Heart Disease

Plavix, the brand name for the blood-thinning drug taken by millions of people with heart disease to avoid heart attacks and strokes, will soon be on pharmacy shelves in generic form. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave approval to the generic versions this week. Plavix, whose generic name is clopidogrel, was made and marketed through a partnership of Sanofi-Aventis and Bristol-Myers Squibb. It had U.S. sales of about $6.7 billion for the 12 months ending March 31, 2012, according to IMS Health.

The blood-pressure-lowering drugs known as ACE inhibitors are a mainstay of treatment for many diseases. But with growing use of these heart-helping medications, more and more patients are winding up in emergency rooms with a rare side effect that most have not been warned about: swelling around the face and neck. In the worst cases, the patient's tongue and throat become hugely bloated, closing the airway. No medications can slow or reverse this swelling, called angioedema.

In rejecting PSA screening for prostate cancer, an influential federal panel has chipped a cornerstone of preventive medicine, declaring that it's not always best to catch cancer as early as possible. "At best, PSA screening may help only 1 man in 1,000 avoid death from prostate cancer," the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force said Monday. "Most prostate cancers found by PSA screening are slow growing, not life threatening, and will not cause a man any harm during his lifetime.

Question: My triglyceride level was 419 and my doctor recommended that I take the drug Tricor to lower it. Since I feel fine, do I need to take it? Why is an elevated triglyceride level bad? What raises the triglycerides? Answer: Triglycerides are a part of the total cholesterol in your blood. For years, we weren't quite sure whether or not treating triglycerides made a difference in preventing heart disease. High levels over 400 usually got treated, while numbers between 200 and 400 were treated at the doctor's discretion.

Question: For the last six months, I've had two attacks of small bowel obstruction caused by adhesions. I've been told that there's nothing I can do to prevent future attacks. Can you elaborate on this subject? Answer: Unfortunately, there's not much you can do to prevent the recurrence of those painful, pesky, periodic obstructions to one or more loops of bowel that make up the small intestine. Adhesions are areas of tough, fibrous scar tissue that develop in the abdomen as a result of prior surgery like an appendectomy or gall bladder removal.

A noninvasive scan that looks inside cardiac arteries can rapidly and reliably rule out the possibility of a heart attack among many emergency-room patients complaining of chest pain, according to a study led by University of Pennsylvania researchers. The findings provide the strongest evidence to date that "CT angiography" could relieve a diagnostic dilemma - how to efficiently distinguish patients who can safely be sent home from those who should stay in the hospital. About eight million annual ER visits are for chest pain.

San Francisco 49ers offensive lineman Thomas Herrion had heart disease and evidence of previous heart trouble when he collapsed and died after a preseason game last month in Denver, an official in county coroner's office said yesterday. The coroner's findings confirmed the beliefs of Herrion's family and friends, who were certain drugs played no role in Herrion's death Aug. 20. Herrion's heart condition was caused by factors that are often nearly undetectable, though fairly rare in a 23-year-old athlete in good physical condition.

WASHINGTON - Be happy - it seems to be good for your heart. Scientists have long known that Type A personalities and people who are chronically angry, anxious, or depressed have a higher risk of heart attacks. Now a Harvard review of the flip side of that psychology concludes that being upbeat and optimistic just might help protect against heart disease. Rather than focusing only on how to lessen heart risks, "it might also be useful to focus on how we might bolster the positive side of things," said lead researcher Julia Boehm of the Harvard School of Public Health.

More than 30,000 cardiologists from around the world met in Orlando, Fla., last week to hear the latest research on heart disease. New findings on vitamin E, cholesterol and heart disease among African Americans were part of the research presented at the American College of Cardiology's 45th annual conference. The new cholesterol study - of people who've already had heart attacks - found that cholesterol-lowering drugs can cut their risk of another heart attack - or death - significantly.

It's time to pump it up - your bicycle, that is. Sunday morning, you can hit the road for the fifth annual Girls with Gears: A Women's Cycling Event, to be held at Limerick Community Park. The event is sponsored by Bikesport in Trappe and CAROL for Heart Inc. CAROL, a nonprofit, aims to "eradicate women's heart disease through increased awareness and education. " "Almost every minute, a woman in the U.S. dies of heart disease. Nearly five times as many women (200,000)

MILWAUKEE - One of life's simple pleasures just got a little sweeter. After years of waffling research on coffee and health, even some fear that java might raise the risk of heart disease, a large study finds the opposite: Coffee drinkers are a little more likely to live longer. Regular or decaf doesn't matter. The study of 400,000 people is the largest ever on the issue, and the results should reassure any coffee lovers who think it's a guilty pleasure that may do harm. "Our study suggests that's really not the case," said lead researcher Neal Freedman of the National Cancer Institute.

The blood-pressure-lowering drugs known as ACE inhibitors are a mainstay of treatment for many diseases. But with growing use of these heart-helping medications, more and more patients are winding up in emergency rooms with a rare side effect that most have not been warned about: swelling around the face and neck. In the worst cases, the patient's tongue and throat become hugely bloated, closing the airway. No medications can slow or reverse this swelling, called angioedema.

Question: My triglyceride level was 419 and my doctor recommended that I take the drug Tricor to lower it. Since I feel fine, do I need to take it? Why is an elevated triglyceride level bad? What raises the triglycerides? Answer: Triglycerides are a part of the total cholesterol in your blood. For years, we weren't quite sure whether or not treating triglycerides made a difference in preventing heart disease. High levels over 400 usually got treated, while numbers between 200 and 400 were treated at the doctor's discretion.

Please floss and brush, by all means. It's still good for your teeth and gums. But don't imagine that you're going to ward off heart disease in the process. That's the message of a new "scientific statement" from an expert committee of the American Heart Association, which analyzed more than 500 papers and articles on the topic. The idea that periodontal disease might impair the cardiovascular system dates back more than a century, according to the statement, published in the journal Circulation, and the hypothesis had a resurgence beginning about 20 years ago. Indeed, people with bad gums are more likely to have strokes, heart attacks, and hardening of the arteries.

WASHINGTON - Be happy - it seems to be good for your heart. Scientists have long known that Type A personalities and people who are chronically angry, anxious, or depressed have a higher risk of heart attacks. Now a Harvard review of the flip side of that psychology concludes that being upbeat and optimistic just might help protect against heart disease. Rather than focusing only on how to lessen heart risks, "it might also be useful to focus on how we might bolster the positive side of things," said lead researcher Julia Boehm of the Harvard School of Public Health.

WASHINGTON - More people pull the night shift. Teens text past midnight and stumble to class at dawn. Travelers pack red-eye flights. Nodding off behind the wheel isn't the only threat from a lack of shut-eye. There's growing evidence that people who regularly sleep too little and at the wrong time suffer long-lasting consequences that a nap won't cure: An increased risk of diabetes, heart disease and other health problems. "We have a societal conspiracy for sleep deprivation," says Russell Sanna of Harvard Medical School's sleep medicine division.

A noninvasive scan that looks inside cardiac arteries can rapidly and reliably rule out the possibility of a heart attack among many emergency-room patients complaining of chest pain, according to a study led by University of Pennsylvania researchers. The findings provide the strongest evidence to date that "CT angiography" could relieve a diagnostic dilemma - how to efficiently distinguish patients who can safely be sent home from those who should stay in the hospital. About eight million annual ER visits are for chest pain.

Question: For the last six months, I've had two attacks of small bowel obstruction caused by adhesions. I've been told that there's nothing I can do to prevent future attacks. Can you elaborate on this subject? Answer: Unfortunately, there's not much you can do to prevent the recurrence of those painful, pesky, periodic obstructions to one or more loops of bowel that make up the small intestine. Adhesions are areas of tough, fibrous scar tissue that develop in the abdomen as a result of prior surgery like an appendectomy or gall bladder removal.

Whitney Houston officially died of accidental drowning, according to the Los Angeles Coroner's office, that was aggravated by heart disease and cocaine use. Houston had a pre-existing heart condition called atherosclerotic heart disease and the coroner's office found cocaine in the pop diva's system but refused to comment on the level. But the levels indicated that she was a chronic user of the drug. Houston was found underwater and unconscious in the bathtub of her room at the Beverly Hills Hilton on Feb. 11. Pictures obtained by TMZ also showed champagne, beer and prescription drugs in her hotel room but coroner's officials said they were not in excessive quantities.

LOS ANGELES - Whitney Houston was a chronic cocaine user who had the drug in her system when she drowned in a hotel bathtub, coroner's officials said Thursday after releasing autopsy findings that also noted that heart disease contributed to her death. The disclosure ended weeks of speculation about what killed the Grammy-winning singer Feb. 11, on the eve of the Grammy Awards. Houston was found submerged in the bathtub of her room at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, and her death was ruled accidental.