Heart Failure

ROBERT ADLER, 93 TV remote inventor Dr. Robert Adler, the co-inventor of the TV remote control, died Thursday of heart failure at a Boise, Idaho, nursing home, Zenith Electronics Corp. said Friday. Dr. Adler, who won an Emmy Award for his 1956 invention, held more than 180 U.S. patents.

ANTONIO CARLOS PEIXOTO DE MAGALHAES, 79 Brazilian politician Sen. Antonio Carlos Peixoto de Magalhaes, one of Brazil's most influential politicians who held onto power as the country came under a military dictatorship and returned to democracy, died Friday of multiple organ failure after being hospitalized last week, the Sao Paulo Heart Institute said. Mr. Magalhaes had a devoted following in his home state of Bahia, where he served three terms as governor and represented the state for three terms in the Senate.

After learning that many of his patients were taking a nutritional supplement to relieve the symptoms of congestive heart failure, cardiologist Stephen Gottlieb set out to determine whether the product did any good.There were theoretical reasons why Coenzyme Q10, a supplement sold widely in health food stores, pharmacies and over the Internet, might increase the efficiency of a weakened heart. But does it?"We found zilch," said Gott-lieb, director of the cardiac care unit at the University of Maryland Medical Center.

Raymond G. Thieme Sr., 95, union organizer in 1930sRaymond G. Thieme Sr., a union organizer at a Baltimore casket company in the 1930s, died Friday of heart failure at Locust Lodge Assisted Living Home in Riviera Beach. He was 95.Born in East Baltimore, Mr. Thieme attended a local grammar school before going to work at the old National Casket Co. at Fallsway and Lombard Street.He took up the cause of helping unionize the company during the tumultuous 1930s, a time "when it was a great concern to my mother that dad didn't get his head split open," said his son, Judge Raymond G. Thieme Jr. of the Maryland Court of Special Appeals.

Gene Rayburn, 81, the jocular host who winked at double entendres during TV's popular "Match Game," died in Gloucester, Mass., on Monday of congestive heart failure. "Match Game" was the top game show during much of the 1970s. Contestants would try to match answers to nonsense questions with a panel of celebrities; the references were often vaguely naughty for daytime TV.Dorothy Allison, 74, a renowned police psychic who helped locate the hideouts of Patty Hearst's kidnappers and later gave an accurate description of "Son of Sam" killer David Berkowitz, died in Newark, N. J., on Wednesday of heart failure.

Bishop Alfred L. Abramowicz, 80, known as an international advocate for the Polish Catholic community, died Sunday of cancer in Chicago. He led the Catholic League for Religious Assistance to Poland for 35 years and was known for his tireless work for the Church in Poland while that country was under communist rule.Enrique Alferez, 98, an artist who gained almost as much fame for his travels with Pancho Villa as for his art deco sculptures that decorate New Orleans, died in New Orleans on Monday.

NEW YORK -- Even as the New York Yankees stood on the threshold of their third world championship in four years, another tragedy had shaken the club. They've felt these tremors before. All they can do is hold on tight.Charles O'Neill, the father of Yankees right fielder Paul O'Neill, died yesterday morning of heart failure after a lengthy illness. He was 79. The news came less than a week after infielder Luis Sojo had returned to Venezuela to make funeral arrangements for his father.Sojo missed the first two games of the World Series, with the Yankees keeping their roster at 24 players, but O'Neill wanted to play last night.

Norman Bluhm, 77, an abstract expressionist painter, died Wednesday of heart failure in East Wallingford, Vt. His large-scale works that have exhibited since the 1970s were often symmetrical compositions that packed swelling forms.Boris Manco, 56, a folk and pop singer who had great cultural influence in Turkey and became one of the country's most beloved figures, died Feb. 1 of a heart attack in Istanbul.Pub Date: 2/09/99

A man known as Joe Homeless,who spent more than a decade living on the streets of New York City and had his story published, died Tuesday of heart failure at 56.The man used Joe Homeless as a pen name and, according to friends, did not want his name known. He died at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, according to George McDonald, president of the Doe Fund Inc., a nonprofit organization that assists homeless people.Using a tape recorder he had fished from the trash, Joe Homeless dictated his story while living on the streets.

Mel Govig, 64, co-founder of Maryland Kite SocietyMel Govig, a co-founder of the Maryland Kite Society, died March 10 of heart failure at Northwest Hospital Center. The Randallstown resident was 64.Mr. Govig became interested in kites in 1961 when he visited the Carmel Kite Festival in California. He built a variety of kites -- from an 8-foot "Crashing Boar" to box kites and Indian or Korean-style fighters. One of his kites was commercially manufactured by the Cloud Seekers company.In 1977, his wife, also a kite enthusiast, purchased Kite Tales magazine and renamed it Kite Lines.

Congestive heart failure refers to a large number of conditions that affect the structure or function of the heart, making it more difficult for the heart to supply sufficient blood flow to meet the body's needs. Dr. Michael E. Silverman of Cardiovascular Specialists of Central Maryland and chief of medicine at Howard County General Hospital writes about the causes of and treatments for the problem. * Congestive heart failure occurs when one or more of the heart's chambers loses the ability to maintain proper blood flow.

E-cigarettes may be harmful, FDA says Electronic cigarettes - smokeless devices marketed as a way to deliver nicotine without the harmful effects of tobacco smoke - may be just as unsafe as the products they mimic, officials with the Food and Drug Administration said last week. For months, the FDA has wanted to keep e-cigarettes, as they are known, from being sold in the United States. They have blocked shipments at the border. They have warned that people can't know what they are inhaling when they use the product.

DR. ADRIAN KANTROWITZ, 90 Heart transplant pioneer Dr. Adrian Kantrowitz, a cardiac surgeon who performed the nation's first human heart transplant and who also developed lifesaving medical implants, died Friday in Ann Arbor, Mich., of complications from heart failure. In 1967, Dr. Kantrowitz performed the first human heart transplant in the United States, three days after the world's first was performed in South Africa. But the transplant, on an infant who died several hours later, was only a small part of his life's work to solve the problem of heart failure, said his wife, Jean Kantrowitz.

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), is considered the No. 1 cause of sudden death in young athletes. But this inherited condition, which causes the thickening of the heart muscle, frequently has no symptoms, says Dr. Theodore Abraham, associate professor of medicine in the Division of Cardiology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and director of Johns Hopkins' Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Clinic. What is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy? It is an inherited condition most commonly associated with the thickening of the ventricular muscle or the heart wall muscle and ends up being the most common cause of sudden death in those below 30 years of age. It effects all ages and genders and does not appear to have an ethnic preference.

A genetic variation common in African-Americans naturally protects heart failure patients as effectively as popular heart medications, researchers reported today. Scientists at the University of Maryland and other institutions tracked more than 300 heart failure patients for up to eight years and found that variations of a particular gene extended the lives of many of them for several years - just as if they were on beta blockers. Researchers found the variation in 40 percent of blacks but only 2 percent of Caucasians.

Geneva France, a former boutique sales associate and active church member, died Monday of heart failure at Northwest Hospital Center. The longtime Edmondson Village resident was 87. She was born in Staunton, Va., and moved with her family to a home near Druid Hill Avenue in West Baltimore. She was a 1938 graduate of Frederick Douglass High School. Mrs. France worked for more than 20 years with her sister, Pauline Brooks-Amis, who owned Pauline Brooks Boutique in the Belvedere Hotel. She retired in the late 1980s.

MERLE A. SANDE, 68 AIDS treatment pioneer Dr. Merle A. Sande, a leading infectious-diseases expert whose early recognition of the looming public health crisis posed by AIDS led to the development of basic protocols for how to handle infected patients, died Nov. 14 at his home in Seattle. The cause was multiple myeloma, his family said. In 1981, while chief of medical services at San Francisco General Hospital, Dr. Sande (pronounced SAN-dee) and his colleagues began to note an ominous incidence of young men being admitted with pneumonia, cancers and other serious illnesses, some of which defied easy diagnosis.

The BET Foundation will sponsor a free symposium called "Remembering Our Health" on Saturday aimed at increasing awareness of health-related issues among African-American women. National health data show a disparity in the rates of heart disease, diabetes and AIDS among black women and other groups. The symposium will offer free health screenings, exercise and healthy-cooking demonstrations and panel discussions. It will be held from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Coppin State University at 2500 W. North Ave. in Baltimore.

ALBERT ELLIS, 93 Psychotherapy innovator Albert Ellis, one of the most provocative figures in modern psychology and the founder of a renowned psychotherapy institute, died Tuesday in New York of kidney and heart failure after a long illness. In the 1950s, Dr. Ellis invented what he called rational emotive behavior therapy, which stresses that patients can improve their lives by taking control of self-defeating thoughts and behaviors.

James Bronson Elmore, a retired welding supervisor and former Kingsville resident, died of heart failure July 18 at Nanticoke Memorial Hospital in Seaford, Del. He was 88. Mr. Elmore was born and raised in Ritchpatch, Va., and moved to Baltimore in the early 1940s. He served in the Navy as a seaman from 1944 to 1946. Mr. Elmore was a welder and later supervisor at Airco Welding in Baltimore from 1942 until retiring in 1983. He had been a member of the Industrial Management Club, the Parkville Post of the American Legion and Hiss United Methodist Church.