24 January, 2014

Heart attack mortality higher for patients at night and weekends

Though no time is a good time to have a heart attack, a new study reveals that patients visiting the hospital at night or on the weekend for a heart attack have higher mortality than those visiting during regular hours.

The research, published online by the BMJ, also shows that emergency treatment takes longer for patients visiting outside normal business hours, suggesting that "thousands of extra deaths" each year are a result of factors that occur after patients arrive at the hospital.

According to the study authors, who are based at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, heart attacks are the leading cause of death across the world. In the US, 1 million people have a heart attack each year and 400,000 die from coronary heart disease.

Though previous studies have suggested that visiting the hospital outside of regular hours for a heart attack could increase mortality risks, until this latest study, no official reviews or analyses had been conducted.

The researchers therefore analyzed 48 studies from the US, Canada and Europe, which included over 1.8 million participants, to determine any patterns for heart attack patients visiting the hospital during off-hours.

After taking into account differences in design and quality among the studies, the researchers found significant increases in mortality.

Specifically, they found that patients who arrived at the hospital at night or on the weekend had a 5% increase in mortality - either in the hospital or within 30 days of discharge, compared with patients who arrived during regular hours.

Overall, this resulted in 6,000 extra deaths annually in the US.

Source: www.medicalnewstoday.com

24.01.2014

Move more, sit less to reduce heart failure risk, say researchers

A lower risk of heart failure is linked not only to doing more exercise, but also independently to spending less time sitting, concluded US researchers after analyzing 8 years of health data on 84,000 men.

Reporting their findings in the journal Circulation: Heart Failure, Dr. Deborah Rohm Young, a senior scientist at Kaiser Permanente in Pasadena, CA, and colleagues describe how they found even among men who exercised regularly, sitting for long periods increased their risk of heart failure.

Dr. Young says the key finding from their study, the first to look at the link between heart failure risk and time spent sitting, is:

"Be more active and sit less. That's the message here."

Heart failure occurs when the heart is unable to pump enough blood and oxygen to other organs of the body. It does not mean the heart has stopped beating, but it is nevertheless a serious condition.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), heart failure affects over 5 million people in the US, where it contributes to around 1 in 9 deaths and costs the nation an estimated $32 billion a year.

Source: www.medicalnewstoday.com

24.01.2014

It is very easy to defeat someone, but it is very hard to win someone

A P J Abdul Kalam