Fwd: Absolutely Amazing

Written yesterday --

 

Today started out in a frenzy. The entire house overslept. I'm usually up between 5:30 and 6:00am. If not, at least my wife and I can usually depend on one of our 3 children to wake us up by 6:30. Not today! Today, I awoke at 7:20!! Ahhhhh. I had to be at work (30 minutes away) to supervise a colleague performing a cardiac cath at 8am.

 

So, I'm in my car stressing out about going to work when I hear a segment on npr that totally floors me.  

This was a fascinating segment contained two stories on the treatment of  hypoplastic left heart syndrome, or HLHS for short. "In utero, the left side of the heart does not develop properly. The mitral and aortic valves, the first part of the aorta itself, and the left ventricle of the heart are small, underdeveloped or nonexistent."

 

While the first story was about the amazing success of pioneering physicians performing corrective congenital heart surgery on a newborn. The second story was the one that really got me. Now I'm a balloon guy. I spend my day in the cath lab ballooning open patients coronary arteries. Nevertheless, I was absolutely humbled by the amazing balloon work these docs in Boston were performing. They are sticking a catheter through the moms uterus, into the heart of the fetus and performing balloon valvuloplasty. Oh My Gosh! When successful, they were preventing these kids from being born with HPLH.

After listening to this segment, I totally forgot about being late to work.

Please listen - I think you too will be amazed

 

As Newborn Heart Surgery Improves, Survivors Thrive

 

Stitch In Time: Fixing A Heart Defect Before Birth

 

 

Be smart and healthy this season

I'm always amazed at how much I see people overeating during the holiday season. I read recently that the average American can gain ~ 5lbs over the holiday season. While this seams exaggerated - the New England Journal Of Medicine has reported that the average American can gain 1-2lbs over this season. The really bad news is that many Americans never lose this weight.

What to do? So many of my patients are constantly reminded of just how hard it is to lose the weight once it has been gained. Therefore, any strategy to keep the weight off in the first place seems to me to be the smartest.

Here are some ideas that I have come across to help my patients during this season of temptation.

1. Eat smaller portions of food
2. Eat slowly
3. Go for a walk after a meal
4. Off to bring a low calorie dish to the party
5. Go ahead and mingle - get away from the food
6. Say "no" to fast food
7. Be realistic - now is not the time to diet but to maintain

Whole-Grain Foods As Effective As Medication For High Blood Pressure

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/211244.php

It’s Time for Recess: Just Keep on Moving

From The New York Times

One doctor's prescription for exercise: Do it where you gather, even 10 minutes at a time.

http://nyti.ms/fMnqXb

Work Stress Raises Women’s Heart Risk

From The New York Times

In a large study, women who reported high job strain faced a 40 percent increase in cardiovascular disease and an 88 percent increase in risk for heart attacks.

http://nyti.ms/cz4DSb

Now Who Wants A Salad With That School Lunch?

Now Who Wants A Salad With That School Lunch?
by April Fulton
NPR - November 22, 2010

Salad bars in schools seem to encourage kids to eat more fresh fruits and veggies, especially if they are displayed attractively, as NPR's Allison Aubrey and others have reported.

But how to pay for it?

When the First Lady talks up school salad bars at an elementary school in Miami later today, she may face some tough questions about how much green the feds will contribute to the greens on display.

NPR's Pam Fessler puts the odds of passing the $5.4 billion child nutrition bill -- which funds school lunch and other programs -- this year at "good."

This is in part because House leaders have agreed to take up the Senate's lower-cost version.

Now that lower-cost version has some drawbacks -- like less money per lunch, and a taking of future increased dollars promised to the food stamp program, now known as SNAP benefits.

But with Republicans taking the helm in the House in January, Democrats and many anti-hunger groups are starting to realize the Senate bill may just be the best they can get, Fessler says.

Also, the Obama administration has pledged to restore the funding before the cuts take effect in 2013.

That promise has been good enough for House Democrats Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and Rosa De Lauro of Connecticut, who earlier had fought the Senate funding levels.

"We have been assured that they will work with Congress to restore this cut and use their current authorities to protect the integrity of SNAP and further improve children's access to the nutrition programs," says a Dear Colleague letter the two sent out last week with House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller.

House leaders plan to take up the Senate bill on December 1st or 2nd.

UPDATE: The fruit and vegetable industry, along with a family farming group, announced today they would partner with the First Lady's Let's Move Campaign to help schools raise money to get salad bars. Read all about it here. [Copyright 2010 National Public Radio]

Another reason to stop smoking (as if you really needed one)

Heavy Smoking Linked to Alzheimer's in Study

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay ReporterMon Oct 25, 7:08 pm ET

MONDAY, Oct. 25 (HealthDay News) -- Heavy smoking in middle age seems to increase the risk for developing Alzheimer's disease or another dementia, a large new study suggests.

"We found that people who reported heavy smoking in midlife had more than a 100 percent increase in risk of Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia," said lead researcher Rachel A. Whitmer, a research scientist in Kaiser Permanente's Division of Research in Oakland, Calif.

"We have known that smoking is a risk factor for cancer, stroke and cardiovascular disease," she said. "This adds to the evidence that what is bad for the heart is bad for the brain."

The report is published in the Oct. 25 online edition of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

For the study, Whitmer's group collected data on 21,123 ethnically diverse people in the Kaiser Permanente health care system who were surveyed between 1978 and 1985, when they were 50 to 60 years old.

During an average follow-up of 23 years, the researchers found that 25.4 percent were diagnosed with dementia, including Alzheimer's (1,136 people) or vascular dementia (416 people), which is the second most common form of dementia after Alzheimer's disease. Vascular dementia is caused by damage to the arteries in the brain.

Compared with non-smokers, those who smoked more than two packs of cigarettes a day in midlife had a "dramatic increase" in the incidence of dementia -- more than a 157 percent increased risk of developing Alzheimer's disease and a 172 percent increased risk of developing vascular dementia, Whitmer's team found.

Former smokers and people who smoked less than half a pack a day did not appear to be at increased risk of Alzheimer's or vascular dementia, the researchers note.

The associations between smoking and dementia did not change even after adjusting for race or gender, high blood pressure, high cholesterol or heart attack, stroke or weight, they add.

A link between Alzheimer's and smoking has been shown before, but this new study pinpoints the specific risk for middle-age smokers for developing both Alzheimer's and vascular dementia, the researchers say.

Smoking, an established risk factor for stroke, may contribute to the likelihood of vascular dementia by causing small clots in the brain. Smoking also contributes to oxidative stress and inflammation, which may be linked to the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, the researchers say.

"The brain is not immune to long-term damage from smoking," Whitmer said.

Two smaller studies of predominantly white participants also suggested that mid-life smoking raised the risk of developing Alzheimer's, researchers noted.

Commenting on the new study, William Thies, chief medical and scientific officer at the Alzheimer's Association, said "this is a sound confirmation of something that's been known for a while."

Another expert, Dr. Samuel E. Gandy, the Mount Sinai Professor of Alzheimer's Disease Research at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, said the findings are promising.

"Environmental factors in Alzheimer's disease have been long sought, and, until now, only head injury has emerged," Gandy said. "Unlike head injury, a tobacco smoking association is especially important because that is a risk that can be modified."