Category: heart-letter

People with atrial fibrillation who are overweight or obese may be able to improve their symptoms by losing weight.

Doing cardiopulmonary resuscitation on someone who has had bypass surgery or angioplasty plus stent placement will not disrupt the surgery or damage the stent.

Quitting smoking is a huge step forward for improving health and extending life. To fully reap the benefits, it’s important to take steps to remain smoke-free for years to come.

A daily low-dose aspirin can help stave off heart attacks and certain clot-caused strokes. But fewer than half of the people who could benefit from this drug take it, while many others take it when they shouldn’t.

For people with cardiovascular disease, exercise may boost survival just as much as taking medications.

Beta blockers can cause side effects such as trouble getting or keeping an erection. This side effect is less common with other classes of blood pressure medications, which may also offer better protection against stroke.

Chest pain from heart disease can mimic pain caused by heartburn or pericarditis. Likewise, peripheral artery disease may be mistaken for arthritis of the knees, hip, or back. Understanding the differences makes it easier to deal with pain.

Within two years of getting a stent, about one in five people needs noncardiac surgery. Only those who needed emergency surgery or who had advanced heart disease faced a higher risk of a major cardiac event during that surgery, according to a new study.

A flu shot may lower the risk of having a heart attack, a stroke, heart failure, or another major cardiac event-including death-by about a third over the following year. It’s best to get the vaccine in the fall, but January isn’t too late.

Narrowing of the carotid arteries can restrict blood flow to the brain and increase the risk of stroke. Treatments include surgery or stent placement, but this usually is done only if the artery is blocked by more than 70% or there are symptoms.