Exercise Really Does Reduce the Risk of Coronary Heart Disease

In a newly published article in Circulation, investigators conducted the first meta-analysis to specifically examine the dose-response relationship between physical activity and risk reduction of coronary heart disease (CHD).

The researchers found that those who exercised the equivalent of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week (the basic minimum as recommended in the US federal guidelines), had a 14% lower CHD risk.

The researchers also found at that those who achieved 300 minutes per week, had a 20% lower risk of CHD.

This dose-response relationship continued and of those who participated in upwards of 750 minutes of exercise per week achieved a 25% reduction in CHD.

I find these results extremely encouraging.

 Significant reductions in CHD can be achieved with modest exercise. I also find it encouraging to note that more is better.

Sattelmair J, Pertman J, Ding EL, et al.  Dose response between physical activity and risk of coronary heart disease. A meta-analysis. Circulation 2011; DOI: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.110.010710. Available at: http://circ.ahajournals.org.

Americans Get An F On Fat

Americans Get An F On Fat

by Scott Hensley

- July 7, 2011

Did you really think people in this country were getting slimmer? Of course not.

But the latest look at obesity in the U.S. paints an even grimmer picture of our national weight problem than you might have imagined.

The rates of obesity for American adults worsened in 16 states in the last year — and not a single state showed improvement. A dozen states now have obesity rates that exceed 30 percent, according to a report just out from the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Sounds bad. But the report — "F As In Fat: How Obesity Threatens America's Future" — gets even worse.

Here's a big reason reason why. The best state in the current obesity rankings is Colorado, which got the top spot by virtue of having only 19.8 percent of its adult population classified as obese. It's the only state below 20 percent, to boot. But those accomplishments are really no reason to cheer.

Turn back the clock to 1995, and that same obesity rate would have made Colorado the worst state in the nation. In fact, two decades ago no state had an obesity rate greater than 15 percent.

In case you're wondering the standard definition of obesity is a body mass index of 30 or more.

Now, more than a quarter of adults are obese in 38 states. There's detailed info on the findings for each state. But here are a few of the obesity winners and losers.

The worst:

Mississippi (34.4 percent)

Alabama (32.3 percent)

West Virginia (32.2 percent)

The best:

Colorado (19.8 percent)

District of Columbia (21.7 percent)

Connecticut (21.8 percent)

And, as the report points out, weight-related illnesses have increased, too. Diabetes is the most worrisome, and rates of the illness climbed in a dozen states over the past year. Now, 32 states have diabetes rates greater than 8 percent.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation provides financial support to NPR. [Copyright 2011 National Public Radio]

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Corporations Tell Smoking Employees To Pay More For Health Insurance - Huffington Post

Now this is a smart idea

July 6, 2011 3:56 PM

Corporations Tell Smoking Employees To Pay More For Health Insurance - Huffington Post

Corporations Tell Smoking Employees To Pay More For Health Insurance Huffington Post As of July 1, employees at Macy's who admit to using tobacco will be charged an extra $420 a year for health coverage, reports Bloomberg Businessweek. Macy's is joining the ranks of companies like PepsiCo, which requires its smoking employees pay an ... and more »

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Administration Prescribes Prevention For Nation's Health

I found the following story on the NPR iPhone App:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/06/16/137229567/administration-prescribes-prevention-for-nations-health?sc=17&f=1128

Administration Prescribes Prevention For Nation's Health
by Linda Thrasybule

- June 16, 2011

Obama administration officials unveiled a plan to improve our nation's prosperity. No, not with more jobs, but by helping Americans stay healthy at every stage of life.

But first, they got a workout congratulating each other on a job well done with the National Prevention Strategy, a plan required by the federal law overhauling health care, during a Thursday media briefing.

Some of the key players behind the plan, including Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Surgeon General Regina Benjamin and Senator Tom Harkin, were on hand to outline a broad, and sometimes cryptic, blueprint for improving the nation's health.

Sebelius said the plan "will help us transform our health care system away from a focus on sickness and disease to a focus on prevention and wellness." That shift, she said, would help "people live long and productive lives and can help combat rising health care costs."

Some 17 federal agencies are expected to be involved in executing the plan, which was developed by the National Prevention Council. The plan would draw on a wide range of health workers, institutions, community-based organizations and government agencies for help.

The strategy aims to reduce leading causes of death and illness, such as smoking, bad eating habits and drug abuse.

"For every dollar we invest in prevention, we save $6," said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), a major supporter of the strategy, who was also in attendance. We need to provide an approach that makes it easier to be healthy and harder to be unhealthy."

Programs such as the newly unveiled nutritional guidance called MyPlate are a start. It's "a simple tool on how to eat," said Surgeon General Benjamin. "Empowering people to make healthy choices."

She also noted the big challenge will be changing the way people think about health in this country. Rather than trying to cure a disease, the focus will be on how to prevent it. "It's too important for us to not make these investments," she said.

Under the plan, there will be a yearly status report that tracks and measures progress. [Copyright 2011 National Public Radio]

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Timing Is Everything For Heart Failure Treatment With Pacemakers

I found the following story on the NPR iPad App:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/06/13/137159025/timing-is-everything-for-heart-failure-treatment-with-pacemakers?sc=ipad&f=1128

Timing Is Everything For Heart Failure Treatment With Pacemakers
by Nancy Shute

NPR - June 13, 2011

People with congestive heart failure are often given pacemakers to help their hearts pump more efficiently. But doctors have been puzzled by about 40 percent of people given those devices who don't get any better.

They often wind up in the hospital, or they die. Now researchers say they've got the problem figured out. It was a matter of giving the devices to patients whose hearts just weren't that out of sync to begin with.

About 200,000 people with congestive heart failure had the devices implanted from 2006 through 2009. The goal was to correct an abnormal heart rhythm that affects many people with heart failure, making the heart's two powerful pumping chambers, or ventricles, contract out of sync. That reduces the amount of blood pumped.

And since people with congestive heart failure already have weak heart muscle, that inefficient pumping can be a big problem.

After a while, though, it became clear to cardiologists that many people were not being helped by the implants. But studies weren't able to nail the problem. "We wanted to look at data from the clinical trials more carefully," Ilke Sipahi, a cardiologist at the University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, tells Shots. So he and his colleagues crunched numbers from five clinical trials involving 5,813 patients.

They found that people whose heart rhythms were off by more than 150 milliseconds benefited from a pacemaker, while people with a variation of less than 150 milliseconds got none. Their findings were published online today in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Simple, right? Well, the problem is that current guidelines from organizations like the American Heart Association also recommend pacemakers for people with variations of 120 to 150 milliseconds. "They don't benefit at all," says Sipahi.

Not only do they not benefit, but pacemakers are expensive. They're inserted with surgery, bringing with it risk of infection. And the special three-lead pacemakers used on heart failure patients are tricky to install. Sipahi doesn't think that's an issue in why they don't work for many. Instead, he says, it's a clear question of finding out when the devices work, and then applying that lesson to the daily practice of medicine. [Copyright 2011 National Public Radio]

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Study shows how physical activity benefits seniors’ hearts - Scope - medical blog - Stanford University School of Medicine

http://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2011/06/study-shows-how-physical-activity-benefits-seniors-hearts/

The Mediterranean Diet: It's Not Just About Food

The following, taken from the article in the Huffington Post cited below, is a great description of the Mediterranean Diet and it's lesson for healthy living (not just eating). 

Beyond just nutritional health, the Mediterranean Diet promotes a way of living that includes the following components, which could explain the positive health benefits.

Intense physical activity that includes work and all its forms of movement; farming, building, planting, gardening, dancing, sports, house work, child care or any activity that provides a non-sedentary daily routine.

Consuming many types and varieties of food in moderation as a form of nourishment -- both physically and socially, as well as sharing with others.

• Meals are a part of the social and family fabric and are not taken alone.

• Time spent eating is relaxing, nourishing and pleasurable.

• Foods choices often include fruits, vegetables, whole grain bread and other cereals, potatoes, beans, nuts and seeds.

• Olive oil is an important monounsaturated fat source in the diet.

• Dairy products, fish and poultry are consumed in low to modest amounts, and little red meat is eaten.

• Eggs are consumed zero to four times a week.

• Wine, a component of social family sharing and bonding, is a dietary staple this is consumed in low to moderate amounts.

 

		GEORGIANNA DONADIO, MSC, PH.D., D.C.: The Mediterranean Diet: It's Not Just About Food
	A point that is often missed by the media is that health is not isolated to one's diet. The whole health of an individual is about the physical, emotional, nutritional, environmental and even spiritual components.