Hot Topics in Heart News
Hot topics are items in the news that cause many questions for patients and family members. Our physicians are happy to help answer your concerns in these articles.
Read articles to the right - or take a look below about what our physicians are saying about articles in the news:
Protein May Predict Heart Attack And Early Death, But Not Stroke, Medical News Today, 10/20/2009
C reactive protein (CRP) is a blood test that measures the extent of inflammation in individual patients. We have known for several decades that inflammation is closely related to the development of atherosclerosis, the buildup of plaque in arteries. Many studies have shown that elevated blood levels of CRP predict the likelihood of heart attack, stroke, and death from heart disease. This study confirms previous findings from other groups with one exception, the lack of relationship of CRP to stroke. Most likely this is a spurious finding, since other larger studies have reported a relationship between CRP and stroke. For patients with a high CRP level, some physicians prescribe statin drugs, which in several studies seem to lower CRP and simultaneously reduce heart-related risks. – Steve Nissen, MD, Chairman of the Robert and Suzanne Tomsich Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Google Sidewiki. Read article in Medical News Today.
Experts propose a name change for women's heart disease, LA Times, 10/12/2009
Cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death in women in the United States. Often when we think of coronary artery disease, we think of large arteries of the heart being blocked. However, women can also have disease of microvessels in the heart. Microvessel disease is caused by vascular (endothelial) dysfunction and patients experience chest pain similar to when patients have large coronary artery disease. Studies have shown that women with this condition are underdiagnosed and undertreated. Therefore, there has been greater effort to educate physicians as well as patients. Renaming coronary artery disease as ischemic heart disease will be a small part of that awareness effort. – Leslie Cho, MD, Director of the Cleveland Clinic’s Women’s Cardiovascular Center and Section Head, Preventive Cardiology and Rehabilitation, Google Sidewiki. Read article in LATimes.
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Copyright 2009 Cleveland Clinic. All rights reserved. 10/09
