13 December, 2012

Egg yolks as bad as smoking for heart

Eating egg yolks accelerates atherosclerosis, also called coronary artery disease, in a manner similar to smoking cigarettes, say researchers.

Dr. David Spence of Western University, Canada, and his team surveyed more than 1200 patients and found that regular consumption of egg yolks is about two-thirds as bad as smoking when it comes to increased build-up of carotid plaque, a risk factor for stroke and heart attack.

Atherosclerosis is a disorder of the arteries where plaques, aggravated by cholesterol, form on the inner arterial wall. Plaque rupture is the usual cause of most heart attacks and many strokes.

The study looked at data from 1231 men and women, with a mean age of 61.5, who were patients attending vascular prevention clinics at London Health Sciences Centre's University Hospital.

The researchers found carotid plaque area increased linearly with age after age 40, but increased exponentially with pack-years of smoking and egg yolk-years. In other words, compared to age, both tobacco smoking and egg yolk consumption accelerate atherosclerosis. The study also found those eating three or more yolks a week had significantly more plaque area than those who ate two or fewer yolks per week.

"The mantra 'eggs can be part of a healthy diet for healthy people' has confused the issue. It has been known for a long time that a high cholesterol intake increases the risk of cardiovascular events, and egg yolks have a very high cholesterol content. In diabetics, an egg a day increases coronary risk by two to five-fold," said Dr. Spence, a Professor of Neurology at Western's Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry and the Director of its Stroke Prevention and Atherosclerosis Research Centre (SPARC) at the Robarts Research Institute.

"What we have shown is that with aging, plaque builds up gradually in the arteries of Canadians, and egg yolks make it build up faster - about two-thirds as much as smoking. In the long haul, egg yolks are not okay for most Canadians," he stated.

Dr. Spence added the effect of egg yolk consumption over time on increasing the amount of plaque in the arteries was independent of sex, cholesterol, blood pressure, smoking, body mass index and diabetes.

And while he said more research should be done to take in possible confounders such as exercise and waist circumference, he stresses that regular consumption of egg yolk should be avoided by persons at risk of cardiovascular disease.

Source: www.timesofindia.com

13.12.2012

Women losing healthy babies for wrong diagnosis

Women losing healthy babies for wrong diagnosis (Thinkstock photos/Getty Images)

Hundreds of women may be losing healthy babies every year because they are incorrectly diagnosed as having suffered a miscarriage, British experts warned.

Modern home pregnancy tests are now so sensitive that women are discovering they are pregnant earlier - meaning many who fear they have miscarried are attending hospital at an earlier stage than in the past.

Because a hospital scan cannot detect the earliest signs of life, it may fail to pick up a present heartbeat, leading doctors to remove a healthy foetus, according to the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE).

As many as 400 women may be losing healthy babies every year because of a mistaken diagnosis of miscarriage.

Glasgow University's Mary Ann Lumsden - who helped to develop new guidance published by NICE Wednesday - said in more than half of those cases the misdiagnosis was the result of ultra-sensitive home pregnancy tests.

Source: www.timesofindia.com

13.12.2012

A word of encouragement during a failure is worth more than an hour of praise after success