Do you prefer yoga to jogging? A new study reveals why those sun salutations may be just as effective as cardio at promoting heart health. Get the full story.
An interesting article appeared on Reuters entitled Childhood trauma may leave its mark in blood vessels. In this article, author Shereen Jegtvig reports that a recent study, which was published in the journal Hypertension, reveals that young adults who suffered traumatic events as children show greater signs of unhealthy blood vessel function than those who had not. The study went on to suggest that children who suffer adverse events have an elevated risk of heart disease as adults.
The most common adverse events reported in the study were household dysfunction, neglect and abuse. Of the 221 participants studied, it was found that those with traumatic childhood events had significantly elevated plasma endothelin-1 levels and that these levels increased in relation to the number of adverse events suffered.
While the study has not shown an increase in heart-attacks or other cardiac events at this time, it does suggest that early intervention through psychotherapy may benefit the physical, as well as mental, health of children who are affected by traumatic events.
Do you prefer yoga to jogging? A new study reveals why those sun salutations may be just as effective as cardio at promoting heart health. Get the full story.
Clarithromycin is a popularly prescribed antibiotic used to treat everything from pneumonia to sinus infections. According to Honor Whiteman of MNT, however, researchers say it may be deadly. She reports on this finding in her article, Commonly prescribed antibiotic ‘could increase risk of cardiac death.’ As reported by Whiteman, this drug is part of a class of antibiotics called macrolides which researchers in Copenhagen, Denmark state can be responsible for abnormal heart rhythms and stroke. Over a period of four years, lead researcher, Anders Hviid, studied more than 5 million Danish adult who were taking antibiotics. They found that patients taking clarithromycin had a greater risk of cardiac death. However, these researchers do note that the increase in risk is small and do not recommend that doctors stop prescribing this medication to their patients at this time. They suggest that more studies and research be performed to test its suitability for certain patients, particularly those with known heart problems.
Everyone knows that exercise is vital to cardiovascular fitness. However, a recent study done by Paul Williams, a staff scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory suggests that excessive exercise done after a heart attack can actually greatly increase one’s risk of another attack. The results were published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings on August 12 of this year. Information about this study and its finding were reported by Kathleen Doheny of HealthDay in her article, “Too much exercise can be harmful after a heart attack.” Doheny reports that the long-term study, which tracked 2,400 heart-attack survivors over a period of 10 years, showed that increasing exercise—while keeping it within moderation—greatly reduced the risk of heart-related fatalities. However, more excessive exercise, such as running more than 30 miles a week or walking more than 46 miles a week, actually doubled the risk of a repeat heart attack. You can learn more about this study and a similar study conducted in Spain by reading the article.