It was almost enough to force me right out the door to the nearest Tim Hortons for a couple of gooey Maple Dips. Must make sure that my thighs don’t get too skinny, because Danish researchers have just announced that chubby thighs can reduce the risk of developing heart disease. Read more to see if this is on the level
The CBC (our Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) did a report this week about women and heart disease that included an interview with Dr. Beth Abramson, a Toronto cardiologist and spokesperson for the Heart and Stroke Foundation. She was responding to results of a new study reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association that suggests women are almost twice as likely to die within 30 days of a heart attack compared with men. Dr. Abramson said:
“It’s sometimes hard to sort out if there is a difference in biology between men and women, or if there is a gender bias.“
The study’s lead author, Dr. Jeffrey Berger of New York University Medical Center, votes for biology. Continue reading “Biology or bias? Women twice as likely to die after heart attack”
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
For the past two years, the Cleveland Clinic has refused to hire smokers. This non-profit American research and treatment health centre (consistently rated as the #1 heart institute in North America) introduced this groundbreaking no-smoking hiring initiative as a way to walk the talk about the health and wellness of not only the 50,000 patients admitted each year, but of its 1,800 employees.
But now the head of the Cleveland Clinic says he wants to take this bold hiring policy one step further – and some are saying this would be going too far. Dr. Delos (Toby) Cosgrove, the heart surgeon who is the Clinic’s CEO, told the New York Times that if it were up to him, he would not only stop hiring smokers. He would also stop hiring overweight people. Continue reading “Cardiologist’s plan: “Fat people need not apply for jobs at Cleveland Clinic””
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
These days, whenever I tell my audiences about the hours leading up to my hospitalization for a heart attack last year, I ask them to guess what I would have done had those horrific cardiac symptoms been happening to my daughter (or my next-door neighbour, or even a perfect stranger) during that endless cross-country flight back home to the West Coast. Would I have patted her grim, sweaty face and whispered:
“Just try to hang on, honey. We’ll be home in nine hours…”
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No, my Heart Sisters, I would have been screaming bloody murder for the Air Canada crew to get help immediately, even if it meant turning the damned plane around. But since these attacks were happening to me, and not to somebody else, I chose instead the unwise and potentially fatal option of just slinking down in my seat, very still, hour after hour, trying not to die. Continue reading “Could ‘goodism’ and self-sacrifice be linked to women’s heart disease outcomes?”
Heart Sisters 