Harvard Heart Letter articles from June 2005

Harvard Heart Letter archives from June 2005

Heart disease: It's partly in your head.
June 1, 2005... For worse or for better, how you think, feel, and live your life affects your heart. Intimate connections between the heart and mind were once taken for granted. In some cultures, the heart was believed to be the seat and source of...

Bid farewell to an old but unhelpful friend.
June 1, 2005... It's time to face the facts: Vitamin E won't protect you from a heart attack or stroke. A superstar's fall from grace is never pretty. When that superstar is vitamin E, there's also some exasperation. Oh E, how could you do this to us?...

Improving the beat for heart failure.
June 1, 2005... Adding a special pacemaker that coordinates the beat of the heart's lower chambers to state-of-the-art drug therapy helps some people with heart failure live longer and better. The first artificial pacemaker was a boxy device too big to be...

Heart beat; Hysterectomy and the heart: Any connection?(Brief Article)
June 1, 2005... If you are one of the millions of women who have had a hysterectomy, you might want to pay closer attention to the classic factors that lead to heart disease. It turns out that women who have had a hysterectomy (an operation to remove the...

Heart beat; The danger of sleep apnea.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2005... Everyone agrees that the breath-stopping type of snoring known as sleep apnea isn't a good thing -- it disrupts your nighttime rest, makes you sleepy during the daytime, boosts blood pressure, and increases the chances of developing heart...

Heart beat; Earlier use for beta blockers?(Brief Article)
June 1, 2005... Beta blockers are recommended for most heart attack survivors and people with heart failure for one simple reason -- they help such folks live longer. It's possible they may do the same thing for people with less severe forms of heart disease....

Heart beat; "Mini-strokes" have major risks.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2005... What's the difference between a stroke and a transient ischemic attack (TIA)? At first, not much. They look the same, feel the same, and stem from the same thing -- blocked blood flow to the brain. But a stroke lasts for hours, maybe...

Heart beat; Water pills carry the day.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2005... Diuretics, often called water pills, are one of the oldest and least expensive treatments for high blood pressure. And they remain one of the best. Once brushed aside by newer medications, diuretics were thrust back into the spotlight by a...

Heart beat; Fiber and statins team up to lower cholesterol.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2005... If your cholesterol-lowering statin isn't quite powerful enough to drop your LDL (bad) cholesterol as low as it should go, adding a fiber supplement could give you the edge you need. In a study at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in...

Ask the doctor; What heart tests do I need before surgery for something else?
June 1, 2005... Q. I have chest pain about once a month. Since it happens so infrequently and has been going on for years, my doctor says I don't need anything other than medicine to keep it under control. Now I need to have two operations, one to fix my...