'Healthy' patients at high risk of cardiac death identified (USA)

The way the heart responds to an early beat is predictive of cardiac death, especially for people with no conventional markers of cardiovascular disease, according to new research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The conventional risk factors, such as high cholesterol, smoking, diabetes and high blood pressure, account for many but not all deaths from cardiovascular causes. As a result, doctors are always searching for better ways to identify patients at risk of cardiac death. The new research indicates that an abnormal response to an early beat in the left ventricle, the heart's main pumping chamber, can identify high-risk patients even when they have no other evidence of cardiovascular disease. "These are people we do not expect to die of cardiac causes," says Phyllis K. Stein, PhD, research associate professor of medicine and director of the Heart Rate Variability Laboratory at the School of Medicine. "They appear healthy, but they're not. We have shown a way they're not healthy that isn't showing up using standard tests." The work appears February 15 in the Journal of Cardiovascular Electrophysiology.

Super Bowl losses can increase cardiac death (USA)

"A new study published in the journal Clinical Cardiology reveals that a Super Bowl loss for a home team was associated with increased death rates in both men and women and in older individuals. Sports fans may be emotionally involved in watching their favorite teams. When the team loses, it can cause some degree of emotional stress. Led by Robert A. Kloner, MD, PhD, of the Heart Institute, Good Samarian Hospital and Keck School of Medicine at USC in Los Angeles, researchers assessed how often this emotional stress may translate to increases in cardiac death. They ran regression models for mortality rates for cardiac causes for the 1980 Los Angeles Super Bowl loss and for the 1984 Los Angeles Super Bowl win. Results show that the Los Angeles Super Bowl loss of 1980 increased total and cardiac deaths in both men and women and triggered more death in older than younger patients. In contrast, there was a trend for a Super Bowl win to reduce death more frequently in older people and in women"

Cardiac disease on the rise in young Bruneians

Cardiac-related diseases have haunted Bruneians in their twenties and thirties due to a changing lifestyle that makes them prone to developing heart problems, a top cardiologist said yesterday. "(In the past) people above the 40-45 age bracket were vulnerable to cardiac-related diseases. Nowadays, people below 30 are also suffering from cardiac problems, and such cases are on the rise," said Singapore Association president Dr Patrick Ang, who is also a consultant cardiologist and director of the Invasive Cardiac Laboratory at Gleneagles JPMC Sendirian Berhad. Dr Ang conducted a health talk at the Singapore High Commission yesterday. Organised by the Singapore Association of Brunei Darussalam, the public health talk was held to address the increasing number of heart attack cases in Brunei. The talk was titled "Heart Attack! The Number One Killer in Brunei. How can we Prevent It?"

Ethicist seeks law to say when dead is truly dead (Canada)

"A new trend to harvest transplant organs from people whose hearts have just stopped - but may not be yet brain dead - has underlined the "pressing need" for federal legislation to define exactly when someone has perished, a leading medical ethicist argues. Canada has an assortment of case law and legislation defining end of life, but the growing use of organs from cardiac-death patients may violate the law, argues Jocelyn Downie of Dalhousie University in a recent journal paper. Health-care workers motivated simply by the desire to help seriously ill patients are at risk of civil or even criminal court action because of the lack of a clear definition, she says in the Canadian Journal of Anesthesia. The cardiac-death protocol, meanwhile, should probably be halted until more is known about when someone whose heart has stopped is beyond recovery, Prof. Downie said" - leader-Post

URMC study links vitamin D, race, and cardiac deaths (USA)

"Vitamin D deficiency may contribute to a higher number of heart and stroke-related deaths among black Americans compared to whites, according to a University of Rochester Medical Center study. The journal Annals of Family Medicine is publishing the study in the January-February edition, which goes online January 11, 2010. Researchers sought to understand the well-documented disparity between blacks and whites in cardiovascular deaths. They turned to vitamin D because growing evidence links low serum levels of D to many serious illnesses including diabetes, hypertension, kidney and heart disease"