Archive for the Heart Health Category
We have all heard how taking aspirin can help guard one against heart attack. Now Canadian research may suggest that men benefit more. Read the following research brought to you in the BBC news site:
“The heart-protecting benefits of aspirin may be available mainly to men, Canadian experts have suggested.
Some research studies have suggested that the drug might cut heart attack risk by half.
But an analysis of trials involving 113,000 patients hinted those with a higher number of female participants were less likely to show benefit.
However, the BMC Medicine study was described as “potentially misleading” by one UK researcher.
Heart attacks happen when a narrowed or damaged blood vessel feeding the heart is blocked by a blood clot.
Aspirin can make it harder for these clots to form and studies suggesting this could prevent attacks, or make them less likely, have led to thousands of people worldwide taking the drug every day.
However, the precise benefit has been hard to gauge, with some research coming to the conclusion that it was unlikely to offer any protection whatsoever.
Physical differences
The researchers from the James Hogg iCapture Centre for Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Research, part of the University of British Columbia, believe that gender may be one of the main reasons for this.
They say that the make-up of a woman’s heart and its surrounding blood vessels may be more resistant to the effects of aspirin.
They looked at the ratio of men and women taking part in major aspirin research projects – and found that those involving predominantly men were the most likely to find a benefit.
Conversely, those involving mainly women were more likely to find a lesser benefit, or none at all.
Dr Don Sin, one of the study authors, said: “We found that a lot of the variability in these trials seems to be due to the gender ratios, supporting the theory that women may be less responsive to aspirin than men for heart protection.
“From our findings we would caution clinicians on the prescribing of aspirin to women, especially for primary prevention of heart attacks.
“Whether or not other pharmaceutical products would be more effective for women is unclear; more sex-specific studies should now be conducted.”
This is unlikely to be the last word on who should be taking aspirin – a study of 80,000 women published in March 2007 claimed to have found heart benefits for healthy women who regularly took aspirin.
Long-term aspirin use does raise the risk of internal bleeding and some doctors are reluctant to recommend it for people who have not already suffered a heart attack for this reason.
One UK expert, Dr Colin Baigent, from the Clinical Trial
Service Unit at Oxford University, said that taking aspirin in the months and years after a heart attack delivered equal benefits to men and women.
He said: “This is potentially misleading – by far the largest trial included in this research was concerned mainly with the primary prevention of heart attacks – giving aspirin to people who had never had a heart attack.
“It would be a tragedy if women who are taking it because they had already had a heart attack stop doing so.”
News Source: BBC NEWS
The following research comes from the BBC news on natural proteins which can heal the heart after a heart attack:
“Scientists have found a naturally occurring protein can protect against heart cell damage after a heart attack. Nerve growth factor (NGF) was thought to act only on nerve cells in the body, but mounting evidence suggests it acts on heart muscle cells too.
A Bristol Heart Institute team tested NGF in rats and this had promising results, Cell Death and Differentiation journal reports. They are hopeful that the treatment would also benefit humans.
Some other growth factors are already used clinically to treat different diseases
Lead researcher Dr Costanza Emanueli
Heart disease
is the most common cause of death in the UK. In 2004, there were about 231,000 new heart attacks.
Heart attacks happen when one of the coronary arteries carrying oxygen-rich blood to the heart muscle is blocked.
If the blood supply is cut off, a part of the heart muscle dies. And this can lead to complications such as heart failure.
Drugs are already available to help prevent and minimise the damage caused by a heart attack.
These include aspirin, which works by thinning the blood to improve blood flow, and clot-busting drugs called thrombolytics to dissolve clots in the artery.
Dr Costanza Emanueli and her colleagues found that injecting the gene for NGF into the hearts of rats having a heart attack stopped heart cells dying off.
Dr Emanueli said: “This is the first time that a pro-survival effect of NGF in the heart has been found.
“Some other growth factors are already used clinically to treat different diseases, and our study shows that NGF may be a novel way of protecting the heart from further damage following a heart attack.”
Professor Jeremy Pearson of the British Heart Foundation, which provided funding for the work, said: “Dr Emanueli’s research opens up the exciting and unexpected possibility of helping to repair damaged hearts by using a natural factor previously only thought to help nerves grow.”
News Source: BBC NEWS
A meal at a fast food restaurant could expose children to “staggeringly” high levels of salt, a survey has suggested.
Lobby group, Consensus Action on Salt and Health (Cash), found one meal from Pizza Hut contained four times the daily limit of salt for a six-year old.
KFC also did poorly in the analysis of hundreds of food items, which also included McDonalds and Burger King.
All the restaurant chains said they had reduced salt levels considerably in their products in recent years.
The government recommends a maximum of 6g of salt per day for adults, 5g a day for children aged 7-10 and 3g for children aged 4-6.
According to the Cash survey, a family of four sharing a Pizza Hut meal deal – consisting of one Cheesy Bites Meat Feast, one medium Super Supreme, a portion of garlic bread, a portion of potato wedges, chicken wings, and a cheesecake desert – could eat 12.3g of salt each.
The amount of salt consumed in one meal is more than twice the daily limit for an adult and four times the daily limit of a six year old.
A family meal from KFC – consisting of eight mini breast fillets, two regular popcorn chicken portions, four regular fries, a large portion of BBQ beans, a large coleslaw and a 1.5 litre Pepsi shared equally between four – could contain 5.2g of salt per person.
Of meal combinations aimed specifically at children, the salt content varied from 4.3g of salt in a Pizza Hut chicken wrap and a soft drink to 0.6g in a McDonald’s Happy Meal of chicken nuggets and a fruit bag.
CASH said all the restaurants had information on the salt content of their food on the company websites, but Pizza Hut and KFC had no information at the point of sale.
The saltiest individual meals:
Pizza Hut Meat Feast Italian Pizza Plus (meat feast pizza, potato wedges, cheesecake) 9.7g
KFC Variety Meal (three chicken pieces, two hot wings, Colonel’s Crispy Strip, regular fries, regular diet coke) 6.3g
Burger King Chicken BLT Baguette Meal (chicken BLT baguette, regular fries, regular coca cola) 4.8g
McDonalds Quarter Pounder with Cheese Meal (quarter pounder burger with cheese, medium fries, medium coca cola) 3.2g
They called for all restaurants to carry nutrition information so people could make informed choices.
“It is over four years since the maximum daily limits for salt were established for adults and children,” said Professor Graham MacGregor, chairman of Cash.
“And yet this survey shows that the salt levels in some of these meals are staggeringly high.
“How can these companies justify selling food that contains more than the maximum daily limit for adults and children in a single meal?”
He added that high levels of salt in childhood contributed to increased blood pressure and risk of heart attack in later life.
A spokesperson for Pizza Hut said the pizzas highlighted in the survey are not part of a family meal deal and that they had been working since 2004 to cut the salt in their foods.
Lower salt options
McDonalds Chicken McNuggets Meal (six chicken nuggets, medium fries, medium coca cola) 1.5g
KFC Colonel’s Meal (two chicken pieces, regular fries, regular diet coke) 2.5g
Burger King Hamburger Meal Deal (hamburger, regular fries, regular coca cola) 2.96g
Pizza Hut Seafood Lovers Pan Pizza Plus (seafood pizza, garlic bread, chocolate fudge cake) 4.7g
“Every sensible parent knows that Pizza Hut is an enjoyable treat and we have significantly reduced the salt levels in our products over the past few years.”
A spokesperson for KFC said they had reduced salt by up to 30%.
“We were the first – and remain the only – fast food chain to have removed salt from our fries, leaving customers to choose whether they want to add salt or not.”
McDonalds said they had worked hard to make significant reductions in salt levels and would continue to do so.
Burger King said their burgers had no added salt.
News Source: BBC NEWS
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