March 29, 2024

Heart Attacks, Knee Surgery, Baseball, Dancing

Posted on March 29, 2016 by in Health

Female Hearts and Stress

The number of men dying from a heart attack has been constantly decreasing during the Apr2016FemaleHeartAttackpast twenty years, but the fatal risk for women has increased significantly. Gender medicine has already demonstrated that women exhibit different symptoms. For example, women were often wrongly diagnosed in case of a heart attack since their body often sends alarm signals that are different from those of men. New insights from a study at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria, show that routine daily stress has particularly adverse effects on the hearts of women, which has been underestimated in the past.

Following menopause, blood pressure generally increases and blood fats and body fat distribution are subject to adverse changes, which increases heart attack risks. Diabetes is often an underlying condition for women with cardiovascular diseases, which significantly increases the risk of a heart attack than in the case of men.

The multiple stress factors due to job, household and domestic care of relatives cause the stress symptoms which may manifest in the heart. For relief, authors of the study recommend women actively incorporate periods of rest in the daily routine and ensure sufficient physical activities to alleviate stress. These could  include wellness and stress reduction programs. Medical University of Vienna

Health Benefits of Latin Dancing

A four-month dance program helped older Latino adults walk faster and improved their Apr2016LatinDancingphysical fitness, which may reduce their risk for heart disease, according to research presented by the American Heart Association. Study participants were an average of 65 years old, and after four months of twice-weekly Latin dancing, researchers found:

1) dancers walked faster, were more physically active during leisure time than prior to starting dancing;

2) leisure physical activity rose from 650 minutes to almost 818 minutes per week. American Heart Association

Health Risk & Family History

Most doctors and nurses review a patient’s family history to identify risk factors for Apr2016MedicalHistoryheart disease and cancer, often through a paper checklist or brief interview. But more deliberate efforts to map a patient’s family tree could identify additional risks and drive patients to more timely screenings, according to a new study from Duke Health.

Published in the journal Genetics in Medicine, participants in the study used a web-based program called MeTree to map their family health history, a program designed specifically for the study which took participants 25 minutes to complete.

Besides helping determine high-risk possibilities formerly overlooked, the study found participants who assumed they were at high risk for a certain disease but were not.

The Duke team is expanding its research to test a more complex version of the software and ways to increase buy-in from doctors and clinics. Pending the results of the study, the team hopes to publish the software for public use for free, or for a nominal fee that would defray the costs of hiring a third party to routinely update the program.

Duke Health via ScienceDaily (www.sciencedaily.com/releases/)

Knee Cartilage Repair for 40+

Cartilage restoration procedures using “plugs” are a viable treatment option for patients Apr2016KneeDiagramover 40 years old who have cartilage damage in their knees, a new study has found. Researchers at the Chicago Hospital for Special Surgery dealt with patients with cartilage damage in their knees that generated pain and made them unable to engage in sports and other activities. The mean age of patients was 51.5, and participants had no knee injury other than the cartilage lesion.

The procedures, using different types of cartilage “plugs,” relieved pain and improved function in patients with articular cartilage damage. Articular cartilage is the smooth, white tissue that covers the ends of bones where they meet to form a joint. Most of the patients did not meet the criteria for total knee replacement. Cartilage restoration is not intended for patients with advanced bone-on-bone arthritis.

More than half of the patients received a synthetic plug. The other patients received either a donor cartilage plug or a small plug of cartilage transferred from another healthy area of their knee that did support their weight. — Chicago Hospital  for Special Surgery

Preventing Preseason Injury in Young Baseball Players

Preseason prevention programs are beneficial to young baseball pitchers, according to Apr2016Baseball&Gloveresearch presented by the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM). The study, the first to analyze a well-monitored preseason training program, showed numerous arm flexibility and strength improvements in participating athletes that could ultimately diminish the risk of injuries. The study group included 143 pitchers at a median age of 15.7.

Pitchers who had previous injuries and participated in the preseason training program were four times less likely to suffer an injury than those in the general arm care program. Further studies with follow-up are needed to confirm the benefits of these programs.

— American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine

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