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Tag: stroke
Just Heartbreaking

Just Heartbreaking

The BBC, citing a study in JAMA’s Internal Medicine, speculates on whether one can die of a broken heart.

“The study found that, while it happened rarely, the number of people who had a heart attack or a stroke in the month after a loved-one died was double that of a matched control group who were not grieving (50 out of 30,447 in the bereaved group, or 0.16 percent, compared with 67 out of 83,588 in the non-bereaved group, or 0.08 percent).

One of the authors, Dr Sunil Shah of St George’s at the University of London, told the BBC: “We often use the term a ‘broken heart’ to signify the pain of losing a loved-one and our study shows that bereavement can have a direct effect on the health of the heart.”

Photo: Olivier Kaderli via Flickr

Potential For Heart Attack, Stroke Risk Seen With Marijuana Use

Potential For Heart Attack, Stroke Risk Seen With Marijuana Use

By Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times

Over a five-year period, a government-mandated tracking system in France showed that physicians in that country treated 1,979 patients for serious health problems associated with the use of marijuana, and nearly 2 percent of those encounters were with patients suffering from cardiovascular problems, including heart attack, cardiac arrhythmia and stroke, and circulation problems in the arms and legs. In roughly a quarter of those cases, the study found, the patient died.

In the United States, when young and otherwise healthy patients show up in emergency departments with symptoms of heart attack, stroke, cardiomyopathy and cardiac arrhythmia, physicians have frequently noted in case reports that these unusual patients are regular marijuana users.

Such reporting is hardly the basis for declaring marijuana use an outright cause of cardiovascular disease. But on Wednesday, cardiologists writing in the Journal of the American Heart Association warned that “clinical evidence … suggests the potential for serious cardiovascular risks associated with marijuana use.” And with a growing movement to decriminalize marijuana use, they called for data-collection efforts capable of detecting and measuring marijuana’s cardiovascular impact among American users of cannibis setiva.

“There is now compelling evidence on the growing risk of marijuana-associated adverse cardiovascular effects, especially in young people,” said Emilie Jouanjus, lead author of the French study, which was also published in the Journal of the American Heart Association. That evidence, Jouanjus added, should prompt cardiologists to consider marijuana use a potential cause of cardiovascular disease in patients they see.

In an editorial published Wednesday in the AHA journal, Drs. Sherief Rezkalla and Robert A. Kloner asked, “Do we really know enough about the cardiovascular effects of marijuana to feel comfortable about its use in patients with known cardiovascular disease or patients with cardiovascular risk factors,” including obesity, sedentary behavior, high blood pressure and worrisome cholesterol numbers.

Rezkalla and Kloner combed the recent medical literature for animal experiments, observational studies and case reports linking marijuana use in close temporal proximity with cardiovascular events. They cited evidence that marijuana use probably increases clotting factors in the blood and that heavy marijuana use may lead to significant changes in the tiny vessels carrying blood to the heart and brain, such that even after clearance of a major blockage, blood flow remains impeded.

Aside from heart attacks and strokes, case studies linked recent marijuana use in patients seeking care for increased angina, ischemic ulcers and gangrene associated with blocked blood flow to extremities and transient ischemic attacks, sometimes called “mini-strokes.” Notably these complaints often came from patients who were young and had no previous evidence of cardiovascular disease.

“We think the time has come to stop and think about what is the best way to protect our communities from the potential danger of widespread marijuana use in the absence of safety studies,” added Rezkalla, a cardiologist at the Marshfield Clinic in Wisconsin, and Kloner, a cardiologist at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine. “It is the responsibility of the medical community to determine the safety of the drug before it is widely legalized for recreational use.”

AFP Photo/Desiree Martin

2,000 Extra Steps A Day Cuts Cardiovascular Risk By Eight Percent

2,000 Extra Steps A Day Cuts Cardiovascular Risk By Eight Percent

Paris (AFP) – People with a glucose-tolerance problem — a driver of diabetes and cardiovascular disease — can cut the risk of heart attack or stroke by simply walking an additional 2,000 steps per day, a study said on Friday.

The experiment gathered more than 9,300 adults in 40 countries with so-called impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) who had also been diagnosed with cardiovascular disease or were considered at risk from it.

They all received a “lifestyle modification programme,” advising them of the benefits of reducing body weight and dietary fat and doing regular exercise.

They were also issued with pedometers, which clocked up how many paces they walked each week, both at the start of the experiment and 12 months later.

Volunteers who added 2,000 steps — around 20 minutes of moderate walking — to their existing daily schedule reduced the cardiovascular risk by eight percent by the time of the study ended, six years later.

The study, published in The Lancet, said IGT affects about 344 million people, or 7.9 percent of the world’s adult population — a tally expected to rise to 472 million (8.4 percent) by 2030.

“People with IGT have a greatly increased risk of cardiovascular disease”, study leader Thomas Yates from the University of Leicester, central England, said in a press release.

“While several studies have suggested that physical activity is beneficially linked to health in those with IGT, this is the first study to specifically quantify the extent to which change in walking behaviour can modify the risk.”

Photo: Damien Meyer via AFP