Heart Chest Pain

Chest pain is the common symptom in many etiology including cardiac, gastrointestinal, pulmonary and musculoskeletal dis-orders.

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The cardiac origin is the only cause of chest pain which causes immediate death. Hence careful and quick attention needs to be taken to diagnose the cardiac cause to save the life. However, the non-cardiac origin pain will lead to a serious condition. Thorough history and physical examination is very essential to differentiate the origin of various organs inside the body. It is very important to obtain the quality of pain, location, duration, severity, radiation and accompanying symptoms.

Cardiac causes of chest pain are classified as ischemic and non-ischemic types. Ischemic type includes coronary artery disease and its spasm, aortic stenosis, hypertropic cardiomyopathy. Non- ischemic type includes mitral stenosis, aortic stenosis and dissecting aortic aneurysm.

The latest trial of a new heartbeat abnormality drug shows quite promising results in the condition. The drug, called dronedarone, has been tested for atrial fibrillation that is affecting nearly 2.2m Americans.

In atrial fibrillation, the upper heart chamber quivers instead of beating energetically and it can cause blood clots formation to block some brain artery can cause strokes.

In an international trial in which 2,301 patients with the condition were included, the researchers found that dronedarone decreased the number of hospitalization because of heart attack, strokes and other problems nearly 24%. The report of the trial has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine Feb.12 issue.

Dronedrone review status has been assigned by the US Food and Drug Administration and to discuss the possible approval of the drug, FDA advisory committee to meet on March 19.

Another study has broadsided the food supplement industry, as it didn’t find any evidence that use of vitamin supplement helps elderly women to avoid cancer and cardiovascular disease. Cardiovascular diseases and cancer are known as the two top women killers.

Sylvia Wassertheil-Smoller, one of the authors of the study, says: “We can at least encourage women that these vitamin supplements appear to do no harm, but at the same they don’t seem to do any good. Different kinds of vitamins that we get from foods are quite different, as the foods we consume are in complex form and consist of lot of such chemicals as we don’t know about their interaction with each other.”

Previously some results of some other studies have shown that different supplements of vitamin B, C, D, beta carotene and folic acid don’t have the abilities to fight against cancer particularly in women.

Similarly, another study, which was reported last week, found that a large number of healthy kids and teens in the US are consuming vitamins and other dietary supplements needlessly.

Worldwide economic gloom means more worries, tensions and stress for a majority of people. Every now and then, there is some economic news that can weaken your heart and make you feel more stressed and tense. This economic gloom also means poor eating habits and no workouts for many.

Karol Watson, who is an associate professor of cardiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine, California, says in this connection, “During the past few months, a considerable increase has been noticed in the number of patients complaining about anxiety, stress and heart palpitations.  A lot of heart diseases can be easily prevented with a healthy and balanced lifestyle.” He also offers the following tips to keep heart healthy in these days of economic gloom.

Eat healthy and more: If you want to save a good amount of money as well as your health, don’t just indulge in fast foods and just cook simple foods at your home and include at least four serving of vegetables and fruits everyday. Take exercise at least thirty minute a day, it will not only keep you away from obesity, but also decrease your risk of getting some heart problem.

The results of a new study show that decrease in blood flow, blood pressure as well as repeated surges in sleep apnea patients’ brains may become the cause of strokes or death during sleep.

Researchers from the Yale University School of Medicine find that sleep apnea becomes the cause of dropped blood flow in the brain while in episodes. When it takes place, the blood pressure of the organ begins to rise and when this happens again and again the ability of the brain to guard itself in these conditions begin to reduce.

A previous study from the Yale researchers suggests that sleep apnea patients have three times higher risk of having a stroke or death during sleep than the people who don’t suffer from this disorder.

Currently, nearly 18m people in the US are suffering from sleep apnea that is a sleeping disorder in which breathing gets hampered or ceased because of the upper airway blockage. It becomes the cause of low blood oxygen levels and rise in blood pressure. However, when the patient briefly awakens, the order restores again.

Danny Thrall, 19, swimmer of Fordham University team, New York has to abstain from swimming. According to reports, he had an open heart surgery six weeks earlier. When the 6 foot 8 inches tall guy stepped into the pool to swim, he was not completely well. His chest muscles were still tight and aching. His face showed signs of pain while struggling to swim.

His present health conditions were suspected during a routine medical checkup at the university. His blood pressure was high. Thrall felt normal otherwise. He went for further medical examinations which showed his dangerously enlarged aorta and a slight leakage in a valve.

The doctors proclaimed a quick surgery for the replacement of aorta and a leaky valve with mechanical parts.

A proper sleep is the thing that your arteries may need for avoiding calcification, the results of a new study seem to suggest so.

In their study the researchers from the Chicago Medical Center found that those middle aged people who took an extra hour of slumber every night had lesser odds to develop calcification in arteries.

“It is worth mentioning that the results of our study do not suggest that people should go to sleep prematurely or take sleeping pills,” Diane Lauderdale, the lead author of the study, says.

“It is not known yet what’s the link between proper sleep and arteries calcification and as far as we are not able to find why it is so, we can’t tell whether this link is serious or a casual one.”

D’Zhana Simmons felt like a living corpse, without heart in her body for four months.

“But I know that I really was here,” the 14-year-old said, and she did survive without a heart.” She looked scared of what she had suffered while being released from Miami hospital.

Since July, she had underdone two heart transplant surgeries and survived with artificial heart pumps, without heart for 118 days between the transplants.

Last spring D’Zhana’s parents came to know that she had cardiac hypertrophy (enlarged heart) that was too weak to perform function. They took her to Holtz Children’s Hospital in Miami for heart transplantation. But unfortunately her new heart didn’t perform well and could have chances to rupture, so surgeons decide to replace it.

They surgeons performed unusual act and replaced her heart with artificial pumping devices that kept the process of circulation running, till her second transplant.

The results of a study (included 17,800 men and women with normal levels of cholesterol) showed that rosuvastatin decreases number of deaths from heart attacks and strokes.

The results have been published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Statins are given to people who have a moderate to high risk of a cardiovascular ‘event’.

In this trail, included people had normal cholesterol levels that were below than those levels that usually indicate a need for treatment. Those patients didn’t have any other sign of heart disease as well.

However, they had higher levels of a C-reactive protein, which indicates inflammation in the body and considered to be a maker of future cardiovascular events.

20mg of rosuvastatin seemed to cut cholesterol by 50% and C-reactive protein by 37% after an average follow-up of two years and overall, the risk for a heart attack, stroke or death from cardiovascular disease decreased by 44%.

The first and foremost tip to keep heart healthy is to adopt a healthy lifestyle. It’s a well known saying that we dig our graves from our teeth and similarly, it is said that we are what we eat. Healthy eating habits not only help to keep you heart healthy, but also prevent the risk of developing many other diseases. Choosing the right foods to eat and preparing foods in a healthy way are two essential parts of a healthy eating plan.

1. Here are some that can reduce the chances of a heart attack by 90 percent if you strictly follow them.A 30 minutes walk everyday can do a lot of good for your heart and overall health. You can do it alone or can find some supportive person to accompany you in this healthy activity.
2. Do whatever it takes to get your blood pressure down to 115/75. You can maintain it with weight loss, decreasing sugar, salt and saturated fat in your diet and regular walk.
3. Learn your HDL number and try to raise it to 50.It is more important for women to have high HDL. It can be easily increased with exercise, one drink a day and healthy fats like safflower oil and nuts. If you want to raise HDL (good cholesterol) and decrease inflammation, you need to include 30 grams of nuts in your daily diet. Nuts are also rich in omega-3 fatty acids, fiber and healthy protein. Raw, fresh and unsalted nuts have the most benefits.
   
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