Inside your heart – as captured by National Geographic

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 4 Comments

Here’s how your heart looks during a coronary angiography procedure. The white/yellow blood vessels are bringing oxygenated blood to the working muscles of the heart.  (See link below to the whole slide show).

Coronary angiography (also called cardiac catheterization) is sometimes referred to as the ‘gold standard’ of diagnostics for heart patients. The procedure involves threading a tiny catheter through an artery in the wrist or groin and pushing it up, up, up right into the beating heart. It’s considered to be an invasive procedure, but not surgical. Patients are sedated, but usually awake throughout.

The catheter is guided through the artery with the aid of a special x-ray machine. Contrast material (dye) is injected through the catheter and x-ray movies are created as the contrast material moves through the heart’s chambers, valves and major vessels.

The interventional cardiologists in the ‘cath lab’ then watch your beating heart up on the monitor, where they can spot any coronary arteries that are blocked or narrowed, and evaluate your heart function. If significant blockages are seen, further procedures like balloon angioplasty, stent implants or coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) – commonly known as bypass surgery – may be attempted to restore blood flow to the threatened heart muscle.

I’ve undergone two of these invasive cardiac procedures – the first an emergency catheterization and stent implant when I was hospitalized for a heart attack, the second 15 months later to investigate ongoing cardiac symptoms. And I can tell you that it is freakishly fascinating to lie on the cath lab table, sedated yet very awake, and watch your own beating heart on the overhead monitor.   Continue reading “Inside your heart – as captured by National Geographic” →

Warning: watching too much TV can be really, really bad for your heart

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 4 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas

Every hour you spend watching television each day increases your risk of dying from heart disease by almost a fifth, say scientists in Australia.

The findings were reported last month in Circulation, the Journal of the American Heart Association.

Prof. David Dunstan, the study’s lead researcher from the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Victoria, Australia, had this message for members of the public:

“In addition to doing regular exercise, avoid sitting for prolonged periods and keep in mind to ‘move more, more often’. Too much sitting is bad for health.”

Couch potatoes were warned that their lifestyle also increased the risk of death from other causes including cancer.  Continue reading “Warning: watching too much TV can be really, really bad for your heart” →

“Take two aspirins and Tweet me in the morning!”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 5 Comments

You woke up feeling sick today. Your throat is scratchy, your head is imploding, and you just don’t think you can even leave your bed. You might have the flu. What do you do?

If you live in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, you stagger over to your computer and log in to your doctor’s office website at Hello Health to schedule an online Instant Messaging visit. Very soon, during that IM chat, your regular doctor asks some questions and confirms that it’s a virus. She tells you there’s nothing to worry about just yet, to drink plenty of fluids, and take Tylenol™ for the fever. Oh, and she’ll contact you tomorrow.

Feeling better now?  In the olden days before the Hello Health concept, the traditional time spent dragging your sorry flu-addled self out of bed and all the way downtown to your doctor’s office, including two aching and feverish hours spent shivering in the waiting room infecting other patients, would have been about four hours of your life that you’d never get back.

But time spent with your Hello Health doctor’s visit?  Less than one hour, without even brushing your teeth, changing out of your sweaty jammies, or leaving home. 

Indeed, across our health care system, from large hospital networks to patient support groups, new media tools like blogs, IM platforms, video chat, and social networks like Twitter and Facebook are re-engineering the way doctors and patients interact.   Continue reading ““Take two aspirins and Tweet me in the morning!”” →

Mindless eating: 8 reasons women eat when we’re not even hungry

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 6 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas

Cornell University researcher and food psychologist Dr. Brian Wansink knows that there are other reasons to eat besides just being hungry.

Dr. Wansink, author of Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think, a book described by CBC television as the “Freakonomics of Food“, says:

“If we knew why we ate the way we do, we could eat a little less, eat a little healthier, and enjoy it a lot more.”

He is talking about that bag of corn chips your hand keeps dipping into while you watch TV, or that big 13-inch dinner plate you load up – whether you’re hungry or not.

He says that we make about 200 food decisions a day, like:

  • Should I have coffee?
  • Should I put milk in it?
  • Whole or skim?
  • Should I butter my toast before I spread the peanut butter on?
  • Do I pour my orange juice into a short, wide glass (you’ll drink more)
  • or a tall, narrow glass (you’ll drink less)?

He also cites these eight factors that can influence what goes into our mouths that have nothing at all to do with hunger. Do any of these sound familiar to you?   Continue reading “Mindless eating: 8 reasons women eat when we’re not even hungry” →