Heart Diseases

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.

The harbingers of adult heart disease can be detected in early childhood, according to a prominent heart disease researcher who called Tuesday for routine cholesterol and blood pressure screening for all children upon entering school or sooner. Dr. Gerald Berenson, chief of cardiology at Louisiana State University Medical Center and head of an ongoing, 15-year study of 10,000 children and young adults in Bogalusa, La.

The first-ever city by city breakdown of deaths from heart disease and stroke in California shows that residents of Los Angeles suburbs have the highest heart disease risk, while those in the San Francisco Bay Area and the coast of San Diego County have the lowest. Although deaths from cardiovascular diseases in California have declined almost 50% since 1972, an estimated 87,000 people die from them each year.

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.

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.

Rene Bine Jr., 73, a heart disease specialist who was one of the first physicians to enter Dachau concentration camp after its liberation by Allied troops in World War II. The San Francisco native, who earned his bachelor's and medical degrees at Stanford University, served as a captain in the Army Medical Corps in Europe and North Africa during the war. He was an expert in nutrition and its relation to heart disease and wrote numerous articles and pamphlets on cardiovascular topics.

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.

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.

The Mediterranean diet has had many fans over the years, even in the scientific community. A new analysis of 50 studies involving half a million participants reinforces what many healthcare professionals already have said about the diet: It helps lower the risk of heart disease and diabetes. The analysis published online Monday in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology examined how the diet affects metabolic syndrome, that is, disorders that increase the risk of heart disease.

A free class on coping with heart disease will be offered on four consecutive Mondays beginning Monday at Friendly Hills Regional Medical Center. The class, which will be taught by a health educator, a dietitian, a nurse, an exercise instructor and a pharmacist, will focus on providing treatment, medication, diet and exercise information for those suffering from heart conditions.