Car pollution has been linked to the incidence of heart attacks by a recent study.
People living close to a busy main road are more likely to die from a sudden heart attack due to the pollution generated by cars. Researchers from Harvard Medical School say that people living within 50 metres of a major road have a 38 per cent increased chance of dying from a sudden heart attack when compared with those living at least 500 metres away.
The risk increases by six per cent for every 100-metre closeness to the busy road. There is no doubt that car pollution is a high-risk factor for heart disease, together with smoking, lack of exercise, age and a poor diet (Circulation, 2014).
The sunshine vitamin reduces heart attacks – according to a recent study. Vitamin D helps us survive a heart attack and may even prevent the attack in the first place. People who are deficient in the vitamin are seven times more likely to suffer poor neurological function after a heart attack, say researchers. The attack could be fatal if levels of vitamin D are low.
The most common source of vitamin D is sunshine, which the body goes on to synthesise in the body. Many people in the northern hemisphere are vitamin D deficient. Even those of us who live in a sunny climate can be deficient if we stay indoors avoiding the sun. However, food sources can be oily fish, eggs and vitamin D supplements.
Researchers in Seoul, Korea, monitored 53 heart attack patients. Those with the highest levels of vitamin D were seven times less likely to suffer long-term neurological problems after the heart attack. Overall, 65 per cent of the patients with low vitamin D levels had severe loss of brain function six months after the attack, compared with 23 per cent of those with higher levels.
In addition, 29 per cent of those with low levels had died within six months of the heart attack. In contrast, none of the patients with higher vitamin D levels had died.
Scientists have discovered a new telltale sign of heart failure. It is shortness of breath when bending over, for example when tying shoe laces. At the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Centre, scientists have given a name to this symptom – bendopnoea.
Following resuscitation, people have spoken of seeing bright lights or being beckoned by a guide. Others say they floated to the ceiling and continued to watch medical staff at work on their body
Breathlessness is not a risk factor for heart failure. However, it is a sign that the condition may be worsening. Around 10 per cent of patients living with heart disease are in the advanced stages. Bendopnoea may be an indicator.
The patients they identified with bendopnoea had a build-up of fluids that raised the blood pressure in their bodies (JCHF, 2014).
People with an existing heart condition don’t necessarily have heart attacks, even when their genetics and family history suggest they are a high risk. It is thought that perhaps medicine has become too obsessed with genetics to the exclusion of lifestyle factors.
Heart patients have far more control over the likelihood of an attack than medicine realises, hence ensuring a healthy lifestyle. The choices include exercising regularly, eating healthily and not smoking, say researchers from the Intermountain Medical Centre Heart Institute in Utah, US.
After analysing the records of patients with heart disease at different stages, they discovered that the link between a family history of heart disease and the chances of a heart attack was far less strong than expected.
Even patients with narrowed arteries (one of the key indicators of a heart attack) can control their risk by changing their lifestyle.
Being aware of your thoughts and feelings, known as mindfulness, is a good protector against heart disease, a new study has found. People who are more focused on the present time and what is going on around them have a far better cardiovascular health than people who are unaware.
In a study of 382 people whose ‘dispositional mindfulness’ was calculated according to their awareness of the present moment, 83 per cent of those with the highest scores also had good cardiovascular health.
Heart health was assessed according to the participants’ body mass index score, physical activity, fasting glucose level and smoking status. Other standard measures, such as cholesterol and blood pressure levels, were not used, as these have no direct impact on feelings, said researchers from Brown University (Int. J. Behav. Med., 2014).
Finally, a recent study by researchers at Southampton University in the UK analysed 2,060 cases of cardiac arrest where the patient was declared dead for three minutes or longer. Of these, nearly half recalled experiences that continued after their heart had stopped. The revelations from this study state that something of us survives after death.
Near-death and out-of-body experiences are real and happen when the body has physically died. Scientists have believed that the brain can survive for no longer than 30 seconds after the heart has stopped beating. However, this study reveals that some people have continued to have experiences for some minutes after they have ‘died’.
Following resuscitation, people have spoken of seeing bright lights or being beckoned by a guide. Others say they floated to the ceiling and continued to watch medical staff at work on their body. In one case, a 57-year-old man, who had ‘died’ on the operating table recalled vividly everything that had happened in the room at the time. The staff confirmed that this was accurate.
kathryn@maltanet.net