by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
And speaking of the flu . . . In case you need to be convinced to cough into your sleeve, watch this NPR film featuring the amazing medical animation talent of David Bolinski illustrating how influenza affects your body – and then forward this link to everybody you know.
While you’re at it, consider NPR’s alternatives to shaking hands during the flu season too!
Sweden is apparently the place to be if you are a twin. This country boasts the world’s largest Twin Registry, following over 70,000 pairs of twins born before 1985, with ongoing new studies of younger twins starting when they reach the age of nine.
Right now, over 30 ongoing research projects based on the Twin Registry cover a wide range of topics like aging, dementia, allergy, cancer, and cardiovascular disease. Researchers are also looking at the effects of gender differences on health and life situations.
And the Swedish Twin Registry was recently part of a groundbreaking study to determine whether the risk for hip fracture is increased in people who have cardiovascular disease. Continue reading “Heart disease brings higher risk for future hip fracture”
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
People with heart disease have a harder time coping with the flu than people without heart disease. This is because the influenza virus produces significant stress on the cardiovascular system – breathing difficulty, changes in blood pressure, rapid heart rate, and even direct effects on the heart – that make this illness particularly difficult and even dangerous for anyone who has heart disease.
That’s why I went for my flu vaccine this morning at my local health clinic. In fact, I had two flu shots today, one in each arm: one for the pandemic H1N1 influenza, and one for Influenza A&B, the ‘normal’ seasonal flu. I was assessed as a high priority flu shot recipient because I’m under the age of 65 with a heart condition – just barely ahead of the NHL’s Calgary Flames and Toronto Maple Leafs hockey teams whose players are apparently (who knew?) in a very high risk and high priority group, too, right up there with heart attack survivors.
Whoever we are, getting hit by the flu is no picnic, as described in this love letter from your flu bug:
“I want you.
I shall seek and find you.
I shall take you to bed and have my way with you.
I will make you ache, shake and sweat till you moan and groan.
I will make you beg for mercy.
I will exhaust you to the point that you will be relieved when I’m finished with you, and you will be weak for days.”All my love,
H1N1
The strongest evidence for protection from a flu shot in those with heart disease comes from the Flu Vaccination in Acute Coronary Syndromes study. Researchers followed patients who had been hospitalized for either a heart attack or a planned angioplasty, half of whom were randomly assigned to receive a flu vaccine and half remained unvaccinated. Over the next year, twice as many of the unvaccinated group (23%) died of heart disease, had a non-fatal heart attack, or developed severe ischemia (insufficient blood supply to the heart tissue), compared with those who were vaccinated (11%). Continue reading “Should heart patients get the flu vaccine?”
UPDATE: June 16, 2016: This 2009 post has been removed after I decided that I cannot in good conscience help in any way to promote physicians who recommend goofy therapies, remedies or unfortunate “miracle in a bottle!” cures (what the watchdog site Respectful Insolence has aptly described as “ranging from fairly pedestrian to pure quackery”).
To find out what Dr. Oz “evidence” is really all about, watch his compelling skewering at the hands of the astute U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill.
Heart Sisters 