you seek beauty, deem only of worth that which is done with love, as love is the appreciation of beauty. However, though all things are created with love in some way or other, albeit the love of destruction, not all love is equal. Love the whole, however, not its parts, as you will otherwise led astray from the greater beauty; for as far as you yourself are concerned, the whole means all that which you perceive, indeed you can be said to be the whole of your perceptions. If we see the self as such, to love the whole therefore means to love oneself. What this means, then, is to do whatever feels best for oneself, as only through feeling, not through thought, one can consider the whole rather than just the parts. If what is best for you means to you what is most comfortable, then by all means, do whatever feels most comfortable when all is said and done. If you seek beauty, then do whatever feels most beautiful to you. Do not then be held back by either fear or craving to love whatever beauty you seek, but listen to your center, the heart.For you can know what will bring you to beauty only through feeling it, as only you can feel what beauty means to you. For everything you do, listen to your feelings and examine whether or not you truly want to do it, accepting whatever it may bring along with it.If you are urged to do something out of craving, no matter what it may be, even if it is something beautiful, then check yourself, until you feel you can do it out of love rather than out of craving; for nothing is beautiful with love, as love is what defines beauty, and craving can make even that which is beautiful worthless.To achieve beauty, one must struggle against the forces of gravity, up towards the sky; craving and fear pull one down, but love tells one to fly on upward.

Self CPR.

2008-10-28T00:34:15+01:00

This was sent by email to me tonight.

It could help save a life. I hope it isn't needed but we never know!

What are you to do if you have a heart attack while you are alone.

If you've already received this, it means people care about you ...

The Johnson City Medical Center staff actually discovered this

and did an in-depth study on it in our ICU The two individuals that

discovered this then did an article on it .. had it published and have

even had it incorporated into ACLS and CPR classes.

It is very true and has and does work. It is called cough CPR. A cardiologist says it's the truth ... For your info ..If everyone who gets

this sends it to 10 people, you can bet that we'll save at least one life.

Read This..It could save your life! Let's say it's 6:15 p.m. and you're driving home (alone of course), after an usually hard day on the job. You're really tired, upset and frustrated. Suddenly you start experiencing severe pain in your chest that starts to radiate out into

your arm and up into your jaw. You are only about five miles from the

hospital nearest your home. Unfortunately you don't know if you'll be

able to make it that far.

What can you do? You've been trained in CPR but the guy that taught the course, didn't tell you what to do if it happened to yourself.

Since many people are alone when they suffer a heart attack ,

this article seemed to be in order. Without help, the person

whose heart is beating improperly and who begins to feel faint,

has only about 10 seconds left before losing consciousness.

However, these victims can help themselves by coughing repeatedly and very vigorously. A deep breath should be taken before each cough, and the cough must be deep and prolonged,

as when producing sputum from deep inside the chest. A breath and a cough must be repeated about very two seconds without let up until help arrives, or until the heart is felt to be beating

normally again.

Deep breaths get oxygen into the lungs and coughing movements squeeze the heart and keep the blood circulating. The squeezing pressure on the heart also helps it regain normal rhythm. In this way, heart attack victims can get to a hospital. Tell as many other people as possible about this, it could save their lives!

From Health Cares, Rochester General Hospital via Chapter 240s newsletter 'AND THE BEAT GOES ON ..'

(reprint from The Mended Hearts, Inc. publication, Heart Response)

BE A FRIEND AND PLEASE SEND THIS ARTICLE

TO AS MANY FRIENDS AS POSSIBLE

True or False???

2008-05-27T23:46:43+02:00

For those who like to drink cold water, this article is applicable to you. It is nice to have a cup of cold drink after a meal. However, the cold water will solidify the oily stuff that you have just consumed. It will slow down the digestion. Once this 'sludge' reacts with the acid, it will break down and be absorbed by the intestine faster than the solid food. It will line the intestine. Very soon, this will turn into fats and may lead to cancer. It is best to drink hot soup or warm water after a meal.

Common Symptoms Of Heart Attack...
A serious note about heart attacks - You should know that not every heart attack symptom is going to be the left arm hurting . Be aware of intense pain in the jaw line .
You may never have the first chest pain during the course of a heart attack. Nausea and intense sweating are also common symptoms. 60% of people who have a heart attack while they are asleep do not wake up. Pain in the jaw can wake you from a sound sleep. Let's be careful and be aware. The more we know, the better chance we could survive.
A cardiologist says if everyone who reads this message sends it to 10 people, you can be sure that we'll save at least one life. Read this & Send to a friend. It could save a life. So, please be a true friend and send this article to all your friends you care about.

This was sent to me by a friend.

Follow your Heart

2008-05-25T17:30:00+02:00

If you follow your body you will live in ignorance, if you follow your mind you will live in detachment. Thus, follow your heart. The body, like the mind, is but a tool of the heart.The heart always strives towards greater beauty. All should therefore begin from within the heart, and whatever you think and do should merely follow from it. Emotion is the beginning and the end.

Sites, health.

2008-05-10T20:20:00+02:00

Just a few Websites to try now and then.

NOT INSTEAD of your GP of course!

www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk

http://www.besttreatments.org/ Common health probs.

http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/ General Health.

http://www.food.gov.uk/ Food.

www.cancerhelp.org.uk

http://www.quackwatch.org/ Worth a peek.

http://www.mht.org.uk/ Mental Health.

http://www.bhf.org.uk/ Heart Issues.

http://www.strokeassociation.org.uk/ CVA, Stroke.

Sites. Health.

2008-05-10T20:15:00+02:00

Just a few Websites to try now and then. NOT INSTEAD of your GP of course!www.nhsdirect.nhs.ukhttp://www.besttreatments.org/ Common health probs.http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/ General Health.http://www.food.gov.uk/ Food.www.cancerhelp.org.ukhttp://www.quackwatch.org/ Worth a peek.http://www.mht.org.uk/ Mental Health.http://www.bhf.org.uk/ Heart Issues.http://www.strokeassociation.org.uk/ CVA, Stroke.

Desert Of My Heart

2008-04-18T20:45:00+02:00

In the desert of my heart

past loves are left to wither

Their bones scattered

bleached and dry

half covered in sand

that burns without flames

No survivors

Prompted by Writers Island

for more takes on the prompt go to:

http://writersisland.wordpress.com/2008/04/17/prompt-link-triumph/#comments

Heart Behind Barbwire

2008-04-06T17:50:00+02:00

My heart's caught

in the barbwire fences

surrounding yours

and every time it tries to free itself

it gets stuck worse

You left it struggling there

bleeding from its puncture wounds

to undergo a slow and painful death

unmerciful you move on

not one glance back

Matters of the Heart

2007-11-14T08:11:06+01:00

I'm as tired as only a day in the hospital can make me, the weariness that's not so much the will to sleep, as the will to not think of feel anymore.

Hospital, like airports, or school, looks the same, no matter where in the world you are. I'm thinking about that when I'm walking toward the elevator, about how maybe if I just open a door or turn into a room, I'll find some secret passage that connect me to a different hospital, in Israel maybe. Then I think that maybe that already happened and I just didn't feel it because all the hospitals looks the same. They have that same feel of pleasant boredom, of cream color wall and those awful reproduction of paintings and prints with flower in them and the same light. And they have the same time zone, all of them, in which minutes feels like hours and half hours feels like days, and going out, after spending just a few hours in there, I feel like I grew old by at least a 100 years.

His mom had some heart thing, she's fine, they had dinner with us on Sunday, and then dessert and then they went home and in the hours after dinner she felt a pressure in her chest and in the morning, she went to the Doctor who send her to a Cardiologist who send her to the hospital where she had an Angiogram and and Angioplasty.

I went through the same thing with my mother, about a year and a half ago, just before moving to New York, being in the hospital, I remembered everything, what comes before what, and what will the DR. say and when not too move and everything. I was looking through the window in the waiting room, expecting to see the mountains of Jerusalem like they look from Haddasa hospital, and not Manhattan. I remembered different small things from when my mother was in the hospital, then from when my sister and my grandmother, it feels as if every hospital visit I do, it harder to carry because it carries in it all the other hospital memories folded in it, in hospital time, like layers of films laying one on top of the other.

The Dr. is talking about changing life habits and sports and eating differently and medication and I've heard all this before, and it makes me scared about how I'm eating and how I'm not doing any sports. And it also makes me think that there's nothing wrong with her, really, that she's having the symptoms of age, that at some point, everyone i know would be facing the same visit to the hospital with some heart problem. I'm thinking about my mother and how I felt like I was breaking her heart by leaving. I'm thinking that I'll be old one day and die. I'm making impossible deals in my mind, agreeing to live only till the age of 60 if all this will be spared of me. If only not to have to deal with getting old. I rather die, then deal with the idea of my own mortality.

Later at home, I'm cutting papers for prints and stop in the middle, I surf the net, I check facebook for no good reason, I finish a painting I started the other day, not because I want to, but because I can't bare to start something new, and I want this day to end with at least one thing finished. I draw flowers and paint them yellow until all the page is filled and the painting is done.

I think about this blog and how, a while ago, I would come back from a day like this and just want to write about it and how now, I just want to turn on an audio book. I don't want to listen or express my thoughts and feeling. I'm trying to figure out why and come to a vague conclusion that it has to do with space. I miss myself, the way that I was before, the way that I was when I was writing more. I miss the fearlessness of not being afraid to loss everything because I feel I have nothing. I miss drinking instead of eating, I miss being thinner.

But I don't, not really, I'm just scared of getting old I guess.

Mom

2006-07-19T16:04:53+02:00

I had a dream the night before her angiogram. In the dream I was not anxious, me and my friends were hanging out, we were going to eat dinner and a girl I didn't know was there, she and another friend of mine who is single for a really long time was eyeing one another. Everything felt great. Then I walked by a window of a store, it had TV sets in it, my uncle was sitting in his wheelchair and talking about the war he hit in, I'm standing to look at it, thinking he's on TV, but then realizing he's really behind that glass, that it's not a store window but a glass door in the hospital.His wife, my aunt, come over, she's telling me my mother's OK and about to go have her procedure, my mom join us, we are standing on the ward's counter, everything is empty quite and white as we are waiting for a nurse or someone to approach us, my mother's sitting in a wheelchair, she say that the hospital wanted to let her go home till her surgery, but that my uncle pulled some strings and told them that she wasn't feeling well enough, that her legs were aching and so they let her stay and that's why she's in a wheelchair, I start pushing her toward the operation room, then, I'm distracted by something or take a wrong turn or something and the wheelchair tips over and my mother falls to the floor. She's covered in a dark green hospital blanket and I can't see her at all, she looks really small under the blanket, my aunt looks alert and shocked, I'm starting to yell "help! Help" and run down the corridor toward where the nurses are, they are engaged in conversation and me, half hysteric, trying to explain to them what happened, eventually one of them, a heavy woman with short brown hair, is following me, not as fast or urgent as I need her to be, from afar, I see my aunt crushing her fists on my mom's chest's supposed to be under the blanket, she's giving her a heart massage trying to bring her back, she's screaming my mother's name, loud trying to wake her, her voice break into crying, then I see my mother's hand roll from under the blanket, and i know, with certainty, that she's dead. That she's gone for good.I'm thinking "this is too horrible and too real to be a dream" and then I wake up, but I'm a child, I'm not me, I'm a little girl, her hair's in two pigtails and bangs, I'm covered in a red blanket and holding tight to a small, knitted teddy bear and my eyes are shut in fear and tears, I feel a heavy bracers on my teeth, in my mouth.I wake up again and I'm me, I'm sitting in my own messy room and start talking to him on the web cam, wanting to tell him about the scary dream I just had, I'm starting to talk to him but something is bothering me, making it hard for me to speak and I realize I still have the bracers in my mouth, but that it if hanging loose, it's attached to my right back teeth alone and all the rest of it is just hanging, I reach into my mouth and start playing with bits and pieces of wire in my mouth, it doesn't detach, eventually, I just pull it out with force, I go to the bathroom and wash my mouth, watching the sink get full of bits and pieces of metal, old needles, wires, feelings, rusted and old and shiny.I wake up again and this time I know I'm truly awake cause I'm anxious.It doesn't leave me anymore, not ever since it's started a week and a half ago, I'm taking bendodiazepines, the pills I was always afraid and really hopeful toward, that pill that's supposed to just take a panic attack and dissolve it in 20 minutes, they dulls it just a little bit but doesn't really help. I found myself going to the hospital last Thursday just to get the same pills from the hospital's Psychiatrist just to get the same pills I was already taking and a recommendation to go back to SSRIs, which I took for one day and then gave up on, remembering that when I took those pills a few years ago, they made the depression slowly go away but didn't help for anxiety at all. All this fear, which I know isn't really a fear, there's a war going around me, my building being broken into and the thing I fear the most is the sound of a barking dog and the wind in the trees. And now this.On Friday my dad calls, it's a little odd cause we already talked earlier that day, I'm home, I'm always home those days or at work, the anxiety makes it almost impossible to get out of the apartment and do anything but be home and be anxious. He tells me that my mom, who I've also talked to this morning, had a heart incident, they still don't know what is it exactly, she's in the hospital, she's OK but her test aren't good, they are administrating her into the cardiology ward, no I don't need to come now, visiting hours are going to be over soon anyway. I call my sister and we talk, then I talk to my other sister and we agree to go there that evening. We sit in my sister's living room, watching Television. I'm feeling anxious we try to calm one another, my younger sister's depressed again, my middle sister's staring on the TV screen then on the pages in her laps, she's got a big test on Sunday and have to study. We watch a little news then some series then a movie, my younger sister end up going back to her apartment since her boyfriend's coming over. And so a couple of days later the DR. decide to have an angiogram and I dream that dream. Though I didn't tell work that I'm going to go to the hospital the next day, I call them in the morning and let them know I'm going to go up to Jerusalem, I walk all the way to the central bus station, trying to ignore the trees, the way banners and flags flap in the wind, the air is almost still this season but to me, it looks and feels like a storm. I debate between taking the service taxi or the bus like my life dependent on it. Eventually I take the bus then a taxi to the hospital, Jerusalem, and especially the hospital, that's on a top of a mountain in the middle of a forest is always more windy then Tel Aviv and the hospital has so many frightening different noises in it I feel I can burst. But I don't I go up to the ward, my mom is already out of recovery but there's a DR. in the ward so all visitors need to stay out. I sit with my father and my sister in the waiting area and we watch TV. There weren't any missiles since morning, and so the news shows are trying to fill one dead hour after another with kids psychologists and other anxiety specialist talking about how to comfort people who are having hard times in the war.Eventually we go in, my mom's laying in bed, in a hospital's pajamas, she's napping, her hair has a lot of gray in it and suddenly she looks older and small to me, like she shrunk down inside that huge hospital bad. I touch her skin, her hand. She wakes up slowly, she's not feeling good but after the nurse checks on her and adjust something in the bandages she's feeling better. She asks me how I'm doing, she knows that I'm anxious, that I'm not eating, I'm telling her I'm not so good, she makes my dad go down to the mall and get me some rice from one of those Chinese fast food counters. We sit and talk, it's hard to find what to talk to with her, she's trying to make me feel better, not as anxious, she's asking me what I'm afraid about, and telling me that i can always come back if I don't like it over there, it's so hard to explain how I feel. I try to talk about this woman at work, to talk about random stuff that's going to make her feel better, but it's hard, it's all so difficult and tragic. My dad gets back, I eat some rice, my mom eats some of it and the hospital's lunch, she was worried the day before and didn't eat much, my dad goes out again he's taking the car to the auto shop and I stay with my mother. It feels to me like I haven't spend any time with her in ages, just the two of us, I’m thinking about all the anger I have for her and had for her in recent years, I look at her body in the bed, at her face, and it just dissolve for that moment, it evaporate as I see her as a person, sick and scared and loving, worried about me even more then I worry about her. And I want to cry, I want to curl in her arms and have her protect me, nurse me back into health and mental stability, I want her to be big and strong and with the amazing ability to fix everything.I'm afraid she'll die, I'm afraid I'll be anxious in New York and have no where to run away to, not that I ever did, not that there's ever a place to hide from myself, from the notion of my parents getting old and die, from being alone and scared, so scared and helpless.I don't want to feel like this anymore, I want to be healthy and strong and brave, I can't stand that fear in the pits of my belly anymore.