Heart Attack

'Mindful eating' can help keep you slim A new study explains why yoga helps practitioners stay slim: People who engage in the traditional form of exercise are more in tune with their bodies in general, including at meal times. Mindful eating helps people to stop eating once they are full, even if delicious food remains on their plates. They try not to let tempting advertisements lure them to food; they avoid eating while they are distracted by a TV show or other diversion; and they don't eat to distract themselves from emotions like stress or sadness.

When Food Network Magazine named the Heart Attack on a Plate sandwich at Mother's Federal Hill Grille as the ultimate burger in Maryland, I had to try it. The magazine's June/July issue, now on newsstands, picked 50 favorite burgers, one in each of the 50 states. After all, almost every American eats burgers, including two guys at the top of the nation's food chain, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. The other day, these two leaders of the free world scooted out of the White House to chow down on burgers for lunch at Ray's Hell-Burger in Arlington, Va. Ray's was the magazine's top burger joint for the state of Virginia.

Shoveling snow can be hard on the heart. Especially for the sedentary, doctors say, tackling heavy snow with only a shovel and determination can put a potentially fatal strain on the heart. Every winter, Americans in snowy states drop in their tracks or wind up in emergency rooms - their hearts stopped, damaged or in pain after sudden and unaccustomed exertion in the cold. There are no national statistics on shoveling deaths. But a 1993 study in The New England Journal of Medicine looked at 1,228 heart-attack victims and found that out-of-shape people increased their risk of a heart attack by a hundredfold when they shoveled snow.

R ichard Sher, who announced his departure from WJZ this week after 33 years of reporting and anchoring, says he isn't completely done with the news biz. I'm not sure he was ever completely in it. Among the "many accomplishments" listed on his new Web site, www.richardsher.tv: "talking a suicidal man off a ledge at the University of Maryland Medical Center; negotiating for more than 10 hours with a hostage taker, eventually arranging for the safe release of the man's hostage; and receiving the first civilian lifesaving award ever presented by the Greater Baltimore Medical Center, for helping a man suffering from a heart attack find his way to an emergency room, all the while giving the man nitro glycerin and driving the man's car."

It started as an argument between a 16-year-old and her grandmother over photos hanging on the girl's bedroom wall. But when 69-year-old Eunice Taylor died of a heart attack moments after being held down by her wrists on a bed by her granddaughter, it became murder, police and prosecutors say. Jabreria Handy, who lived with her grandparents in Northeast Baltimore, turned herself in Friday - four days after her 17th birthday - and was charged as an...

Vitamin supplements - taken by millions of Americans to boost or maintain their health - don't reduce the risk of heart attacks, strokes or breast cancer, according to two large studies published today. In trial, 14,641 middle-age male physicians took vitamins E and C for an average of eight years but did not see any benefit to their cardiovascular health. The other study tracked 36,282 postmenopausal women for seven years and found that a daily regimen of vitamin D and calcium did not offer any protection against invasive breast cancer.

NEW ORLEANS - In results from an eagerly anticipated study that could greatly change the treatment of cardiovascular disease, researchers have found that statin drugs - now given to millions of people with high cholesterol - can halve the risk of heart attack and stroke in seemingly healthy patients as well. The study of nearly 18,000 people with normal cholesterol found that the drugs lowered the risk of death from heart disease by 20 percent, suggesting that millions more people should be put on a daily regimen.

Living in some of Baltimore's poorest and most violent neighborhoods can significantly increase your risk of heart attack or stroke, according to a study by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In the worst areas, the hazard is on a par with being a regular smoker. The results confirm the suspicions of a small group of urban researchers who in recent years have come to believe that impoverished environments can seriously damage health, even for people not directly touched by violence or who do not have unhealthy eating and lifestyle habits.

Medical researchers are homing in on a wonder drug that may significantly reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes and many other diseases: sunshine. A study released this week found that men who are deficient in the so-called sunshine vitamin - vitamin D - have more than double the normal risk of suffering a heart attack. Just last week, another study found that low levels of vitamin D increased the risk of diabetes, and a study last month linked deficiencies to an increased risk of dying from breast cancer.

People who have spent most of their lives smoking may derive health benefits within five years of quitting - drastically reducing their chance of dying from a heart attack, stroke or lung cancer, according to a study published today. In just five years, quitters reduced their added risk of dying of a heart attack by 47 percent and of lung cancer by 21 percent. Over time, their risk declined to the level of nonsmokers. The message: There is hope for even the most inveterate smokers. "Many people think there's just nothing they can do," said Stacey A. Kenfield, an epidemiologist with the Harvard School of Public Health.