IQ 'among the strongest predictors of cardiovascular disease' | 10 February 2010 IQ ranks among the strongest predictors of cardiovascular disease, second only to cigarette smoking, according to a study. The researchers suggest that initiatives to increase education and IQ could have public health benefits. Researchers from the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow found that lower intelligence scores were associated with higher rates of cardiovascular disease and total mortality. Only smoking was a more powerful risk factor than IQ when it came to mortality risk. While lower intelligence scores - as reflected by low results on written, spoken or oral tests of IQ - have been associated with a raised risk of cardiovascular disease, no study has so far compared the relative strength of this association with other established risk factors such as obesity, smoking and high blood pressure. The new study looked at data collected in 1987 from 1145 Scottish men and women aged around 55 and followed up for 20 years.
Batty GD et al. Angioplasty.Org Interview Archive. Rates of heart disease in the young. Monday February 25 2008 Rates of coronary artery disease have been linked to lifestyle “Heart risk rises for live-now generation” warns the headline in The Times today. The newspaper goes on to say that heart disease, which has been declining for 30 years, appears to be “back on the rise mainly among the young”. Evidence from the UK, US and Australia suggests that while death rates from heart disease continue to fall in the old, they are levelling off or rising in men and women aged 35 to 54 years old, The Times says.
The story is based on more than one piece of research; however, the newspaper mainly refers to a small study of autopsies in Minnesota, which looked at the severity of coronary artery disease in adults who had died for “non-natural” reasons (i.e. suicide, accident or homicide) over a 24-year period. The results supported those of other studies, finding a decrease in coronary artery disease overall since the 1980s. Where did the story come from? Predicting coronary heart disease. Thursday March 27 2008 A CT scanner “Measuring calcium deposits in the arteries of the heart is a good predictor of future heart disease, regardless of racial origin”, The Times reports today.
The newspaper gives details on a new study that supports claims that a Computed Tomography (CT) scanning test can give an earlier indication of cardiovascular risk than the traditional risk factors of a person’s age, weight, whether or not they smoke, and having high blood pressure or cholesterol. This cohort study of a selected group of recruits from multiple ethnicities has shown that those with higher scores for calcium were at more risk of heart disease. However, age, diabetes, high blood pressure and cholesterol, and smoking are all linked (independently of each other) with the risk of heart attack.
Where did the story come from? Dr Robert Detrano from the University of California at Irvine and 14 colleagues from around the US carried out the research. What kind of scientific study was this? British Cardiovascular Society. The Heart Disease and Cardiology Home Page. Heart Anatomy made easy - Cardiology Link Found on Fanpop. Simply click on a region of the heart on the diagrams or the hyperlinks listed below to learn more about the structures of the heart. Coronary Arteries Because the heart is composed primarily of cardiac muscle tissue that continuously contracts and relaxes, it must have a constant supply of oxygen and nutrients. The coronary arteries are the network of blood vessels that carry oxygen- and nutrient-rich blood to the cardiac muscle tissue.
The blood leaving the left ventricle exits through the aorta, the body’s main artery. Two coronary arteries, referred to as the "left" and "right" coronary arteries, emerge from the beginning of the aorta, near the top of the heart. The initial segment of the left coronary artery is called the left main coronary. This blood vessel is approximately the width of a soda straw and is less than an inch long. Just like branches on a tree, the coronary arteries branch into progressively smaller vessels. Superior Vena Cava Inferior Vena Cava Aorta Pulmonary Artery.
Michael John Davies -- Corbishley and Burke 326 (7401): 1270 Dat. Mozilla Firefox. A bioprostheic MV design(left), the fibre mesh of MV (middle), and a prescribed dynamic LV model (right) In human, the mitral valve is a complex anatomical structure consisting of two leaflets, an annulus, chordae tendineae, and papillary muscles. Different to the aortic valve, the leaflets of mitral are asymmetric, and are attached to the left ventricle through a bundle of chordae tendineae, which have a significant effect on its function.
A diseased mitral valve is usually repaired by various surgical means such as to replace or transfer the damaged chordae. When a mitral valve is too severely diseased for repair technique to be effective, it is generally replaced with a mechanical or bioprosthetic valve. Understanding native mitral valve dynamic behaviour is thus highly important for developing more efficient repair techniques, and perhaps even more so for designs of artificial mitral valves. A human MV generated from MRI. This work is in collaboration with Dr. BBC News | HEALTH | New surgery offers by-pass hope. A pioneering form of heart surgery could reduce the risk of complications for patients, and save the NHS millions. So-called "beating heart surgery" involves doctors carrying out coronary artery bypass grafts (CABG) while the heart is still beating.
In conventional CABG operations, the heart is stopped and blood is diverted through a heart and lung bypass machine then artificially re-pumped back around the body. The trial of the beating heart surgery, at Bristol Royal Infirmary, looked at short and medium term outcomes for patients. It showed, for the first time, that the technique reduces the risk of chest infections by 12%, irregular fast heart beats by 25%, the need for red-blood cell transfusion by 33% and the need for patients to stay in hospital for more than one week by 13%.
The Bristol findings could have far-reaching consequences affecting how bypass operations are routinely carried out in the future. 'Positive step' Short-term benefits Encourage use. Why EVGN — EVGN. The Independent: Heart surgeon rewrites the rules in journey to. Heart valve pioneers win prize. Heart Attack Hospital NHS Family | The diary of a heart attack. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Consensus Development Pr. Elevated blood cholesterol level is a major cause of coronary artery disease. It has been established beyond a reasonable doubt that lowering definitely elevated blood cholesterol levels (specifically blood levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol) will reduce the risk of heart attacks due to coronary heart disease. This has been demonstrated most conclusively in men with elevated blood cholesterol levels, but much evidence justifies the conclusion that similar protection will be afforded in women with elevated levels.
After careful review of genetic, experimental, epidemiologic, and clinical trial evidence, we recommend treatment of individuals with blood cholesterol levels above the 75th percentile (upper 25 percent of values). Further, we are persuaded that the blood cholesterol level of most Americans is undesirably high, in large part because of our high dietary intake of calories, saturated fat, and cholesterol. The Gross Physiology of the Cardiovascular System. CCAD - Congenital Analysis - Home. Printing body parts: Making a bit of me. How risky are those genetic risk factors for heart disease, anyw. Hardly a day goes by without word that Gene X has been linked to Disease Y.
(As in, people with the vanilla version of the ICECREAM gene are 20% more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes than people with the CHOCOLATE version of the gene.) The results are usually based on a computer analysis of hundreds of different single-letter genetic variants in a population of thousands of people, some of whom developed Disease Y and some who remained healthy. They sure sound scientific. But are they meaningful? I may sound a little skeptical, and I’m happy to report that I’m not alone. The researchers focused on SNPs (short for single nucleotide polymorphisms) that were reported to have an effect on heart disease or an intermediate cardiovascular risk factor – such as high cholesterol or high blood pressure – in peer-reviewed journals.
Then they calculated both kinds of risk scores for 19,313 white women who participated in the Women’s Genome Health Study. Sounds like a big deal? -- Karen Kaplan. BHF Professors. Genetic factors and cardiovascular risk predict. An important aspect in the prevention of cardiovascular disease involves risk prediction in order to identify individuals at high risk and tailor treatment strategies. Risk prediction is usually based on knowledge of conventional risk factors (e.g. blood pressures, smoking, cholesterol levels) and family history. More recently, genome-wide association studies (GWAs) have led to the identification of many genetic markers associated with cardiovascular disease and it is hoped that inclusion of such information may help refine risk prediction models. However, risk prediction based on genetic factors is a complex process requiring knowledge based on the cumulative effects of multiple common risk variants (see previous news). Information from a total of 19 313 participants was analysed after limiting for those of Caucasian background (to avoid population stratification) for whom complete data were available for both the traditional risk factors and for the genetic risk scores.