Heart attack recovery: does fish oil supplement actually help?

Fish oils are the so-called good fat. It contains lots of omega-3 fatty acid. Over the years, the use of fish oil or omega-3 fatty acid as a nutritional supplement has become popular. In fact, omega-3 ranks among the top favorites in terms of nutritional supplements. Omega-3 is especially known for being good for the heart. Currently, several supplements in the form of highly purified omega-3 fatty acids is available commercially, such as Omacor and Lovaza in the US and Zodin in Europe.

German researchers at the University of Heidelberg investigated the benefits of fish oil capsule supplement in heart attack patients. The study included 3,800 people who have had heart attacks. Half of the group was given fish oil capsules. The other half was given placebo. The study was blinded, e.g. none of the participants knew which capsule they got. The results of the study after a year of follow up shows:

• fewer than 2% had suffered sudden cardiac death
• 4% had another heart attack
• fewer than 2% had suffered a stroke
• it made no difference whether these patients took fish oil or dummy capsules

The researchers explain that patients who have had a heart attack usually receive optimum medical care which includes medications, physiotherapy, and psychotherapy if necessary. Additional nutritional supplementation with omega-3 doesn’t seem to give additional benefits in terms of risk reduction.

Omega-3 fatty acids are found in natural food products such as fish (e.g. salmon, tuna, mackerel, sardines and herring). It is supposedly good for heart health because it lowers bad “LDL” cholesterol and increases good “HDL” cholesterol. The American Heart Association recommends eating fish 2 times a week at least. For supplement capsules, 1 g of omega-3 is recommended. However, supplementation is not recommended for infants, nursing mothers, and pregnant women. It also elevates the risk for bleeding and is therefore counterindicated before surgery.

However, this is not the first study to question the health benefits of omega-3 supplements.  A US FDA assessment cited the following as possible risks associated with omega-3 supplementations:

• Increased bleeding especially if the patient is on blood thinners like warfarin or aspirin.
• Impaired glycemic control among those with diabetes.

According to the authors

“we need to be a little more cautious about the prediction of individual benefit of any nutritional supplements.”

However, the researchers are quick to point out that the study results do not say anything whether omega-3 can do more harm than good. In other words, it is too soon to throw the baby out with the bath water.

Needless to say, we simply cannot undo what years of unhealthy lifestyle could to our health by just taking omega-3 supplements. It may be good for the heart, but it is far from the wonder drug that its marketers purport it to be.

Photo credit: stock.xchng

               

Heart attack emergency care: men have it better

Here is another study on gender disparity in health care, and again, women are at the losing end. Researchers at Penn University looked at 683 cases of emergencies with symptoms of chest pains and the care given to the patients by emergency medical service (EMS).

Chest pains or angina pectoris is a major symptom of a heart attack and the standard emergency treatments are aspirin and nitroglycerin. However, the study showed that less female patients get these treatments compared to male patients.

Chest pain is a leading cause of emergency room visits in the US, accounting for more than 8 million cases a year.

The study reported the following figures in terms of pre-hospital interventions the study patients have received:

• Aspirin:  24% of women vs. 32% of men
• Nitroglycerin: 26% of women vs. 33% of men
• IV line: 61% of women vs. 70% of men.

A heart attack occurs gradually, with the following symptoms and warning signs according to the American heart Association:

• Chest discomfort. Most heart attacks involve discomfort in the center of the chest that lasts more than a few minutes, or that goes away and comes back. It can feel like uncomfortable pressure, squeezing, fullness or pain.  
• Discomfort in other areas of the upper body. Symptoms can include pain or discomfort in one or both arms, the back, neck, jaw or stomach.   
• Shortness of breath. May occur with or without chest discomfort.    
• Other signs: These may include breaking out in a cold sweat, nausea or lightheadedness  Early intervention can help minimize damage to the heart muscles and thereby save lives of the patients.

Early intervention in a heart attack is very important. Aspirin can reduce clotting around the ruptured plaques in the coronary artery that block blood flow to the heart. This minimizes the damage to the heart tissue. Many EMS organizations have cardiac monitoring equipment in their ambulances that can send information about a patient’s heart rhythm ahead to the hospital. This alerts the hospital to prepare equipment that might be necessary, e.g.  catheterization device to open blocked arteries. This way, the “door-to-balloon time” is significantly shortened.

But why this gender disparity? According to lead author Dr. Zachary Meisel, an emergency physician and Senior Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at Penn.

“Women with heart attacks have higher death rates than men, so these findings are very concerning, and it’s important for us to try to figure out why this is happening.”

The study results show that the disparity wasn’t linked to ethnicity, age, or gender of emergency personnel. Experts believe that this is due to several factors. One may be the fact that heart attack symptoms may present atypically in women. This can lead to differences in the way the symptoms - in this case chest pains - are interpreted by both paramedics and patients. A previous study has reported that women tended to downplay heart attack symptoms that lead to delayed medical help.

Photo credit: stock.xchng

               

Can your pulse rate predict your heart attack risk?

Researchers and scientists are continuously searching for ways to predict who is most likely to have a heart attack and who isn’t. French researchers report this could be as easy as measuring a person’s pulse rate three times.

The study looked at 7,746 French male civil servants. Their heart rates (measured by their pulse rates) were measured at rest (baseline), right before physical exercise (mild mental stress in anticipation of the exercise) and during exercise.

The results of the study show that “men whose heart rate increased the most during mild mental stress just before an exercise test had twice the risk of dying of a sudden heart attack in later life than men whose heart rate did not increase as much.”

The highest increase in heart rate during the mild mental stress was at least 12 beats a minute, the lowest, less than four beats per minute. The study participants who exhibited the highest increase in heart rate had twice the risk of sudden death due to a cardiac event compared to men who had the lowest increase.

However, those participants who had the highest increase in heart rate during the actual physical exercise had less 50% the risk of death compared with the men whose heart rate increased the least. The highest incidence of death due to a cardiac event occurred among the participants who increased their heart rate the most during mild mental stress and the least during exercise. There were none reported among those whose heart rate increased the least during mild mental stress and the most during the exercise test.

The authors think that the mechanism behind this effect lies with interaction between the autonomic (ANS) and sympathetic nervous systems (SNS). Vagus nerves are an important part of the ANS which controls the body’s autonomic functions including the heart beat. The SNS is responsible for increasing the heart rate and the dilation of blood vessels in the voluntary muscles and constriction of blood vessels in the skin and intestines during physical exercise.

According to lead researcher Professor Xavier Jouven

“There is a balance between the accelerator (sympathetic activation) and the brake (vagal activation). If vagal withdrawal occurs it is like releasing the brake. During an ischaemic episode, when blood flow to the heart is reduced, sympathetic activation occurs to counteract it. However, if there is no protection by the vagal tone (the brake), the activation can become uncontrolled and then it becomes dangerous. Our underlying assumption, which this study appears to have proved correct, is that the faster the vagal withdrawal in response to mental stress, the greater will be - during an ischaemic episode - the damaging effect of sympathetic activation unopposed by vagal activity.”

Heart attacks or myocardial infarctions are a major health problem in many developing countries. The US alone reports between 200,000 to 400,000 deaths due to heart attack each year. In 27 European countries, the mortality count is 486,000.

This method of predicting who is susceptible and who is not is easy, cheap, and non-invasive. However, it has only been tested for men. It still remains to be seen whether the same pulse rate readings can be a predictor of heart attack in women.

               

The power to predict a heart attack may be right at your fingertips

Could it be that predicting a cardiac event is as easy as raising a finger? Researchers at the Mayo Clinic have studied and seemed be quite satisfied with a test that is simple and noninvasive but is still “highly predictive” of a major cardiac event, such as a heart attack or stroke, for people who are considered at low or moderate risk.

The EndoPAT I a noninvasive finger sensor test device which measures the health status of endothelial cells that line the walls of the blood vessels and regulate blood flow. When endothelial cells are unhealthy, a condition called endothelial dysfunction occurs and can mark the start of atherosclerosis or hardening of the arteries, which in turn lead to cardiovascular disorders. The finger device measures blood flow which is indicative of endothelial function.

During the testing process

“…researchers at Mayo Clinic and Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston used the device to test 270 patients between the ages of 42 and 66 and followed their progress from August 1999 to August 2007. These patients already knew that they had low-to-medium risk of experiencing a major heart event, based on their Framingham Risk Score. The score is the commonly used risk predictor and was developed from the Framingham Heart Study, a longitudinal study of heart disease.”

The study results showed that 49% of patients who had poor endothelial function as measured by EndoPAT had a major cardiovascular event (e.g. heart attack or stroke) during the 7-year follow up.

The EndoPAT is a product of Itamar Medical. I was approved by the US FDA for diagnostic use in 2003. It consists of a digital recording equipment plus two probes attached to the fingers like large thimbles. During the test, one probe is placed on each index finger and attached to a small blood-flow measuring machine. In parallel, a cuff, the kind that is used during blood pressure reading is placed around one arm. The cuff is inflated, then deflated “to occlude and then release blood flow to assess reactive hyperemia (RH), the normal blood flow response that occurs when occlusion is released.” Three timed readings are performed during the 15-minute test and the results are expressed in RH scores. A low RH score indicates low blood flow response, endothelial dysfunction and impaired vascular health.

This positive news about EndoPA is very welcome because cardiovascular health problems, most of which are preventable, have become a major global health concern. Millions of people suffer from heart attack and stroke each year, sometimes without any warning. Indeed, a predictive but still non-invasive instrument such as EndoPAT can help doctors and patients plan a preventive strategy to battle heart and stroke.

               

Is there sex life after a heart attack?

Resource Post for March

Now, more than ever, patients with heart disease are much longer but unfortunately their quality of life is not necessarily better. The latest medical advances save people’s lives but the care in the life after - after heart surgery, after discharge, rehabilitation, etc. - sometimes fall short.

Depression is a common aftermath of heart surgery and other cardiac events. A previous study showed that depression is commonly reported among young people aged 18 to 49 years old. They are tended to be female, of African American or Hispanic ethnicity.

I imagine that young people would be depressed since these years are the most active and productive years of their lives. Young women of reproductive age would be worried about their ability to raise their families or even able to start a family at all.

Depression has also been reported among the elderly but not to the extent observed in young people.

It is to be expected that one main cause of depression among young cardiac patients is sex, rather lack thereof. Sexual satisfaction is a part of life. And for the sexually active, the question of whether sex after a heart attack is still possible is another big factor that may contribute to depression and overall poor quality of life. Unfortunately, Hollywood has erroneously portrayed in films the horrors of having a heart attack in the act of sexual intercourse, scenes which can dampen the spirits of both the heart patient and his/her partner. A report presented at the European Cardiology Society last year stated that heart patients

…may have concerns about resuming sexual activity, feelings of sexual inadequacy, changes in sexual interest or changes in patterns of sexual activity…[They] are worried about chest symptoms during intercourse or even an acute ischemic event during sex. Many lack information about returning to sexual activity.

Researchers looked at the sexual satisfaction of 35 female with either non-STEMI or unstable angina and reported the following results::

• 49% resumed sexual activity within 12 weeks of hospital discharge.
• 35% reported being “sexually unsatisfied
• 41% were “mostly dissatisfied
• 24% were “somewhat dissatisfied
• 83% reported sexual desire to be lower compared to desire before the cardiac event.

But is there really room for sexual activity in a heart patient’s life?

Apparently, the answer is a resounding “Yes” but with some caveats.

According to this WedMD article “it is important to remember that sex is a workout. So doctors typically tell patients to abstain from sex after heart disease until they can withstand the cardiac workout.”

This means that people who are sedentary may have to abstain from postcardiac event sex until they are back on their feet and have passed their stress tests. What the doctors are saying is that if a patient can handle climbing the stairs or light jogging around the block, then he or she is ready to resume sexual activity.

But sometimes fear and the uncertainty can interfere even if the body is physically ready. Here are some tips that you may try to counteract this problem:

Do not blame yourself. It is not your fault and it is alright to feel frustrated. So stop blaming yourself. Erectile dysfunction is linked to heart disease. Some cardiac medications can interefere with sexual drive and performance. Nothing you can do or have done could change this.  However, you have to do something about it and the first step is talk about it.

Talk to your doctor. I know that this topic maybe embarrassing for some people, depending on personality as well as cultural and religious backgrounds. However, your doctor is the best person who can tell you whether you are ready or not and what it takes to get you back into shape. Your doctor can give you all the information you need and can even refer you another professional if necessary.

Avoid self-medication. Be careful about performance enhancing and erectile dysfunction drugs. You see them advertised on the Internet all the time and your email Inbox is probably flooded by sales pitches on cheap Viagra and penis enlargement pills. However, these drugs may not be what they seem. They may be disguised in the form of dietary supplements, tea, herbal remedy, or energy drinks. Some of these substances can increase heart rates while others can interact with the other drugs you may already be taking. So before you resort to self-medication, talk to your doctor first. He would know which drug would be most appropriate and safest for you.

Talk to your partner. Be open about your fears and worries. For all you know, he or she also has some doubts and worries about the situation. Take him or her when you go talk to your doctor.

Give yourself time. Sex doesn’t have to start at day one. It doesn’t have to be perfect the first time around after surgery. Take your time. Give your body and mind the time to heal and recover.

Go for counselling. Professional help may be necessary and your doctor can refer you to a psychologists or a sex counsellor. These health professionals may also prescribe drugs, devices, as well as therapies that can help.

Live a healthy lifestyle. You can’t live on sex alone. And your body should be fit to perform normal daily tasks, including sex. That is why you shouldn’t forget to maintain a healthy lifestyle which includes physical activity and the proper diet. Remember: a healthy and active sex life depends on an active and healthy lifestyle.

 

 

 

 

Photo credits: stock.xchng

               

Bleeding hearts

Have you ever seen a bleeding heart? Literary, I mean? Up till now, many of us use the term “bleeding heart” figuratively to mean “a person who is excessively sympathetic towards other people.” A real softie, in other words. It could also refer to a plant (Dicentra sp. ) with heart-shaped white flowers with a red center

But hearts really do bleed and the amount of bleeding can indicate the extent of heart damage after a heart attack.

Heart attacks or myocardial infarction in doctor speak occurs when a blood vessel (an artery) transporting blood to the heart gets blocked, cutting off blood supply to the heart muscles. The clear the blockage, metal implants called stents are inserted into the artery. However, it has been observed that bleeding in the heart muscles can occur once the heart start pumping again.

Researchers at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Clinical Sciences Centre at Imperial College London have captured images of bleeding hearts. Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology, they took images of hearts of 15 patients who suffered from heart attacks of different severity.

“Analysis of the MRI scans revealed that the amount of bleeding correlated with how much damage the heart muscle had sustained. Patients who had suffered a large heart attack, where a lot of the heart muscle was damaged, had a lot of bleeding into the heart muscle compared with those whose heart attack was relatively small.”

The significance of heart bleeding has been poorly understood. These recent findings can help doctors and researchers in figuring out the bleeding, how it can be prevented and minimize the damage to the heart muscles.

According to Medline Plus

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a non-invasive method of taking pictures of the body and the internal organs. Unlike x-rays and computed tomographic (CT) scans, which use radiation, MRI scans use magnetic fields and radio waves. Each single MRI image is called a slice. One MRI test can produce many different slices. The researchers were able to view the area of bleeding in the heart because of the magnetic effects of iron, a metal which is present in the blood.

“The researchers hope that this kind of imaging will be used alongside other tests to create a fuller picture of a patient’s condition and their chances of recovery. The research was funded by the Medical Research Council, the British Heart Foundation and the Department of Health, UK.“

Photo credit: MRC Clinical Sciences Centre at Imperial College London

               

Resource post for November: time change, sleep and your heart

Have you reset your clocks? Ready for the time transition? Depending on the season, we are moving back and forth in time. We “spring forward” in the spring and “fall backwards” in the autumn. The North Americans call it Daylight Saving Time or DST for short and Standard time, respectively. In Europe, we can it “summer time” and “winter time.”

How does time transition affect our health?

According to this latest study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, these transitions in time are linked to higher incidence of acute heart attacks. The Swedish study shows that the number of heart attacks increases significantly during the first 3 weekdays after the transition to daylight saving time (DST) in springtime. The effects of turning back the time in autumn is not so strong but still evident during the first weekday. Furthermore, there are some differences observed in the time transition effects which are dependent on gender and age.

The effect of the spring transition to daylight saving time on the incidence of acute myocardial infarction was somewhat more pronounced in women than in men, and the autumn effect was more pronounced in men than in women… The effects of transitions were consistently more pronounced for people under 65 years of age than for those 65 years of age or older.

Time change interferes with our biological rhythm and our daily routine especially our sleep. The most plausible explanation for the increase in heart attacks is sleep deprivation, which can badly affect cardiovascular health.

Because of its dependence of daylight hours, DST has also an effect on health conditions such as depression, vitamin D insufficiency, and night blindness.

 Who are most likely to be affected?

As the abovementioned study above suggests, those with heart problems and but also adults below 65 are more likely to feel the adverse effects of time change. Babies and little children will also feel it and get restless, adding to the woes of the poor parents.

Depending on each individual, the effects can last between 1 day and two weeks!

In addition, the severity and the duration of the effect vary from person to person. In general, however, “owl types” tend to suffer more at springtime.

Night owls” or “evening types” are people who have a natural tendency to stay up later at night. This puts them at risk for delayed sleep phase disorder, which occurs when their usual bedtime and wake time are much later than the social norms.

Since night owls have a hard time falling asleep when they go to bed early, they may be unable to compensate for the time change. As a result they may go to bed even later than normal, depriving themselves of needed sleep.

Those who are “morning types” among us however, will experience more problems this autumn (November 2) when we go back to Standard Time

How can we minimize the effect of time change?

The American Academy on Sleep Medicine (AASM) gives us the following tips to counteract the effects of time change:

• Begin to re-adjust your sleep schedule a few days prior to the time change by going to bed an hour earlier.
• Re-adjust your eating schedule by having dinner an hour earlier.
• Be careful when driving or operating machinery on the day of the time change.
• Avoid napping, particularly before bedtime.
• Avoid caffeine in the morning to wake you up and alcohol at night to help you go to sleep.
• Keep a light schedule on the Monday after the time change. This involves minimizing driving and avoiding strenuous physical activities.  
• Eat properly, stay well hydrated and remain physically active.

 Why change time at all?

If it is bad for our health, then why do it?

Switching to DST is something we have to put up with because we are living in higher altitudes and have therefore varying day lengths depending on the season. People living close to the equator don’t need to bother with this.

Adjustment for DST in spring aims to optimally use the daylight hours, with the following results:

• It makes us start work earlier in the morning when the sun rises early, and then leave us enough daylight hours in the evening for outdoor leisure activities.
• It reduces energy consumption because we tend to use less indoor lighting.
• Business benefits from DST because it encourages people to shop longer in the evenings.
• It also aims to reduce traffic accidents and crime that usually tend to happen in the dark hours.

However, it does not benefit everybody, e.g. people who work in shifts (hospital staff, for example), those who frequently have to cross time zones (airline personnel, for example). The shift in time can create havoc with time-dependent machines and computer systems. International businesses get disrupted. For years, the time change on the two sides of the Atlantic happened on the same weekend - the last Sunday of March for DST and the last Sunday of October for going back to standard time. This has changed since 2007. In the US and Canada, it now happens on the second Sunday of March and the first Sunday of November. This asynchrony even complicates things and brings confusion to people working on intercontinental projects.

               

A blood test to detect heart attacks

Can you recognize the signs of a heart attack? Although heart attacks can happen suddenly accompanied by the unmistakable chest pain - basically the attacks portrayed in films - most heart attacks start slowly and mildly so that they may be ignored, taken for granted, or misdiagnosed. According to the Medline Medical Encyclopedia:

A heart attack or acute myocardial infarction (MI) occurs when one of the arteries that supplies the heart muscle becomes blocked. Blockage may be caused by spasm of the artery or by atherosclerosis with acute clot formation. The blockage results in damaged tissue and a permanent loss of contraction of this portion of the heart muscle.

Each year, more than 1 million people in the US suffer from heart attacks and about half of these die. Studies have shown that the sooner medical help is given to those who suffered from heart attack, the better are the chances of survival and recovery.

Symptoms of heart attacks can sometimes be so innocuous and misleading and can include (in the absence of chest pains) numbness and pain in the upper part of the body (arms, shoulders, neck), dizziness, vomiting, shortness of breath and sweating. Symptoms can vary between men and women and from one individual to another.

Researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital have developed a method to detect a heart attack soon after it occurs. The method is a blood test that detects changes in several small molecules (metabolites) present in a patient’s blood soon after a heart attack occurs.

The researchers report:

“We identified changes in circulating levels of metabolites participating in pyrimidine metabolism, the tricarboxylic acid cycle and its upstream contributors, and the pentose phosphate pathway. Alterations in levels of multiple metabolites were detected as early as 10 minutes after PMI in an initial derivation group and were validated in a second, independent group of PMI patients. A PMI-derived metabolic signature consisting of aconitic acid, hypoxanthine, trimethylamine N-oxide, and threonine differentiated patients with SMI from those undergoing diagnostic coronary angiography with high accuracy, and coronary sinus sampling distinguished cardiac-derived from peripheral metabolic changes.”

There are changes in the metabolite profiles soon after a heart attack that are indicative of heart injury and this is what the blood test is detecting. There are many way to diagnose a heart attack but most of these take time. This new test can aid health care providers in rapid diagnosis of heart attacks, provide rapid treatment and prevent subsequent attacks.

The new blood test is a product of a new field of research called metabolomics which focuses on chemical fingerprints of cellular and physiological processes.

               

Acute heart attacks are not hopeless cases

Every year, millions of people suffer from heart attack. In Central Europe alone, more than 600,000 cases of cardiac arrest occur annually - 9 per 10,000 inhabitants. Some are lucky to survive. Some don’t. Those who survived were probably recipients of intensive care.

A major heart attack entails that a patient be admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU). There are many other acute conditions aside from cardiac problems that require intensive care. Add to these a large number of trauma cases and ICUs can get very crowded indeed. ICUs however cost a lot of money and can be a burden to the health care system. The question always arises as to how to prioritize limited ICU space.

Should the spaces be given only to those with the highest likelihood of survival? Should seemingly hopeless cases, e.g. cases wherein medical treatment seems futile, be denied ICU access? There are no easy answers to these questions ethically and medically. However, in many cases, decisions on health care issues are based on cost-efficiency.

A study conducted by German researchers, however, indicates that acute cardiac cases are not necessary a waste of health care resources, that a heart attack is not necessarily a death sentence. The researchers tracked 354 patients who had cardiac arrest and admitted to the ICU from 1 January 1999 to 31 December 2001. All patients received cardiopulmonary resuscitation. 204 of the patients died at the hospital while 150 survived. Of the survivors, 110 patients (31% of all participants) lived 5 years or more after the heart attack. The health-related quality of life of these survivors was only slightly lower than controls of the same age and gender who never suffered from a heart attack. The total cost for the ICU treatment of all 354 participants was over 6.3 million Euros. The health care expenditure for each survivor was calculated to be 49,952 Euros.

 

The key findings of the study are:

Patients who leave the hospital following cardiac arrest without severe neurological disabilities may expect fair long-term survival and a good quality of life.

Costs per life year gained and costs per quality-adjusted life year in survivors after cardiac arrest are acceptable.

Expenses to the health care system are reasonable compared with other interventions carried out in both intensive care unit (ICU) and non-ICU patients.

 The study results show that money spent on cardiac patients is reasonable and well worth it. I think it’s more than that. I think that human life is priceless and everybody deserves the health care they need, regardless of the cost.

Photo credit: wgroesel at stock.xchng

               

Remembering Tim Russert

Instead of featuring a heart(y) celebrity this month, I would like to pay my respects to Tim Russert of NBC.

I was travelling around Western Europe when I heard of his unexpected death. Even here in the old continent, his name and face was known, especially among the English-speaking community. Russert was a respected political journalist whose opinion carried a lot of weight in the political scene.

There was a lot of speculation in the media about his untimely death and whether his death could have been prevented. These led a lot of contradicting reports about Russert’s case.

Heartwire discussed the Russert’s case with 3 cardiovascular experts. On the downside, Russert’s condition can be summarized as follows:

• He had an asymptomatic coronary artery disease.
• He had hypertension and high cholesterol and triglyceride levels.
• Ten years ago, he had a calcium CT scan score of 210, indicating moderate to high risk for a heart attack.
• He was overweight.
• He was in considerable stress
• He was sleep-deprived, probably as part of his job in following the US presidential preliminaries.

On the upside:

• As a seasoned journalist, Tim Russert was surely aware of his risks and was doing a lot to manage his risks.
• His sugar levels were slightly elevated but without indications of diabetes.
• He seemed to have his cholesterol levels and blood pressure under control with medications.
• He regularly did physical exercise.

The downside may indeed have won over the upside. Tim Russert had a heart attack and collapsed in his work place at NBC on Friday, 13 June. Russert was defibrillated three times, presumably with an automatic external defibrillator (AED) on site before his delivery at Sibley Memorial Hospital.

Autopsy after his death showed an enlarged left ventricle. The immediate cause of death was identified as “ventricular fibrillation following plaque rupture in his left anterior descending artery.”

Could Tim Russert’s death have been prevented with newer tests and treatments?

One expert interviewed by heartwire, Dr. Dr Eric Topol of Scripps Translational Science Institute commented that monitoring Russert’s C-reactive protein (CRP) levels could have given more information about his risk for a heart attack. CRP is a major biomarker of inflammation.

According to the American Heart Association

“While many heart attacks can be prevented before they occur, or treated while in progress to halt or lessen the damage, not all can; coronary heart disease is still the number one killer of men, accounting for more than half of all deaths among men. More than 50 percent of all men who die of coronary heart disease have no previous symptoms.”

Truly “in the midst of life,” the monsters heart disease and stroke are waiting for their next victim.

 

Photo credit

               

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