Stroke

Four days after her April 27 breast reconstruction, the third and final surgery aimed at sparing her an early death from breast cancer, Angelina Jolie was in good spirits at home. Upon paying a house call, her surgeon, Dr. Kristi Funk of the Pink Lotus Breast Center in Beverly Hills, found two walls of the actress' home covered with "freshly assembled story boards" for her next directorial project. "All the while she spoke," the doctor later wrote on her blog, "six drains dangled from her chest, three on each side, fastened to an elastic belt around her waist.

Colonial member Ryan Palmer shot an eight-under-par 62 on Thursday to match the first-round record at Hogan's Alley and take a one-stroke lead over John Rollins at Fort Worth. The bogey-free 62 equaled Palmer's lowest round on the PGA Tour. Palmer, the former Texas A&M player who has three PGA Tour victories, and longtime caddie James Edmondson are full dues-paying members at Colonial. Edmondson is the reigning club champion. Graham DeLaet matched Morgan Hoffmann, David Hearn and John Peterson at 64. Defending Colonial champion Zach Johnson opened with a 69. :: Jay Haas and Duffy Waldorf shared the first-round lead in the Senior PGA Championship, shooting five-under 66 at St. Louis.

Changes to the rules of golf don't come often. But when they do, it's sure to create plenty of discussion. On Tuesday, as expected, the talk started as both the U.S. Golf Assn. and the Royal & Ancient Golf Club banned what is commonly referred to as belly putting, or anchoring a club against your body while making a stroke. The long club is not being outlawed, just that stroke. The ban takes effect in 2016. "The traditional stroke involves swinging the club with both the club and the gripping hands held away from the body, requiring the player to direct and control the movement of the entire club," USGA President Glen Nager said in a statement.

Changes to the rules of golf don't come often. But when they do, it's sure to create plenty of discussion. On Tuesday, as expected, the talk started as both the U.S. Golf Assn. and the Royal & Ancient Golf Club banned what is commonly referred to as belly putting, or anchoring a club against your body while making a stroke. The long club is not being outlawed, just that stroke. The ban takes effect in 2016. "The traditional stroke involves swinging the club with both the club and the gripping hands held away from the body, requiring the player to direct and control the movement of the entire club," USGA President Glen Nager said in a statement.

An omega-3 fatty acid plentiful in fish oil boosts the ability of healthy young adults, whose brains are already at their peak levels of speed and performance, to hold several items in memory for a short time, a study has found. The study is the first to suggest that fish oil might enhance cognitive performance in healthy people by boosting their working memory. The latest research adds to evidence of fish oil's beneficial neuropsychiatric effects: Supplementation with the docosahexaenoic acid (DHA)

When it comes to stroke, neurologists are fond of reminding us that "time equals brain. " What they mean is that, if you are experiencing any of the warning signs of stroke, the faster you get to the hospital, the more often physicians can take measures that limit the brain damage and  long-term disability that stroke can cause. But apparently, Americans are not getting that message -- and it may be costing us brain cells we can ill afford to lose. A " Research Letter " reported in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.

Heavy drinkers who consume three or more servings of alcohol per day are at increased risk of a type of stroke called an intracerebral hemorrhage - and they're more likely to have that stroke at an earlier age than patients who don't drink, scientists reported Monday. Writing in the journal Neurology , researchers from the University of Lille Nord de France reported that on average, heavy drinkers were afflicted with intracerebral hemorrhage - which is caused by bleeding in the brain and has a more dire prognosis than more-common ischemic strokes, which are caused by clots in blood vessels - 14 years earlier than people who were not heavy drinkers.  People who drank a lot also were more likely to have a stroke deep in the brain, wrote neurologist Dr. Charlotte Cordonnier and colleagues.

L.A.'s smog problem might not be as visible as it was in the bad old days of the 1970s and '80s, but city residents might be at an increased risk of stroke even at levels of pollution that meet EPA standards. Oh yeah, and memory loss. A new study published Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that Boston residents experienced more strokes when exposed to “moderate” amounts of particulate air pollution, as opposed to “good” amounts of pollution, according to EPA standards.

Joe Jackson, father of Michael Jackson, suffered a minor stroke and was hospitalized late Wednesday, a family rep said, but by Friday was back to normal and cracking jokes, according to a family friend. Jackson, 83, went to a hospital in Las Vegas, his current hometown, after he had trouble standing up and walking and had pain in his head, spokeswoman Angel Howansky told the Associated Press. She said he called a friend for a ride to the hospital and was expected to be released Friday.  "He's back to the regular Joe Jackson, cracking jokes and talking," family friend Rutt Premsrirut told the Las Vegas Review-Journal , which also said wife Katherine Jackson was en route to Vegas from her L.A. home.

One more reason to keep your glass half full: Optimists might be less likely to have a stroke. In new research, the more people believe good things will happen, the less likely they were to suffer a stroke within two years. Psychology researchers from the University of Michigan examined data from 6,044 stroke-free adults from the Health and Retirement Study. The adults answered how much they agreed with statements like “In uncertain times, I usually expect the best,” and two years later the researchers tracked which participants had suffered a stroke.

Ken Venturi, who won the 1964 U.S. Open golf championship in dramatic fashion and became a longtime television commentator, died Friday in Rancho Mirage. He was 82. Venturi, who was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame earlier this month, died at Eisenhower Medical Center after battling a spinal infection, pneumonia and an intestinal infection, his son Matt said. The U.S. Open victory was one of Venturi's 14 tournament wins as a pro. Though he suffered from a severe stutter as a youth, he worked as the lead analyst for CBS Sports from 1968 to 2002.

LeBron James is getting his fourth Most Valuable Player award - and the only mystery left is whether the vote was unanimous. The Miami Heat star will be introduced Sunday as the award winner, according to a person familiar with the results and who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the league has not publicly announced this year's recipient. James will become the fifth player with at least four MVP awards, joining Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan, Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain.

Spending adolescence in the “stroke belt” of the southeastern United States could make people more vulnerable to stroke later in life - even if they eventually move elsewhere, a study published Wednesday suggests. What researchers call the “stroke belt” has been associated with higher rates of death from stroke than other parts of the country, but it hadn't been known if living there during any particular stage of life had an effect. Researchers led by Virginia Howard of the University of Alabama looked at 24,544 black and white people ages 45 and older who were part of a national study that considered geographic and racial differences in the incidence of stroke.

Charley Hoffman's quick start gave him a two-shot lead over U.S. Open champion Webb Simpson after three rounds of the RBC Heritage on Saturday at Hilton Head Island, S.C. Hoffman had four birdies on his first five holes to shoot a bogey-free five-under 66 and keep out front at 11 under on a windy, cool day at Harbour Town Golf Links. Simpson also didn't make a bogey on the way to a 65, tying the lowest round of the tournament. Kevin Streelman shot a 69 and was alone in third at eight under.

We all know that smoking is bad for us, that exercise is good for us, and that we should eat vegetables, whole grains and other nutritious foods. All of this advice is even more true for people who have had serious health scares due to heart disease or stroke. And yet, 14% of people who have had a heart attack, stroke, heart surgery or serious chest pain continue to ignore these common sense recommendations, according to new research in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.

AUGUSTA, Ga. — In the aftermath of Friday's controversial slow-play penalty at the Masters, there were many dueling opinions. We'll go with "Bravo, John Paramor. " He is the rules official from England, affectionately (or otherwise) known as Big John. He has been at this since 1976 and is known and properly feared worldwide by pro golfers. Over the years, the Masters has had several shots heard 'round the world. When Paramor walked up to 14-year-old amateur Tianlang Guan of China on the 17th tee Friday and informed him he was being assessed a one-shot penalty for slow play, it was another one. The news skittered through the magnolias and azaleas like a candy wrapper in the wind.

Women whose mothers had a stroke have a higher risk of both stroke and heart attack, researchers reported Tuesday. It's well-known that heart disease in one's parents increases the risk in their offspring. However, there appear to be sex-specific tendencies in how cardiovascular disease is inherited. In the study, researchers from the University of Oxford examined data from more than 2,200 women. Women with heart disease were more likely to have mothers who had a stroke than fathers who had a stroke.

A childhood marked by abuse or physical deprivation can leave lifelong marks on a person's health, raising the risk of heart disease, psychiatric disorders and chronic poverty. But a new study finds that the far more common and subtle experience of emotional neglect in childhood seems to confer another health risk at the other end of life: a higher likelihood of stroke. Compared with adults who believed themselves loved and emotionally nurtured as children, those who reported a "moderate" absence of parental warmth and care were almost three times more likely to have suffered strokes that left indelible imprints on their brains, says the study.

Claire Anna Baker's first L.A. solo show, at Edward Cella Art + Architecture, is a strikingly sophisticated exploration of gesture in the context of painterly abstraction. Each of the five large, ink-on-polyester paintings installed in the gallery's main space revolves around a stroke of liquid black, set against a ground of pale, softly modulated blues, oranges and pinks. Though far too large to have been made with a single movement, each stroke is a vision of lightness and spontaneity.

RANCHO MIRAGE -- Inbee Park, a 24-year-old from South Korea who makes her home in Murrieta now, has a three-shot lead over former USC star Lizette Salas after three rounds of the Kraft Nabisco Championship at Mission Hills Country Club. Park, whose only major championship so far came at the 2008 U.S. Open, has never finished better than ninth at this tournament. But she shot a five-under-par 67 Saturday (her second consecutive 67) and increased what had been a one-shot lead after the second round to three shots over Salas.