Heart Health Archive

For people who have had a heart attack or heart surgery, or been diagnosed with angina or a specific kind of heart failure, participating in a cardiac rehabilitation program has medically proven benefits to overall health and quality of life.

Statins are known to be effective in reducing risk of cardiovascular disease, but for older adults the guidelines are less clear. A study looking at an older population found that continuing to take statins did have a statistically significant benefit.

Technology may help to provide more supportive, efficient, and effective care for diabetes, a leading contributor to heart disease.

About one of every 11 adults in this country has diabetes — a chronic, costly condition that's closely connected to heart disease. Lifestyle changes that encourage eating healthy foods, exercising, and losing weight are the cornerstone of managing both problems. But making those changes can often feel overwhelming and frustrating, especially for people with diabetes. They also need to keep tabs on their blood sugar levels, which are influenced by what and when they eat and exercise.

And getting effective support for managing diabetes with lifestyle changes isn't easy. "The current system for managing diabetes is broken," says Dr. Osama Hamdy, medical director of the Obesity Clinical Program at Harvard-affiliated Joslin Diabetes Center. For starters, there aren't nearly enough endocrinologists for the millions of people with diabetes in this country. Appointments with these specialists are often too short and too infrequent for people to make meaningful progress, he explains.

Ask the doctor

Q. My friend, who has a family history of heart disease, recently had chest pains. The doctor ordered an exercise stress test on a treadmill, which was normal. His daughter insisted on a cardio PET scan, which showed that he needed triple bypass surgery. He had the surgery and is doing well and has no more chest pain. If stress tests aren't conclusive, why use them? How can people make sure they're getting the best information about their hearts?

A. People who are having chest pain at rest or rapidly worsening chest pain (known as unstable angina) need to be evaluated in an emergency department. However, people who have so-called stable angina (their chest pain occurs during certain activities and then goes away when they rest) are usually evaluated in a clinic or doctor's office.

Strengthening the muscles in your midsection may help you stay active and pain-free.

Whether you refer to it as a spare tire, a muffin top, or love handles, having a roll of fat around your waist is pretty common. But even if you're not overweight, a bulging midriff may raise your risk of heart disease.

Despite the many ads that tout "one simple trick" to lose belly fat, there's no getting around it: whittling down your waistline takes a bit of effort. One important step is strengthening your core, which includes the muscles in your abdomen, back, sides, pelvis, and buttocks. However, a strong core is only part of the picture.

Heart attacks may leave people more vulnerable to thinking and memory problems as they age.

Growing older often means slowing down, both physically and mentally. Just as people can't move quite as fast as when they were younger, their thinking and memory abilities — known as cognitive function — may also slowly wane.

Now, new research suggests that people who have a heart attack or angina (chest pain caused by reduced blood flow to the heart) may face a faster drop in thinking skills than people who don't experience those heart-related problems.

Learn how these high-tech devices can save — and change — your life.

Defibrillators are devices that can detect — and correct — potentially deadly heart rhythms. The most common is ventricular fibrillation, which makes the heart's lower chambers (ventricles) quiver without actually squeezing and pumping. Blood stops flowing to the brain and other organs, causing the person to pass out. Death can occur within minutes.

A quick jolt of electricity can restore the heart's normal rhythm, however. The shock can be delivered from outside the chest with an automated external defibrillator (AED). Located in many public places, these portable devices can be used by medical personnel as well as untrained people, thanks to audible prompts that explain what to do. But some people are candidates for an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD), a miniature electronic device placed under the skin below the collarbone (see illustration).

When you were a kid, you may have lumped peas into the same category as broccoli, spinach, or any other green plant on the plate. But green peas aren't the same as leafy greens. In fact, their classification is a little tricky.

Mature green peas — typically sold dried and split in half — are more like beans. But fresh or frozen green peas are classified as a starchy vegetable by the U.S. Dietary Guidelines.

Research we're watching

Sitting is sometimes called "the new smoking" because of its detrimental effects on heart health. But some types of sitting may be worse than others, according to a study in the July 2 Journal of the American Heart Association.

Researchers interviewed 3,592 African American adults about their daily activities and followed them for roughly eight years. About one-third watched fewer than two hours of TV a day. Another third watched two to four hours daily, while the remaining third watched more than four hours. People in the latter group had a 49% higher risk of heart attack, stroke, and death than those in the first group. However, there was no difference in heart-related events between people who spent most or all of their day sitting at work and those who rarely or ever sat at work.

Research we're watching

Yet another study has found that most vitamin, mineral, and other nutritional supplements provide no protection against heart disease.

The new analysis, published July 8 in Annals of Internal Medicine, reviewed data from hundreds of clinical trials that pitted 16 different vitamins or other supplements against placebos. Most of them — including vitamin A, vitamin B₆, vitamin D, multivitamins, calcium, iron, and selenium — showed no association with a higher or lower risk of heart disease or death.