Now this is good to hear, but even better 'to eat'!
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Posted: 06 December 2011
WASHINGTON: Women of childbearing age can reduce their risk of heart problems by regularly eating fish rich in omega 3 fatty acids, said a Danish study out Monday.
The study is the first to examine younger women, age 15-49, and determine whether fish in their diet has a real impact on their current likelihood of heart problems, instead of their longevity.
For instance, "those who rarely or never ate fish had 50 percent more cardiovascular problems over eight years than those who ate fish regularly," the research said.
Women who rarely or never ate fish faced a 90 percent higher risk of heart problems than those who ate fish weekly.
When researchers looked at hospital admissions for cardiovascular disease in three different assessments over a 30 week period, they found it was three times higher among women who did not eat fish.
The findings, published in Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association, are based on a Danish study of 49,000 women with a median age of 30 that spanned eight years.
Women were interviewed by phone about their family history, lifestyle and fish consumption, and were tracked over the next eight years.
"We saw a strong association with cardiovascular disease in the women who were still in their late 30s," said Marin Strom, lead researcher and post doctoral fellow at the Centre for Fetal Programming at Statens Serum Institut in Copenhagen, Denmark.
"The biggest challenge in getting health messages like this across to younger populations is that usually the benefits may not be evident for 30 or 40 years, but our study shows this is not the case."
Women most commonly reported eating cod, salmon, herring, and mackerel, all of which are high in omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, believed to protect against heart and vascular disease.
The study focused exclusively on dietary intake of fish, not supplements with fish oil.
"Women who eat fish should find the results encouraging, but it is important to emphasize that to obtain the greatest benefit from fish and fish oils, women should follow the dietary recommendations to eat fish as a main meal at least twice a week," said Strom.
-AFP/ac
Taken from ChannelNewsAsia.com; source article is below:
Eating fish boosts heart health in young women
Posted: 15 November 2011
PARIS: Stem cells from heart-attack patients helped improve blood-pumping ability and restore vitality in cardiac muscle, according to a small trial published on Monday.
It is the first time patients have been given an infusion of their own
cardiac stem cells in the aim of solving the impact of heart failure rather than simply treating the symptoms of it.
The findings are so promising that the study's chief investigator said a potential "revolution" was in the offing if larger trials succeeded.
Stem cells are infant cells that develop into the specialised tissues of the body.
They have sparked great excitement as they offer hopes of rebuilding organs damaged by disease or accident.
The new study, published online in The Lancet, tested cardiac stem cells on 16 patients who had been left gravely ill as a result of an acute myocardial infarction.
The index used for cardiac health is called the left ventricular ejection fraction (LVFV), which calculates the capacity of the left ventricle to expel blood in the space of a heartbeat.
For a person in normal health, the LVFV is 50 percent or higher.
Among the study patients, though, this had fallen to 40 percent or lower. At such a threshold, shortness of breath and fatigue are chronic and often disabling.
The stem cells were isolated from a coronary artery that had been removed when the patients underwent a coronary bypass.
Within four months of treatment, the LVFV rose by 8.5 percent and after a year by 12 percent - four times what the researchers had expected.
Scans of the patients' hearts also showed a reduction in the area of tissue that had been scarred by the infarction, a discovery that challenges conventional belief that once scarring occurs, heart tissue is permanently dead.
The volunteers also reported a substantial improvement in quality of life, and there were no significant side effects.
Seven patients with similar heart problems were enrolled as "controls", to serve as a comparison. There was no change in their LVFV, in scar tissue or in their quality of life.
"The results are striking," said lead investigator Roberto Bolli of the University of Louisville, Kentucky.
"While we do not know why the improvement occurs, we have no doubt now that 1/8LVFV 3/8 increased and scarring decreased.
"If these results hold up in future studies, I believe this could be the biggest revolution in cardiovascular medicine in my lifetime."
The team is seeking funding to launch a larger, or Phase II, trial - the second in the normal three-phase process of assessing a new treatment for safet and effectiveness.
Previous stem-cell work on heart damage has used cells harvested from bone marrow.
The interest in cardiac stem cells is that they are self-renewing, produce daughter cells and differentiate into all types of cells in the heart.
The results were presented concurrently at a meeting of the American Heart Association in Orlando, Florida.
-AFP/pn
Taken from ChannelNewsAsia.com; source article is below:
Broken heart fix with stem cells
Kids, this is something that you should beware of: too much TV!
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Posted: 20 April 2011
SYDNEY: Children who spend too much time watching television increase the risk of heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes in later life, an Australian study showed on Wednesday.
In what was declared world-first research, the University of Sydney found that six- to seven-year-olds who spent the most time watching television had narrower arteries in the back of their eyes.
This increased their chances of developing heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes when they were older.
"Parents need to get their children up and moving and off the couch," said Dr Bamini Gopinath, the lead author.
The study examined 1,500 six- and seven-year-olds in 34 primary schools in Sydney.
On average, the children studied spent 1.9 hours a day watching television and 36 minutes a day in organised physical activity.
Those with the highest levels of physical activity -- just over an hour or more -- had significantly wider retinal arteries on average than those who spent less than half an hour a day being physically active.
"We found children with a high level of physical activity had a more beneficial microvascular profile compared to those with the lowest levels of physical activity," said Gopinath.
"This suggests unhealthy lifestyle factors may influence microcirculation early in life and increase the risk of heart disease and high blood pressure later in life."
Gopinath, senior research fellow at the Westmead Millennium Institute's Centre for Vision Research, added that excessive screen time leads to less physical activity, unhealthy dietary habits and weight gain.
"Replacing one hour a day of screen time with physical activity could be effective in buffering the effects of sedentary lifestyles on the retinal microvasculature in children," he said.
"Free play should be promoted and schools should have a mandatory two hours a week in physical activity for children."
The study is reported this week in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology: Journal of the American Heart Association.
-AFP/ck
Taken From ChannelNewsAsia.com; source article is below:
Too much TV puts children's hearts at risk: study
