Eideard

My favorite – strolling handwarmer

Lots more over here.

Viagra helps ailing hearts to recover in a surprising way – by making them less stiff, scientists have learned.

The impotency drug causes too-rigid heart chamber walls to become more elastic.

The research explains how Viagra might benefit patients with diastolic heart failure. People with the condition have abnormally inflexible ventricles, the heart’s major pumping chambers, that do not fill sufficiently with blood. This leads to blood ”backing up” in the lungs and breathing difficulties…

Scientists found that Viagra activates an enzyme that causes a protein in heart muscle cells to relax…

The drug’s active ingredient, sildenafil, inhibits an enzyme involved in the mechanism that regulates blood flow. However, the enzyme is slightly different in different parts of the body.

But, then, you already knew that.

A former death row chef says he will pay for and cook every last meal for condemned inmates himself, after Texas announced it was stopping the tradition.

“We should not get rid of the last meal,” said Brian Price, an ex-convict who spent a decade in Texas preparing last meals for the condemned. “Justice is going to be served when this person is executed, but can we not show our softer side? Our compassionate side?”

Last week’s audacious last meal request by killer Russell Brewer was the last straw for some in Texas.
Brewer was executed September 21 for his role in the infamous racially motivated racist 1998 dragging death of James Byrd Jr.

He made a complex request for his last meal, then didn’t eat it.

“Enough is enough,” said Texas state Sen. John Whitmire, a day after the execution. “It is extremely inappropriate to give a person sentenced to death such a privilege — one which the perpetrator did not provide to their victim.”

Texas prison officials agreed with Whitmire, immediately halting the tradition of letting an inmate about to be executed choose the menu for his or her last meal.

“Texas has always been coldhearted about these type of things,” said Price. “Not to minimize these crimes, the majority of them have earned their place at that dinner table. But with my offer it would not cost Texas taxpayers anything.”

And above all else, Texas bureaucrats care about keeping money for themselves.

But it seems that Texas will not take Price up on his offer.

“While we appreciate Mr. Price’s offer, it’s not the cost but more the concept that we’re moving away from,” said Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason Clark.

Mr. Clark – like most Texas officeholders – is a liar. He hands out the politically correct answer – like most conservatives.

No word, yet, from Rick “Have a heart” Perry. But, he’s never concerned himself in the past with simpler, easier questions about guilt or innocence, whether or not a trial was conducted fairly. I find it hard to believe he’ll enter into a question of dignity – unless it aids his campaign for Bishop-in-Chief of the United States.

Cardiac stem cells — even in elderly and sick patients — could generate new heart muscle and vessel tissue and be used to treat heart failure, according to research presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2010.

Scientists surgically removed tissue from the muscular wall of the heart’s chambers in 21 patients. They then isolated and multiplied the cardiac stem cells (CSCs) found there. Most of the patients had ischemic cardiomyopathy (enlarged and weakened muscle due to coronary artery disease). Eleven also had diabetes. The average age of patients was about 65.

“Regardless of the gender or age of the patient, or of diabetes, we were able to isolate in all of them a pool of functional cardiac stem cells that we can potentially use to rescue the decompensated human heart,” said Domenico D’Amario, M.D., Ph.D., author of the study…

The researchers also examined stem cells’ biological properties that would influence their therapeutic value. They found that cells had long telomeres, or “caps,” on their chromosomal ends indicating that expanded CSCs retained a significant growth reserve, although less so in older or diabetic patients…

“Now you have a resident cardiac stem cell that is already programmed to form cardiac muscle, so this cell is already superior to any other cell you can take from other tissues,” said Piero Anversa, M.D., senior author of the study and director of the Center for Regenerative Medicine.

The scientists are encouraged enough to seek larger studies. Just one more direction where the compass of genetics serves as foundation for creative solutions to problems in an aging population.

While the French may be renowned for their refined culinary tastes, they have another side. It was on full display this month in this city in central France known for its expensive porcelain but with another side of its own.

Limoges is also a city of butchers, and their annual festival, La Frairie des Petits Ventres, or The Brotherhood of Small Bellies, is a celebration of what Christine Travers delicately terms “products that we could never find in supermarkets.”

The festival was created with the idea of building interest in the meat products consumed by peasants in much older days. One local favorite is the Amourettes — literally, “the fling” — a dish of sheep testicles cooked in garlic, parsley and port.

Mrs. Travers had just finished a blood sausage sandwich and a piece of chestnut pie, and after washing it down with some cider, confided a closely held secret: it is the sheep testicles that draw her most of all.

“It melts in your mouth, and tastes like lamb sweetbread,” she said, as she made her way though a crowd of ecstatic seekers after delicacies prepared from tripe, lamb testicles, and the organs of lamb, veal and pigs.

The one-day festival starts in the morning with an open-air market, and closes in the evening with a religious procession. It is the excellence of the tripe that attracts hundreds of food lovers to the narrow Rue de la Boucherie, or butcher’s street, a picturesque medieval lane lined with half-timbered houses…

The Frairie des Petits Ventres was created in 1973 by Renaissance du Vieux Limoges, an association of preservationists and butchers who came together successfully to fight plans to demolish the old city center.

The butchers showed their commitment, they said, by putting up stalls outside their shops to sell cooked innards and local specialties. The Frairie des Petits Ventres quickly became a local institution.

Eating everything but the breath expelled at slaughter is a tradition born of economics. Only societies with abundance – or rather ruled by those with access to abundance – begin to forget utilization of every bit of consumables.

And though I have noted in other posts my dislike for blood sausage, I enjoy a few family recipes for heart, tongue and, of course, haggis.

Is that the Premier’s skiff?

With these words, Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams defended his decision to hop the border and go under the knife for heart surgery in Florida.

The minimally invasive mitral valve surgery he needed is not available in Newfoundland, he told his province’s NTV News channel in the first part of an interview aired last night…

But it is available in his home country, a point that cardiologists fervently made last night.

“It’s his body, it’s his money, hopefully, but don’t tell us the operation cannot be done here. It can be done,” said Arvind Koshal, director of cardiac surgery at the Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute in Edmonton.

Some of the best mitral valve surgeons are in Toronto and Montreal, he said, noting that some even use robots, commonly employed in minimally invasive surgery. The wait times for cardiac surgery in Canada are relatively short, he added, saying such surgery could have been done within weeks…

While Mr. Williams was clear that surgery in his home province was advised against, he was more ambiguous about the Canadian options he explored.

Virtually all heart surgery can be done in Canada, a chorus of cardiologists said earlier this month when they heard about Mr. Williams’s cross-border surgery, a decision that launched a debate about private versus public health care…

From footage taken in the Premier’s sun-drenched condominium last week, Mr. Williams appeared to be the picture of health…

Another politician who’s a walking advertisement for healthcare reserved for those who can afford it. I think the sun-drenched condo had as much as anything else to do with his decision – or should we take Premier Williams at his word?

If Americans cut their salt intake by just half a teaspoon per day, it would produce public health benefits on par with reducing high cholesterol, smoking, or obesity, a new study has found.

The number of heart attacks in the U.S. could decline by up to 13 percent if adults could just slash their daily salt intake by 3 grams, or about 1,200 milligrams of sodium, according to the study, which was published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. New cases of heart disease and the number of strokes could also be expected to decline, by up to 11 percent and 8 percent, respectively.

To achieve a similar reduction in heart attacks and other heart-related problems, the researchers estimate, nationwide tobacco use would need to be halved. Alternatively, obese adults would need to reduce their body mass index by 5 percent, or all adults at low-to-medium risk for heart disease would need to take cholesterol-lowering statins.

Even a reduction in daily salt intake of just 1 gram (or about 400 milligrams of sodium) would produce “large declines” in the rates of cardiovascular events, according to the study.

“Just targeting slightly lower salt [intake] would have some benefit for everyone in the U.S.,” says the study’s lead author, Dr. Kirsten

RTFA. Tons of detail, kilos of life-changing results – simply by removing grams of salt from your diet.

I grew up in a family of heavy salt users. I have a favorite salt that sometimes has to be ordered in because I can’t count on getting locally [it's from Malden, England]. But, with a reasonable amount of friendly herbs and spices – no overcompensation – I have to say the decline in salt consumption has equalled the results from a similar decision I made about sugar a few years further back.

Cancer cell

How do you predict whether a given patient is likely to die from a heart attack? Conventional medical wisdom would base a risk assessment on factors such as the person’s age, whether they were smokers and/or diabetic plus the results of cardiac ultrasound and various blood tests. It may be that a better predictor is a computer program that analyses the patient’s electrocardiogram looking for subtle features within the data provided by the instrument.

A team of researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Michigan analysed a large data-set of 24-hour electrocardiogram recordings collected at a Boston hospital as part of a clinical trial for a new drug. Employing a number of computational techniques involving algorithms for signal processing, data mining and machine learning, the researchers developed a way to analyse how the shape of the electrical waveform varies, a measure they dubbed morphological variability. At the heart of the approach are mathematical techniques used in speech recognition and genome analysis which allow researchers to compare individual beats. “We compute the differences for every pair of beats,” reported one of the researchers. “If there is lots of variability, that patient is in bad shape.”

The team then applied their algorithm to a second set of electrocardiogram recordings and found that patients with the highest morphological variability were six to eight times more likely to die from a heart attack than those with low variability. They concluded that it consistently predicted as well or better than the indicators commonly used by physicians…

Read the rest of this entry »

In a study that will provide comfort to chocoholics everywhere, researchers in Sweden have found evidence that people who eat chocolate have increased survival rates after a heart attack — and it may be that the more they eat, the better.

The scientists followed 1,169 nondiabetic men and women who had been hospitalized for a first heart attack. Each filled out a standardized health questionnaire that included a question about chocolate consumption over the past 12 months. Chocolate contains flavonoid antioxidants that are widely believed to have beneficial cardiovascular effects.

The patients had a health examination three months after their discharge from the hospital, and researchers followed them for the next eight years using Swedish national registries of hospitalizations and deaths. After controlling for age, sex, obesity, physical inactivity, smoking, education and other factors, they found that the more chocolate people consumed, the more likely they were to survive. The results are reported in the September issue of The Journal of Internal Medicine.

But before concluding that a box of Godiva truffles is health food, chocolate lovers may want to consider some of the study’s weaknesses. It is an observational study, not a randomized trial, so cause and effect cannot be definitively established…

Still, Dr. David L. Katz, an associate professor of public health at Yale who was not involved in the work, said the study added “an interesting element, following a group of adults who’ve had a heart attack and noting an impressive reduction in cardiac deaths.” While the study is observational, he said, “the broader context is reassuring.”

Yes, I have my snack of 72% chocolate, every evening. Usually in the living room whilst watching something truly educational – like Trailer Park Boys.

Some military health experts say there is evidence that even the legal over-the-counter forms of such supplements can cause heart palpitations, loss of consciousness and death among troops, particularly those in desert climates like Iraq and Afghanistan…

While he is not prepared to advocate a ban on the products, Colonel Erin Edgar did call for removing them from military base stores. “I just think we shouldn’t create the perception of D.O.D. endorsement,” he told participants at a conference on military health research here, referring to the Department of Defense.

His view did not go over well with some in the audience. A former Army captain, Charles R. Gatlin, said that banning the supplements at base stores would hurt morale without necessarily safeguarding troops who already in harm’s way.

“All that deployed guys can do in their spare time is eat, read and pump iron,” said Mr. Gatlin, who now works for a veterans assistance group. “Smoking, drinking and using supplements may not be very healthy, but neither is a 90-minute firefight.”

If that’s all this dude can come up with for spare time activity, he should be replaced by someone with a brain.

The problem with supplements, Colonel Edgar said, is that they often contain substances that can make users susceptible to heat stroke. Many products include stimulants, like caffeine or ephedrine, that increase metabolism but also raise the heart rate and blood pressure — not necessarily good thing for troops in combat or a hot climate, he said.

Colonel Edgar, who is assuming leadership of the Army’s 18th Medical Command, said “elite troops,” including Special Operating Forces, seem to use the supplements more cautiously and therefore have fewer problems. He is most concerned, he said, about soldiers who over-consume the supplements, which they view as “magic bullets” that will make them muscle-bound overnight.

Let’s face it. We have a volunteer army which is becoming a catchall for the unemployed and under-educated. These guys believe pharma TV commercials and Chuck Norris political essays.