Month: February 2011

Here’s your basic heart-smart grocery shopping list

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 3 Comments


Lose 10 Pounds in 10 Days! Drop One Dress Size a Day!

Rapid weight loss can be so quick and easy – if you believe all those fad diet advertising claims. A fellow heart attack survivor, for example, tells of losing nine pounds in the past five days. She has accomplished this feat, she explains, thanks to a miracle diet she heard about while watching the Dr. Phil show on television.

Phil is always a font of reliable evidence-based health information. (I’m kidding about that last part, my heart sisters).

She was so inspired by this TV interview with a telegenic, fit and very convincing young author of yet another miracle diet book that she went out and bought the expensive best-seller, and says she is now “thrilled” with her resulting nine-pound weight loss results. She does confess, however, that she’s already had to “cheat” on the strict diet a few times in the past five days, and is “struggling” to stay on it so far, but she still seems thrilled nonetheless.

Trouble is, strict weight loss diets typically result in regaining that lost weight – and more.  Continue reading “Here’s your basic heart-smart grocery shopping list” →

How much do you know about heart attacks? Take this quiz

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 3 Comments

True or false? Nausea is a symptom of a heart attack. A heart attack doesn’t start doing damage until a few hours after the onset of symptoms. Men tend to do worse after a heart attack than women.

How much do you really know about heart attacks?

Test your own heart smarts by visiting the excellent website of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services’s new heart attack awareness campaign called Make the Call: Don’t Miss A Beat. And then take this quiz and see how you do.

UPDATE: Sadly, this quiz is no longer available on the USDHHS site.

February is Heart Month!

Find out more about women’s #1 killer at The Heart Truth.

Melissa Mia Hall, who couldn’t afford health insurance, dies of heart attack

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 15 Comments
by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

Melissa Mia Hall, 1954-2011

Melissa Mia Hall’s book-reviewing dog, Daisy

Texas author, artist and book industry journalist Melissa Mia Hall once wrote: “When I need help writing book reviews, my dog Daisy is always eager to lend a paw.” After trying to lift Daisy recently, Melissa felt an odd pain in her chest. She told her editor at Publishers Weekly that she had pulled a muscle. She later emailed a friend:

“Right now really hurting. Hurt my chest/back last night lifting Daisy wrong.  She’s too heavy and I pulled a muscle, I guess. I thought at first I was having a heart attack it was so awful. Tonight I’m really hurting still. Ibuprofen’s not helping much. Using heating pad. It’s been a long painful day and hard to concentrate on much. Why now?  Sigh… xoxo” Continue reading “Melissa Mia Hall, who couldn’t afford health insurance, dies of heart attack” →

The myth of the “Hollywood Heart Attack” for women

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 4 Comments
.
Of course you know what a heart attack looks like:
  • The victim stops what they’re doing.
  • Their eyes open wide.
  • They clutch their chest, make some funny noises, and then they collapse to the floor. Right?

Wrong. (Don’t believe everything you see on TV!)  That scenario describes sudden cardiac arrest, not heart attack. The two are not the same thing at all. The heart attack awareness campaign called “Make The Call – Don’t Miss a Beat” tells us how symptoms of the classic  “Hollywood Heart Attack” can differ from the actual reality for most women.   Continue reading “The myth of the “Hollywood Heart Attack” for women” →