Possible Reason for Cholesterol-Drug Side Effects Such as Memory Loss

May 10, 2013 — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and physicians continue to document that some patients experience fuzzy thinking and memory loss while taking statins, a class of global top-selling cholesterol-lowering drugs.
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A University of Arizona research team has made a novel discovery in brain cells being treated with statin drugs: unusual swellings within neurons, which the team has termed the “beads-on-a-string” effect.

The team is not entirely sure why the beads form, said UA neuroscientist Linda L. Restifo, who leads the investigation. However, the team believes that further investigation of the beads will help inform why some people experience cognitive declines while taking statins.

“What we think we’ve found is a laboratory demonstration of a problem in the neuron that is a more severe version for what is happening in some peoples’ brains when they take statins,” said Restifo, a UA professor of neuroscience, neurology and cellular and molecular medicine, and principal investigator on the project.

Restifo and her team’s co-authored study and findings recently were published in Disease Models & Mechanisms, a peer-reviewed journal. Robert Kraft, a former research associate in the department of neuroscience, is lead author on the article.

Restifo and Kraft cite clinical reports noting that statin users often are told by physicians that cognitive disturbances experienced while taking statins were likely due to aging or other effects. However, the UA team’s research offers additional evidence that the cause for such declines in cognition is likely due to a negative response to statins.

The team also has found that removing statins results in a disappearance of the beads-on-a-string, and also a restoration of normal growth. With research continuing, the UA team intends to investigate how genetics may be involved in the bead formation and, thus, could cause hypersensitivity to the drugs in people. Team members believe that genetic differences could involve neurons directly, or the statin interaction with the blood-brain barrier.

“This is a great first step on the road toward more personalized medication and therapy,” said David M. Labiner, who heads the UA department of neurology. “If we can figure out a way to identify patients who will have certain side effects, we can improve therapeutic outcomes.”

For now, the UA team has multiple external grants pending, and researchers carry the hope that future research will greatly inform the medical community and patients.

“If we are able to do genetic studies, the goal will be to come up with a predictive test so that a patient with high cholesterol could be tested first to determine whether they have a sensitivity to statins,” Restifo said.

Detecting, Understanding a Drugs’ Side Effects

Restifo used the analogy of traffic to explain what she and her colleagues theorize.

The beads indicate a sort of traffic jam, she described. In the presence of statins, neurons undergo a “dramatic change in their morphology,” said Restifo, also a BIO5 Institute member.

“Those very, very dramatic and obvious swellings are inside the neurons and act like a traffic pileup that is so bad that it disrupts the function of the neurons,” she said.

It was Kraft’s observations that led to team’s novel discovery. Restifo, Kraft and their colleagues had long been investigating mutations in genes, largely for the benefit of advancing discoveries toward the improved treatment of autism and other cognitive disorders.

At the time, and using a blind-screened library of 1,040 drug compounds, the team ran tests on fruit fly neurons, investigating the reduction of defects caused by a mutation when neurons were exposed to different drugs. The team had shown that one mutation caused the neuron branches to be curly instead of straight, but certain drugs corrected this. The research findings were published in 2006 in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Then, something serendipitous occurred: Kraft observed that one compound, then another and then two more all created the same reaction — “these bulges, which we called beads-on-a-string,’” Kraft said. “And they were the only drugs causing this effect.”

At the end of the earlier investigation, the team decoded the library and found that the four compounds that resulted in the beads-on-a-string were, in fact, statins.

“The ‘beads’ effect of the statins was like a bonus prize from the earlier experiment,” Restifo said. “It was so striking, we couldn’t ignore it.”

In addition to detecting the beads effect, the team came upon yet another major finding: when statins are removed, the beads-on-a-string effect disappears, offering great promise to those being treated with the drugs.

“For some patients, just as much as statins work to save their lives, they can cause impairments,” said Monica Chaung, who has been part of the team and is a UA undergraduate researcher studying molecular and cellular biology and physiology.

“It’s not a one drug fits all,” said Chaung, a UA junior who is also in the Honors College. “We suspect different gene mutations alter how people respond to statins.”

Having been trained by Kraft in techniques to investigate cultured neurons, Chuang was testing gene mutations and found variation in sensitivity to statins. It was through the work of Chuang and Kraft that the team would later determine that, after removing the statins, the cells were able to repair themselves; the neurotoxicity was not permanent, Restifo said.

“In the clinical literature, you can read reports on fuzzy thinking, which stops when a patient stops taking statins. So, that was a very important demonstration of a parallel between the clinical reports and the laboratory phenomena,” Restifo said.

The finding led the team to further investigate the neurotoxicity of statins.

“There is no question that these are very important and very useful drugs,” Restifo said. Statins have been shown to lower cholesterol and prevent heart attacks and strokes.

But too much remains unknown about how the drugs’ effects may contribute to muscular, cognitive and behavioral changes.

“We don’t know the implications of the beads, but we have a number of hypotheses to test,” Restifo said, adding that further studies should reveal exactly what happens when the transportation system within neurons is disrupted.

Also, given the move toward prescribing statins to children, the need to have an expanded understanding of the effects of statins on cognitive development is critical, Kraft said.

“If statins have an effect on how the nervous system matures, that could be devastating,” Kraft said. “Memory loss or any sort of disruption of your memory and cognition can have quite severe effects and negative consequences.”

Restifo and her colleagues have multiple grants pending that would enable the team to continue investigating several facets related to the neurotoxicity of statins. Among the major questions is, to what extent does genetics contribute to a person’s sensitivity to statins?

“We have no idea who is at risk. That makes us think that we can use this genetic laboratory assay to infer which of the genes make people susceptible,” Restifo said.

“This dramatic change in the morphology of the neurons is something we can now use to ask questions and experiment in the laboratory,” she said. “Our contribution is to find a way to ask about genetics and what the genetic vulnerability factors are.”

The Possibility for Future Research, Advice

The team’s findings and future research could have important implications for the medical field and for patients with regard to treatment, communication and improved personalized medicine.

“It’s important to look into this to see if people may have some sort of predisposition to the beads effect, and that’s where we want to go with this research,” Kraft said. “There must be more research into what effects these drugs have other than just controlling a person’s elevated cholesterol levels.”

And even as additional research is ongoing, suggestions already exist for physicians, patients and families.

“Most physicians assume that if a patient doesn’t report side effects, there are no side effects,” Labiner said. “The paternalistic days of medication are hopefully behind us. They should be.”

“We can treat lots of things, but the problem is if there are side effects that worsen the treatment, the patient is more likely to shy away from the medication. That’s a bad outcome,” he said. “There’s got to be a give and take between the patient and physician.”

Patients should feel empowered to ask questions, and deeper questions, about their health and treatment and physicians should be very attentive to any reports of cognitive decline for those patients on statins, she said.

For some, it starts early after starting statins; for others, it takes time. And the signs vary. People may begin losing track of dates, the time or their keys.

“These are not trivial things. This could have a significant impact on your daily life, your interpersonal relationships, your ability to hold a job,” Restifo said.

“This is the part of the brain that allows us to think clearly, to plan, to hold onto memories,” she said. “If people are concerned that they are having this problem, patients should ask their physicians.”

Restifo said open and direct patient-physician communication is even more important for those on statins who have a family history of side effects from statins.

Also, physicians could work more closely with patients to investigate family history and determine a better dosage plan. Even placing additional questions on the family history questionnaire could be useful, she said.

“There is good clinical data that every-other-day dosing give you most of the benefits, and maybe even prevents some of the accumulation of things that result in side effects,” Restifo said, suggesting that physicians should try and get a better longitudinal picture on how people react while on statins.

“Statins have been around now for long enough and are widely prescribed to so many people,” she said. “But increased awareness could be very helpful.”

Cholesterol Levels May Vary By Season
View the Cholesterol Levels Slideshow Pictures

THURSDAY, March 7 (HealthDay News) — Cholesterol levels increase with winter’s arrival and drop again as warmer weather returns, a new study by Brazilian researchers suggests.

“In the winter, people should be careful with their cholesterol levels,” said lead researcher Dr. Filipe Moura, a doctoral student at the State University of Campinas.

Whether these changes in cholesterol are putting patients at risk for heart attacks or stroke isn’t clear, Moura said. It’s a complex picture and these changes might have a role, but there are many other factors, he added.

There are several possible reasons cholesterol varies by season, Moura said, including changes in diet, exercise and exposure to the sun.

“In the winter, people consume more calories and eat fattier foods, which could have an effect on their bad cholesterol,” he said. “Also, it’s common for people to exercise less during the winter and stay in more.”

People also get less sun in the winter, so they get less vitamin D, which can have an effect on cholesterol, Moura said. He also noted that during the winter people are prone to colds and the flu, which can effect cholesterol levels.

The study findings were scheduled to be presented Saturday at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology in San Francisco.

Moura’s team collected data on more than 227,000 people who had their cholesterol checked in primary-care centers in the Brazilian city of Campinas between 2008 and 2010.

The researchers found that during the winter, low-density lipoprotein (LDL), or “bad” cholesterol, rose an average of 7 milligrams per deciliter compared to the summer, which is about an 8 percent increase during the cold months. During the summer, levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL), the “good” cholesterol, rose about 9 percent, but so did levels of fats in the blood called triglycerides, which rose about 5 percent, the researchers found.

This is different than what other studies have found, Moura said. A possible explanation is Campinas’s climate. The city’s elevation is roughly 1,800 to 2,500 feet above sea level, and the winters are mild and dry.

Moura said these changes may be even more extreme in the United States, Europe or other areas that have bigger climate changes between winter and summer.

He next plans to look at patients with heart disease to see whether the seasonal change in cholesterol results in more heart attacks.

What these findings mean for patients isn’t clear, said Dr. Gregg Fonarow, a spokesman for the American Heart Association and a professor of cardiology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“This study suggests there may be modest seasonal variation … with higher LDL levels in winter months compared to summer, but further studies are needed to confirm these findings and whether there is any meaningful impact on cardiovascular risk,” Fonarow said.

Because this study was presented at a medical meeting, the data and conclusions should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Everyday Noise Levels May Affect the Heart

THURSDAY, May 9 (HealthDay News) — Even the minor noise that fills everyday life, from the ring of a cell phone to the conversation that follows, may have short-term effects on heart function, a small new study suggests.

In the study of 110 adults equipped with portable heart monitors, researchers found that people’s heart rate tended to climb as their noise exposure increased — even when the noise remained below 65 decibels. That’s about as loud as a normal conversation or laughter.

There was also a negative impact on people’s heart rate “variability” — a measure of the heart’s adaptation to what is going on around you. Greater variability in the interval between heartbeats is better. When people are relaxed, the space between heartbeats is usually a bit longer as they exhale, and shorter as they inhale.

When people are stressed, however, some of that natural variation is lost. And studies have linked lesser heart rate variability to an increased risk of heart attack.

So does all of this mean you need to wear earplugs to protect your heart? Probably not, experts say.

For any one person, the effects of everyday noise on heart function may be small, said Charlotta Eriksson, a researcher at the Karolinska Institute, in Stockholm, Sweden. Eriksson was not involved in the study.

But since we are all exposed to noise, even a minor effect on heart health could be important on the broad “population level,” said Eriksson, who has studied the effects of loud traffic — from roads or airports — on people’s blood pressure and heart function.

Research has consistently found links between loud workplaces and an increased risk of heart disease, said Dr. Wenqi Gan, a researcher at North Shore-LIJ Health System’s Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, in Manhasset, N.Y.

The evidence is more mixed when it comes to “community noise,” like traffic sounds, said Gan, whose own research has found a connection.

He said the mixed results may be because it’s difficult to weed out the effects of community noise on individuals. You might live in a noisy section of a big city, but have good, sound-muffling windows, for example.

“And some people are more sensitive to noise than others,” Gan said. If noise affects the heart by stressing people out, he said, then your personal sensitivity to it would be important.

The new findings, reported in the May issue of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, are based on 110 adults who wore portable devices that measured their heart activity and noise exposure during their normal daily routines.

What was “interesting,” Eriksson said, is that lower-level noise seemed to curb activity in the parasympathetic nervous system — the branch of the nervous system that acts as a “brake,” lowering heart rate and relaxing the blood vessels, for example.

Louder noise, meanwhile, seemed to rev up the sympathetic nervous system — the branch that boosts heart rate, constricts blood vessels and otherwise sends us into “fight or flight” mode.

The value of the findings is that they suggest a biological reason for why noise has been linked to ill heart effects, said Alexandra Schneider, one of the researchers in the Institute of Epidemiology at Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen, in Germany, who worked on the study.

“Our main focus was to find a possible mechanism that could be responsible for the observed health effects in other studies,” Schneider said.

The study was not designed to offer people advice on how much noise is “bad” for their hearts, she said.

Gan agreed. “This study is a first step in exploring the underlying biological mechanisms for the association between noise exposure and cardiovascular disease,” he said. “We need more studies like this.”

A big question, said study author Schneider, is whether the short-term effects of noise, repeated over time, ultimately affect heart health — particularly for people who already have chronic medical conditions.

Although the study tied increased noise exposure to a rise in heart rate, it did not establish a cause-and-effect relationship.

Pets a Boon for the Human Heart, Cardiologists Say

THURSDAY, May 9 (HealthDay News) — That four-legged friend of yours may be more than a companion — he also may be boosting your heart health, experts say.

An official statement released Thursday by the American Heart Association says there is evidence that having a pet, particularly a dog, may lower your risk of heart disease.

Cardiology specialists weren’t all that surprised.

“Pets really might be man’s best friend,” said Barbara George, director of the Center for Cardiovascular Lifestyle Medicine at Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, N.Y.

“Studies have shown people who own pets, particularly dogs, have lower blood pressure, increased mood-related brain chemicals, better cholesterol numbers, lower weight and improved stress response,” George said.

Members of the American Heart Association (AHA) committee that wrote the statement reviewed data from an array of relevant studies. They found that pet ownership appears to be associated with a reduction in heart disease risk factors such as high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol levels and obesity — and improved survival among people with heart disease.

Dog ownership in particular may help reduce heart risk, the statement said. People with dogs may get more exercise because they take their dogs for walks. A study of more than 5,200 adults found that dog owners did more walking and physical activity than those who didn’t own dogs, and that dog owners were 54 percent more likely to get the recommended level of physical activity.

“Walking your dog is a healthy chore; it is a great way to exercise without thinking about it,” said Dr. Nieca Goldberg, clinical associate professor in the department of medicine at the Tisch Center for Women’s Health at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City. “Pet owners increase their physical activity simply by walking their dogs.”

Pets can also have a positive effect on the body’s reactions to stress, according to the AHA. George agreed, saying pets can be “a tool for weight loss, socialization, calming our nerves and easing anxiety and depression.”

The AHA stressed, however, that the studies they reviewed cannot prove that owning a pet directly reduces heart disease risk.

“It may be simply that healthier people are the ones that have pets, not that having a pet actually leads to or causes reduction in cardiovascular risk,” statement committee chairman Dr. Glenn Levine, a professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, said in an AHA news release.

“There probably is an association between pet ownership and decreased cardiovascular risk,” he said. “What’s less clear is whether the act of adopting or acquiring a pet could lead to a reduction in cardiovascular risk in those with pre-existing disease. Further research, including better quality studies, is needed to more definitively answer this question.”

In the meantime, George said, humans can benefit from the mental and physical rewards of furry companions. “Pets tug at our heartstrings,” she said. “But they also improve our health — both mental and physical — helping us to live longer and happier lives.”

Original News Release American Heart Association

Melatonin Might Help Control Weight Gain and Prevent Heart Disease Associated With Obesity

Apr. 28, 2011 — University of Granada researchers have shown that melatonin — a natural hormone produced by the body — helps in controlling weight gain, even without reducing the intake of food. Melatonin also improves blood lipid profile, as it reduces triglicerids, and also increases HDL cholesterol and reduces LDL cholesterol.

Melatonin is found in small quantities in some fruits and vegetables as mustard, Goji berries, almonds, sunflower seeds, cardamom, fennel, coriander and cherries. Thus, the intake of this kind of food might help in controlling weight gain and preventing heart diseases associated to obesity and dyslipidemia.

Trials with rats

University of Granada researchers have analyzed in young Zucker diabetic obese rats the effects of melatonin on obesity, dyslipidemia and high blood pressure associated with obesity. Melatonin was found to be beneficial for young rats that had not still developed any metabolic or heart disease. Researchers think that melatonin might help prevent heart disease associated with obesity and dyslipidemia.

Finally, authors state that if this finding is confirmed in humans, administration of melatonin and intake of food containing melatonin might be a useful tool to fight obesity and the risks associated with it.

A collaborative study

This study was partially funded and supported by the Research Plan of the University of Granada, by the research group CTS-109 (Junta de Andalucía), Spain and the Erasmus Mundus programme (European Council). University of Granada researchers (from the Institute for Neuroscience of the Department of Pharmacology of the Faculty of Medicine), conducted this research in collaboration with the Clinical Trial Service of the University Hospital San Cecilio, Granada, the department of Physiology and Pharmacology of the University of Salamanca, the department of Pharmacology of the University of Jordan and the Service of Endocrinology of the Hospital Carloss III, Madrid.

The authors of this study are professors Ahmad Agil, Miguel Navarro, Rosario Ruiz, Sausan Abuamada, Yehia El-Mir and Gumersindo Fernández

Risks: Resting Heart Rate as Simple Biomarker

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR

Published: January 2, 2012

Norwegian researchers studied 30,000 healthy men and women age 20 and older, checking heart rates at intervals 10 years apart. The scientists followed the subjects through 2008, recording the number of deaths from coronary heart disease. The results were published Dec. 21 in The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Compared with those whose heart rates remained stable at 70 beats per minute or less, those whose rates increased to 85 or more were almost twice as likely to die of heart disease. For those with resting rates between 70 and 85 beats per minute at the first test, an increase to greater than 85 was associated with an 80 percent increase in death rate.

There was no direct decrease in heart disease risk with decreasing resting heart rate, but among the 7,000 people whose heart rates had decreased from between 70 and 85 to below 70 beats a minute, risk for death from any cause was reduced by 40 percent.

The subjects were completely healthy at both measurements, said Ulrik Wisloff of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. “So resting heart rate is a simple, cost-free and strong biomarker that should be monitored regularly.”

Link Between Chronically Elevated Cortisol Levels And Cardiovascular Disease Revealed By Hair Analysis

Hair strands contain valuable information about senior citizens’ stress levels that can be used to determine an individual’s cardiovascular disease risk, according to a recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).

Unlike a blood test that captures a snapshot of stress hormone levels at a single point in time, a scalp hair analysis can be used to view trends in levels of the stress hormone cortisol over the course of several months. This approach allows researchers to have a better sense of the variability in cortisol levels. The study found seniors who had higher long-term levels of the stress hormone cortisol were more likely to have cardiovascular disease.

“Like high blood pressure or abdominal fat, the findings suggest elevated cortisol levels are an important signal that an individual is at risk of cardiovascular disease,” said one of the study’s lead authors, Laura Manenschijn, MD, of Erasmus MC in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. “Because scalp hair can capture information about how cortisol levels have changed over time, hair analysis gives us a better tool for evaluating that risk.”

The study measured cortisol levels in a group of 283 community-dwelling senior citizens between the ages of 65 and 85. Participants were randomly selected from a large population-based cohort study. Using 3-centimeter-long hair samples taken from close to the scalp, researchers were able to measure cortisol levels from a three-month period. People with high cortisol levels were more likely to have a history of coronary heart disease, stroke, peripheral arterial disease or diabetes.

“The data showed a clear link between chronically elevated cortisol levels and cardiovascular disease,” said the study’s other lead author, Elisabeth van Rossum, MD, PhD, of Erasmus MC. “Additional studies are needed to explore the role of long-term cortisol measurement as a cardiovascular disease predictor and how it can be used to inform new treatment or prevention strategies.”

Cholesterol Increases Risk of Alzheimer’s and Heart Disease

Researchers at the Linda Crnic Institute for Down Syndrome and the University of Colorado School of Medicine have found that a single mechanism may underlie the damaging effect of cholesterol on the brain and on blood vessels.

High levels of blood cholesterol increase the risk of both Alzheimer’s disease and heart disease, but it has been unclear exactly how cholesterol damages the brain to promote Alzheimer’s disease and blood vessels to promote atherosclerosis.

Using insights gained from studying two much rarer disorders, Down Syndrome and Niemann Pick-C disease, researchers at the Linda Crnic Institute for Down Syndrome and the Department of Neurology of the University of Colorado School of Medicine found that cholesterol wreaks havoc on the orderly process of cell division, leading to defective daughter cells throughout the body.

In the new study published this week in the on-line journal PLOS ONE, Antoneta Granic, PhD, and Huntington Potter, PhD, show that cholesterol, particularly in the LDL form, called ‘bad cholesterol’, causes cells in both humans and mice to divide incorrectly and distribute their already-duplicated chromosomes unequally to the next generation. The result is an accumulation of defective daughter cells with the wrong number of chromosomes and therefore the wrong number of genes. Instead of the correct two copies of each chromosome, and thus two copies of each gene, some cells acquired three copies and some only one.

Granic and Potter’s study of the effects of cholesterol on cell division included a prominent finding of cells carrying three copies of the chromosome (#21 in humans and #16 in mice) that encodes the amyloid peptide that is the key component of the neurotoxic amyloid filaments that accumulate in the brains of Alzheimer patients.

Human trisomy 21 cells are significant because people with Down syndrome have trisomy 21 in all of their cells from the moment of conception, and they all develop the brain pathology and many develop the dementia of Alzheimer’s disease by age 50. Earlier studies by Granic, Potter and others have shown that as many as 10% of cells in an Alzheimer patient, including neurons in the brain, have three copies of chromosome 21 instead of the usual two. Thus, Alzheimer’s disease is, in some ways, a form of acquired Down syndrome. Furthermore, mutant genes that cause inherited Alzheimer’s disease cause the same defect in chromosome segregation as does cholesterol, thus indicating the presence of a common cell division problem in both familial and ‘sporadic’ (non-familial) Alzheimer’s disease.

The new research also found trisomy 21 neurons in the brains of children with what, until now, was thought to be an unrelated neurodegenerative disease (Niemann Pick type C), caused by a mutation affecting cholesterol physiology. This result suggests that neurodegeneration itself might be linked to chromosome missegregation.

Such a model is supported by the finding of Thomas Arendt, MD, and colleagues at the University of Leipzig that 90% of the neuronal cell death observed at autopsy in Alzheimer patients is due to the creation and selective loss of neurons with the wrong number of chromosomes.

Identifying the specific problem caused by cholesterol will lead to completely new approaches to therapy for many human diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, atherosclerosis and possibly cancer, all of which show signs of defective cell division. Granic and Potter already have found a potentially simple approach to preventing cholesterol from causing cells to distribute their chromosomes unequally into their new daughter cells. Specifically, when cells in culture were first treated with ethanol, the subsequent exposure to bad cholesterol was without effect on cell division: Each daughter cell received the correct number of chromosomes.

Balding Men Could Face Higher Heart Risks, Study Finds

WEDNESDAY, April 3 (HealthDay News) — New research out of Japan shows a potential link between male baldness and an increased risk for coronary heart disease.

But it only affects men who are balding on top. Those with a receding hairline are not at risk, the researchers reported.

The findings stem from an analysis of six published studies on hair loss and heart health that involved approximately 37,000 men.

And although the researchers admitted the small study size was a limitation, they reported that men whose baldness affected the crown on their head faced a 32 percent to 84 percent increase in the risk of developing heart disease compared to men with a full head of hair or a receding hairline.

Study lead author Dr. Tomohide Yamada, of the department of diabetes and metabolic diseases at the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Medicine, in Japan, reported his findings in the current issue of the journal BMJ Open and called for more research on the topic. Although the research review found an association between baldness and heart disease risk, it did not prove a cause-and-effect link.

Male pattern baldness (technically referred to as “androgenetic alopecia”) affects up to 40 percent of adult men and is the most common type of hair loss, the researchers reported. By age 80, about four in five men will experience this form of baldness.

To explore the link to heart disease, the researchers analyzed databases covering the period 1950 through 2012. Out of 850 related investigations, they selected six studies, all published between 1993 and 2008 in the United States, Denmark or Croatia.

In the three studies that tracked patients for a minimum of 11 years, the research showed that, overall, balding men face a 33 percent greater risk for heart disease than other men, and those between 55 and 60 years old faced an even higher risk (44 percent).

The other three studies, comparing the cardiac health of balding men to non-balding men, showed a 70 percent bump in heart disease risk among the balding group, and an 84 percent risk for younger balding men.

What’s more, a balding man’s heart disease risk appeared to be dependent on the severity of his hair loss, with more severe loss translating into greater risk, the studies showed.

Yamada’s team said the driving mechanism behind the connection is unknown, but they theorized that baldness could be a marker for insulin resistance, chronic inflammation or an increased sensitivity to testosterone, all of which are factors in the onset of heart disease.

Regardless, Yamada said, balding men should do what all men should do when it comes to controlling heart disease risk. “I recommend adapting a heart-healthy lifestyle that includes a low-fat diet, exercise and less stress [in order to mitigate against] classical coronary risk factors,” such as age, high blood pressure, blood lipid disruption and a history of smoking, he said.

Cardiologist Dr. Gregg Fonarow, of the University of California, Los Angeles, agreed that the tried-and-true approach to heart health stands — regardless of your hairline.

“Clearly, wearing a toupee or a hat is not going to lower the risk,” he said with a chuckle. “But what is true is that well-established means of maintaining a healthy diet and weight, exercising, and watching blood pressure and cholesterol levels can all lower your risk for heart disease.”

Dr. Christopher Cannon, a cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, agreed.

“Unfortunately, this is bad news for me personally,” he said. “But if you are at a higher risk for heart disease, as I myself would appear to be, then you have to try and reduce that risk by doing the things that have long been shown to help. And stay tuned for future research that may help us understand what is underlying this.”

Beetroot juice ‘boosts stamina’

BBC News
6 August 2009

Drinking beetroot juice boosts stamina and could help people exercise for up to 16% longer, a UK study suggests.

A University of Exeter team found nitrate contained in the vegetable leads to a reduction in oxygen uptake – making exercise less tiring.

The small Journal of Applied Physiology study suggests the effect is greater than that which can be achieved by regular training.

Beetroot juice has previously been shown to reduce blood pressure.

We were amazed by the effects of beetroot juice
Professor Andy Jones
University of Exeter

The researchers believe their findings could help people with cardiovascular, respiratory or metabolic diseases – and endurance athletes.

They focused on eight men aged 19-38, who were given 500ml per day of organic beetroot juice for six consecutive days before completing a series of tests, involving cycling on an exercise bike.

On another occasion, they were given a placebo of blackcurrant cordial for six consecutive days before completing the same cycling tests.

After drinking beetroot juice the group was able to cycle for an average of 11.25 minutes – 92 seconds longer than when they were given the placebo.

This would translate into an approximate 2% reduction in the time taken to cover a set distance.

The group that had consumed the beetroot juice also had lower resting blood pressure.

Mechanism unclear

The researchers are not yet sure of the exact mechanism that causes the nitrate in the beetroot juice to boost stamina.

However, they suspect it could be a result of the nitrate turning into nitric oxide in the body, reducing how much oxygen is burned up by exercise.

Study researcher Professor Andy Jones – an adviser to top UK athlete Paula Radcliffe – said: “We were amazed by the effects of beetroot juice on oxygen uptake because these effects cannot be achieved by any other known means, including training.

“I am sure professional and amateur athletes will be interested in the results of this research.

“I am also keen to explore the relevance of the findings to those people who suffer from poor fitness and may be able to use dietary supplements to help them go about their daily lives.”

Professor John Brewer, an expert on sports science at the University of Bedfordshire, said: “These findings are potentially exciting for many people involved in sport and exercise, but will almost certainly require further more extensive studies before the exact benefits and mechanisms are understood.

“We must also remember that exercise and training and a sensible diet will always remain as the essential ingredients for a balanced and healthy lifestyle.”

Dr Simon Marshall, of the University of San Diego, has carried out work on exercise and health.

He said much more work was needed involving many more subjects to draw firm conclusions.

“Certainly, a diet high in nitrate-rich fruits and vegetables is good for your heart health and this study provides further evidence of this.”

Beet Juice Lowers Blood Pressure
Nitrates Found in Vegetables May Protect Blood Vessels

By Elisabeth Bergman
WebMD Health News
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

Feb. 8, 2008 — Drinking two cups of beet juice a day may reduce blood pressure, a study shows.

The British researchers who conducted the study say the findings add even more weight to the importance of eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables.

That’s because beets (known as beetroot in Britain) are loaded with the nutrient nitrate. Spinach, lettuce, and other green, leafy vegetables also have high levels of nitrate.

Previous studies have shown that eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables lowers blood pressure. Antioxidants often get the credit, but several recent studies have suggested that nitrates may play a much bigger role. How nitrates work to lower blood pressure has been more of mystery.
How Nitrates May Lower Blood Pressure

In the study, 14 healthy volunteers drank 500 milliliters (2 cups) of Planet Organic beet juice or water within 30 minutes. The researchers checked the participants’ blood pressure every 15 minutes one hour before they drank the juice and every 15 minutes three hours after drinking the beet juice. They also checked every hour to six hours and then at 24 hours after they drank the beet juice.

Compared with the water drinkers, blood pressure dropped one hour after the volunteers drank the beet juice. It reached its lowest point 2.5 to 3 hours after ingestion and continued to have an effect for up to 24 hours.

Here’s how it works: Nitrate in the beet juice is converted by bacteria living on the tongue into the chemical nitrite. Once it enters the stomach, it becomes nitric oxide or re-enters the blood stream as nitrite. The researchers found that blood pressure was at its lowest when the nitrite levels in the blood were at their highest.

The nitrites, the researchers write, work by protecting against endothelial dysfunction, which means that blood vessels have trouble expanding or contracting to handle changes in blood flow. They also have anti-platelet properties.

“Our research suggests that drinking beetroot juice, or consuming other nitrate-rich vegetables, might be a simple way to maintain a healthy cardiovascular system, and might also be an additional approach that one could take in the modern-day battle against rising blood pressure,” says Amrita Ahluwalia, PhD, one of the study’s researchers. Ahluwalia is a professor at the William Harvey Research Institute at Barts and The London School of Medicine.

The study is published in the Feb. 4 online edition of the journal Hypertension.

Link to original article in Hypertension

Cholesterol Levels May Vary By Season

Brazilian study doesn’t necessarily mean that heart attack or stroke risk rises in winter

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, March 7 (HealthDay News) — Cholesterol levels increase with winter’s arrival and drop again as warmer weather returns, a new study by Brazilian researchers suggests.

“In the winter, people should be careful with their cholesterol levels,” said lead researcher Dr. Filipe Moura, a doctoral student at the State University of Campinas.

Whether these changes in cholesterol are putting patients at risk for heart attacks or stroke isn’t clear, Moura said. It’s a complex picture and these changes might have a role, but there are many other factors, he added.

There are several possible reasons cholesterol varies by season, Moura said, including changes in diet, exercise and exposure to the sun.

“In the winter, people consume more calories and eat fattier foods, which could have an effect on their bad cholesterol,” he said. “Also, it’s common for people to exercise less during the winter and stay in more.”

People also get less sun in the winter, so they get less vitamin D, which can have an effect on cholesterol, Moura said. He also noted that during the winter people are prone to colds and the flu, which can effect cholesterol levels.

The study findings were scheduled to be presented Saturday at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology in San Francisco.

Moura’s team collected data on more than 227,000 people who had their cholesterol checked in primary-care centers in the Brazilian city of Campinas between 2008 and 2010.

The researchers found that during the winter, low-density lipoprotein (LDL), or “bad” cholesterol, rose an average of 7 milligrams per deciliter compared to the summer, which is about an 8 percent increase during the cold months. During the summer, levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL), the “good” cholesterol, rose about 9 percent, but so did levels of fats in the blood called triglycerides, which rose about 5 percent, the researchers found.

This is different than what other studies have found, Moura said. A possible explanation is Campinas’s climate. The city’s elevation is roughly 1,800 to 2,500 feet above sea level, and the winters are mild and dry.

Moura said these changes may be even more extreme in the United States, Europe or other areas that have bigger climate changes between winter and summer.

He next plans to look at patients with heart disease to see whether the seasonal change in cholesterol results in more heart attacks.

What these findings mean for patients isn’t clear, said Dr. Gregg Fonarow, a spokesman for the American Heart Association and a professor of cardiology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“This study suggests there may be modest seasonal variation … with higher LDL levels in winter months compared to summer, but further studies are needed to confirm these findings and whether there is any meaningful impact on cardiovascular risk,” Fonarow said.

Because this study was presented at a medical meeting, the data and conclusions should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Daily Meditation reduces heart attack risk at least 50%; this compassionate meditation is likely to reduce it even more.

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How to Meditate III: Walking Meditation

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Walking Meditation

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Walking Meditation by Martine Batchelder

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Walking Meditation by Manzanita Village

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(Keep in mind that meditation reduces the risk of a heart attack by at least 50%)

from www.MeditationOasis.com

Walking Meditation

How to meditate while walking

Walking meditation can be just as profound as sitting meditation, and has the advantage of bringing the meditative experience into our activity. There are a number of different walking meditations. Our variation is informal and easy. It allows you to be more present in your body and in the present moment. The simple experience of alternating steps with the left and right foot naturally helps create a meditative state.

There is a tremendous richness of experience to become aware of as you walk. The body loves movement, and will reward you with pleasure if you pay attention to how it feels! So much of the time we are caught up in our mental worlds — thinking of the past or future, planning, imagining… Paying attention to the body as you walk will help you to enjoy simply being alive. (Although there are sitting meditations in which you pay attention to the body, it is easier to do so when the body is in motion. This is another advantage of walking meditation.)

Where and when. This meditation is best done outdoors. We recommend setting aside at least 20 minutes for your walking meditation, and not trying to combine it with anything else like going on errands or walking briskly for exercise. Let this be a walk just for meditation so that you can sink into the experience with your undivided attention!

How to start. Before starting to walk, spend a little time while still standing still. Allow your awareness to be with your body. Take some deep breaths, inhaling deep into the belly. Put your full attention on the sensation of breathing. Then allow the breath to return to normal and notice it going on its own for a little while. Now bring your awareness to your body, noticing how your body feels as you are standing, and becoming aware of all the sensations going on in your body.

Now begin walking. Walk at a relaxed, fairly slow but normal pace. Pay attention to the sensations in your body as you walk. It is natural to find your attention drawn to the sights around you as you walk, but keep bringing your attention to what is going on internally.

The idea is to have your attention on the physical experience of walking. If the mind starts getting caught up in thoughts, easily bring your attention back to the experience of walking. Notice how the body feels in great detail as you walk. The entire body is involved in the act of walking — from alternation of the left and right foot to the swinging of your arms and hips.

Notice how the soles of your feet feel — the contact they make with your socks or shoes, the textures of the fabrics touching them, the way they feel as they bear the weight of your body and the sensations in them as your walk along. Feel the entire foot, being aware of how it moves as the heel is placed on the ground, and then the movement rolls to the ball of the foot and toes. Notice how it feels as the foot lifts and moves forward. Allow your awareness to move up through every part of the body, noticing the sensations as you walk. Gradually scan all parts of your body as you bring your attention to the ankles, skins, calves, knees, thighs, hips, pelvis, back, chest, shoulders, arms, neck, head.

When you become aware of tension anywhere in the body, let it go. Allow that part of your body to relax. Allow your ankles, belly, shoulders, arms, neck — all of your body — to relax. Let your hips swing loose. As you do this, the walking will become more enjoyable.

You can scan your body randomly, moving your awareness from place to pace in your body, or you can systematically scan your whole body going from the soles of your feet to the top of your head noticing the sensations of walking. The most important thing is to keep you awareness on the sensations in your body, easily bringing it back when your mind has wandered.

Variation: Keep your attention on the rhythm of the walking — the alternation of left and right foot. Simply notice the experience of left-right-left-right motion. Keep bringing your awareness back to this experience when the mind wanders in thoughts or distractions of the

www.health.harvard.edu/blog/categories/health/heart-health

Studies explore global burden of disease and heart disease in the United States

Posted December 14, 2012, 2:39 pm

If you like numbers and statistics, especially those about health, two reports released this week should keep you occupied for days: the massive Global Burden of Disease study was published in The Lancet, and the American Heart Association released its annual “Heart and stroke statistics” report. The Global Burden of Disease project found that average life expectancy continues to rise in most countries. It also found that infection and other communicable causes of disease no longer dominate deaths and disability. Today, so-called non-communicable causes like traffic accidents, violence and war, heart disease, cancer, and other chronic conditions account for two-thirds of world deaths and the majority of years lost to disability and death. According to the American Heart Association’s annual report, the percentage of deaths due to heart attack, stroke, and other cardiovascular diseases has fallen by nearly one-third since 1999, but don’t expect that to continue. Increases in high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, overweight, and inactivity threaten to reverse these gains.

The Force of the Quantified Self

By James Beckerman, MD, FACC

In my last post, I talked about the Dark Side of the Quantified Self — the possibility that becoming too focused on one’s own personal data may begin to diminish our individual real-life experiences and interactions. Mindfulness can be mind numbing if taken to an uncomfortable level. But for every Dark Side, I’m told, there has to be a Force for good. And in the case of the Quantified Self, I see the greatest potential for health improvement in the quiet collection of data that happens without our constant attention.

But don’t get rid of your pedometer quite yet. Pedometers, food diaries, and scales are definitely associated with positive changes in behavior, so we do recommend them as external triggers when we have trouble motivating ourselves on our own. But collecting data under the radar (with consent of course) and communicating it to the right people could potentially offer even more than a health course correction — it could save your life. I think that this is the future of the Quantified Self.

The AliveCor ECG device is an example of cool ideas to come. It’s simple and beautiful — an iPhone case that fits neatly on your phone. You gently press the phone to your chest and the phone automatically begins to record an electrocardiogram tracing which includes information about your heart rate and rhythm. It can even potentially diagnose a heart attack. The data could be sent automatically to a cardiologist who examines your heart’s data and can contact you with any concerns. I recently debuted the device on television and people are already asking when they will be available for sale. This simplicity of data collection, transfer, and health care provider response should be our goal.

So what’s the next step? Because ideally we wouldn’t need to find our iPhone when we develop an abnormal heart rhythm or a heart attack. Someone else would know about it and would be able to help us. Wouldn’t it be great to record this data on an ongoing basis and feed it to a databank which can analyze it and direct us to appropriate health interventions? Enter Everyheartbeat.org, a new platform that will help combine innovative sensors and your mobile phone to upload and track heart data — hopefully for millions of people. Researchers will have access to data to understand our hearts better, and clinicians will be able to give you a call if your heartbeat is irregular, too fast or too slow, or if there are signs of a heart attack. It’s amazing, and it’s really happening.

Would you want to upload your personal health data? Or does it sound too much like Big Doctor looking over your shoulder? It’s true — with big data comes great responsibility… So may the Force be with us.

Preventative Medicine Research Institute

http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/

Our mission is to build healthier lives, free of cardiovascular diseases and stroke. That single purpose drives all we do. The need for our work is beyond question

www.heartmdinstitute.com/

With the understanding that knowledge empowers, our mission at Heart MD Institute is to educate patients and medical professionals alike about integrative medicine, with a special focus on metabolic cardiology and energy medicine. Additionally, Heart MD Institute aims to inspire a restructuring of the doctor/patient relationship where together, both actively participate in the patient’s healing process. The pervading philosophy at Heart MD Institute is prevention is easier than cure.

At Heart MD Institute, we believe that our nation’s traditional “crisis and disease medicine” model which focuses upon fixing injured or diseased bodies is no longer sufficient in consideration of both increased costs and human suffering. Why is total healthcare spending in the U.S. continually on the rise yet we are becoming progressively unhealthier as a nation? Diabetes and obesity, risk factors for heart disease and many cancers, have become epidemics, even among children. Properly prescribed and administered drugs, which compromise health through nutritional deficiencies and other negative side effects, rank between the fourth and sixth leading causes of death in the U.S. Clearly, the traditional medicinal model, which treats symptoms rather than underlying causes of diseases, is failing to sustain our collective health.

Current consumer health trends demonstrate the need for an integrative medicinal model. Despite lack of insurance coverage, people are spending their own dollars on alternative treatments and products. Integrative medicine combines the best of traditional acute and life-saving interventions with alternative treatments designed to strengthen and support the body – ideally before it succumbs to illness.

Prevention of cyclic illness entails making proactive lifestyle changes such as eating a healthy diet, supplementing with nutraceuticals, reducing stress through various mind-body techniques, engaging in regular exercise and other detoxification mechanisms, and doing just about whatever it takes to cultivate emotional health. Additionally, health-enhancement involves understanding and using vibrational, or energy, medicine, as well as employing various Eastern medicinal techniques.

Ultimately the practice of “smart medicine” will be different with each patient depending on his or her needs. For all of us, the first step will be to understand the interconnectedness of our thoughts, emotions, lifestyle, and physicality. Accounting for these elements, we can reshape our perceptions about, and take responsibility for, our own health and well being.

Can Cordless Phone Use Affect Your Heart?

In late 2010, Magda Havas, Ph.D, an electrosmog and electrosensitivity expert, published results of a groundbreaking study in the European Journal of Oncology which demonstrated that some wireless EMFs can adversely affect heart function. Using a NervExpress HRV Monitoring System and a Lifeforce UA-767 digital blood pressure monitor, Havas and her colleagues first measured baseline heart rate variability (HRV) and blood pressure in 25 generally healthy individuals. The researchers then continually monitored the subjects’ HRV and blood pressure during a series of exposures, in 3-minute intervals, to cordless phone base station emissions (2.4 GHz – which is about the same frequency as WiFi and microwave ovens).

The subjects, who had filled out wellness and EHS questionnaires prior to the physiological testing, were located approximately two feet from each base station and were unaware as to whether each base station was operative; background EMF was also carefully measured and accounted for. While 15 of the 25 did not demonstrate detectable cardiovascular changes in response to the EMF exposure, 10 of the subjects (40 percent) displayed increased heart rate, arrhythmias (irregular heartbeats, a.k.a. heart palpitations), or other disturbances in HRV. Four subjects experienced overt tachycardia, or intense and prolonged heart racing, after a second or two of exposure, with one subject’s heart almost tripling its rate. The 10 subjects with noticeable cardiovascular changes had HRV readings which evidenced strong increases in sympathetic nervous activity and decreases in parasympathetic activity.

Source

http://www.heartmdinstitute.com/v1/heart-healthy-lifestyles/cell-phone-wifi-use/cordless-phone-use-can-affect-your-heart

(A good summary article)

External Arrhythmia Triggers

Arrhythmias don’t necessarily need some type of internal condition like heart disease to trigger them. In fact, arrhythmias can often result from “every-day” sources. In most cases it is not possible to identify any specific triggers. Examples of triggers include:
Stimulants: Can cause premature and irregular heartbeats

Smoking
Cocaine, amphetamines or certain prescription or over-the-counter medicines
Caffeine

Other Triggers

Strong emotional stress or anger causes your heart to work harder, raise blood pressure and release stress hormones that lead to arrhythmias

Excessive alcohol consumption may decrease heart function over time and can trigger electrical impulses in the heart

Dehydration, which results in decreased blood volume returning to the heart and can also cause electrolyte imbalances in your blood (such as low levels of sodium or potassium): Low or high levels of electrolytes can affect the electrical impulses of the heart

Lack of sleep, sleep disturbances or sleep apnea

Abnormal sleep patterns and lack of sleep are associated with arrhythmia onset. Numerous arrhythmias have been associated with sleep apnea. Increase atrial arrhythmias such as atrial fibrillation or atrial flutter may be associated with sleep apnea. Treating sleep apnea may improve these arrhythmias in some cases.

A combination of physical and emotional exhaustion is quite common

Gastroesophageal reflux has been associated with premature atrial and ventricular extra beats or more sustained arrhythmias such as atrial fibrillation . Treatment of gastroesophageal reflux may decrease these arrhythmias.

http://stanfordhospital.org/clinicsmedServices/COE/heart/DiseasesConditions/arrhythmia/overview/causes/external.html

J Consult Clin Psychol. 2003 Jun;71(3):613-8.
The association between emotional upset and cardiac arrhythmia during daily life.

J Consult Clin Psychol. 2003 Jun;71(3):613-8.
Carels RA, Cacciapaglia H, Pérez-Benítez CI, Douglass O, Christie S, O’Brien WH.

Abstract

Ventricular arrhythmia exhibits considerable within-subject variability that cannot be attributed to clinical status alone. This investigation examined the extent to which cardiac arrhythmia was associated with psychological and physical factors assessed during the hour preceding arrhythmic or nonarrhythmic activity. Approximately twice hourly, 46 patients randomly completed a diary assessing mood and physical symptoms during 24-hr electrocardiographic monitoring. Greater negative emotion was associated with increased arrhythmia. Additionally, greater negative emotion was significantly associated with increased arrhythmia among participants in a low left ventricular ejection fraction group (LVEF). However, this relationship between negative emotion and arrhythmia was not observed among higher LVEF participants. These findings contribute to a larger body of evidence suggesting that negative moods may exacerbate cardiac conditions.

Note the emphasis on: “social support, relaxation therapy, yoga, meditation, controlled slow breathing, and biofeedback”

Acute Emotional Stress and Cardiac Arrhythmias</strong>
Roy C. Ziegelstein, MD
JAMA. 2007;298(3):324-329. doi:10.1001/jama.298.3.324.