Blood Chemical Test May Predict Risk of Heart Disease Death

By Maureen Salamon
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 12, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Higher-than-normal levels of a certain blood chemical may place some patients at significantly greater risk of dying from heart disease, new research indicates.

Scientists found that nearly one out of three people with diabetes and stable angina — a condition causing chest pain — who also had elevated levels of troponin in their blood died of a heart-related problem within five years.

Troponin, a protein found in heart muscle, is released into the bloodstream when heart damage occurs. Normally detected in patients suspected of having a heart attack, troponin at much lower levels is also identifiable in a high-sensitivity version of a test commonly used in Europe but not yet approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“I think we anticipated that there would be a strong relationship between the troponin test and future death from heart attack, heart failure and stroke,” said study author Dr. Brendan Everett, director of the general cardiology inpatient service at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

“But we’re surprised by the strength of the relationship,” added Everett. “The most compelling thing is that we have a marker that’s a really strong predictor of outcome and . . . gives us the opportunity to develop new therapies for these patients.”

The study is published Aug. 13 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Heart disease is the top killer of Americans, causing about 735,000 heart attacks and 610,000 deaths each year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Using the high-sensitivity troponin test, Everett and his team measured troponin levels in nearly 2,300 patients with both type 2 diabetes and so-called stable heart disease, or angina, which includes narrowed cardiac arteries but no acute heart injury. Type 2 diabetes is also a major risk factor for heart disease.

About 40 percent of participants had abnormal troponin levels, the study found. After five years, 27 percent of participants with elevated troponin had died of a heart attack, stroke or other cardiovascular causes, compared to 13 percent of those with normal troponin levels.

The researchers also found that the five-year death risk of patients with high troponin levels did not significantly decrease when these patients underwent treatments designed to open up narrowed heart arteries, such as coronary bypass surgery or stent placement.

“I was hopeful that the therapy tested . . . would offer an improvement in those outcomes,” Everett said, “but unfortunately that’s not what we saw.”

Dr. Matthew Roe, an associate professor of medicine at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., praised the study, saying it focused on “an important topic and the findings are highly relevant.”

Roe, author of an editorial accompanying the study, said the results confirm prior findings.

“It’s highly likely this test is a unique test discriminating patients who have a high risk of adverse cardiovascular outcomes,” said Roe, who wasn’t involved in the research.

But despite the test’s demonstrated usefulness in predicting higher risk of early death among those with angina and type 2 diabetes, Everett said he doesn’t think it should be routinely administered to these patients.

“I think it would be premature [to do that] because we don’t have a specific therapy to deal with an abnormal troponin level,” he said. “If we get the test back and can’t do anything about [high levels], it’s tough to recommend.”

Roe said more research should be done in short order, both to understand how to further utilize the high-sensitivity troponin test and determine effective treatments for patients with elevated troponin levels.

“There are many patients with cardiovascular disease in the U.S., and we’re always trying to refine how we can better evaluate and treat these patients,” he said. “I think this is a good step forward. This study was well-conducted and it’s time to start having these discussions.”

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers heart disease prevention tips.

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Nearly Two-Thirds of Americans Live in Poverty at Some Point: Study

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 12, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Many Americans will live in poverty at some point in their lives, a new study shows.

Researchers looked at national data collected since 1968 and concluded that between the ages of 25 and 60, almost two-thirds of Americans will live in poverty for a year. Poverty was defined as living under the 20th percentile of income distribution, the study noted. About 42 percent of Americans will have a year of extreme poverty — that’s below the 10th percentile of income distribution, the researchers said.

What’s more, nearly 25 percent will live through five or more years of poverty, and more than 11 percent will live in five or more years of extreme poverty, the study found.

“The numbers we found are higher than those we originally expected to find,” study author Mark Rank, a professor of social welfare at Washington University in St. Louis, said in a university news release. Rank conducted the study with Thomas Hirschl, a professor of development sociology at Cornell University, in Ithaca, N.Y.

A number of factors were linked to living in poverty or extreme poverty for a year. People who were younger, female, nonwhite, or single were more likely to have a year of poverty or extreme poverty. People with 12 years or less of education, and those who had a work disability were also more likely to have a year of poverty or extreme poverty, the study revealed.

The study was published recently in the journal PLoS ONE.

“Our previous work has shown that the typical American has a one in nine chance of joining the wealthiest 1 percent of the income distribution for at least one year in her or his working life,” Rank said.

“We knew that there would be a large number of Americans on the other end of the spectrum, but this research shows specifically how wide that income gap really is,” he added.

More information

The Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin-Madison has more about poverty.

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Exercise May Help Kids With Multiple Sclerosis

By Kathleen Doheny
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 12, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Children with multiple sclerosis (MS) who exercise have less disease activity than those who don’t, researchers report.

“The study is a first look, so we can’t draw any definitive conclusion from it,” said study author Dr. E. Ann Yeh, director of the pediatric MS and neuroinflammatory program at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. “What we saw suggests there might be a relationship between being more active and the degree of disease activity one might have with MS.”

The study found an association, she said, but it wasn’t designed to prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

“We don’t know which way [the association] goes,” she added. The children with less disease activity may be more likely to exercise, or the exercise may reduce the disease activity. More study is needed to figure out which is which, she said.

The study was published online Aug. 12 in the journal Neurology.

In multiple sclerosis, the body’s immune system attacks the fatty substance called myelin that surrounds and protects nerve fibers. Symptoms vary from person to person, but may include tingling of extremities, fatigue, weakness and dizziness, according to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

Multiple sclerosis is most often diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 40, Yeh said. “Children with MS represent 2 to 10 percent of the entire MS population, so they are a small percent,” she said. Most children diagnosed with it have a form known as relapsing-remitting, she said, in which the disease gets better and then comes back.

In the study, Yeh’s team asked the parents of 31 children with MS and 79 others without the disorder to answer questions about how tired and depressed they were and how often they exercised. The children were between the ages of 5 and 18, the study said. Sixty children from the whole group also had MRIs of the brain to look for lesions.

Those with MS who engaged in strenuous physical activity were more likely to have lower volume of lesions in the brain that indicate disease activity than those who were inactive, the MRI scans showed. The volume of lesions of the inactive children with MS was about seven times larger than the volume of the lesion of the active kids, Yeh said.

Those who exercised strenuously also had fewer disease relapses, they found — 0.5 a year compared to one a year for the inactive kids.

Strenuous activity included running or jogging; moderate was fast walking, mild was leisurely walking. The researchers took into account other factors, such as time spent exercising and classified them on a range from inactive to strenuous.

The results held even after Yeh took into account the severity of the disease.

The study is valuable because it is believed to be the first done in children, said Dr. Maria Rocca, a physician at San Raffaele University, Milan, who wrote an editorial to accompany the study. “Pediatric patients with MS tend to reach a more severe disability at a younger age than adult patients, with high costs for the society and families of these patients,” Rocca said.

For that reason, anything that could affect their disability in a positive way will not only save costs but promises to give them a better quality of life, she said.

The message about exercise for parents of children with MS?

“What we know is, ‘It’s not harmful,’ ” Yeh said. And, “it may have positive effects on the disease, but we don’t know [yet] if that is true.”

Rocca added, “they should try to guarantee their children the same quality of life in terms of physical activity, amusement and so on of children without such a disease.”

More information

To learn more about multiple sclerosis, see National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

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Hispanics in U.S. Least Likely to Dial 911 for Stroke

By Randy Dotinga
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 12, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Fewer than two-thirds of patients suffering a stroke in the United States call for emergency assistance, with Hispanics least likely to do so, new research finds.

“These results are not surprising since stroke survivors from minority race and ethnic groups have worse outcomes after stroke compared to non-Hispanic whites,” said study lead author Heidi Mochari-Greenberger, an adjunct associate research scientist at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City.

If you suspect a stroke, it’s critical to call 911 immediately. Stroke treatment must start quickly in order to control brain damage, and research shows that an ambulance ride is the quickest route to treatment, Mochari-Greenberger said.

The researchers launched their study because they wanted to better understand racial and ethnic differences in death and disability rates after stroke, she said. Different levels of ambulance use could play a role, she noted.

Stroke is the leading cause of serious long-term disability and the fourth leading cause of death in the United
States, the researchers said in background notes.

The study — published Aug. 12 in the Journal of the American Heart Association — examined nearly 400,000 stroke patients, average age 71, who visited about 1,600 hospitals in the United States from 2011 to 2014. Of all the patients, 59 percent arrived at the hospital by ambulance.

White women were the most likely to call paramedics, doing so in 62 percent of cases. Hispanic, Asian and black women called for emergency help 56 percent to 58 percent of the time. Among male stroke victims, 57 percent to 58 percent of blacks and whites used an ambulance, but only 52 percent of Hispanic men did so, the study found.

Patients with more obvious symptoms, such as weakness, paralysis or speech difficulties, were also more likely to call for an ambulance than those with subtle signs.

The researchers found that differences remained even after they adjusted their statistics so they wouldn’t be thrown off by factors like severity of stroke symptoms.

It’s not clear, however, if those who found other ways to the hospital fared worse or arrived at the hospital later than those who rode by ambulance. Nor does the study say how people who didn’t use an ambulance got to the hospital. And while they have theories, researchers don’t know why the differences in ambulance use exist.

But the presence of someone else at the time of stroke, ability to speak English and education levels could have played roles, Mochari-Greenberger said.

Dr. Salvador Cruz-Flores, chair of neurology at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso, said the findings matter because stroke is more common among minority groups.

“If one considers that minorities will keep growing, not addressing these differences can lead to a higher death or disability rate in the minorities with the associated financial cost to society,” he said.

Despite the study’s limitations, the findings are “useful to the extent that they give us more evidence of the problem,” Cruz-Flores said. “Now is the time to come up with strategies of intervention to decrease the disparities.”

More information

The American Stroke Association shares stroke warning signs.

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Kids Exposed to Lots of Alcohol Ads While Watching Sports on TV

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 12, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Children who watch sports on television are exposed to a large number of alcohol ads, a new Australian study finds.

Researchers discovered that 87 percent of alcohol ads on daytime television in Australia aired during sports shows watched by hundreds of thousands of children.

There were more than 6,000 alcohol ads on free-to-air sports shows Australia in 2012, the researchers found. Sports shows had many more alcohol ads per hour than non-sports shows. Most of the alcohol ads aired during televised sports were during children’s and teens’ peak viewing times, the study reported.

“Taking into account the amount of programming time for sport vs. non-sport TV, there’s four alcohol adverts in sport for every one in non-sport TV. Australian children love watching sport but unfortunately they are going to have to watch a lot of alcohol ads as well,” study leader Kerry O’Brien, an associate professor at Monash University, said in a university news release.

The study was published Aug. 11 in the journal PLoS One.

“Watching sport with your kids is great family entertainment, but if culture is what you see around you, then it’s pretty clear from these results that what children see when they watch sport is a drinking culture,” study co-author Sherilene Carr from Monash University said in the news release.

Previous research has suggested that greater exposure to alcohol ads during childhood and the teen years is associated with starting to drink at a younger age and more drinking problems later in life.

The current study also showed that it would be easy to cut out most of children’s exposure to alcohol ads by changing regulations that allow daytime alcohol ads. If regulations were changed so that alcohol advertising wasn’t allowed before 9:30 pm, children’s exposure to alcohol ads could be halved, the researchers concluded.

More information

The U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration offers advice on how to prevent underage drinking.

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Vaccine Combo Shows Promise Against Common, Dangerous Infection

By Randy Dotinga
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 12, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Researchers report they are closer to finding a vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a common illness that few recognize by name but one that’s a major cause of lower respiratory infection in babies and the elderly.

Two new studies of the same vaccine combination, one involving people, don’t prove that it will work in humans. Still, “they certainly do offer hope for the development of vaccines,” said Dr. Peter Openshaw, a senior investigator at the National Institute for Health Research in London, England. Openshaw was not involved in the study, but is working on potential vaccines for the disease.

RSV is the most common cause of severe respiratory illness in infants, experts say.

“Nearly all children are infected with the virus by 2 years of age,” said Geraldine Taylor, a researcher with The Jenner Institute Laboratories in Oxford, England, and lead author of one of the two new studies. “However, infections occur several times throughout life and can cause a range of symptoms, from mild, coldlike symptoms through to severe breathing difficulty.”

Across the world, the virus is thought to kill 200,000 children under the age of 5 each year, she said, and it causes 30 million severe infections. Only malaria is believed to kill more babies under the age of 1.

In the United States, the virus causes the death of an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 seniors a year, she added.

Openshaw noted, “A vaccine for RSV is one of the last major challenges left for vaccinologists.” But there are big obstacles.

For one, getting infected doesn’t grant a person immunity, he noted. “Second, there were disastrous trials in the 1960s where children were injected with formalin-killed RSV. Subsequent natural infection of these children sometimes resulted in very severe disease that was lethal in at least two cases. This put people off trying to make a vaccine, for fear of causing similar disease augmentation,” Openshaw said.

Now, the researchers behind the two new studies are testing approaches in calves, which suffer from a similar illness, and adults.

In Taylor’s study, researchers found that they were able to protect calves against the similar illness by vaccinating them with a combination of harmless viruses that carried genes from the human disease.

The other study, led by Christopher Green, from the Oxford Vaccine Group at Oxford University in England, tested different levels of the same vaccine combination in 42 healthy adults. The team reported that there appeared to be an immune response and there were no serious side effects, which represents the first of three phases of research required before a vaccine can get approval for use in the United States.

What’s next? For now, the vaccine combination is now being tested in older adults and heading toward testing in children later this year, Taylor said. It could take up to 10 years to develop a vaccine, which would prevent illness in babies and boost immunity in adults and the elderly, she said.

The cost could be $50 to $100 per dose, she added.

Meanwhile, research released this week by Novavax Co. reported that an experimental vaccine reduced cases of the disease in the elderly by 40 percent to 60 percent.

“The Novavax vaccine is currently the most advanced in the vaccine pipeline, and certainly shows considerable promise,” Openshaw said. “We will have to wait and see how it will play out compared to these other vaccine approaches.”

The two latest studies were published Aug. 12 in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

More information

For more about RSV, try the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Moderate Exercise May Reduce Men’s Heart Failure Risk

By Kathleen Doheny
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 12, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Men who get regular, moderate exercise, such as walking or cycling 20 minutes daily, seem to have a lower risk of heart failure than inactive men or those who have higher levels of activity, according to new research.

The researchers found that those who exercised by walking or cycling at least 20 minutes a day had a 21 percent lower risk of heart failure. Exercising more than an hour a week decreased risk by 14 percent, the study found.

The least-active group had a 69 percent higher risk for developing heart failure, while the highest-intensity group had a 31 percent higher risk of heart failure, the study revealed. There was no information on whether the high-intensity exercisers did marathons or other similar activities, Rahman said.

“We found both high and low extreme levels of total physical activity to be associated with an increased risk of heart failure,” said the study’s lead author, Iffat Rahman, a researcher at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. “Previous studies have shown low levels of physical activity to be associated with an increased risk of heart failure,” Rahman said.

But, the surprise in this study was that high levels of activity carries more risk than moderate levels. The researchers can’t say why, but speculate it could be the activity leads to abnormalities in heart function.

While this study found an association between certain levels of exercise and a higher risk of heart failure, heart expert Steve Keteyian, director of preventive cardiology at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, pointed out that the study was only designed to find a link. “Right now there is not a cause-and-effect relationship,” he said.

The study is published Aug. 12 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology: Heart Failure.

The study included more than 33,000 men enrolled from 1998 through 2012, or until their first heart failure event. Heart failure occurs when the heart muscle weakens and can’t effectively pump blood. The lifetime risk of developing it is about 20 percent, according to background information in the report.

The men were surveyed in 1997 and 1998, when their average age was 60. They were asked to recall their exercise habits in the past year and their habits at age 30. During the 13-year followup, the researchers recorded more than 3,600 first episodes of heart failure, including 419 deaths.

Rahman’s team also discovered that recent physical activity may be more important for reducing heart failure risk than past activity when the men were 30.

These findings add to other research suggesting that moderate exercise helps health, said Keteyian, who co-authored an editorial to accompany the study. Moderate exercise has also been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes, he said.

The finding about high-volume activity being harmful “will require confirmation in a further study,” said Dr. Gregg Fonarow, professor of cardiology at the University of California, Los Angeles. He reviewed the findings.

The new study did not include women, so the researchers can’t say if the same benefit comes from exercise for them. However, Fonarow said, the findings echo those from another recent study. In that research, “the benefits were similar for women and men, and by type of exercise,” he said.

Keteyian said that the message is clear for reduction of heart failure risk. “Going for your 30-minute walk, at about four miles an hour,” is what is shown to reduce heart failure risk, he explained.

“The majority of cases of heart failure are preventable,” Fonarow added. Along with exercise, other healthy strategies include keeping blood pressure and cholesterol at normal levels, keeping a healthy body weight and not smoking, he said.

More information

To learn more about heart failure, go to the American Heart Association.

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Woman Finds Out She’s Been Carrying a ‘Stone Baby’ For Decades

Photo: Getty Images

A 91-year-old woman from the small town of La Boca, Chile, recently found out she’s been carrying a calcified fetus in her abdomen for more than half her life.

According to CNN, Estela Meléndez felt a lump on her abdomen for years. But it wasn’t until she visited a local clinic this summer, after suffering a fall, that she learned it was a fetus all along.

Doctors there ordered an X-ray that showed what at first seemed to be a large tumor. A second X-ray was done to confirm the findings before a team performed surgery, and that’s when doctors realized the mass was actually a calcified fetus that had likely been in the woman’s body for more than six decades.

RELATED: Exposure to Common Antibacterials May Affect Growth of Fetus: Study

The rare phenomenon is known as a lithopedion, also referred to as a “stone baby,” and typically occurs when a fetus dies during an abdominal ectopic pregnancy.  (That’s when a pregnancy occurs outside of the womb, in the abdomen.) When the fetus dies, sometimes it’s early enough that the woman’s body can re-absorb it, but if it’s too big, the mother’s body will begin to encase the fetus in calcification to protect the body from the foreign object and possible infection. Over time, the calcified fetus becomes “mummified.”

The fetus poses no health risk to Meléndez. But sadly, it likely prevented her from having children with her husband of more than 70 years, Manuel González, who passed away in January at the age of 91. “We suffered tremendously because of this reason,” Meléndez explained to CNN.

Doctors considered performing surgery to remove the fetus, but ultimately decided that operating on a 91-year-old patient posed more risk than leaving it alone. Meléndez told CNN that the spot on her belly hurts occasionally, but most of the time it’s just an uncomfortable bump.

RELATED: Are You Really Pregnant? The Truth About Early Pregnancy Tests

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The Edgy Neon Nail Art Look Anyone Can Master

Photo: Courtesy of Popsugar Beauty/Kaitlyn Dreyling

While we love a loud neon look, we’ve created a more subtly cool one that’s part electric, part nude. To get this DIY manicure, create a reverse V-shape nail design — an edgier take on a classic moon manicure.

To start, round up your favorite neon polish, tape, and a base coat (topcoat is optional). We chose not to do a base color to make the neon really pop. Start with Butter London Nail Foundation ($19) as a base coat to perfect your natural nails. It only takes a couple minutes to dry, and then place two strips of tape at the tip of your nail to form the V shape. After painting on two thin coats of Illamasqua Nail Varnish in Rare ($17), pull off the tape while the paint is still wet. You can leave your nails as is for a matte finish, but we opted for a layer of Butter London Hardwear PD Quick Top Coat ($19) for fast-drying shine.

More from Popsugar Beauty:

Gel is Having a Major Moment in Skin Care Right Now

11 Essential Natural Hair Tools That Slay Breakage and Frizz

25 Beauty Secrets Only Glamorous Women Know

POPSUGAR Beauty puts the focus on hair, makeup, nails, and fragrance — from inspiring celebrity photos and fun polls, to easy how-tos to re-create the latest trends at home, to expert tips from the world’s top stylists! Find out the latest color trends for your face, hair, and nails with hot new products and daring nail design ideas. DIY ideas turn your home into a spa, and make you knowledgeable on any beauty topic. Let POPSUGAR Beauty be your guide to all things skin care, makeup, and hair care!

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Make ‘Em Think You’re Blushing from Within

Photo: Getty Images

Blush is a tricky necessity. It has the capability of making your face completely perked up, but if you’re a little too heavy handed, you can look a little, how should I put this? Crazy. Like a clown in a nightmare crazy. Okay, maybe I’m being dramatic, but, it’s still a drag. So, for the benefit of your beautiful face, we got down to the nitty gritty and broke it down for you. You’ll have people guessing about that gorgeous flush.

 

 

Here’s the skinny:

1. Choose the right brush.

2. Smile to see the apples of your cheeks

3. Apply blush to apples of your cheeks, working your way out in circles.

This post originally appeared on MIMIchatter.com.

More from MIMI:

The Smokey Eye You Can Wear All Day, All Summer

How to Look Like You’re Not Wearing Makeup, When You Are

MIMI Chatter is an endless stream of beauty content. We bring together the must-knows and the how-tos from your favorite sites, beauty influencers, our editors, and YOU.

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