heart

Doctors perform rare surgery on man with five heart chambers

In what is claimed to be the first -of-its-kind surgery in the country and only the third in the world, doctors at a hospital treated a man suffering from a rare congenital heart condition of having five atrial chambers instead of four.

Doctors perform rare surgery on man with five heart chambers

42-year-old Pali Devaram, who had been suffering from breathlessness and continuous coughing and heart pain, was diagnosed with the rare heart defect termed ‘Cortriatrium with Mitral Regurgitation’ after he underwent a medical check up at Medipulse Hospital here.

“On diagnosis, we found him to be suffering from a rare congenital disease… We carried out some more tests in consultation with a cardiothoracic surgeon and found him to have five chambers in his heart instead of four,” the private hospital’s Cardiologist Alok Madan said. Madan said Cortriatrium is a defect where an additional membrane or a septum creates fifth chamber in the heart.

After the final diagnosis, a team of doctors carried out a nearly four-hour-long surgery on Devaram on Wednesday. “We cut the membrane, which had created the wall above fourth valve thereby forming a fifth chamber and made it a four chambered heart, which is a normal heart,” Cardiothoracic surgeon Sanjeev Suresh Waidand said.

Now, the patient would be able to lead a normal life as any other healthy person, he added.

Claiming it to be the first-of-its-kind surgery in India and only the third in the world, the hospital’s director Navneet Agarwal said, “First two surgeries of such type have been administered in China and Germany.”

He said that the age of the patient and the severe Mitral Regurgitation made this surgery unique and rare, which costed about Rs 1.25 lakh to the patient. Patient’s relative Dinesh said they had visited many doctors and hospitals across the country but no one was able to diagnose the disease.

“In last two months, Pali’s problems of breathlessness, constant coughing and heart pain had aggravated,” he said.

Wine good for your heart only if you exercise

If you think moderate wine drinking can protect against cardio-vascular diseases (CVDs), you are probably right: Just mix daily exercise to it. Earlier studies have found that red and white wine increases levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL), the “good” cholesterol.

Wine good for your heart only if you exercise

“We found that moderate wine drinking was only protective in people who exercised. Red and white wine produced the same results,” professor Milos Taborsky from the Czech Republic told the gathering at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Congress 2014 in Barcelona, Spain.

The study included 146 people with mild to moderate risk of cardio-vascular disease. Participants were randomised to one year of moderate consumption of red wine (Pinot Noir) or white wine (Chardonnay-Pinot). The researchers found that there was no difference between HDL cholesterol levels at the beginning of the study.

After one year, low-density lipoprotein (LDL)- “bad cholesterol” – cholesterol was lower in both groups while total cholesterol was lower only in the red wine group. “A rise in HDL cholesterol is the main indication of a protective effect against CVD. Therefore, we can conclude that neither red or white wine had any impact on the participants as a whole,” professor Taborsky noted.

The only positive and continuous result was in the sub-group of patients who performed regular exercise at least twice a week plus the wine consumption, he stressed. In this group, HDL cholesterol increased and LDL and total cholesterol decreased both in the red and white wine groups.

“Combination of moderate wine drinking plus regular exercise improves markers of atherosclerosis, suggesting that this combination is protective against cardio-vascular disease,” professor Taborsky concluded.

Source: business standard

Heart exercises protect your brain too

Daily exercises to maintain good cardiovascular health also benefits brain, protecting us from cognitive impairment as we age, according to a promising study.

Researchers found that healthy lifestyle helps maintain the elasticity of arteries, thereby preventing downstream cerebrovascular damage and resulting in preserved cognitive abilities in later life.

Our body’s arteries stiffen with age and the vessel hardening is believed to begin in the aorta – the main vessel coming out of the heart before reaching the brain.

Heart exercises protect your brain too

“Indeed, the hardening may contribute to cognitive changes that occur during a similar time frame,” said lead researcher Claudine Gauthier from University of Montreal, Canada.

They found that older adults whose aortas were in a better condition and who had greater aerobic fitness performed better on a cognitive test.

“We think that the preservation of vessel elasticity may be one of the mechanisms that enables exercise to slow cognitive aging,” Gauthier added.

For the study, they worked with 31 young people between ages 18 and 30 and 54 older participants aged between 55 and 75.

This enabled the team to compare the older participants within their peer group and against the younger group who obviously have not begun the ageing processes in question.

The results demonstrated age-related declines in executive function, aortic elasticity and cardiorespiratory fitness, a link between vascular health and brain function, and a positive association between aerobic fitness and brain function.

Source: Times of India

26 Wonders of Honey..!!

benefits of honey

1. Drinking merged honey into water, all bowel stains will disappear.

2. Regular eating honey helps strengthen memorizing (strengthens memory) and strengthens the body physically.

3. If you drink honey dissolved in warm water helps against diarrhea.

4. If you drink honey dissolved in cold water, helps against constipation.

5. With the use of honey you purify and facilitate the circulation of blood in your body.

6. Honey is the only remedy for curing heart fast beating(tachycardia).

7. Honey creates facilitation of organism, while sugar burdens it.

8. If you drink hot honey it will be mixed with blood for 7 minutes, while cool for 20 minutes.

9. When you eat honey the stomach works fine and does not require powders or medication to help processing.

10. Honey removes the pain in the eyes by swiping with clean finger the eye.

11. For anemic, honey is the bomb blood.

12. For bone pain eating honey is undisputed medicine

13. The icterus, if he eat honey morning and evening, for 15-20 days it will be healed.

14. Honey removes the nerves cramp.

15. Honey helps in the growth and development of children.

16. Persons who are nervous, and to those who have sleep, honey helps to relax.

17. He who eats honey may not have constipation and hemorrhoids can not be created.

18. If honey dissolved in warm milk disappear intestinal worms.

19. If you dye a heated material with honey and place it on the neck or chest, throat pain shall be immediately removed. This is when you have flashing on tosils and angina.

20. If certain amount of honey is mixed with cherry and you wash the throat several times a day the smell of mouth will be removed immediately.

21. Honey used for healing of the wound with pus. Such a wound should immediately be dyed with honey, and the patient should eat 10 to 15 times. Rapid improvement will be noticed.
22. Honey interrupts stomach pains.

23. Wounds of the stomach and intestines honey heals quickly. During a week should eat up to 4 kg of honey. If so eat for three weeks, to become a month, from wounds of stomach will not remain any sign.

Dr. Kolosau says: “I have personally experienced this in 97 patients and my own child and I gained 100% positive results. ”

24. If places in the back and shoulders where the pain is felt, you dye with honey and put pepper dust on it, pain immediately will be removed.

25. The bee honey is the remedy for rheumatism. Time to time allow bee to bite you at parts affected by rheumatic pains.

26. Children who urinate in bed should eat honey and this disease will be terminated.

Source: Healthy advisement

Daily Fish Oil Supplement May Not Help Your Heart

People who take fish oil capsules may not be getting the heart-health benefits they desired, according to a pair of new research reports.

Both studies found that the omega-3 fatty acids in fish oil supplements do not provide any significant protection against heart disease, when compared to other types of dietary fats.

“Looking at the 17 randomized clinical trials that we combined, the majority of the trials — especially the more recent and large-scale ones — showed consistently little or no significant effect on reducing coronary heart disease events,” said Dr. Rajiv Chowdhury, lead author of a comprehensive review of nutrition research related to fats.

Of the range of fats studied, only trans fats showed a clear negative effect on heart health, according to the review published in the March 18 Annals of Internal Medicine by Chowdhury, a cardiovascular epidemiologist at the University of Cambridge, and colleagues.

Trans fats can still be found in processed foods — look for the words “hydrogenated” or “partially hydrogenated” in the ingredient list.

Saturated fats, long considered a dietary no-no, appeared to pose no additional risk for heart disease according to recent research, Chowdhury said. They carried about the same cardiac risk as unsaturated fats, omega-3 fatty acids and omega-6 fatty acids.

Saturated fats are solid at room temperature. They can be found in butter, lard, cheese and cream, as well as the fatty white areas on cuts of meat. By contrast, unsaturated fats are liquid at room temperature — think of vegetable cooking oil or olive oil.

A second study also came to the same conclusion regarding omega-3 fatty acids, via a different route. This study had been reviewing the use of omega-3s for eye health, but researchers used their data to look at whether the supplements also helped prevent heart disease.

That study found no reduction in heart attack, stroke or heart failure among almost 1,100 people taking omega-3 supplements, compared to similar numbers of people taking other supplements for eye health or just an inactive placebo. It appeared online March 17 in JAMA Internal Medicine.

The meta-analysis performed by Chowdhury’s team involved data from 72 studies with more than 600,000 participants from 18 nations. The team combined study findings to assess the heart health benefits of all types of dietary fat — saturated fat, unsaturated fat, and the omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids.

Until now, doctors have said that saturated fats increase “bad” LDL cholesterol, which can cause plaques to form in your arteries and raise your risk of a heart attack or stroke.

At the same time, omega-3 fatty acids were said to improve heart health because it increases your level of “good” HDL cholesterol. Good cholesterol is believed to help the body rid itself of bad cholesterol.

Source: web md

Traffic pollution may alter structure of the heart; promote heart failure

Traffic air pollution has been linked to poor health in the past – with wheezing, coughing, and watery eyes just the tip of the iceberg. Later studies have also established a relationship between pollution and a host of heart problems, including left ventricular hypertrophy and heart failure, among others. However, a new study, from the University of Washington’s Medical Center in Seattle, has now found that air pollution emitted from traffic sources also changes the structure of the heart’s right ventricle – further increasing the risk of heart failure for residents’ of pollution-dense areas.

“Although the link between traffic-related air pollution and left ventricular hypertrophy, heart failure, and cardiovascular death is established, the effects of traffic-related air pollution on the right ventricle have not been well studied,” said the study’s lead author Peter Leary, MD, MS, of the UW Medical Center in a press release. “Using exposure to nitrogen dioxide as a surrogate for exposure to traffic-related air pollution, we were able to demonstrate for the first time that higher levels of exposure were associated with greater right ventricular mass and larger right ventricular end-diastolic volume. Greater right ventricular mass is also associated with increased risk for heart failure and cardiovascular death.”

The study observed the health patterns of 3,896 individuals who participated in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis, each of whom had no prior history of cardiac disruption or disease. All of the test subjects had previously undertaken magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans, with authors observing their levels of exposure to pollutant nitrogen oxide in the year leading up to the scan.

On average, the study found that a higher incidence of exposure to nitrogen oxide coincided with a five percent increase (around one gram) in right ventricular mass and a three percent increase (4.1 mL) in right ventricular end-diastolic volume. The researchers combed through a range of differentiating factors that could have skewed the data before confirming their findings, including variations in lung disease, socioeconomic standing, inflammation, and left ventricular mass and volume.

“The morphologic changes in the right ventricle of the heart that we found with increased exposure to nitrogen dioxide add to the body of evidence supporting a connection between traffic-related air pollution and cardiovascular disease,” said Leary. “The many adverse effects of air pollution on human health support continued efforts to reduce this burden.”

It should be noted, however, that while increased exposure to nitrogen oxide led to a notable change in the heart’s structure, the findings have not definitively been linked to traffic air pollution. However, the researchers are confident that these recent findings are aligned with previous studies on the matter, and serve to strengthen beliefs that traffic air pollution is detrimental to cardiovascular health.

The study was published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Source: Tech Times

FDA: Aleve may be safer on heart than other drugs

Federal health officials say the pain reliever in Aleve may be safer on the heart than other popular anti-inflammatory drugs taken by millions of Americans.

A Food and Drug Administration review posted online Tuesday said naproxen — the key ingredient in Aleve and dozens of other generic pain pills — may have a lower risk of heart attack and stroke than rival medications like ibuprofen, sold as Advil and Motrin. FDA staffers recommend relabeling naproxen to emphasize its safety.

The safety review was prompted by a huge analysis published last year that looked at 350,000 patients taking various pain relievers. The findings suggest naproxen does not carry the same heart risks as other medications in the class known as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs.

The agency released its memo ahead of a public meeting next month where outside experts will discuss the new data and whether naproxen should be relabeled. The agency is not required to follow the group’s advice, though it often does.

If ultimately implemented, the labeling changes could reshape the multibillion-dollar market for drugs used to treat headaches, muscle pain and arthritis.

The change could make Aleve and other naproxen drugs the first choice for patients with a higher risk for heart problems, according to Ira Loss, a pharmaceutical analyst with Washington Analysis. But he added that all NSAIDs will continue to carry warnings about internal bleeding and ulceration, a serious side effect that is blamed for more than 200,000 hospital visits every year.

Source: nbc news

New Artificial hearts won’t beat

The human heart beats 60 to 100 times a minute, more than 86,000 times a day, 35 million times a year. A single beat pushes about 6 tablespoons of blood through the body.

An organ that works that hard is bound to fail, says Dr. Billy Cohn, a heart surgeon at the Texas Heart Institute. And he’s right. Heart failure is the leading cause of death in men and women, killing more than 600,000 Americans every year.

For a lucky few, a heart transplant will add an average of 10 years to their lives. For others, technology that assists a failing heart — called “bridge-to-transplant” devices — will keep them alive as they wait for a donor heart.

Unfortunately, more often than not, the new heart doesn’t arrive in time.

That’s why Cohn and his mentor — veteran heart surgeon Dr. O.H “Bud” Frazier — are working to develop a long-term, artificial replacement for the failing human heart. Unlike existing short-term devices that emulate the beating organ, the new machine would propel blood through the body at a steady pace so that its recipients will have no heartbeat at all.

The concept of a pulseless heart is difficult to fathom. Cohn often compares it to the development of the airplane propeller. When people started to develop flying machines, he says, they first tried to emulate the way birds fly — by flapping the wings aggressively.

“It wasn’t until they decided, ‘We can’t do this the way Mother Nature did,’ and came up with the rapidly spinning propeller that the Wright Brothers were able to fly,” Cohn says.
The idea of an artificial heart goes back decades.

Frazier began medical school in what he describes as “the Kennedy Era.”

“We were going to the moon; we were going to achieve world peace,” and Frazier wanted to develop the first artificial heart. In 1968, he left for Vietnam as a flight surgeon. Thirteen months later, his helicopter was shot down, and he nearly died.

“That experience convinced me I should stick to something more meaningful for the rest of my life.”
That he did. The veteran surgeon, inventor and researcher has devoted the last half century to developing technologies to fix or replace the human heart, the most notable of which is the newest generation of continuous flow Left Ventricular Assist Devices, known as LVADs.

Modeled after an Archimedes Screw, a machine that raises water to fill irrigation ditches, the continuous flow LVAD is a pump that helps failing hearts push additional blood through the body with a rapidly spinning impeller.

Today, the continuous flow LVAD has been implanted in 20,000 people worldwide, including former Vice President Dick Cheney before he received a heart transplant nearly two years later.

In some cases, the LVAD’s turbine has essentially taken over the pumping process entirely from the biological heart. In these instances, the implant recipient barely has any pulse at all.

Observing what happened in these patients led Frazier to one compelling question: If the LVAD can take
over for a weakened heart, could it replace the organ entirely?

In 2004, Frazier asked Cohn to collaborate on a new research project. Cohn’s interest in heart surgery dates back to when he was a young boy reading articles about world-renowned heart surgeons Dr. Michael E. Debakey and Dr. Denton Cooley, who developed and played a role in the transplant of the first artificial heart in a human in 1969.

Now the holder of some 70-odd U.S. patents, Cohn says his work with Frazier to build an artificial heart is the most ambitious project of his career.

The surgeons set out to combine two LVADs to replicate the functions of the heart’s right and left ventricles. Using two commercially available LVAD turbines, Frazier and Cohn combined the devices with plastics and other material used for implants: hernia mesh, Dacron cardiovascular patches and medical silicone. Everything met FDA standards, but Cohn describes the final product as “rather kludged together.”

The surgeons tested their invention by installing it in around 70 calves. All of the cows produced a flat line on an EKG, which measures heart electrical activity, yet they stood, ate and walked around, paying seemingly no notice to a small technicality: They had no heartbeat.

In order for the FDA to approve the device for clinical trials, the calves needed to live for at least one month. Cohn and Frazier’s device trumped these standards, with many calves living healthily for full 90-day studies.

Cohn and Frazier were encouraged, and in March 2011, put their artificial heart into a human patient.
Craig Lewis, 55, was admitted to the Texas Heart Institute with amyloidosis, a rare autoimmune disease that fills internal organs with a viscous protein that causes rapid heart, kidney and liver failure. Without some intervention, Lewis would have been dead in days. Frazier and Cohn decided it was the right moment to test their device and the surgeons undertook the lengthy procedure.

Less than 48 hours later, Lewis was sitting up, talking and using his laptop. When doctors put the stethoscope to Lewis’s heart, all they heard was a steady whir of what sounded like a boat propeller. Lewis survived for six weeks until his failing kidneys and liver got the best of him and his family asked doctors to unplug the device.

Source: CNN