Heart Disease

  Bypass surgery is better for patients with severe heart failure than standard medical therapy, but not by a lot, and many patients who don’t want to undergo surgery may do just as well without it, researchers said Monday. In the first new trial in three decades to compare bypass surgery to conventional treatment, researchers found that improvements in medical therapy, particularly the use of drugs such as beta blockers to lower blood pressure and statins to reduce cholesterol, have sharply narrowed the effectiveness gap between the two approaches, bringing medical therapy near par with surgery, doctors reported at a New Orleans meeting of the American College of Cardiology.

Potentially good news for the 45% of Americans who have Type O blood : researchers said Tuesday that those people appear to have a slightly lower risk of developing heart diseasethan their neighbors with Type A, B or AB blood. Dr. Lu Qi, an assistant professor of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, analyzed heart disease risk in two large, multi-decade health studies - reviewing  data collected from 62,073 women who participated in the Nurses' Health Study, which was launched in 1976, and from 27,428 men who took part in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, launched in 1986.  Adjusting for heart disease risk factors including diet, diabetes status, gender and race, Qi and his colleagues found that study participants with type AB blood had the largest heart disease risk - 20% greater than that of people with Type O blood.

The proportion of American adolescents who exercise regularly, eat a healthy diet and are free of risk factors for future heart disease is "alarmingly low," says a major new survey of teen health. The comprehensive five-year assessment of teens' health status warns that the "disconcertingly high" rate of poor health habits among the nation's youth "may contribute to unacceptably high rates of adult-onset cardiovascular disease" as this cohort matures into adulthood. The new survey , published Monday in the American Heart Assn.'s journal Circulation, culled data on teens from a yearly gauge of the nation's health called the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES)

Women who are past menopause and healthy should not use hormone replacement therapy in hopes of warding off dementia, bone fractures or heart disease, says a new analysis by the government task force that weighs the risks and benefits of screening and other therapies aimed at preventing illness. The recommendation by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force does not necessarily apply to women who use hormone replacement therapy to reduce menopausal symptoms such as hot flashes, night sweats and vaginal dryness.

The Los Angeles County Coroner's office reported Thursday that singer Whitney Houston's death at the Beverly Hills Hotel was an accidental drowning.  Cocaine use and heart disease were contributing factors in her death, officials said Thursday. “She may have had a heart attack” that rendered her unconscious, leading to her drowning, said Ed Winter , deputy chief of coroner investigations. Cocaine's negative effects on cardiac health are well-established.

After menopause, women are expected to experience a sharply increased risk of heart disease. The traditional thinking has been that hormones protect women from heart disease until menopause. But a new study turns that theory on its head. A study published Tuesday in the British Medical Journal suggests instead that heart disease death rates in women progress in an orderly rate as women age and are unlikely to be greatly influenced by hormones. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine looked at death statistics from people in England, Wales and the United States born from 1916 to 1945.

Heart disease risks rise dramatically among people who spend two or more hours a day sitting in front of a computer screen, television or video-game box, researchers reported Monday. Experts now think that prolonged sitting -- what they call "recreational sitting" -- is especially harmful to heart health. Scientists at University College London examined data from 4,512 adults. Screen time was defined as TV or DVD watching, video gaming and leisure-time computer use. It did not take into account time spent sitting in front of a screen at work.

Two or more sugar-sweetened drinks a day have been associated with a larger waist and a higher risk of heart disease in adult women, according to research released Sunday. Women ages 45 to 84 who drank at least two sugar-sweetened drinks a day -- such as soda or flavored waters with added sugar -- were nearly four times as likely to develop high triglycerides as women who drank one or fewer of those beverages. Two or more sugar-sweetened drinks a day also were linked to bigger waist size and a higher risk for Type 2 diabetes.

More than half of all men and women over the age of 45 will develop heart disease in their lifetime, according to a new health risk analysis.  The study, published online Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., is the first of its kind to calculate the lifetime risk of cardiovascular disease for specific age groups. Among other conclusions, study authors found that even adults with optimal heart health face a 30% chance of developing heart disease. "To date, there have been no published data on lifetime risk," wrote Dr. John T. Wilkins and colleagues.

Stress takes a toll on women's heart health. A study released Sunday found that women who report high stress on the job have a 40% increased risk of being diagnosed with heart disease. Researchers at Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston looked at survey data from 17,415 women who were part of the Women's Health Study. These women were primarily white health professionals in their 50s. They were followed for more than 10 years. Job stress was defined as having a demanding job but little or no decision-making authority or opportunities to use one's creative or individual skills.