Scientists found that those who experienced blurred or difficult vision during the painful headaches and carried certain genes were twice as likely to have a heart attack or stroke.

The findings could indicate that doctors should monitor patients with the condition more closely.

Around nine million people Britain regularly suffer from migraines, with an estimated 80 per cent thought to have an attack at least once a month.

Around one in four are thought to have migraine with aura, whose symptoms can include flashing lights, black spots or zig-zag patterns in front of their eyes, as well as debilitating head pain.

The researchers found that migraine with aura sufferers who also carried certain genes were twice as likely to have a heart attack or stroke as women who never got migraines.

Migraine with aura sufferers who did not have the genes had no increased risk and neither did those who experienced no visual problems.

“The complex relationship among this gene variant, migraine, stroke and heart disease has been the focus of many studies and the results have been controversial,” said Dr Markus Schürks, from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

“Getting to the bottom of whether there is a connection and why may help to develop ways to prevent issues like stroke and heart disease, which are leading causes of death.”

He called for more studies to back up the findings.

The research looked at 25,000 women, aged over 45, almost a fifth who suffered from migraine, including 1,275 who had migraine with aura.

Over 12 years, 625 of the women had a stroke, heart attack or both, according to the study, published in the journal Neurology.

Prof Peter Goadsby, from the University of California, San Francisco, and the Institute of Neurology, London, emphasised that the paper confirmed previous studies that there was no increased risk for stroke or cardiovascular disease in migraine without aura patients.

“(This is) good news, as this represents about three-quarters of those affected by the disorder,” he said.

“Although the risk of cardiovascular disease is doubled in patients with active migraine with aura, it’s important to realise the risk is already small, and when you double a small risk you still have a small risk.

“The authors rightly note that there were few heart attacks and that the study needs repeating; the margin for error here is wide and it might be that the link isn’t there at all. We will only know when we see the results of more research.”

Migraine is listed as one of the top 20 most debilitating conditions by the World Health Organisation because of the impact it can have on quality of life.

Source: Telegraph

Kevin Smith was driving to work on a September morning last year when his arms suddenly went numb.

He broke into a sweat.

And as he passed Rush-Copley Medical Center in Aurora, he decided to pull into the parking lot.

“I think I’m having a heart attack,” the 40-year-old Plainfield man said as he walked into the emergency room.

That was on a Monday. Five days later, Smith woke up in a hospital bed surrounded by beeping machines and family who flew in from California and New York for what they feared would be his funeral.

Doctors said Smith survived a heart attack so massive his heart stopped beating five times.

“I was the one they brought back to life,” Smith said on Monday afternoon, his cheeks now rosy and his eyes now bright.

He looked down for a moment in thought. The gravity of the incident always hits him hardest when he says it out loud.

This month, which is designated Heart Health Month, hospitals throughout the Fox Valley are trying to raise awareness about heart disease and preventive measures.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death among men and women in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While obesity, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and older age are known risk factors for the disease, it affects the young and the fit as well — often due to genetics.

Smith, rail-thin and tall, didn’t have any major risk factors, according to Dr. Todd Guynn, the cardiac surgeon who massaged his heart back to life.

Neither did Bob Hoerdeman of Plainfield, who was playing soccer when chest pain forced him off the field and onto the bench on a spring day in 2005. He was 56 years old at the time.

It turns out Hoerdeman, who said he never had high blood pressure or cholesterol, had a heart attack.

Doctors at Rush-Copley located a blood clot in a major artery and were able to dissolve it with what Hoerdeman called a cocktail of drugs.

“By the grace of God,” he said, “it just wasn’t my time.”

Hoerdeman’s recovery at the hospital’s cardio rehabilitation center was gradual and painful. But an easy walk on the treadmill turned into a slow jog and eventually, the Chicago marathon, which he ran with his nephew last October.

At the finish line, Hoerdeman felt overwhelming relief.

“Another mile and that was it,” he said. “It took every ounce of everything I had.”

Heart disease is prominent in Hoerdeman’s family. His brother died of a heart attack when he was 38.

Dr. Dave Chua, a cardiologist at Dreyer Medical Clinic in Aurora, who also sees patients at Provena Mercy Medical Center in Aurora, said having a family history of heart disease doesn’t necessarily mean you will have it, too.

“The emphasis,” Chua said, “is on prevention.”

Over the past three years, Chua has seen an increase in young patients — as young as their early 20s — suffering from obesity and heart attacks.

The keys to prevention, Chua said, are diet, exercise and weight management.

“You can’t talk about one without talking about any of the others,” he said.

Since his surgery, Smith began walking regularly and he eats healthier, focusing on fruits, vegetables and chicken, rather than fast food.

Smith also urged his seven siblings to get their cholesterol tested — and four of them had such high cholesterol levels that they were prescribed medicine.

“I saved their lives,” Smith said, joking.

But his wide grin showed that in a way, he knew it was true.

Source: Suburban Chicago News

A person’s handwriting may be able to aid in the early diagnosis of heart disease, according to a handwriting expert from Wiltshire, England.

“I managed to find a statistically significant difference in the writing of patients with cardiac disease and my control group,” said Christina Strang, who has been a graphologist for 12 years. “I’ve found one particular movement in the writing, although I actually believe there’s far more than just the one link, and my research is going to be continuing, looking to see if I can find those other links as well.”

Strang asked 61 heart patients from Pool Hospital in Swindon to provide handwriting samples for her, then compared these to samples provided by people without any cardiovascular disease.

“I ask the person to write down 100 words about a holiday or something, but I only analyze the last 30 words because this is when they are relaxed and write naturally,” she said.

Strang discovered that handwriting samples from heart patients contained twice as many “resting dots,” produced when the pen pauses on a piece of paper for mere milliseconds, as the samples from healthy people.

“These resting dots can be because the heart misses a beat or a sudden pain,” Strang hypothesized.

“In the group I used, some had been diagnosed and some hadn’t, so I’m hoping to do a completely new group of people who have not been diagnosed with heart disease and the idea is to see if I can pick out the ones that will ultimately be diagnosed.”

Strang also hopes to see whether the same signs can also be used to detect the early stages of other chronic conditions, such as diabetes and arthritis.

“There could also be many other signs within patients’ handwriting,” she said, “but I haven’t been able to identify these yet.”

Source: Natural News

A synthetic high-density lipoprotein (HDL) — the “good” cholesterol — may hold promise for combating chronically high cholesterol levels and the deadly cardiovascular disease it can cause.

The synthetic HDL, created by Northwestern University researchers, is close in size to natural HDL with a near-matching general surface composition. It also has the ability to bind irreversibly to cholesterol.

“We have designed and built a cholesterol sponge. The synthetic HDL features the basics of what a great cholesterol drug should be,” study co-leader Chad A. Mirkin, a Northwestern professor of medicine and also materials science and engineering, said in a news release issued by the school.

The findings were published online in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

With a gold nanoparticle as its core, synthetic HDL has two lipid layers covered by the main component of natural HDL — the APOA1 protein.

“Cholesterol is essential to our cells, but chronic excess can lead to dangerous plaque formation in our arteries,” study co-leader Dr. Shad Thaxton, an assistant professor of urology in Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine, said in the same news release. “HDL transports cholesterol to the liver, which protects against atherosclerosis. Our hope is that, with further development, our synthetic form of HDL could be used to increase HDL levels and promote better health.”

The team will now study and evaluate how synthetic HDL acts in biological conditions.

“Drugs that lower the bad cholesterol, LDL, are available, and you can lower LDL through your diet, but it is difficult to raise the good cholesterol, HDL. We are hopeful that our synthetic HDL will one day help fill this gap in useful therapeutics,” Mirkin said.

Source: Health Day

Good Housekeeping took the ultimate breakfast muffin and made it healthier by reducing the calories and fat. With a tweak here and there each lightened-up muffin has 75 fewer calories, 5.5 grams less fat, and half the cholesterol of the original!

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup old-fashioned or quick-cooking oats, uncooked
1/3 cup nonfat (skim) milk
2/3 cup applesauce, unsweetened
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup light (mild) molasses
2 tablespoon canola oil
1 large egg
3 medium carrots, shredded (1.5 cups)
1/2 cup prunes, chopped

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Grease 12 standard muffin-pan cups or line cups with fluted paper liners.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon; stir in oats. In medium bowl, with fork, mix milk, applesauce, brown sugar, molasses, oil, and egg until blended; stir in carrots and prunes. Add applesauce mixture to flour mixture; stir just until flour is moistened (batter will be lumpy).
3. Spoon batter into prepared muffin-pan cups. (Muffin cups will be full.) Bake 23 to 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center of a muffin comes out clean. Immediately remove muffins from pan. Serve warm, or cool on wire rack to serve later.

Nutritional Information:
Calories 165
Total Fat 3g
Saturated Fat –
Cholesterol 18mg
Sodium 200mg
Total Carbohydrate 32g
Dietary Fiber 2g
Sugars –
Protein 3g
Calcium –

Source: GoodHousekeeping

I have recently started using a wonderful site for counting calories, tracking exercise and even water intake.

LiveStrong.com recently merged with The Daily Plate and is free. Is the best tool I have found. They even have a mobile version for my iPhone which came in handy last week while eating out. We were at Applebees and thanks to the foods list I was able to check the calories of the items before I ordered so I could stay within my calorie limit.

There is also another free iPhone app that is similar but is not web based. I use this one also. Lose It can be found at the iTunes Store. You won’t be sorry!

The most quick and easy way to lose weight is that you should do some kind of vigorous exercises and you should also cut down on your calories. Walking helps you to burn your calories and is also among very good exercises. If you walk fast, it keeps your heart healthy and fit.

The universal consent is 1400 calories in a day must help you to reduce weight. You must not crash your calories the entire at once, carry out a little hundred calories a week, however no more than 600 calories. You must attempt to do this by seeing the foods you eat more so than the quantity. If you eat lower calories food you can eat a larger amount.

If you are an inactive person then it is preferred that you should eat several small meals in a day than one or two large ones, as you might be inclined to over eat which will make the calories turn into fat and will increase your weight. Eat lean meats, low carbohydrate food and plenty of fruits and vegetables. You require a definite quantity of carbohydrates in your meals, and fat to help you burn up power.

This must not be just altering in diet until you reduce the weight, as it will appear back if you do not continue your routine. This requires being a lifestyle modify. Eat tiny healthy snacks and meals. You have a better chance of sticking to the plan if you are not hungry. And also you should not pass up your preferred foods on the whole, just eat them rarely and in control.

If you want to reduce weight fast you need to have a count of amount of calories that you intake in a day, and also estimate it by the amount of activity you do, by which these calories are burn out. The norm is that about 55% of calories should be burned each day. Keep in mind to chat to your medical doctor and get his guidance. This is mainly significant if you have any original fitness troubles. You may discover that the physical exercise and cut in calorie ingestion can help to reduce some health troubles like lower your heart attack and stroke risk, help you better control diabetes and lesser your blood pressure. Once more keep in contact with your medical doctor as change needed in medication is not all that rare.

Source: Article Dash Board

Makes 20 cookies

Ingredients:

* 1 cup all-purpose flour
* ½ cup oat flour
* 1 cup almond meal
* ½ t. baking soda
* ½ t. salt
* 1 ¼ cup apricot preserves
* 1/3 cup 1 T. maple syrup
* 2 T. canola oil
* 1/3 cup sugar, plus more for dusting

Preparation:

1. In a medium-sized bowl, sift together the flour, almond meal, baking soda and salt. Mix together the aprictot preserves, maple syrup, canola oil, and sugar until blended. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, mixing until just combined. Fold in the chocolate chips. Place the dough in the freezer to chill for 20 mintues.

2. Preheat the oven to 375 F. Lightly oil a a large baking sheet. Set aside.

3. Drop the dough onto the prepared sheet, leaving about 2” between cookies. Dust cookies lightly with sugar. Bake for about 13-15 minutes, or until the edges are lightly brown. Let the cookies cool on the pan before transferring them to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

Some heart attacks are sudden and intense — the “movie heart attack,” where no one doubts what’s happening. But most heart attacks start slowly, with mild pain or discomfort. Often people affected aren’t sure what’s wrong and wait too long before getting help. Here are signs that can mean a heart attack is happening:

* 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 with or without chest discomfort.
* Other signs may include breaking out in a cold sweat, nausea or lightheadedness

As with men, women’s most common heart attack symptom is chest pain or discomfort. But women are somewhat more likely than men to experience some of the other common symptoms, particularly shortness of breath, nausea/vomiting, and back or jaw pain.

Learn the signs, but remember this: Even if you’re not sure it’s a heart attack, have it checked out (tell a doctor about your symptoms). Minutes matter! Fast action can save lives — maybe your own. Don’t wait more than five minutes to call 9-1-1.

Calling 9-1-1 is almost always the fastest way to get lifesaving treatment. Emergency medical services (EMS) staff can begin treatment when they arrive — up to an hour sooner than if someone gets to the hospital by car. EMS staff are also trained to revive someone whose heart has stopped. Patients with chest pain who arrive by ambulance usually receive faster treatment at the hospital, too. It is best to call EMS for rapid transport to the emergency room.

If you can’t access the emergency medical services (EMS), have someone drive you to the hospital right away. If you’re the one having symptoms, don’t drive yourself, unless you have absolutely no other option.

Source: AHA

Join with millions of women, as well as companies, organizations and cities across America on National Wear Red Day, Friday, Feb. 6, 2009. By wearing red and making a donation, you’ll help the American Heart Association support ongoing research and education about women and heart disease.

Read more at AHA