by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
In 2018, Dr. Dhruv Khullar warned his colleagues at an American Board of Internal Medicine conference that patients need answers on three dimensions of trust:
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
If you – like me – have had a heart attack, you are now likely taking a fistful of medications each morning, everything from anti-platelet drugs to help prevent a new blockage from forming inside your metal stent to meds that can help lower your blood pressure or manage your LDL cholesterol numbers. All of these cardiac drugs have been studied by researchers before being approved by government regulators as being safe and effective for us to take every day.
But one particular study on this subject published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology(1) has raised a unique point:
“Little is known about the benefits and risks of longterm use of cardiovascular drugs. Clinical trials rarely go beyond a few years of follow-up, but patients are often given continuous treatment with multiple drugs well into old age.”
Continue reading “Our cardiac meds – in real life, not just in studies”
Did you know that even when experiencing textbook heart attack symptoms (like my own chest and left arm pain), people wait an average of four hours before seeking medical help? The tragic irony is that heart patients who do best are those who can be treated within the first hour of those initial acute symptoms.
Heart attacks are dangerous and scary – so why do so many of us suffer silently for hours (and in many cases, far longer?) This treatment-seeking delay behaviour concerns many researchers, including Yale University’s Dr. Angelo Alonzo. He told me:
“Ask people what they would do if they had a heart attack and, of course, they’d all insist they would seek care immediately. Sounds easy! But in reality, few people actually do drop everything to get help.” Continue reading “Yale Heart Study asks why we wait so long before seeking help in mid-heart attack”
I was interviewed by Catherine Morgan at Blogher after the report called Heart Device Studies Still Leave Women Out of Equation was published in the March issue of the journal, Circulation. Catherine asked a number of questions about my take on Dr. Rita Redberg’s findings in this research. For example, one of her questions was:
“How concerned should women with heart disease be about this latest report?” Continue reading “Are women being left behind in cardiac research?”
The alarming results of a study undertaken in France highlighted serious gender differences in cardiac treatment of men and women. These shocking differences contribute to a higher death rate among women suffering a heart attack.
The French study(1) investigated more than 3,000 patients, 32% women, who had been treated for heart attacks over a two-year period.
Lead author Dr. Francois Schiele, Cardiology Chief at the University Hospital in Besancon, France, presented the results of the research at the American College of Cardiology’s 59th Annual Scientific Session in Atlanta last month. Dr. Schiele’s team found that, on average, the women studied:
Heart Sisters 