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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (19170)	9/3/2010 6:34:08 PM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 42652

You get a heart scan every six months??? I've been doing it every five years or so. Plaque doesn't build up from nothing fast enough to be usefully checked every six months. What will you do when it tells you you have a 90% blockage that is causing you chest pain and shortness of breath....? The point of monitoring is that you get feedback on whether you're on the right track. If plaque starts to develop, you get an early warning so you can make adjustments before things get out of hand. There are no 90% surprises. To get the real results shouldn't you be getting regular cath's? You could, I suppose. They certainly provide a more complete picture. But they're also much more risky and expensive. Probably overkill. As long as the scans come back clean, I don't see any reason to incur the risk and expense.

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (19170)	9/4/2010 10:26:05 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 42652

Just ran across (via contemporaneous research <g>) another indicator in the predictor sweepstakes. Seems to me more promising than LDL because the confounding variables would seem to be more easily teased out. TWT. Hair provides proof of the link between chronic stress and heart attack By Communications Staff Friday, September 3, 2010 Researchers at The University of Western Ontario have provided the first direct evidence using a biological marker, to show chronic stress plays an important role in heart attacks. Stressors such as job, marital and financial problems have been linked to the increased risk for developing cardiovascular disease including heart attack. But there hasn’t been a biological marker to measure chronic stress. Gideon Koren and Stan Van Uum developed a method to measure cortisol levels in hair providing an accurate assessment of stress levels in the months prior to an acute event such as a heart attack. The research is published online in the journal Stress. Cortisol is considered to be a stress hormone. Its secretion is increased during times of stress. Traditionally it’s been measured in serum, urine and saliva, but that only shows stress at the time of measurement, not over longer periods of time. Cortisol is also captured in the hair shaft. ”Intuitively we know stress is not good for you, but it’s not easy to measure,” explains Koren, who holds the Ivey Chair in Molecular Toxicology at Western’s Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry. “We know that on average, hair grows one centimetre (cm) a month, and so if we take a hair sample six cm long, we can determine stress levels for six months by measuring the cortisol level in the hair.” In the study, hair samples three cm long were collected from 56 male adults who were admitted to the Meir Medical Centre in Kfar-Saba, Israel suffering heart attacks. A control group, made up of 56 male patients who were hospitalized for reasons other than a heart attack, was also asked for hair samples. Higher hair cortisol levels corresponding to the previous three months were found in the heart attack patients compared to the control group. The prevalence of diabetes, hypertension, smoking and family history of coronary artery disease did not differ significantly between the two groups, although the heart attack group had more cholesterol problems. After accounting for the known risk factors, hair cortisol content emerged as the strongest predictor of heart attack. “Stress is a serious part of modern life affecting many areas of health and life,” says Koren. “This study has implications for research and for practice, as stress can be managed with lifestyle changes and psychotherapy.” The study was supported by Physician Services Inc. and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. communications.uwo.ca