Holidays bring heart risks along with revelry

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Those lords-a-leeping and ladies dancing may want to consider the downside of the holidays: Heart attack season has arrived.

December and January are the deadliest months for heart disease, and many of the things that make the season merry are culprits: It's not uncommon for people to initially shrug off chest pain as indigestion.But what may make the Christmas coronary more deadly than the same-size heart attack in, say, August, is a double dose of denial. It's not uncommon for people to initially shrug off chest pain as indigestion. Research suggests they're even more reluctant for a run to the emergency room when it means disrupting a holiday gathering, or if they've traveled to a strange city -- meaning they arrive sicker.
Minutes matter.
"You have only a short window of opportunity to save heart muscle," warns Dr. William Suddath of Washington Hospital Center in the nation's capital -- where a cardiac team on duty 24 hours a day aims to start clearing victims' clogged arteries within 15 minutes of their arrival in the emergency room. Dr. Sanjay Gupta explains how the holidays can aggravate heart conditions »
How bad each year is varies widely, but some hospitals say they saw an upswing in heart attacks start on Thanksgiving weekend. At Suddath's hospital, it started with a surprise spike the weekend before Thanksgiving -- with so many critically ill patients that doctors ran out of a key heart-pumping machine and had to rent two extras.
Doctors have long braced for the seasonal upswing. A 2004 study confirmed it was a nationwide phenomenon, with peaks in death coinciding around the Christmas and New Year's holidays.
Why is harder to pin down. Vanderbilt University cardiologist Dr. Keith Churchwell says a "hurricane of factors" can tip someone at risk of a heart attack over the edge during this busy time of year.
"You can't be too busy to ignore your cardiovascular health," he says -- but that's a key excuse he hears from his own patients.
Consider:
• Busy revelers tend to skip their medications, forget them when traveling or be unable to get refills far from home.
• What dieter can resist holiday goodies? The few extra pounds so many people gain will haunt you long-term. Right away, a particularly heavy meal, especially a high-fat one, stresses the heart as it is digested. Blood pressure and heart rate increase. There's even evidence that the lining of arteries becomes temporarily more clot-prone.
• Too much salt has an even more immediate effect, causing fluid retention that in turn makes the heart have to pump harder.
• Alcohol in moderation is considered heart-healthy. But if a round of holiday parties leaves you tipsy, that, too, makes your heart pump harder to get blood to peripheral arteries.
• Worse is something called "holiday heart syndrome," where alcohol literally irritates the heart muscle to trigger an irregular heartbeat called atrial fibrillation. If a-fib goes unchecked for too long, it in turn can cause a stroke.
• People say they're too busy to exercise, especially as it gets cold and darkness falls earlier. It can take months to build back up to pre-holiday exercise habits.
As for cold weather, it can constrict blood vessels, and the extra exertion of snow shoveling can cause a heart attack. The usual winter rise in respiratory diseases is another risk, adding further burden to a stressed heart -- another reason to get a flu shot.
But the holiday spike happens even in warm climates.
And delay in treatment plays a role.
Hospitals may be short-staffed during the holidays, slowing the time it takes to diagnose a heart attack and start clearing the blocked artery, says Dr. Alice Jacobs of Boston University, past president of the American Heart Association.
The good news: The nation's hospitals are undergoing a major shift to speed care to heart attack sufferers. It's called "door to balloon time," and the aim is to reopen blocked arteries with angioplasties or other procedures within 90 minutes of arrival.
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Only about a third of people suffering major heart attacks get such fast care now. But more than 900 hospitals have signed on to meet that challenge -- sites that either are forming 24-hour cardiac catheterization teams like Suddath's, or making sure on-call doctors arrive within minutes, or ferrying patients to those angioplasty centers.
But for the hospital overhaul to work, patients can't hesitate when symptoms strike.
"If you have symptoms, don't ignore them, wherever you are," Jacobs stresses.
Yet realizing you're having a heart attack can be hard. Terry Bieber was just 50 when she woke up two days after Thanksgiving 2006 feeling what she thought was indigestion, got some Tums and returned to bed. Sometime later her husband realized she was sweating heavily while her skin was cold to the touch. Still, she argued when he went to call 911.
Like many women, Bieber didn't feel classic chest pain or pain radiating down her arm. She had to be helicoptered from the hospital near her Prince Frederick, Md., home to Washington Hospital Center for emergency angioplasty of two arteries.
"Don't take any chances," she now advises. "I had no clue at all that's what it was. ... If I had been by myself, I probably would not have called 911." E-mail to a friend

Study: Most sinus infections not helped by antibiotics

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- Just in time for runny nose season, new research suggests routine sinus infections aren't really helped by antibiotics and other medicine that's often prescribed.

In the British study, people suffering from facial pain and a runny nose with greenish or yellowish mucous generally improved within about two weeks -- whether they took the standard antibiotic amoxicillin, steroid nose spray or fake medicine.
The results, based on patients' reporting whether their symptoms had improved, echo previous findings in children.
Antibiotics, particularly the penicillin-like drug amoxicillin, are among the most commonly prescribed medicines for sinus infections.
Steroid sprays sometimes are used, but the study found they also were no better than dummy drugs, although they appeared to provide some relief for patients with only minor symptoms.
The study should lead to a "reconsideration of antibiotic use for acute sinusitis. The current view that antibiotics are effective can now be challenged, particularly for the routine cases which physicians treat," said lead author Dr. Ian Williamson of the University of Southampton in England.
"Physicians can focus on effective remedies that improve symptom control," which include ibuprofen and other over-the-counter painkillers, Williamson said.
Inhaling steam and squirting salt water into the nose to flush out thick mucous are among other methods that sometimes provide relief, he said.
The study appears in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.
Researchers randomly assigned 240 adults to receive one of four treatments: 500 milligrams of amoxicillin three times daily for seven days and 400 units of steroid spray for 10 days; only amoxicillin; only steroid spray; or fake medicine.
Patients on the drugs didn't get better quicker than those using the placebo.
Sinus infections are diagnosed in about 31 million Americans each year and are among the most common reasons for doctor visits. In the United Kingdom, primary care doctors see 50 or more cases a year, the study authors said.
The infections affect air spaces called sinuses around the nose and in the lower forehead. Inflammation and excess mucous can cause nose congestion, headaches and eye and face pain. Causes include bacteria, viruses, fungal infections and allergies.
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Despite a long-held notion, recent studies have found that yellowish or greenish mucous doesn't always mean the infections are bacterial, said Dr. Vincenza Snow, a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, internist and director of clinical programs and quality of care at the American College of Physicians.
Moreover, while antibiotics are designed to treat bacteria, these drugs aren't always very effective at treating bacterial sinus infections because the medicine has a tough time reaching the sinuses, she said.
The U.S. physicians' group issued guidelines in 2001 advising against using antibiotics for most sinus infections in otherwise healthy people, blaming overuse for contributing to the growing problem of bacteria resistant to drugs.
The group is considering updating the guidelines to say recent evidence reaffirms the drugs "don't really change the course of the illness," Snow said.
Dr. Marvin Fried, otolaryngology chairman at Montefiore Medical Center in New York, questioned whether all the patients in the study had true sinus infections. While patients were recruited by family doctors, the results were based on patients' self-reported symptoms rather than medical exams, he noted.
Still, Fried said, the conclusions are in line with September guidelines from a group of head and neck doctors, whose treatment options included observation without antibiotics for mild sinus infections. E-mail to a friend

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/conditions/12/04/sinus.infections.ap/index.html

Study: Honey helps kids' coughs

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- A teaspoon of honey before bed seems to calm children's coughs and help them sleep better, according to a new study that relied on parents' reports of their children's symptoms.

Honey did better than cough medicine or no treatment in a three-way comparison.

The folk remedy did better than cough medicine or no treatment in a three-way comparison. Honey may work by coating and soothing an irritated throat, the study authors said.
"Many families are going to relate to these findings and say that grandma was right," said lead author Dr. Ian Paul of Pennsylvania State University's College of Medicine.
The research appears in December's Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine
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Federal health advisers have recently warned that over-the-counter cough and cold medicines shouldn't be used in children younger than 6, and manufacturers are taking some products for babies off the market.
Three pediatricians who read the study said they would tell parents seeking alternative remedies to try honey. They noted that honey should not be given to children under age 1 because of a rare but serious risk of botulism.
For the research, researchers recruited 105 children with upper respiratory infections from a clinic in Pennsylvania. Parents were given a paper bag with a dosing device inside. Some were empty. Some contained an age-appropriate dose of honey-flavored cough medicine containing dextromethorphan. And some contained a similar dose of honey.
The parents were asked about their children's sleep and cough symptoms, once before the bedtime treatment and once after. They rated the symptoms on a seven-point scale.
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All of the children got better, but honey consistently scored best in parents' rating of their children's cough symptoms.
"Give them a little time and they'll get better," said Pat Jackson Allen, a professor at Yale University School of Nursing.
The study was funded by a grant from the National Honey Board, an industry-funded agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The agency had no influence over the study design, data or results, Paul said. E-mail to a friend

World AIDS Day 2007

World AIDS Day is December 1. According to the World Health Organization, there are 33.2 million people in the world today living with HIV/AIDS. This video dramatizes the immense scope of that number with a series of one-second scenes representing each individual. Help us win the fight against HIV/AIDS. www.amfAR.org (less)

Top Foods for a smooth, glowing skin

Most of us have been guilty of spending unjustified amounts of money on skincare products that supposedly give you that luminous, glowing, smooth complexion. While some of these products are, thankfully, more than just a gimmick, they don’t work 24/7. So instead of reaching for that expensive miracle cream or heading to your beauty therapist next time you think your skin is looking mighty dull, have you thought to pay more attention to what you put in your mouth?

AVOCADO

Not all fats are bad for you. Most of the fats in an avocado are monounsaturated fats that are actually good for you as they help neutralise those nasty fats in other foods. Combined with Vitamin E, the avocado combats dryness to nourish your skin and hair.

BERRIESS

trawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries (the list goes on!) produce collagen (sound familiar?) to keep your skin supple, smooth and plump. So add them to your cereals and desserts or swap them with your barbecue chips for an afternoon snack – which is something I’m trying to do.

GREEN TEA

If I had a dollar for everytime someone told me that green tea is especially good for you, I’d be – well, I wouldn’t be writing this blog now, would I? Green tea is packed with catechins, an antioxidant that helps fight viruses and slows down ageing. While I am convinced of the beauty benefits of said tea, sadly, to me, green tea is like drinking poo tea.

NUTS

Brimming with vitamins A and E, nuts protect your skin against pollutants while minimising sun damage. I also heard that Brazil nuts help improve the condition of your hair and nails as well as boosting your skin elasticity.

OILY FISH
Oily fish like sardines and mackerel contain essential fatty acids that actually reduce skin inflammation and keep your skin ultra moisturised. These EFAs also promote elasticity, keeping those wrinkles at bay.

OLIVE OIL
Ah, olive oil – one of those things that seem to be good for you in every way – your skin, hair, nails, diet, etc. Like avocado, olive oil is packed with the good fats, antioxidants, vitamins A and E. The result is a more soft and supple, younger-looking skin. Opt for Extra Virgin Olive Oil as, unlike other olive oils, EA has not been chemically processed.

PROBIOTIC YOGHURT
Probiotic yoghurt is bursting with good bacteria that keep your skin looking healthy. Research has shown that eczema sufferers can greatly benefit from a daily intake.

SPINACH
Eek! While my then-favourite cartoon figure Popeye sculled them down like beer, I didn’t particularly care for them – or brussel sprouts. But they’re supposed to be a great source of vitamins B, C and E. Vitamins C and E are a powerful anti-aging combination while vitamin B boosts energy in your activity levels, promoting that healthy glow.

WHOLEGRAINS
Aka brown wholemeal versions of carb faves like pasta and bread. They’re loaded with fibre that aid in your digestion. Being regular is essential not just for your health but your skin as it flushes out the toxins and if these build up, say good bye to radiant skin and hello to a dull complexion. Do you eat any of the above as part of your normal diet?

http://www.healthandbeauty.net.au/