Cancer and cardiovascular organizations team up to improve the health of Canadians

The Canadian Partnership Against Cancer and the Heart and Stroke Foundation have announced a $16 million investment in a first of its kind partnership between the cancer and cardiovascular research communities that will strengthen our understanding of chronic disease. The Canadian Alliance for Healthy Hearts and Minds, with $14 million from the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer and $2 million from the Heart and Stroke Foundation, will build on the Canadian Partnership for Tomorrow Project, a pan-Canadian research platform, by expanding efforts to identify the early root causes that lead to chronic diseases of the brain, the heart and the cardiovascular system. "Nearly two-thirds of deaths in Canada are due to chronic diseases," said Dr. Heather Bryant, VP of Cancer Control at the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer. "The data collected through the Canadian Partnership for Tomorrow Project will help researchers better understand why some people develop these diseases while others don't. Ultimately the research will make a difference in the lives of future generations." This new investment will gather detailed information from about 10,000 Canadian participants on their environments, lifestyle and behaviours that could affect their cardiovascular health. Participants will also be assessed by magnetic resonance imaging scan of the brain, blood vessels, heart and liver. Adding this to the health and biological information assembled over many years within CPTP will allow researchers to explore how these factors contribute to the development of chronic disease leading to heart failure and dementia

Making exercise a prescription for diabetes (Canada)

Most Canadians would agree that physical activity and exercise plays an important role in preventing or managing the devastating effects of chronic diseases, including diabetes. But what we say and what we do can be very different. In fact, the majority of Canadians do not meet the physical activity guideline recommendations established by the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology and the Canadian Diabetes Association. A unique team of health care and exercise professionals representing medicine, physiotherapy, dietetics, kinesiology, and psychology, comprising the Exercise is Medicine® Canada National Task Force, is aiming to change this reality by bringing physical activity and exercise into mainstream patient care. Dr. Jan Hux, Chief Scientific Advisor for the Canadian Diabetes Association, says the Canadian Diabetes Association's 2013 Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Prevention and Management of Diabetes in Canada (Guidelines) recommends all individuals with diabetes participate in at least 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous intensity aerobic exercise each week, and encourages resistance training three times a week. "Providing diabetes care providers with practical and effective strategies for incorporating physical activity into a management plan is extremely valuable for people living with diabetes," she says

New class of drug targets heart disease (Alberta)

Researchers at the University of Alberta have developed a synthetic peptide that could be the first in a new class of drugs to treat heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. Researchers at the U of A found that a deficiency in the peptide apelin is associated with heart failure, pulmonary hypertension and diabetes. They also developed a synthetic version that targets pathways in the heart and promotes blood vessel growth. Lead author Gavin Oudit, an associate professor in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, said the synthetic form of apelin is far more stable and potent than the naturally occurring peptide, making drug therapies possible. "It's a new group of drugs that we hope can be used for a wide variety of disorders, all of which have a huge economic burden on the health-care system," said Oudit, a cardiologist and clinician-scientist at the Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute. Oudit's research group studied apelin deficiency in the hearts of mice and humans through the Human Explanted Heart Program, or HELP. The HELP program allows for the study of specimens obtained from patients undergoing a heart transplant

Heart and Stroke Foundation pledges 10-year funding to Canada's leading institutions to help save more lives, faster

The Heart and Stroke Foundation has an ambitious goal: to reduce Canadians' rate of death from heart disease and stroke by 25 per cent by 2020. To help achieve this goal, the Foundation has made an unprecedented commitment to research, pledging $300 million over 10 years to 19 of Canada's leading institutions. "Simply put, there's an urgent need to save more lives faster and that's why the Foundation has created the Heart and Stroke Foundation Research Leadership Circle," said David Sculthorpe, CEO, Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. "This $300-million commitment will allow our partners an unprecedented ability to plan major research projects, foster greater collaboration and attract even more of the world's best researchers within and outside of Canada to fight these insidious diseases." Since 1952, the Foundation has provided more than $1.35 billion to heart and stroke research - second only to the federal government. But, this funding has never been an up-front commitment that can support long-term research planning. "The time has come to establish a new, more aggressive and coordinated approach to ending heart disease and stroke, so we've partnered with some of the highest performing researchers in Canada to get the job done," said Irfhan Rawji, past Chair of the Foundation and one of the architects of the Research Leadership Circle. "We're now counting on the generosity of Canadian philanthropists, our millions of longstanding donors as well as new supporters, to join with us to make this bold commitment succeed."

Heart attacks in young women - not all have chest pain (Canada)

Chest pain is recognized as a symptom of heart troubles, but one out of five women aged 55 years or less having a heart attack do not experience this symptom, according to a study led by the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre. The research findings, gathered from partner institutions across Canada including the University of British Columbia, are the first to describe this phenomenon in young women. The study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, has implications for emergency room healthcare professionals and for at-risk individuals, as seconds matter when it comes to the accurate diagnosis and treatment of heart attack. "We need to move away from the image of an older man clutching his chest, when we think about acute coronary syndrome (ACS - the umbrella term referring to heart attacks and angina), says senior author of the study, Dr. Louise Pilote, director of the Division of General Internal Medicine at the MUHC and McGill University and professor of medicine at McGill University. "The reality is that chest pain, age and gender are no longer the definers of a heart attack. Our study demonstrates that young people and women who come into the emergency without chest pain, but other telltale ACS symptoms such as weakness, shortness of breath and/or rapid heartbeats, are in crisis. We need to be able to recognize this and adapt to new standard assessments in previously unrecognized groups such as young women."

Spine injuries raise risk of heart attack or stroke

Canadian researchers say patients with spinal cord injuries have a higher risk of heart disease and stroke, similar to that of smokers, diabetics and the obese. The risk of cardiovascular disease was nearly 3 times higher for spinal cord patients, according to a study published in the journal Neurology. The risk of stroke was almost 4 times higher. "To put these values into context, the heightened odds ratios reported here are similar in magnitude to the estimated odds ratios in the general population for the relationship between smoking and myocardial infarction (heart attack)," wrote lead author Jacquelyn Cragg of the University of British Columbia. Cragg and her colleagues studied health data from over 60,000 people who participated in the 2010 Canadian Community Health Survey. From that sample, they identified 354 people who reported having both a spinal cord injury and a stroke, and 356 people who had a spinal cord injury and cardiovascular disease. While the research did not establish a cause for the higher risk profile, the authors noted that spine injuries can increase several risk factors for cardiovascular disease, such as physical inactivity, high blood pressure, and chronic inflammation

Don't fear defibrillators, says mother who lost son (Canada)

Automated external defibrillators that give instructions on how to use them have been installed at Edmonton International Airport and an Alberta mother wants to make sure people aren't afraid to use them. Kim Ruether's 16-year-old son Brock died from cardiac arrest last year even though there was defibrillator at his volleyball practice. It turned out that people were afraid to use the device. Since then, Ruether and her husband have been educating people on how to use AEDs which use an automated voice to talk users through each step. "Maybe someday a parent will come say thank you for raising this awareness and saving our boy or girl," Ruether said.
Ruether told her story at Edmonton International Airport where 60 automatic external defibrillators (AEDs) have been installed throughout the terminals

Lifesaving heart procedure expanded (Canada)

Since its inception in 2009, Sunnybrook's Schulich Heart Centre's TAVI program has provided access to a lifesaving heart procedure for 150 elderly or frail patients not well enough to undergo traditional aortic valve replacement surgery. Now, the centre will not only increase the number of TAVIs performed, but also share its expertise with other Canadian centres to ensure that patients across the country have access to the less invasive procedure. Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation, or TAVI, addresses the narrowing of the aortic valve, or "stenosis", a fairly common condition in today's aging population. If left untreated, stenosis can cause the heart muscle to thicken as it works harder to pump blood through the body, potentially leading to heart failure. The procedure takes between two and three hours, about half as long as conventional open-heart surgery for these complex patients, and may be carried out under general or local anaesthesia, with or without sedation. Benefits to patients include reduced pain and less need for postoperative pain medication, smaller scars, a shorter stay in the hospital and a faster recovery. Under the leadership of Dr. Sam Radhakrishnan, Director of the Cardiac Cath Labs and Physician-Lead of Sunnybrook's TAVI program and Dr. Stephen Fremes, surgical lead for the TAVI program, the hospital is guidingtraining for other Canadian hospitals to initiate their own TAVI programs

Improving cardiac arrest survival rates (Canada)

Researchers at St. Michael's Hospital and Sunnybrook along with paramedics in the Greater Toronto Area are taking part in two of the largest clinical trials in the world aimed at finding ways to improve survival rates of people who suffer a cardiac arrest outside of a hospital. One trial examines whether cooling a patient's body temperature in the ambulance en route to a hospital improves the rate of cooling in the hospital, which has been proven to improve survival and reduce brain damage. The other seeks to determine the best drug to give people to treat the heart rhythm that signals they are about to go into cardiac arrest. "The survival rate from cardiac arrest has increased five-fold in regions where paramedics are participating in these resuscitation trials, which highlights incredible improvements in quality of care," said Dr. Laurie Morrison, an emergency medicine physician at St. Michael's. Dr. Morrison heads Rescu, the largest research team of its kind in Canada, dedicated to improving out-of-hospital resuscitation. Rescu is conducting the trials along with Toronto-area base hospitals (Sunnybrook Centre for Prehospital Medicine and Lakeridge Health Central East Prehospital Care Program), and associated paramedic and fire services. About 15,000 to 20,000 Canadians suffer cardiac arrest outside of a hospital every year. During a cardiac arrest, the heart stops beating, and unless it is restarted within minutes, the person usually dies. Although immediate resuscitation can be lifesaving, more than 90 percent of people who experience a cardiac arrest outside of a hospital will die before reaching a hospital or soon after

Cardiac arrest survival rate tops in Ottawa

If you're going to have a heart attack in Ontario, your chance of surviving such an occurrence outside of the hospital is best in Ottawa, says the city's top paramedic Anthony DiMonte. "We're over 12 per cent, we're more than double the Ontario average," said DiMonte during a presentation to city hall Thursday. "From being one of the worst communities to have a cardiac arrest in, you're now sitting in a community that's probably one of the best." Before the city began installing defibrillators in its public recreation centres, the chances of surviving a heart attack before paramedics arrived was just two per cent. But now there are more than 800 automated external defibrillators in the city

Many boomers face a decade of sickness and disability in their later years (Canada)

A new Heart and Stroke Foundation poll reveals that Canadian baby boomers plan to grow old with vitality, living full lives. But the reality is many of these boomers may not be healthy enough to see these plans through. Heart disease, stroke and other chronic conditions will cause the average Canadian to live a decade in sickness, disability and immobility later in life. Research shows that there's a 10-year gap between how long Canadians are living and how long they live in good health. Research also shows that through lifestyle choices, we can add health to our years and shrink that 10-year gap. The 2013 Heart and Stroke Foundation's Report on the Health of Canadians looks at what Canadian baby boomers are doing in terms of their health and lifestyle habits, how that may be impacting their 10-year gap, and what they can do about it

British Columbia to add more defibrillators to save lives (Canada)

British Columbia will increase public access to automated external defibrillators to save more lives, the province's health ministry recently said. An AED is a safe, portable device that anyone can use to deliver an electric shock to restart a heart in sudden cardiac arrest. It reads the heart rhythm and only delivers a shock if needed. BC Health Minister Margaret MacDiarmid said her ministry will work with the Heart & Stroke Foundation, one of Canada's largest health charities, to provide $2 million for the installation of 450 AEDs in public venues over the next two years. Those venues will include community centers, arenas, recreation centers, playing fields and sports centers. According to the ministry, the current survival rate for an out-of-hospital sudden cardiac arrest is only about five percent. Evidence shows that survival rates can be raised to 75 percent if a defibrillator is used within five minutes. The province's Ambulance Service will support the AED-installed venues by providing orientation for staff on how to correctly use and maintain the devices. It will also compile a registry linked to the ambulance dispatch information system. When a bystander calls 9-1-1 for an ambulance, the dispatcher will know if an AED is available at the location, and will assist the bystander to use the AED on the cardiac arrest patient

February is Heart Month (Canada)

Heart Month is the Heart and Stroke Foundation's key opportunity to reach millions of Canadians in February and alert them to the risks of heart disease and stroke. Today, heart disease and stroke take one life every 7 minutes and 90% of Canadians have at least one risk factor. Our hearts and bodies are fragile and no one is safe from the risk of heart disease and stroke. Yet, there is so much we can do to protect them. This is why it is so critical that we rally together in raising funds for life-giving research that can help extend the lives of all Canadians. Volunteers are the face and the voice of the Heart and Stroke Foundation and Heart Month is a critical time when we depend on you to share our message. One of the most important initiatives in Heart Month is door-to-door canvassing. Our team of volunteers canvasses neighborhoods across Canada raising vital funds to give Canadians longer, fuller lives. This is your opportunity to create a movement in your community - a movement toward better health. This broad, National campaign was inspired by a fundraising initiative called "Heart Sunday." The concept was adopted in British Columbia in the mid-1950s and then in Ontario in 1958. The funds raised from Heart Month are critical to supporting the Foundation's life-giving research and initiatives that help lengthen the lives of people in communities all over Canada - Phone: (306) 244-2124

CPR Makes You Undead (Canada)

In the case of a sudden cardiac arrest, every second counts. About 7,000 cardiac arrests occur in the province each year, according to data from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario. A person's chances of survival can be up to 75 per cent if rapid, early response is started at the scene using cardiopulmonary resuscitation and automated external defibrillation. Unfortunately, the rate of bystander participation seldom exceeds 30 per cent and AEDs are used in less than 10 per cent of cases. The survival rate for out-of-hospital cardiac arrests is less than 6 per cent, Heart and Stroke estimates based on its most recent data. It also notes the probability of survival declines by up to 10 per cent with every minute that passes. Last month, Heart and Stroke launched a public awareness campaign dubbed CPR Makes You Undead, which aims to increase bystander involvement in emergency and cardiac arrest situations. The goal of the campaign is to raise public awareness and promote hands-only CPR, foundation health promotion and public affairs director Mark Holland said. "We must do better and we can, if we all learn CPR."

"The clock is ticking for stroke patients" - Canada

Adults under the age of 50 are risking death or permanent disability far too often by not calling 9-1-1 or their local emergency number at the first sign of stroke, according to new data released by the Heart and Stroke Foundation and the Canadian Stroke Network. The rest of Canadians aren't doing much better. And that spells trouble because there are 50,000 strokes in Canada each year. "When it comes to stroke, there are two enemies: the clock and the clot," says stroke neurologist Dr. Michael Hill, who speaks on behalf of the Heart and Stroke Foundation and the Canadian Stroke Network. "Canadians need to understand that the clock starts ticking at the first signs of a stroke, and every second of delay leads to more brain cell death and greater risk of death or disability. "The statistics - collected from about 10,000 patient charts at 295 hospitals across Canada - found that half of all adults under the age of 50 took longer than eight hours to arrive at a hospital emergency department. Across all age groups, women took slightly longer than men to arrive at hospital

Albertans are taking better care of their heart health (Canada)

Albertans are showing remarkable improvements in heart health thanks to a combination of better eating, increased fitness and much-improved medical treatments. According to new data collected from across the province from 2003 and 2010, the number of coronary artery bypass surgeries in the province fell from 84 per 100,000 people in 2003, to 42 in 2010 - a 50 per cent decline in per capita counts. As well, the number of cardiac catheterizations, in which a catheter is inserted into an artery or chamber of the heart to assess damage, also decreased from 480 per 100,000 in 2003 to 430 in 2010. Dr. Merrill Knudtson, a professor of medicine at the University of Calgary's Libin Cardiovascular Institute, says it's impressive the trend toward medical procedures has been on the decline for a number of years. "Albertans are doing better in terms of diet and exercise and they are smoking less, and we have the secondary evidence to suggest that," he said. Dr. Sean McMurtry, lead author of the research study and a cardiologist at the Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute in Edmonton, explained that while the raw number of procedures haven't changed significantly, simply because of Alberta's population boom over the last decade, the per capita decline is meaningful

Ontario doctors launch assault on obesity, urging tobacco-like warnings on bad food

Ontario doctors have launched an assault on obesity, saying society should aggressively fight the epidemic using the tools that have made major inroads in the battle against smoking. The campaign calls for graphic warnings - like the ones tobacco companies must print on cigarette packages - on high-calorie, low-nutritional value foods such as sugar-sweetened soft drinks, french fries and even fruit juices. It also calls for higher taxes on sugary or fatty foods, lower taxes on healthy foods, and restrictions on sales of junk foods in sports venues and other recreational facilities used by children and teenagers. The types of changes needed to fight obesity won't come into effect overnight, Dr. Doug Weir, president of the Ontario Medical Association, admitted at a news conference. But Weir said society needs to start addressing obesity or it will face epidemic levels of weight-induced illnesses, including Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and some cancers

Good Samaritan gives CPR to Canadian tourist suffering heart attack in midtown (USA)

The family of a Canadian tourist who suffered a heart attack in midtown want to say "thank you" the stranger who saved his life. Relatives of Jason Kroft, a Toronto lawyer, have put up fliers around 6th Ave. and 45th St. hoping the good Samaritan works in the area and will come forward. Kroft, 40, was visiting family in Manhattan on October 5th when he clutched his chest and fell to his knees, his brother Ryan Kroft told ABC. The family called 911, but with no time to spare, a stranger emerged from the crowd. "The man appeared and asked a few questions and the next thing I knew he was giving mouth-to-mouth," Kroft said. As the ambulance arrived, Jason Kroft's wife, two daughters and brother rushed to see him into the ambulance. The life-saving stranger had already disappeared into the crowd. The family has only been able to identify the man as red-haired, in his 40's, and wearing a blue jacket and dress pants. Kroft was recovering after open-heart surgery at St. Luke's Hospital. "We would definitely like to find the guy and thank him, but if he doesn't want to be identified, we don't want to force him," Ryan Kroft said

Fat-rich 'cafeteria diets' setting Canada's youth up for premature strokes, researchers warn

Fat- and calorie-rich junk-food diets are leading to typically middle-age diseases in children and setting them up for potential strokes when they're in their 30s and 40s, Canadian researchers are warning. What's more, the ongoing research suggests junk-food diets may alter the brain's anatomy, prematurely aging and damaging the network of blood vessels that supply it with oxygen. "If you go into any children's hospital in Canada today, and you ask, 'What’s going on with our young children?' they'll tell you that a lot of the kids they're seeing now are diabetic, they're hypertensive, they have altered lipids (blood fats)," said Dr. Dale Corbett, scientific director of the Heart and Stroke Foundation Centre for Stroke Recovery and professor of neurosciences at the University of Ottawa. "This used to happen in middle age and now it's happening in very young people. It's really a ticking time bomb." Close to one-third of children ages five to 17 - 1.6 million youth in Canada - are overweight or obese, according to a recent report from Statistics Canada

Walkable neighbourhoods tied to lower diabetes risk (Canada)

People living in communities that lend themselves to walking had a significantly lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes than those living in the least walkable neighbourhoods in a large new study from Canada. "If you have fewer opportunities for physical activity in your daily life, then you may gain more weight...and you're also more likely to develop diabetes," said Dr. Gillian Booth, the lead author and a researcher at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto. Booth said earlier studies have looked at potential links between diabetes and the pedestrian-friendliness of neighbourhoods, and have found similar connections - but that research took only a snapshot in time, making it difficult to determine which came first, the neighbourhood style or the elevated diabetes risk. With the world's population increasingly concentrated in cities, Booth and her colleagues wanted to further tease apart the relationship between urban environment and health. New immigrants from less developed countries to urban areas like Toronto are at particular risk for falling into a sedentary lifestyle and falling prey to Western lifestyle diseases, Booth's team notes in the journal Diabetes Care