Taking aspirin at first sign of heart attack: good or bad advice?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 9 Comments

To:      Dr. James M. Wright, MD PhD CRCP(C)  Editor-in-Chief, Therapeutics Letter, Therapeutics Initiative: Evidence-Based Drug Therapy*, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC Canada
From:  Carolyn Thomas, Heart Sisters

Dear Dr. Wright,

I’m a heart attack survivor and patient advocate who blogs about women and heart disease at Heart Sisters.

Recently, a well-known family physician who writes a syndicated medical column did a presentation on heart health to about 200 members of our local cardiac rehab alumni group. He told us about a new protocol to be followed at the first symptoms of a heart attack –  one that’s apparently superior to the current “Call 911 and chew one full-strength aspirin” patient recommendation.

Instead, he favours something new that he called “Axe the Aspirin”.  He waved a little plastic baggie with two pills in it as he spoke, adding that he carries this in his wallet at all times, “just in case”.  What he was waving overhead was a mega dose of the anti-platelet drug clopidogrel (Plavix 600 mg – about nine times the standard therapeutic dosage that heart patients take) along with the statin/cholesterol drug rosuvastatin (Crestor 20 mg) – to be taken together at the first symptoms of possible heart attack. He told us, quite emphatically:

“We used to recommend aspirin, but this Plavix/Crestor combo is better!” 

Continue reading “Taking aspirin at first sign of heart attack: good or bad advice?” →

Are you reading this sitting down? Don’t!

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 11 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

A recent study of over 200,000 Australians suggests that you might want to stand up if you happen to be sitting down right now.  This study*, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, found that prolonged sitting is a health risk  independent of physical activity, and adds to the growing body of evidence that people who sit the most die the soonest – and, worse, you may not be able to exercise this effect away.

I don’t know about you, but I thought that last finding was disturbing.

In fact, Aussie researchers reported that not even getting regular physical exercise can outweigh the higher mortality risks associated with sitting more than 11 hours a day. Healthy or sick, active or inactive, the more people sat, the more likely they were to die sooner than non-sedentary people.  Continue reading “Are you reading this sitting down? Don’t!” →

How runaway stress hurts your heart – and your brain

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 2 Comments

There are few life events more stressful, in my considered opinion, than surviving a heart attack. Not only is the actual cardiac event a traumatic and overwhelming experience in itself, but what very few cardiologists  tell us before they boot us out the hospital door is how debilitating the day-to-day angst about every little subsequent bubble and squeak can actually be.  I can recall, for example, feeling virtually paralyzed with fear over unexpected chest pains following my heart attack (symptoms, I later learned from my cardiac nurse, that are often called “stretching pain” – common in recently stented coronary arteries). These symptoms turned out to be relatively benign – NOT the massive second heart attack I feared they signaled at the time.

David Ropeik teaches at Harvard and is the author of Risk! A Practical Guide for Deciding What’s Really Safe and What’s Really Dangerous in the World Around You. His observations about worry and chronic stress – such as living with heart disease – may ring true for you.

He recently asked his Big Think column readers:

“Want something else to worry about? Worry about worrying too much. The evidence is building that chronically elevated stress shrinks your brain.”   Continue reading “How runaway stress hurts your heart – and your brain” →

What’s the single biggest health threat women face?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 3 Comments

One out of every two of you reading this right now will be impacted by cardiovascular disease in your lifetime, warns cardiologist Dr. Noel Bairey-Merz, Director of the Cedars Sinai Women’s Heart Center in Los Angeles. And worse, diagnostic and treatment strategies “developed in men, by men, for men for the last 50 years” are not working so well for women.

Go grab a cup of coffee, sit back, and enjoy this must-see presentation.