Cortisol Hormone in Hair Follicles Identify Stress, Predict Heart Attacks | Hair & Chronic Stress | LiveScience: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100903072320.htm
Many people are now familiar with the stress hormone cortisol. The most common method of testing is with a single blood test. Lately a four sample salivary test has become more popular as a means of measuring cortisol levels throughout the day. Now researchers have developed a hair cortisol test which can measure levels over a period of up to 10 months. This test is not yet available to the public but it will one day be the most comprehensive way of testing long term cortisol levels around.
Showing posts with label heart attack. Show all posts
Showing posts with label heart attack. Show all posts
Saturday, September 04, 2010
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Diabetes Drug Maker Hid Test Data, Files Indicate - NYTimes.com
Diabetes Drug Maker Hid Test Data, Files Indicate - NYTimes.com: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"
What other secrets do the drug companies keep? They will do anything, including risking the health of you and your loved ones, to keep raking in BIG profits and $$$$.
So you think, "What can I do? My blood sugar is out of control. My blood pressure is high. My cholesterol is through the roof and my doctor says I can die from a stroke."
You should know there are diet and lifestyle changes that will help reverse these problems. The catch? You have to be involved! You must be in touch with yourself and have the right person coaching and encouraging you along. You have that choice. If you take this route you will be amply rewarded, beyond what you put into it. The right nutrition is powerful medicine without the side effects...like death.
If you take the drug route all you have to do is pop that little pill. The one with the lousy covered up results that will endanger your life.
You also have an opportunity to do a combination of prescription medications and nutritionals. Find a good doctor, one who is not quick to prescribe. Most MDs know little of nutrition. If yours does that's great. More of the younger doctors are getting some of this training. If you like your doctor but he doesn't have much knowledge in this area find a good clinical nutritionist. More and more chiropractors also serve as board certified clinical nutritionists. Check www.CBCN.US for a listing in your area.
What other secrets do the drug companies keep? They will do anything, including risking the health of you and your loved ones, to keep raking in BIG profits and $$$$.
So you think, "What can I do? My blood sugar is out of control. My blood pressure is high. My cholesterol is through the roof and my doctor says I can die from a stroke."
You should know there are diet and lifestyle changes that will help reverse these problems. The catch? You have to be involved! You must be in touch with yourself and have the right person coaching and encouraging you along. You have that choice. If you take this route you will be amply rewarded, beyond what you put into it. The right nutrition is powerful medicine without the side effects...like death.
If you take the drug route all you have to do is pop that little pill. The one with the lousy covered up results that will endanger your life.
You also have an opportunity to do a combination of prescription medications and nutritionals. Find a good doctor, one who is not quick to prescribe. Most MDs know little of nutrition. If yours does that's great. More of the younger doctors are getting some of this training. If you like your doctor but he doesn't have much knowledge in this area find a good clinical nutritionist. More and more chiropractors also serve as board certified clinical nutritionists. Check www.CBCN.US for a listing in your area.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
A Mysterious Link Between Sleeplessness and Heart Disease
Sleep 7 hours a night, my friends. Here's another reason why. Your brain needs it and your organs need it particularly if you're under more stress than you can handle. Why are you not sleeping? Are you staying up late watching TV and surfing the net? Or do you go to bed and have trouble sleeping? With some work on your part and nutritional solutions to your hormonal problems you can normalize sleep and improve your waking hours and your life!
Lack of sleep and lack of regular sleep times has a negative effect on hormone balances. Melatonin, cortisol, and insulin are thrown out of balance. This will age you faster than normal and lead to some diseases on the way. It will cause you to start on prescription meds and put your health and life on a downward cycle. Are you waiting for the crisis to hit before you change your habits? The average person is symptom oriented only. If there's no pain there's no problem they think. Only they don't understand that the first symptom of a heart attack is the heart attack. The deadliest cancers are often asymptomatic until it's end stage and too late. It's already a big event when you feel the pain! The human nervous system does not make pain a priority. It has lots of other things to deal with. By the time you feel pain you're experiencing a major event of some sort. Sometimes it's fixable and sometimes it's not.
Sleep. Recharge your battery. Normalize your sleep and normalize your life. Be in balance with your purpose. Be healthy and choose life!
By RONI CARYN RABIN December 24, 2008, NYT
People who don’t get much sleep are more likely than those who do to develop calcifications in their coronary arteries, possibly raising their risk for heart disease, a new study has found.
The 495 participants in the study filled out sleep questionnaires and kept a log of their hours in bed. At night they also wore motion-sensing devices around their wrists that estimate the number of hours of actual sleep. At the beginning, none of the participants, who were ages 35 to 47, had evidence of coronary artery calcification.
Five years later, 27 percent of those who were sleeping less than five hours a night on average had developed coronary artery calcification for the first time, while only 6 percent of those who were sleeping seven hours or more had developed it. Among those who were sleeping between five and seven hours a night, 11 percent had developed coronary artery calcification, the study found.
After accounting for various other causes, the researchers concluded that one hour more of sleep per night was associated with a 33 percent decrease in the odds of calcification, comparable to the heart benefit gained by lowering one’s systolic blood pressure by 17 millimeters of mercury.
The study was published on Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The data were drawn from the ongoing Coronary Artery Risk Development In Young Adults study.
Senior author Diane S. Lauderdale cautioned that the new report does not prove a cause-and-effect relationship between a lack of sleep and heart disease.
“It’s important to say that this is the first report and this does not yet prove the association is causal,” said Dr. Lauderdale, an associate professor of health studies at the University of Chicago Medical Center. “Until we know what the mechanism is -- that it’s really a direct or a causal relationship -- there is no point in making recommendations based on this.”
Although a number of studies have suggested that people who sleep less are at greater risk of heart disease and death, this is the first investigation to measure how much its subjects actually are sleeping, said Dr. Sanjay Patel, assistant professor of medicine at Case Western Reserve University and expert in sleep medicine. Patients’ own self-assessments can be very inaccurate, he added.
What isn’t clear is whether reduced sleep triggers physiological changes that increase heart disease risk, or whether a third, unrelated factor causes both changes, he said.
“It’s possible, for example, that people who are under more stress may be both sleeping less and at higher risk of heart disease,” Dr. Patel said.
If so, he added, “If we got those people to sleep more but they still were under a lot of stress, it wouldn’t change their risk of heart disease.”
Higher education levels are also associated with both a lower risk of heart disease and a tendency to get more sleep, said Dr. Lauderdale.
But it is also possible that lack of sleep leads to certain changes, like increasing blood levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which can raise the risk of coronary artery disease over time, Dr. Lauderdale said.
Another possible mechanism could be through the effect that sleep has on average blood pressure levels over a 24-hour period. Blood pressure usually dips when people are asleep, which could provide health benefits for those who get more sleep, Dr. Lauderdale suggested.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/24/health/research/24sleep.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
Lack of sleep and lack of regular sleep times has a negative effect on hormone balances. Melatonin, cortisol, and insulin are thrown out of balance. This will age you faster than normal and lead to some diseases on the way. It will cause you to start on prescription meds and put your health and life on a downward cycle. Are you waiting for the crisis to hit before you change your habits? The average person is symptom oriented only. If there's no pain there's no problem they think. Only they don't understand that the first symptom of a heart attack is the heart attack. The deadliest cancers are often asymptomatic until it's end stage and too late. It's already a big event when you feel the pain! The human nervous system does not make pain a priority. It has lots of other things to deal with. By the time you feel pain you're experiencing a major event of some sort. Sometimes it's fixable and sometimes it's not.
Sleep. Recharge your battery. Normalize your sleep and normalize your life. Be in balance with your purpose. Be healthy and choose life!
A Mysterious Link Between Sleeplessness and Heart Disease
By RONI CARYN RABIN December 24, 2008, NYT
People who don’t get much sleep are more likely than those who do to develop calcifications in their coronary arteries, possibly raising their risk for heart disease, a new study has found.
The 495 participants in the study filled out sleep questionnaires and kept a log of their hours in bed. At night they also wore motion-sensing devices around their wrists that estimate the number of hours of actual sleep. At the beginning, none of the participants, who were ages 35 to 47, had evidence of coronary artery calcification.
Five years later, 27 percent of those who were sleeping less than five hours a night on average had developed coronary artery calcification for the first time, while only 6 percent of those who were sleeping seven hours or more had developed it. Among those who were sleeping between five and seven hours a night, 11 percent had developed coronary artery calcification, the study found.
After accounting for various other causes, the researchers concluded that one hour more of sleep per night was associated with a 33 percent decrease in the odds of calcification, comparable to the heart benefit gained by lowering one’s systolic blood pressure by 17 millimeters of mercury.
The study was published on Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The data were drawn from the ongoing Coronary Artery Risk Development In Young Adults study.
Senior author Diane S. Lauderdale cautioned that the new report does not prove a cause-and-effect relationship between a lack of sleep and heart disease.
“It’s important to say that this is the first report and this does not yet prove the association is causal,” said Dr. Lauderdale, an associate professor of health studies at the University of Chicago Medical Center. “Until we know what the mechanism is -- that it’s really a direct or a causal relationship -- there is no point in making recommendations based on this.”
Although a number of studies have suggested that people who sleep less are at greater risk of heart disease and death, this is the first investigation to measure how much its subjects actually are sleeping, said Dr. Sanjay Patel, assistant professor of medicine at Case Western Reserve University and expert in sleep medicine. Patients’ own self-assessments can be very inaccurate, he added.
What isn’t clear is whether reduced sleep triggers physiological changes that increase heart disease risk, or whether a third, unrelated factor causes both changes, he said.
“It’s possible, for example, that people who are under more stress may be both sleeping less and at higher risk of heart disease,” Dr. Patel said.
If so, he added, “If we got those people to sleep more but they still were under a lot of stress, it wouldn’t change their risk of heart disease.”
Higher education levels are also associated with both a lower risk of heart disease and a tendency to get more sleep, said Dr. Lauderdale.
But it is also possible that lack of sleep leads to certain changes, like increasing blood levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which can raise the risk of coronary artery disease over time, Dr. Lauderdale said.
Another possible mechanism could be through the effect that sleep has on average blood pressure levels over a 24-hour period. Blood pressure usually dips when people are asleep, which could provide health benefits for those who get more sleep, Dr. Lauderdale suggested.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/24/health/research/24sleep.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
Sunday, June 15, 2008
What Happened to Russert
The main points here to take home are: he had no symptoms, he was on meds, and he was excercising. People think that there's a problem only if there's pain. This is the biggest mistake you can make!!!! Yes, I'm yelling at you!!! Underline this and put it where you'll see it everyday. This is the single most important and most difficult point I find in getting through to patients. Pain is a lousy indicator of your health. It is often late in onset and leaves early but the underlying problem is there and ready to strike. Do you know the first signs of many heart attacks? The heart attack itself. By that time it's too late. How about certain cancers like pancreatic? Asymptomatic until the end stage. Too late again.
The 5th paragrpah is the most important paragraph, beginning, "A sudden cardiac arrest is, of course, unexpected, but the process that causes it may begin many years before..." Take note of "inflammation" and the latent nature of the disease.
The science of sudden cardiac arrest
Mary Carmichael and Caitlin McDevitt
Newsweek Web Exclusive
Updated: 11:15 AM ET Jun 14, 2008
Journalists and politicians across the country were in shock Friday afternoon at news that Tim Russert, the prominent and beloved NBC correspondent, had collapsed and died suddenly of a heart attack in the network's Washington office. Russert had previously been been diagnosed with several risk factors for a sudden heart attack, including coronary artery disease and diabetes. But his death is still a sad reminder that cardiac arrest can strike anyone without warning—and that when it does, it is often fatal.
Sudden cardiac arrest accounts for 310,000 deaths in America every year, or 850 a day—more than those caused by breast cancer, lung cancer, stroke, and AIDS combined. But despite how common the condition is, doctors know little about what predisposes one person to it and not another. The National Institutes of Health is currently mounting a major study at 60 trial sites across the country to try and identify risk factors related to both genes and lifestyle, and will begin enrolling patients this week. For now, says Jeffrey Olgin, a cardiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, assessing risk is "a very, very difficult thing. I can't look at you and say you have a 10 percent chance of dying from this."
Doctors do know that a previous history of heart attacks is the most important risk factor. Vice President Dick Cheney, who has suffered four heart attacks, wears a pacemaker to ward off sudden arrest. Age and gender also play roles, and as a 58-year-old male, Russert was in high-risk groups; the average age for suffering sudden cardiac death is between 58 and 62. Other factors involved in all forms of cardiovascular disease—family history, smoking, diabetes, and obesity—can come into play. Russert had some of these too; he had been previously diagnosed with diabetes and and coronary artery disease, and his autopsy on Friday showed an enlarged heart. But doctors do not know which of these factors is most important in causing a sudden heart attack, or why. They also do not know if stress plays a role at all; the data is unclear. "Most of us do not think it is terribly relevant," says Steven Nissen, chair of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic and a past president of the American College of Cardiology. After all, he notes, "many people in this world have stressful jobs," and they don't all die of of heart attacks.
What is clear is that there are ways to lower one's risk of sudden cardiac death: eat healthy, exercise, don't smoke, and take aspirin or statins. The trouble, though, is that patients often don't think they're at serious risk until they are actually experiencing an attack. In about a third of all sudden deaths due to coronary disease, death is the first sign that anything major is wrong. Russert himself was exercising and taking medication for his coronary artery disease, which was asymptomatic. He performed well in a stress test two months ago.
A sudden cardiac arrest is, of course, unexpected, but the process that causes it may begin many years before. "In middle-aged men, it's virtually always caused by degeneration in the wall of a coronary artery," says Dr. Thomas Risser, a cardiologist at Cambridge Health Alliance. "It starts with fat deposits and inflammation, and these plaques just lie there silently." They can do so for decades until one of them fractures, at which point the body tries to plug the hole with a blood clot—and ends up blocking off the whole blood vessel. This condition is known as a coronary thrombosis, and it is extremely dangerous. The heart muscle, now starved for oxygen-rich blood, falls out of rhythm; it quivers but doesn't pump. "In the final stage, the ventricle looks like a bag of worms. It's chaotically beating very fast and therefore is completely inefficient at pumping blood," says Olgin. "Soon, there's no blood flow anywhere, including the brain, and people just suddenly collapse."
Once a patient's heart has gotten out of a normal rhythm, it can't get back on beat on its own. But a defibrillator—either an internally implanted one such as Cheney's, or an external one with electrical paddles—can get the heart beating steadily again, provided it is used in time. "If people get there with an external defibrillator within three minutes of a collapse, the survival rate for the kind of thing Russert may have had can be as high as 50 percent," says Robert J. Myerburg, a cardiologist at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. "But time is the whole issue. If you rely on fire/rescue teams to bring one, the chance of survival drops seven to ten percent" with every minute that passes after a collapse. It's unclear whether Russert had access to a defibrillator. His internist said on Friday that "resuscitation" had begun immediately after the collapse and continued at the hospital, to no avail.
URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/141450
The 5th paragrpah is the most important paragraph, beginning, "A sudden cardiac arrest is, of course, unexpected, but the process that causes it may begin many years before..." Take note of "inflammation" and the latent nature of the disease.
The science of sudden cardiac arrest
Mary Carmichael and Caitlin McDevitt
Newsweek Web Exclusive
Updated: 11:15 AM ET Jun 14, 2008
Journalists and politicians across the country were in shock Friday afternoon at news that Tim Russert, the prominent and beloved NBC correspondent, had collapsed and died suddenly of a heart attack in the network's Washington office. Russert had previously been been diagnosed with several risk factors for a sudden heart attack, including coronary artery disease and diabetes. But his death is still a sad reminder that cardiac arrest can strike anyone without warning—and that when it does, it is often fatal.
Sudden cardiac arrest accounts for 310,000 deaths in America every year, or 850 a day—more than those caused by breast cancer, lung cancer, stroke, and AIDS combined. But despite how common the condition is, doctors know little about what predisposes one person to it and not another. The National Institutes of Health is currently mounting a major study at 60 trial sites across the country to try and identify risk factors related to both genes and lifestyle, and will begin enrolling patients this week. For now, says Jeffrey Olgin, a cardiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, assessing risk is "a very, very difficult thing. I can't look at you and say you have a 10 percent chance of dying from this."
Doctors do know that a previous history of heart attacks is the most important risk factor. Vice President Dick Cheney, who has suffered four heart attacks, wears a pacemaker to ward off sudden arrest. Age and gender also play roles, and as a 58-year-old male, Russert was in high-risk groups; the average age for suffering sudden cardiac death is between 58 and 62. Other factors involved in all forms of cardiovascular disease—family history, smoking, diabetes, and obesity—can come into play. Russert had some of these too; he had been previously diagnosed with diabetes and and coronary artery disease, and his autopsy on Friday showed an enlarged heart. But doctors do not know which of these factors is most important in causing a sudden heart attack, or why. They also do not know if stress plays a role at all; the data is unclear. "Most of us do not think it is terribly relevant," says Steven Nissen, chair of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic and a past president of the American College of Cardiology. After all, he notes, "many people in this world have stressful jobs," and they don't all die of of heart attacks.
What is clear is that there are ways to lower one's risk of sudden cardiac death: eat healthy, exercise, don't smoke, and take aspirin or statins. The trouble, though, is that patients often don't think they're at serious risk until they are actually experiencing an attack. In about a third of all sudden deaths due to coronary disease, death is the first sign that anything major is wrong. Russert himself was exercising and taking medication for his coronary artery disease, which was asymptomatic. He performed well in a stress test two months ago.
A sudden cardiac arrest is, of course, unexpected, but the process that causes it may begin many years before. "In middle-aged men, it's virtually always caused by degeneration in the wall of a coronary artery," says Dr. Thomas Risser, a cardiologist at Cambridge Health Alliance. "It starts with fat deposits and inflammation, and these plaques just lie there silently." They can do so for decades until one of them fractures, at which point the body tries to plug the hole with a blood clot—and ends up blocking off the whole blood vessel. This condition is known as a coronary thrombosis, and it is extremely dangerous. The heart muscle, now starved for oxygen-rich blood, falls out of rhythm; it quivers but doesn't pump. "In the final stage, the ventricle looks like a bag of worms. It's chaotically beating very fast and therefore is completely inefficient at pumping blood," says Olgin. "Soon, there's no blood flow anywhere, including the brain, and people just suddenly collapse."
Once a patient's heart has gotten out of a normal rhythm, it can't get back on beat on its own. But a defibrillator—either an internally implanted one such as Cheney's, or an external one with electrical paddles—can get the heart beating steadily again, provided it is used in time. "If people get there with an external defibrillator within three minutes of a collapse, the survival rate for the kind of thing Russert may have had can be as high as 50 percent," says Robert J. Myerburg, a cardiologist at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. "But time is the whole issue. If you rely on fire/rescue teams to bring one, the chance of survival drops seven to ten percent" with every minute that passes after a collapse. It's unclear whether Russert had access to a defibrillator. His internist said on Friday that "resuscitation" had begun immediately after the collapse and continued at the hospital, to no avail.
URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/141450
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Sex problems 'may be heart alert'
Why do some men who take Viagra for ED get heart attacks? It's not from the sudden excitement. If blood flow is impaired to certain parts of the body (such as your private parts) you can be sure it's impaired to other parts of the body; like your heart. This is a warning signal! Why do we always focus on a particular body part without looking at the whole picture?? Thankfully this research may shed light on this important (and impotent) issue and help save some lives.
Says BBC News, "Men with diabetes who are having trouble keeping an erection could be at increased risk of serious heart problems, suggests a study".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7405532.stm
If you have impaired blood flow and diabetes you need to immediatley consult with a nutritionist in addition to your medical doctors. A nutrition and activity program can help tremendously with these conditions, thereby reducing or eliminating your need for prescription meds, and hopefully enhancing the quality of your life without side effects. The last thing any couple wants is for the man to die of a heart attack, especially during sex.
Says BBC News, "Men with diabetes who are having trouble keeping an erection could be at increased risk of serious heart problems, suggests a study".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7405532.stm
If you have impaired blood flow and diabetes you need to immediatley consult with a nutritionist in addition to your medical doctors. A nutrition and activity program can help tremendously with these conditions, thereby reducing or eliminating your need for prescription meds, and hopefully enhancing the quality of your life without side effects. The last thing any couple wants is for the man to die of a heart attack, especially during sex.
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