Interesting study. The link takes you to the abstract.
Heart Disease
Red Meat’s Heart Risk Goes Beyond The Fat : NPR
Red Meat’s Heart Risk Goes Beyond The Fat : NPR.
Everything you need to know about L-carnitine and TMAO (Trimethylamine N-oxide).
Diastolic Dysfunction Common in RA
Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have an increased incidence of diastolic dysfunction, which may further raise their already high risk for congestive heart failure, a meta-analysis suggested.
Patients with RA have double the incidence of heart failure compared with the larger population, and this finding has prompted interest in determining the origins of heart failure in these patients.
PLOS Medicine: Erectile Dysfunction Severity as a Risk Marker for Cardiovascular Disease Hospitalisation and All-Cause Mortality: A Prospective Cohort Study
What Did the Researchers Do and Find?
The researchers used information from the established 45 and Up Study, a large cohort study that includes 123,775 men aged 45 and over, selected at random from the general population of New South Wales, a large region of Australia. A total of 95,038 men were included in this analysis. The male participants completed a postal questionnaire that included a question on erectile functioning, which allowed the researchers to define erectile dysfunction as none, mild, moderate, or severe. Using information captured in the New South Wales Admitted Patient Data Collection—a complete record of all public and private hospital admissions, including the reasons for admission and the clinical diagnosis—and the government death register, the researchers were able to determine health outcomes of all study participants. They then used a statistical model to estimate hospital admissions for cardiovascular disease events for different levels of erectile dysfunction.
The researchers found that the rates of severe erectile dysfunction among study participants were 2.2% for men aged 45–54 years, 6.8% for men aged 55–64 years, 20.2% for men aged 65–74 years, 50.0% for men aged 75–84 years, and 75.4% for men aged 85 years and over. During the study period, the researchers recorded 7,855 hospital admissions related to cardiovascular disease and 2,304 deaths. The researchers found that among men without previous cardiovascular disease, those with severe erectile dysfunction were more likely to develop ischemic heart disease (risk 1.60), heart failure (risk 8.00), peripheral vascular disease (risk 1.92), and other causes of cardiovascular disease (risk 1.26) than men without erectile dysfunction. The risks of heart attacks and heart conduction problems were also increased (1.66 and 6.62, respectively). Furthermore, the combined risk of all cardiovascular disease outcomes was 1.35, and the overall risk of death was also higher (risk 1.93) in these men. The researchers found that these increased risks were similar in men with erectile dysfunction who had previously been diagnosed with cardiovascular disease.
Citation: Banks E, Joshy G, Abhayaratna WP, Kritharides L, Macdonald PS, et al. (2013) Erectile Dysfunction Severity as a Risk Marker for Cardiovascular Disease Hospitalisation and All-Cause Mortality: A Prospective Cohort Study. PLoS Med 10(1): e1001372. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001372
Copyright: © 2013 Banks et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Vitamin D Level Predicts Death in CABG
Patients with vitamin D deficiency or insufficiency, defined by levels of 25(OH)D, had significantly higher 90-day mortality after CABG than those who had sufficient levels of the vitamin (OR 5.24 and OR 4.61, respectively), Takuhiro Moromizato, MD, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and colleagues reported during an oral session at the Society of Critical Care Medicine meeting.
The study was limited by its observational design, which can’t prove causality, and by the potential for selection bias and unmeasured confounders.
Berries Ward Off MI in Women
Women whose anthocyanin intake was in the highest quintile had a 32% decrease in risk of MI during 18 years of follow-up (HR 0.68, 95% CI 0.49 to 0.96, P=0.03), according to Eric B. Rimm, ScD, of Harvard University, and colleagues.
Omega 3s May Be No Help Against Stroke, MI
Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid supplementation does not appear to reduce the risk of cardiovascular or cerebrovascular events, a study has found.
Note that the lack of a significant effect of omega-3 supplementation is consistent with the majority of the large studies on the topic.
Diet’s Role in Lowering Risk of Repeat Heart Attacks – WSJ.com
People with the healthiest diets—those with the highest intakes of fruit, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and a higher intake of fish relative to meat poultry and eggs—were 35% less likely to die from a repeat heart attack or stroke during the length of the study, compared with those with the least healthy diets, according to the five-year study of 32,000 people in 40 countries.
They also were 28% less likely to develop congestive heart failure, 14% less likely to have an additional heart attack and 19% less likely to have a stroke.
via Diet’s Role in Lowering Risk of Repeat Heart Attacks – WSJ.com.
Artery Damage Seen in Sleep Apnea
People with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) have subclinical arterial disease on par with that seen in patients with diabetes, researchers found.
Patients with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea have endothelial dysfunction and arterial stiffness, similar to patients with diabetes mellitus.
via Artery Damage Seen in Sleep Apnea.
Small study with some interesting findings.
Afib Linked to Sudden Cardiac Death
Atrial fibrillation may raise the risk of sudden cardiac death, according to findings from two large population-based cohorts.
The risk of sudden cardiac death was elevated 3.26-fold with incident atrial fibrillation in multivariate analysis of the ARIC (Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities) study, Lin Y. Chen, MD, MS, of the University of Minnesota Medical School in Minneapolis, and colleagues found.
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