Heart Disease

If you crave shortening in your pie crust or french fries seeped in "partially hydrogenated vegetable oil," you'll have to dine outside Baltimore. As of Sunday, Baltimore restaurants, delis, bakeries and corner lunch carts can no longer prepare food that contains 0.5 grams or more of unhealthful trans fats per serving. The city joined a growing number of places, including Montgomery County, New York City, Philadelphia, Boston and California, to ban trans fats that health advocates say clog arteries and lead to heart disease.

Igot my heart fixed on Valentine's Day. It was unplanned, believe me, but when I woke up Saturday with tightness in my chest, a visit to the hospital became urgent business. I called my internist, Mark Kaplan, who said, "Chew two aspirin, Ron, and swallow them with water, then have June take you to St. Joseph Medical Center. The Heart Institute there is terrific. They'll take good care of you." Off we went to the emergency room at St. Joe's. Within two hours, Dr. Mark G. Midei and the rest of his "Cath Team" were working at warp speed to first determine the extent of arterial blockage in my heart and then to insert a heart stent into my right coronary artery, which they had discovered to be 95 percent occluded.

In the eternal struggle between the sexes, women appear to have found an ally or two in the research community. In recent weeks men have come under scrutiny for not keeping up with chores once they're married (North Carolina State University), overstating their sexual conquests (University of California, Berkeley) and being generally dominated by their wives in conversation (Iowa State University). But the biggest blow to manly-life-as-we-know-it may have been dealt by Gaithersburg's own Elaine D. Eaker, the lead researcher of a study that found married women who keep silent during marital disputes have a greater chance of dying from heart disease.

Office nappers now have the perfect excuse: Research shows that a little midday snooze seems to reduce the risk of fatal heart problems, especially among men. In the largest study of siestas as related to coronary deaths, researchers reported yesterday that people who napped at least 30 minutes a day, three times a week, were 37 percent less likely to die from heart disease. Those who napped occasionally saw a 12 percent reduction. "If you can have a nap without disturbing your working pattern or relationship with your boss, do have it," said senior author, Dr. Dimitrios Trichopoulos, an epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health.

When a man suffers a heart attack at a young age, klaxons sound and red flags flutter for his son. Pointing to a son's inherited risk of going down the same road, physicians probably will urge him to stay away from cigarettes, watch his weight and exercise regularly. And there's evidence that that advice prompts many men to take heed. But do alarm bells sound for the female child of a premature heart attack victim? Does she hear them? A study in the September issue of the American Heart Journal suggests the answers are no and no. The study establishes that although the daughters of families with premature heart disease are indeed at higher risk of developing heart disease themselves, they either are failing to get that message or not bothering to heed it. "Women seem to feel they have a get-out-of-jail-free card when it comes to heart disease," says Dr. Alexis Anvekar, California internist and American Heart Association spokeswoman.

My robe gonna fit me well, Tried it on at the gates of Hell, Keep your hand on the plow, Hold on! - Negro spiritual You could hear the slight weariness, the semi-artificial cheer, the hurry-slowly tempo in Tony Snow's voice. The president's always pressed-for-time-and-running-late spokesperson was conducting still another pre-State of the Union conference call Tuesday afternoon at about 3:30 Washington compressed time. He was talking to a passel of us editorial writers in the hinterlands, well aware that even out here his boss' poll numbers were sinking almost as low as Harry Truman's during the lowest, most discouraging point in the seemingly endless Korean War. You had to be a hardhearted zealot or a Democratic operative, but we repeat ourselves, not to feel a twinge of sympathy for the always personable Mr. Snow.

Married women who keep silent during marital disputes have a greater chance of dying from heart disease and other conditions than women who speak their minds, new research shows. But the same can't be said of married men who keep disagreements to themselves. They had the same life expectancy during the 10-year study as men who spoke out. The research, which spanned from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, was the latest to show that how couples fight affects not only their relationship but their health.

The standard treatment for prostate cancer - shutting off the body's production of androgen hormones - can chop 2 1/2 years off the lives of men who are at high risk of developing heart disease, Boston researchers reported yesterday. The drugs used for suppressing the hormones produce anemia, weight gain and insulin resistance, a group of factors known as metabolic syndrome. These effects can sharply increase the risk of a fatal heart attack, especially in men who are at high risk, Dr. Anthony D'Amico of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

It is a fact that has long frustrated doctors and their patients: Up to 20 percent of women who suffer heart attacks and other coronary problems had no obvious risk factors - no high blood pressure or elevated cholesterol. Other women who are told they're destined to experience heart problems never do. That has left scientists hunting for a better method to gauge the risk of heart disease, which kills more women than breast cancer and lung cancer combined. This week researchers in Boston who have worked on the problem for more than a decade presented a more-expansive detection model.

This month, a team of researchers from London and the University of Connecticut announced that aggressive treatment of gum disease can improve the function of blood vessel walls in the body -- potentially reducing the risk of heart attacks. A few weeks before that, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health reported a study of more than 51,000 male health professionals, which showed that men who had gum disease, or periodontitis, were far more likely than those without it to develop pancreatic cancer.

Rabbi Elissa Sachs-Kohen was looking for a way to join the fight against lung cancer. The traditional fundraiser - the 5k run - was out. Sachs-Kohen hates running. Instead, the assistant rabbi at Baltimore Hebrew Congregation and several dozen fellow yoga enthusiasts will be taking to the mats today for what they're calling the Free to Breathe Yogathon. On the first day of Lung Cancer Awareness Month, they plan to earn pledges by performing the sun salutation, a sequence of body positions in hatha yoga.

If you crave shortening in your pie crust or french fries seeped in "partially hydrogenated vegetable oil," you'll have to dine outside Baltimore. As of Sunday, Baltimore restaurants, delis, bakeries and corner lunch carts can no longer prepare food that contains 0.5 grams or more of unhealthful trans fats per serving. The city joined a growing number of places, including Montgomery County, New York City, Philadelphia, Boston and California, to ban trans fats that health advocates say clog arteries and lead to heart disease.

Even as the debate over health care reform reaches a fever pitch, significant questions about the future of public health and medicine in our nation remain unanswered. From public options to universal access, proposals and plans to help Americans live longer and healthier lives are seemingly all on the table, and yet amid all these ideas, an absolutely necessary part of our public health future - prevention - seems to be lost in the shuffle. The simple act of changing our lifestyle for the better can dramatically improve our quality of life and lessen our health care expenses, and it's a renewed emphasis on prevention programs that will bring true reform to our health care system.

Bethesda -- Gov. Martin O'Malley said Thursday that Maryland and other states will be better prepared to deal with a swine flu pandemic this fall because of problems encountered in coping with the outbreak earlier in the year. The Democratic governor made the remarks at the National Institutes of Health during a daylong meeting that brought state and federal officials together at a White House flu "summit." A national vaccination drive is likely to begin in mid-October, said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who cautioned that no final decision has been made.

After decades of warnings about salt, the white, grainy mineral seems poised to become the grocery's next boogeyman, following trans fats, carbs and calories. Health and consumer advocates who see a rising epidemic of high blood pressure and related disease are making the latest push, and that has food makers inching toward change. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently quantified the problem with a report saying most Americans consume more than double the daily recommended level of sodium, a major component of salt.

Young African-Americans are 20 times as likely as whites to develop heart failure, according to a new study published today. The deadly illness strikes one in every 100 blacks under the age of 50. "We usually thought of heart failure as a disease of older people, but that's based on studies by mostly white participants," said Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, an assistant professor at the University of California, San Francisco and the study's lead author....

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.

One in four women in the United States dies of heart disease each year - more than all types of cancer combined, including breast cancer. However, studies show that only a third of American women consider themselves at risk for heart disease. To increase awareness about the risks of heart disease in women, the Baltimore chapter of the Sister to Sister Foundation is holding its fifth annual Women's Heart Health Fair tomorrow at the Baltimore Convention Center. Founded in 2000, Sister to Sister is a national nonprofit organization committed to educating women about healthy lifestyle changes that can reduce their risk of heart disease.

Igot my heart fixed on Valentine's Day. It was unplanned, believe me, but when I woke up Saturday with tightness in my chest, a visit to the hospital became urgent business. I called my internist, Mark Kaplan, who said, "Chew two aspirin, Ron, and swallow them with water, then have June take you to St. Joseph Medical Center. The Heart Institute there is terrific. They'll take good care of you." Off we went to the emergency room at St. Joe's. Within two hours, Dr. Mark G. Midei and the rest of his "Cath Team" were working at warp speed to first determine the extent of arterial blockage in my heart and then to insert a heart stent into my right coronary artery, which they had discovered to be 95 percent occluded.

It wasn't the typical Sunday service. The Rev. Sheridan Todd Yeary stood before the congregation at Douglas Memorial Community Church with a tray of ham and cheese and doughnuts. The senior pastor used the props to compare physical health to spiritual well-being. "Heart health is not about you," Yeary told the congregation. "It's about honoring the God that made you. "God's plan for healthy living is about realizing that something bigger than you is at stake." Yesterday was the fifth annual Red Dress Sunday, a collaboration among 100 churches in the state and St. Agnes Hospital, a teaching hospital in Baltimore.