News and Features Related to Heart Health

1. Relax to Music, Ease Blood Pressure
   

   May 15, 2008 -- Blood pressure a bit too high? Spending half an hour a day listening to music and breathing slowly may help. That's what happened in a new Italian study of 28 adults taking drugs to control their mild high blood pressure (hypertension). First, the patients wore a device that tracked

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2. Take This Marijuana Message to Heart
   

   May 13, 2008 -- Smoking marijuana results in changes in the bloodstream that may put chronic users at risk for serious cardiovascular problems such as heart attack and stroke. Researchers with the National Institute on Drug Abuse say the active chemical in marijuana, THC, causes the body to overprod

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3. Heart Disease Lurks in Obese Americans
   

   May 12, 2008 -- Obese people may not currently have heart disease, but odds are they will, a large heart-risk/obesity study shows. Wake Forest University researcher Gregory L. Burke, MD, and colleagues studied nearly 7,000 people enrolled in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA) trial who

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4. Air Pollution Increases Blood Clot Risk
   

   May 12, 2008 -- Air pollution increases the risk of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) -- dangerous blood clots in the veins -- even at pollution levels the EPA deems "acceptable." Harvard researcher Andrea Baccarelli, MD, PhD, and colleagues in Italy studied 870 people diagnosed with DVT from 1995 to 2005.

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5. B Vitamins Fail to Lower Heart Risks
   

   May 6, 2008 -- Folic acid and B vitamin supplements continue to prove that they can significantly lower blood levels of homocysteine, a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, but when it comes to actually reducing heart disease and stroke, the combo appears to have no impact. A study of more

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6. 'Aspirin Resistance' May Be Common
   

   May 5, 2008 -- Some people who take aspirin to lower the risk of heart attacks and other clotting problems may have "aspirin resistance," according to a new research review. In aspirin resistance, aspirin doesn't fully inhibit platelets in blood from sticking together. That anti-stickiness trait is

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7. Younger Women Miss Heart Attack Signs
   

   May 2, 2008 -- Heart attack symptoms sometimes get missed or dismissed by women aged 55 and younger, a new study shows. The study included 30 women aged 55 and younger (average age: 48) who had had heart attacks. The women were interviewed within a week of leaving the hospital after their heart atta

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8. Garlic & Vitamin Pill for Heart Disease?
   

   May 2, 2008 -- A pill containing aged garlic extract, vitamins, and other nutrients may slow the progression of atherosclerosis, a preliminary study shows. The study included 65 people (average age: 60) who were at intermediate risk for heart disease. They took a placebo pill or a pill containing ag

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9. 10 Steps for Better Heart Health
   

   You can change your fate by simply eating well. In the United States, heart disease affects about 9 million adults, killing one every 37 seconds. But the good news—which Dr. Philip Ades, author of the new book Eating for a Healthy Heart has made it his mission to spread—is that heart-disease is most

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10. Study Gives the Skinny on 'Fit and Fat'
    

    April 30, 2008 -- Regular exercise has long been touted as the key to a healthy heart, but a new study shows it is unlikely to fully reverse a woman's chances of heart disease if she is carrying extra weight. Researchers report in the April 28 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine that although phy

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