Heart Disease

For the first time in this country, an approved injectable drug will be used as an alternative to the stress test to evaluate the effects of suspected coronary artery disease.The drug will make it possible for a "tremendous number of people," who cannot tolerate exercise up to peak levels, to be diagnosed for this disease, researchers said yesterday.I.V. Persantine is a new intravenous form of oral Persantine, which has been used in this country for chest pain since the 1960s. The drug, also known as dipyridamole, will be available next month.

Letter writer Gilbert Ross implies that there is no comparison between eating pizza and smoking ("Eating a slice a pizza is not the same as smoking a cigarette," May 10). As a physician, I disagree. Both tobacco and processed meats increase risk for cancer, heart disease and premature death. In fact, processed meat and other unhealthful foods kill more Americans annually than does tobacco. But this isn't just my opinion. A large body of research supports the link between processed meat and poor health.

On the X-ray image they printed out for me, trouble is a pink triangular speck, labeled LAD. The pink spot represents a calcium buildup - hardened plaque. And the LAD tag means the plaque lies in my "left anterior descending" coronary artery - the one cardiologists call "the widow maker." A blockage in the LAD tends to kill you. No one has said definitively that's what killed NBC newsman Tim Russert last week at the age of 58. But it wouldn't be a bad bet. Russert died after a heart attack in his Washington office.

Kathy Brown wasn't always much of a chef - but she was an educator. When Brown, the former head of Grace Christian School, was diagnosed with amyloidosis of the heart in April 2008, she began experimenting with recipes to suit her new low-fat, low-salt, low-sugar diet. Compelled to share what she'd learned, Brown started compiling a heart-friendly cookbook for other patients. While Brown later received a successful heart transplant, the 62-year-old died in December 2010 before she could finish the book.

THE CASCADE of Valentine hearts has been rolling into mailboxes all week, testament to one human being's love for another, perhaps from grandparents to grandchildren and vice versa, or between husbands and wives, or between young couples whose friendship is blossoming into romance. This is absurd, says the literal thinker. The heart has nothing to do with affection. It is only a pump, though a vital pump, to be sure. The heart is not the seat of the emotions; that job belongs to the brain.

A team of 30 volunteers from Johns Hopkins plans to partner with Baltimore City schools to offer city teens screening for early signs of heart disease. The free exams will look for key risk factors including obesity, high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol levels, diabetes and family history of disease. With the findings, officials hope to curb increasingly common bad eating and exercising habits before they become engrained. Hopkins officials already had been screening Maryland athletes for heart abnormalities and decided to expand the program to some 2,000 13-year-olds expected to attend a high school fair at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute Nov. 13 from 9 a.m.-2 p.m. "One of the surprise findings from our other heart screenings was that basic risk factors for cardiovascular disease are too common among Maryland high-school students, and these students and their parents are simply unaware that they face a serious health problem," said Dr. Theodore Abraham, a cardiologist at the Johns Hopkins Hospital who is spearheading the screening efforts.

Towson Town Center is hosting National Wear Red Day on Friday, Feb. 3, in conjunction with Go Red For Women, a program of the American Heart Association. The event is designed to increase awareness of the threat to women of heart disease and heart attacks. Shoppers are encouraged to wear red to Towson Town Center on Friday. During the day, they can also visit the Grand Court on level 1 between noon and 6 p.m. and have their picture taken, while explaining why they decided to "Go Red. " For each photo taken, Towson Town Center will donate $1 to Go Red for Women, up to $5,000.

This is an edited excerpt of a Los Angeles Times editorial, which was published Monday.CARDIOVASCULAR disease has been the leading killer of Americans in every year but one in this century -- 1918, when a virulent influenza epidemic swept the world. But evidence grows that heart disease is to a large extent preventable or at least we are able to postpone its eventual onset by sticking to a prudent way of life.This is evident from the Nurses Health Study, which has been tracking female health professionals since 1980.

Heart-disease deaths in the United States dropped 24 percent from 1980 to 1988, a sign that Americans are eating better, smoking less and receiving better treatment after heart attacks.Deaths from heart disease in people age 35 and over dropped from 588 per 100,000 people in 1980 to 448 per 100,000 people in 1988, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.The death rate declined faster for men than for women, and faster for whites than for African-Americans, the CDC said."It's clear that we're preventing the occurrence of heart attacks and lowering mortality," said Dr. Charles Hennekens, a professor of preventive medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

WHAT DO YOU think you are going to die from? If you had to guess, what would you guess will kill you?If you are a woman, you almost certainly think you are going die from breast cancer. Sixty-six percent of you believe you will find a malignant lump and that it will kill you.Wrong."Almost half of all women will die of heart disease or stroke," says Martha Hill, president of the American Heart Association and a professor of nursing at Johns Hopkins University."And few will be lucky enough to die in their sleep without symptoms."

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is looking for a few good men and women to volunteer for a battle it's waging at home — against disease. Actually, more than a few are needed. Officials overseeing health care for the nation's veterans are undertaking what may be the largest effort of its kind in the nation, to collect medical records and blood samples from a million former service members for a bank of genetic information. The idea is to give researchers enough DNA and other data to link specific genes to mental and physical maladies, from post-traumatic stress disorder to heart disease, and eventually develop new preventive measures or treatments.

Towson Town Center is hosting National Wear Red Day on Friday, Feb. 3, in conjunction with Go Red For Women, a program of the American Heart Association. The event is designed to increase awareness of the threat to women of heart disease and heart attacks. Shoppers are encouraged to wear red to Towson Town Center on Friday. During the day, they can also visit the Grand Court on level 1 between noon and 6 p.m. and have their picture taken, while explaining why they decided to "Go Red. " For each photo taken, Towson Town Center will donate $1 to Go Red for Women, up to $5,000.

The fifth annual Red Pump Ball will be held Saturday, Feb. 4, from 6 to 10 p.m. at the Residents Club Ballroom at Bulle Rock in Havre de Grace. The fundraiser, held in conjunction with Upper Chesapeake Health Foundation, presented by Jiffy Lube of Aberdeen and brought to you by Salon Marielle, benefits Upper Chesapeake Health's Heart and Vascular Institute. This year's event promises to be better than ever with an open bar and hors d'oeuvres from local chefs. A full country French dinner will be prepared by Laurrapin Grill of Havre de Grace.

It all started with a little bit of good-natured trash talk between the pastors of two of Baltimore's most prominent African-American churches. The Rev. Jamal Bryant of Empowerment Temple "fell off the wagon" and confesses he wasn't exercising as much as he should. His trainer used that to pump up another client, the Rev. Frank M. Reid III of Bethel AME Church, telling him he was in better shape than the much younger Bryant. Reid, feeling a little confident, and Bryant, his ego bruised just a bit, then threw out a fitness challenge to one another: Your church against mine.

More than half of the deaths in recent years in a quarter of Baltimore's neighborhoods were avoidable, according to a new set of assessments from city health officials that were released Friday. The data were collected in 55 neighborhoods and showed in stark numbers how wide the disparities are between upper- and lower-income neighborhoods, said Commissioner of Health Dr. Oxiris Barbot in a news conference to announce the results. "People are dying way too early, too young in many neighborhoods," Barbot said.

Charged with being all down-to-earth and accessible, the first thing doctors John Martin and Briana Walton did was lose the white coats. Then they got down to business. "I'm really very surprised that so many people came out," said a smiling Martin. "Absolutely," nodded a smiling Walton. And thus it went Tuesday evening at Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis, as the hospital unveiled its monthly "DocsTalk" gatherings. Determined to make these informal health-information sessions as entertaining and jargon-free as possible, the hospital has come up with an approach that's equal parts "Today Show" and "Dr. Oz," but without the TV cameras.

Q: I am a 56-year-old housewife and my doctor just told me that I have diabetes. One of my concerns is heart disease because my father was a diabetic and died of a heart attack despite great care in controlling his blood sugar. What can I do to reduce my likelihood of having a heart attack?A: You have good reason to be concerned about the development of heart disease. Coronary artery disease (CAD) is considerably more common among diabetics than among non-diabetics; the risk is particularly high in women with diabetes.

Despite the attention we pay to cancer as a health problem, heart disease is the leading cause of death in women in the United States, killing more than 250,000 each year. This is more than all cancers combined.Between the ages of 45 and 64, one in nine women will have some form of heart disease, but for those over 65, the figure jumps to one in three.Why does the risk of heart disease increase so dramatically for women over 65?Heart disease increases with age, but in women hormone levels that drop after menopause may also contribute to an increased risk of heart disease.

It's only natural that J. Scott Wilfong, president and CEO of SunTrust Bank for the Greater Washington/Maryland area, would want to give back to the American Heart Association. After all, heart disease runs in his family. His wife, Susan, suffers from dilated cardiomyopathy, a condition in which the heart weakens and becomes enlarged. Her brother died at the age of 13 and her father at the age of 61 from the same condition. Their daughter, Sarah, 29, has a defibrillator and his sister-in-law has had a heart transplant.

The Sun's story on cardiovascular risks posed by smoking-cessation drug Chantix was an example of misleading statistics and careless journalism ("Chantix may cause more heart attacks than previously thought," July 5). The article presents what sounds like a startling finding: Chantix may increase a person's risk of serious cardiovascular problems by 72 percent. However, the research on which the article was based tells a different story. The actual risk of a serious cardiovascular event was 0.82 percent in patients who took a placebo versus 1.06 percent in patients who took Chantix.