Eideard

Dr. Roberto Bolli

Stem cells from heart-attack patients helped improve blood-pumping ability and restore vitality in cardiac muscle, according to a small trial published on Monday.

It is the first time patients have been given an infusion of their own cardiac stem cells in the aim of solving the impact of heart failure rather than simply treating the symptoms of it. The findings are so promising that the study’s chief investigator said a potential “revolution” was in the offing if larger trials succeeded…

The new study, published online in The Lancet, tested cardiac stem cells on 16 patients who had been left gravely ill as a result of an acute myocardial infarction…

Within four months of treatment, the [capacity of the left ventricle to expel blood in the space of a heartbeat] LVFV rose by 8.5 percent and after a year by 12 percent — four times what the researchers had expected.

Scans of the patients’ hearts also showed a reduction in the area of tissue that had been scarred by the infarction, a discovery that challenges conventional belief that once scarring occurs, heart tissue is permanently dead.

The volunteers also reported a substantial improvement in quality of life, and there were no significant side effects…

“The results are striking,” said lead investigator Roberto Bolli of the University of Louisville, Kentucky.

“While we do not know why the improvement occurs, we have no doubt now that [LVFV] increased and scarring decreased.

“If these results hold up in future studies, I believe this could be the biggest revolution in cardiovascular medicine in my lifetime.”

Bravo!

The singularity approaches. While know-nothings prepare for a rapturous return to lifespans and quality of life considered normal in the Dark Ages. I’ll take science over superstition any day.

Heart attacks dropped by 24 percent in a large cross section of Northern Californians over the past decade, most likely due to less smoking, better blood pressure control, and lower cholesterol, a new study reports.

What’s more, rates of the most severe type of heart attack dropped by 62 percent, according to the study, published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine.

“We believe improvements in targeting risk factors are in part responsible,” says the study’s senior author, Dr. Alan Go, M.D., the assistant director for clinical research at Kaiser Permanente, in Oakland, California. “We’ve observed in our population that fewer people are smoking, and there’s better control of blood pressure and cholesterol…”

The plunge in heart attack rates may not reflect trends elsewhere in the country, or even in other Northern Californians, however. Although the study patients were ethnically diverse and ranged in age from 30 to 90-plus, they all had one thing in common: They were insured and received quality preventive care…

While heart attack rates were falling among the people in the study, Brown points out, rates of diabetes and obesity continued to climb across the nation as a whole. “We are still facing an epidemic that is causing a gradual-to-rapid increase in heart disease-related deaths,” he says.

And heart disease is not equally distributed across the U.S., Pearson notes. Southeastern states, and especially the regions lining the Mississippi and Ohio River Valleys–a swath collectively known as “Coronary Valley”–are among the hardest hit, he says.

Though the population in the study isn’t representative of the nation as a whole, the findings do highlight the changes that need to be made to heart disease care, Brown says.

If the health-care system can transition from “dealing with problems” to “creating sustainable lifestyle changes in our communities,” Brown adds, “we can prevent the onset of chronic illness in our country beyond that of heart disease alone.”

Hrmph. That requires moving politicians in general and Congress in particular to decisions that challenge the insurance and health care establishment in America. Should I hold my breath waiting for that to happen?

Does that sound too cynical?

The ban on smoking in public places, such as bars and restaurants, has been one of the greatest public health debates of the early 21st century. Now, two large studies suggest that communities that pass laws to curb secondhand smoke get a big payoff — a drop in heart attacks.

Overall, American, Canadian, and European cities that have implemented smoking bans had an average of 17 percent fewer heart attacks in the first year, compared with communities who had not taken such measures.

Then, each year after implementing smoking bans (at least for the first three years, the longest period studied), smoke-free communities have an average 26 percent decline in heart attacks, compared with those areas that still allow smokers to light up in public places…

How harmful is secondhand smoke? Nonsmokers have a 25 percent to 30 percent higher risk of heart attack if they inhale smoke at home or at work, and smoke has been shown to affect heart health within minutes, says Dr. David Meyers.

“We can measure chemical changes within 20 minutes,” he says. “The changes that occur primarily involve the clotting system. Basically, exposure to smoke makes your blood sticky and real clot-y and that’s what causes heart attacks.”

While this health effect is well established, it has not been clear if banning smoking could help reduce heart attacks, he says.

“We know that if you expose somebody, it’s bad,” says Meyers. “How about if you ban the exposure — will that make any difference? So that end of the logic had to be looked at, and now we can say, absolutely.”

RTFA. Anyone who still needs convincing – well, I worry about their ability to perceive the realities around them.

All it took was looking around and realizing that people who smoked had more illnesses of every kind.

Smoking is bad for you, and by now, most of us know it.

To recap: Smoking exponentially increases your risk of developing lung cancer (and other lung diseases, like emphysema and chronic bronchitis) and puts you at higher risk for cancer of the mouth, throat, larynx, esophagus, bladder, pancreas, kidney, cervix and stomach. Smoking also elevates the risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke and insulin resistance. And, as if all that weren’t bad enough, it causes wrinkles…

So, who exactly — in the face of all the mounting scientific evidence, social stigma and legal bans — still lights up?…

“The demographics have changed so much that now, more often than not, it’s the disadvantaged who are still smoking compared to the highly educated, highly trained people,” Hurt said. “It is pretty clear that the prevalence of smoking in groups of people is related to education status, which is a surrogate for income status. … When you go down the income ladder, the smoking prevalence rises. Some groups of severely disadvantaged people have smoking rates of 30 to 40-plus percent.”

Hurt says that there is also a much higher prevalence of smoking among people with mental health disorders like depression, alcoholics, drug users and schizophrenics.

Which brings us back to the inescapable fact that, worldwide, an estimated 4 million adults die each year of tobacco-caused diseases. Said Hurt, “This is only product that I know on the face of the Earth which, if it is used as recommended by manufacturer, kills 60 percent of its customers.”

I started smoking when I was 12. Stopped when I was 22 years old. At the time, I smoked more than 2 packs a day – and quit in the middle of a pack, in the middle of a carton.

One of the two smartest things I did at that tender age.

New research out of Wake Forest University School of Medicine shows that use of the most commonly prescribed once-a-day treatment for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) for longer than one month increases the risk of cardiovascular death, heart attack or stroke by more than 50 percent.

Researchers…conducted a meta-analysis of 17 double-blind, randomized trials involving a total of 14,783 patients with COPD. Participants received treatment with inhaled anticholinergics, another form of active therapy or a placebo inhaler.

An analysis of the data showed that use of inhaled anticholinergics for more than one month significantly increased the risk of cardiovascular death, heart attacks, or strokes in COPD patients by 58 percent.

The two most commonly used inhalers from the anticholinergic class are tiotropium bromide, marketed by Pfizer as Spiriva™, and ipratropium bromide, made and marketed by Boehringer Ingelheim as Atrovent™.

“Patients with COPD who use these inhalers are at a high risk of excess serious cardiovascular events due to their use,” said Singh, an assistant professor of internal medicine. “In absolute terms, if these inhalers are used for one year, nearly one in 40 patients using these inhalers may develop cardiac death related to the drug, and nearly one in 174 patients may develop a heart attack associated with these inhalers.”

Uh, if you’re using these inhalers – please see your doctor. Bring a copy of this post.