Comment posted on Heart Disease Risk Factors: Beware the Diagonal Earlobe Crease by Carolyn Thomas
Hi Steve,
Let’s just add earlobe creases to that growing risk factor list of yours, right after baldness, along with:
* retinopathy (if you’re a non-diabetic)
* ring finger length (shorter than your index finger in males = lower level of testosterone = higher risk of heart attack early in life)
* bad breath – if it’s due to gum disease
* acne, absence of
* green nasal mucous
* dry earwax
Apparently, each of these is somehow linked with increased risks of heart disease.
Personally, I had a pretty darned good heart attack in spite of my nice smooth creaseless earlobes! What about yours?
Cheers,
C.
Recent comments by Carolyn Thomas
- After a Heart Attack: Living in a Different Country
Hello Dr. Steve – thanks so much for your kind comments, and for reposting this excerpt from “The New Country Called Heart Disease”. This sense of somehow being ‘deported’ to a faraway new land is remarkably common among those living with a serious diagnosis.
Regards,
C. - “Ten Top Online Influencers” About Heart Disease
Wow! Thanks for the nice plug, Steve. It was such a surprise and an honour to be listed on this impressive line-up (although among cardiac circles, I have to say that some of us wonder how Deepak Chopra made that list . . . ?)
regards,
C. - Heart Disease Risk Reduction: Mid-Day Napping (37%)
And Ben Franklin even died in his sleep . . .Do you think the reason women didn’t fare as well in this nap study might be that it’s harder to find women who take regular afternoon naps?!?!?
Hope you’re doing well, Steve!
Cheers,
C - EKG Monitors on Your Car’s Steering Wheel?
Hi Dr. Steve,
I hardly know where to start in responding to this goofball idea. There is simply no limit to the number of products, drugs, devices that are being developed to separate us from our money and feed our neurotic fears.I suggest that anybody THAT worried about having a heart attack while driving should not be driving in the first place. Or what about the person with what’s known as “regular irregular” occasional and benign heart flips – is their car going to suddenly come to a stop in the middle of the highway during rush hour traffic? And besides, if you’re the driver who always keeps hands on the ’10 and 2′ steering wheel position, you are likely too old to be driving anyway (according to my grown children, that is).
Here in Lotus Land, we have news this week of a horrific car accident involving an 80-year old woman who killed a man and seriously injured five others who were sitting at a picnic table outside the Victoria airport when her car (allegedly modified with hand brakes/controls) went out of control at very high speed while leaving the short-term parking lot. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2011/07/29/bc-victoria-airport-crash.html
We don’t know yet whether her loss of control was due to a medical crisis like heart attack – but what possible good would Toyota’s steering wheel sensors have done during a horrific accident like this that happened in mere seconds?
Just yesterday, I received a news release from a U.S. company who has invented some kind of (as yet unapproved) implantable cardiac alarm advice that apparently can be put into the chests of those who are worried about heart attack. The device starts vibrating when it detects coronary ischemia. Really? Seriously? Unlike pacemakers or ICDs, this thing doesn’t do anything but vibrate and ring an alarm in the hand-held remote control device you’re supposed to be carrying at all times.
Maybe we can just surgically implant Toyota’s EKG sensors while we’re at it…. Or here’s a better idea: get out of the damned car and start walking for better heart health.
Cheers,
C. - Anti-Depressants Linked to Thicker Arteries
Hello Dr. Steve – this research seems problematic to me for a few reasons. First, this appears to be unpublished data presented at a conference, so not yet peer-reviewed for publication. We know, for example, that 25% of such presentations (which often receive wide media coverage at the time) remain unpublished more than three years after a meeting.Next, they looked at 513 middle-aged MEN in this study. Call me when they decide to include women in a statistically significant ratio…
Finally, I’m wondering about the catchy headline in this article. Could the increase in the carotid intima-media thickness be attributed, for example, to simply the state of being depressed, as opposed to the anti-depressants that the depressed twins were taking for the depression?
Inquiring minds want to know….
Cheers,
C
powered by SEO Super Comments
{ 2 comments }
Hi Steve,
Let’s just add earlobe creases to that growing risk factor list of yours, right after baldness, along with:
* retinopathy (if you’re a non-diabetic)
* ring finger length (shorter than your index finger in males = lower level of testosterone = higher risk of heart attack early in life)
* bad breath – if it’s due to gum disease
* acne, absence of
* green nasal mucous
* dry earwax
Apparently, each of these is somehow linked with increased risks of heart disease.
Personally, I had a pretty darned good heart attack in spite of my nice smooth creaseless earlobes! What about yours?
Cheers,
C.
Carolyn:
Good thing I don’t have any of those additional risk factors, including the diagonal ear crease, or I probably would have been dead several times over by now.
s/