Harvard Heart Letter articles from November 2004

Harvard Heart Letter archives from November 2004

Diastolic heart failure -- no time to relax.
November 1, 2004... Trouble relaxing between beats is a growing cause of heart failure. Your heart spends at least half the day relaxing. This isn't vacation time, mind you, but a vital and surprisingly complex part of the pumping cycle. If you're lucky, after...

Swan song for antioxidant supplements?
November 1, 2004... If you take antioxidants to treat or prevent heart disease, it's time to rethink this gambit. For the past few years, the Heart Letter has been chronicling antioxidant supplements' steady fall from grace. Once hailed as a cheap and easy...

For MERCI's sake -- A new stroke treatment approved.
November 1, 2004... A tiny wire curlicue that can snare blood clots may help more people get emergency treatment for a stroke. The minute a blood clot blocks an artery in the brain and starts a stroke, the treatment clock clicks on. You have just three hours...

Healthy base of holiday meals.
November 1, 2004... When done just right, Thanksgiving dinner can be good for the heart. With Thanksgiving just around the corner, it's a good time to pay homage to the bird that Benjamin Franklin championed as our national mascot. Franklin and other turkey...

Heart Beat; Don't bypass cardiac rehabilitation.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... After a heart attack, one of the best things you can do for yourself is to start -- and stick with -- a cardiac rehabilitation program. Such programs complement the high-tech fixes of bypass surgery or angioplasty with exercise, advice on...

Heart beat; Antibiotics fail to prevent heart attacks.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... For a while, one of the hot topics in heart disease was whether bacterial infections lead to atherosclerosis, the artery-clogging process underlying heart disease and stroke. Bacteria such as Chlamydia pneumoniae are often found in pockets of...

Heart beat; Blood pressure on the rise.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... The number of Americans with high blood pressure has risen steadily since the 1960s, and now tops 65 million. That's almost one in three adults. Some of the increase is due to the simple fact that high blood pressure is more common among older...

ASK THE DOCTOR; What could be making my high blood pressure go low?
November 1, 2004... Q After 10 years of successfully keeping my high blood pressure under control, I am now afflicted with periods of low blood pressure. Sometimes when I get up in the morning, it is under 100/50. What could be causing this? A Blood pressure...

Can ultrasound harm the heart?(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... Q Ultrasound is sometimes used to clean jewelry or break up kidney stones. Can the sound pressure generated by an echocardiogram damage the heart or cause a valve to begin leaking? A Ultrasound is made of fluctuations in pressure that are...