Healthy Heart Tips for a Bad Economy

(HealthDay News) -- The economic news is enough to weaken anyone's heart, and it sometimes does with people feeling stressed, eating poorly and cutting out workouts while trying to make ends meet.

"We've seen an increase in patients complaining about heart palpitations, anxiety and stress over the past months," Karol Watson, an associate professor of cardiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles, said in a news release issued by the school. "Much of heart disease can be prevented. That's why it is so important to follow a healthy lifestyle and to control your cardiovascular risk factors."

UCLA cardiologists offer these tips for adults and children in these tough economic times:

• Eat better; exercise more. Eat a healthy diet, including five servings of fruits and vegetables every day. By cooking simple fresh foods at home, rather than indulging in restaurant fare or fast foods, you can save money and your health. Maintaining a good diet and exercise program -- even if it's just 30 minutes of walking around the neighborhood -- helps you prevent obesity, which adds to the risk of heart attacks, heart failure and diabetes.
• Don't skimp on health care. Putting off doctor visits, especially when you have symptoms, hurts your health more in the long run, as does skipping medications or splitting pills to cut costs. Maintain regular checkups. Look at pharmaceutical company prescription programs if medication costs are a concern for you.
• Stop smoking and avoid secondhand smoke. Smoking is an expensive habit that greatly increases your risk of cardiovascular problems. Quitting smoking quickly reduces the risk to your heart.
• Reduce stress. Find a positive outlet -- such as exercise, meditation or the company of others -- to ease stress and improve your health.
• Maintain healthy cholesterol levels. Get your levels checked and talk to your physician about the best plan of action to keep your LDL ("bad") cholesterol levels low and your HDL ("good") cholesterol levels high.
• Check your blood pressure. Hypertension is called the "silent killer," because it exhibits few warning signs. Today, several effective treatments are available for high blood pressure. If your blood pressure is normal, maintain it with a healthy lifestyle.

More information
The American Heart Association has more about maintaining a heart healthy lifestyle.

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Cholesterol Levels May Not Measure Cardiac Risk

(HealthDay News) -- Nearly three-quarters of patients hospitalized for heart attacks had cholesterol levels indicating they were not at high risk for cardiovascular trouble, a new, nationwide study shows.

The finding points to the possibility that current guidelines on cholesterol levels should be changed, said study author Dr. Gregg C. Fonarow, a professor of cardiovascular medicine and science at the University of California, Los Angeles. His report appears in the current issue of the American Heart Journal.

"The LDL cholesterol range at which people have heart attacks shouldn't be regarded as normal," Fonarow said.

LDL cholesterol, the "bad" kind, collects to form plaques that can eventually block arteries. Guidelines compiled by the U.S. National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute set an LDL cholesterol blood level target of 130 milligrams per deciliter for people with no cardiovascular disease or diabetes and 70 for those at high risk because of factors such as obesity, smoking and high blood pressure.

But the study of nearly 137,000 Americans hospitalized for heart attacks between 2000 and 2006 found that about 72 percent had LDL levels below 130 on admission, while 17.6 percent had LDL levels below 70.

"People with LDL cholesterol levels in the 100 to 130 range may feel they are at low risk," Fonarow said. "In this study, there was nothing normal about having an LDL reading of 100."

The study also looked at levels of HDL cholesterol, the "good" kind that helps prevent artery blockage. Current guidelines recommend an HDL level of 60 or higher, but the study found levels below 40 in 54.6 percent of the heart attack patients.

Only 1.4 percent of patients met the recommendation for both an LDL level of 70 or lower and an HDL reading of 60 or higher, Fonarow noted.

The current National Cholesterol Education Program guidelines were first set in 2001, and were updated in 2004. The NHLBI is expected to review those guidelines in the near future, Fonarow said.

"My opinion, based on the totality of the evidence that has come out, is that it is likely that there will be important revisions to the guidelines, but that should be determined by the individual advisory groups that will be writing them," he said.

In its update of the guidelines, the NHLBI called for more use of measures such as physical activity and weight loss to reduce the risk of heart attack and other cardiovascular problems.

Cholesterol is only one part of the heart risk picture, Fonarow said. Risk climbs higher with age, especially for men and for those with close relatives who have had cardiovascular conditions.

"The good news is that as much as 80 percent of the risk factors are under individual control and are modifiable," Fonarow said. "You can't control your family history, age or sex, but you can keep your blood pressure low, exercise and modify your lifestyle in other ways to reduce risk."

While calling the study "excellent," Dr. Manesh Patel, an assistant professor of medicine at Duke University, added, "The problem is that this is a snapshot, but we're not sure we know all the risk factors and how they interplay."

The researchers did not measure blood levels of other molecules involved in cardiovascular disease, such as the inflammation biomarker C-reactive protein and lipoprotein(a), he said.

But it's quite possible that the cholesterol guidelines will be changed, Patel said. "Ongoing studies have led to getting the LDL level to 100 and then to 70," he said. "As more randomized trials come out, there may be further changes."

More information
For the full cholesterol story, go to the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

Health Tip: After a Heart Attack

(HealthDay News) -- After a heart attack heart attack, it's important to reduce or eliminate risk factors for a subsequent attack.
The American Academy of Family Physicians says these factors increase your risk of another heart attack:

• Getting insufficient exercise.
• Having high blood pressure or high cholesterol.
• Being too stressed.
• Being overweight.
• Having high blood sugar, if you're diabetic.
• Being a smoker.
• Drinking too much alcohol.