Mens Health Blog. Medical Blog

Today, doctors aim to keep people with angina as active as their condition allows. You will be asked to walk on a treadmill, a moving, endless surface that can be set at different speeds, either flat or on an upward slope, to assess how much you can do, initially, before the heart begins to complain.

While on the treadmill, your heart is monitored by EKG, to pick up changes before the pain starts, and, especially if you have diabetes, to pick up any periods of silent ischemia. You will then be given a program of exercise to start that will allow you to exercise up to the correct limit, and not beyond. Don’t let that scare you. When you add regular exercise to all the other actions you have been taking, such as eating more healthily, stopping smoking, and lowering your blood pressure, you will be improving your heart’s supply-demand equation all the time. Even people with severe heart failure have been helped by exercise. You will be amazed how quickly you will be able to step up your exercise, and how much better you will feel.

Primary care doctors also know that “soft” risk factors can affect the cardiovascular health of their patients. For example, social isolation can affect your health negatively. For that reason, many communities and health plans offer angina support groups or cardiovascular rehabilitation groups. Consider joining and making friends while you get support for other lifestyle changes.

It is also a good idea to discuss your sex life with your primary care provider. You may be limiting it consciously or unconsciously more than is necessary and this can weaken your relationship with your partner. Your partner may be hesitant to complain for fear of making your heart condition worse. Sex with a new partner is considered more taxing on the heart, but an exercise stress test may demonstrate to you that exertion during sex is safe enough for you to form new relationships.

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Comments (0) Apr 02 2009

Can atheroma actually be reversed, once established in an artery? Professor R. W. Wissler of Chicago showed that atheroma in monkeys and pigs can be made to regress towards normality after one to four years of a low-fat diet. Their blood cholesterol levels became normal, the plaques became smaller, and the plaques themselves contained less cholesterol. There was less risk of thrombosis on the surface of the plaques, many of which healed over, so that the arterial inner surface was much smoother. Professor Wissler’s findings appear in A Textbook of Cardiovascular Medicine (1984).

The implication of this study is that a similar reduction in dietary fats in people should improve angina and help prevent heart attacks. But does it? It has been difficult for researchers to produce hard evidence that it does.

Since the 1950s there have been many large trials to determine whether reducing blood cholesterol levels will improve coronary heart disease and prevent heart attacks. They have used diet and drugs, mostly in middle-aged men, and their results have been mixed. Perhaps this is because it is overly optimistic to expect that a small change in blood cholesterol levels will improve, in a short time, a disease that has been present for many years (usually since childhood).

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Comments (0) Apr 02 2009

Angina starts when the supply of oxygen and glucose does not keep up with demand. If something impedes the easy access of oxygen and glucose to the myocardium, and the heart needs to continue beating, then it will try to find its energy source from other substances, like fats, and it will try to burn them up without using oxygen. Most people, when they were children, have felt the results of this anaerobic energy process in the stitch felt in the side during running.

The pain of a stitch is caused by the accumulation of lactic acid in muscles in the side and back that have been overused. (Fats do not burn all the way down to carbon dioxide, but only get as far as lactic acid, a more complex substance, that is more difficult to remove from the tissues.)

The pain in angina has the same root. Lactic acid also builds up in a heart trying to beat without a good enough oxygen supply: the pain of angina can be similar to that of a stitch. The difference between the two is that you can tolerate a stitch, because back muscles are not as important, and eventually recover with rest. The heart muscle needs a much faster resupply of oxygen if it is to survive.

This supply of oxygen comes from the coronary arteries—so called because they form a crown around the top of the heart, passing their branches over the heart surface to feed the muscles that form the walls of its four chambers. In the normal heart, the three main coronary arteries and their branches are wide, strong, elastic tubes, which can expand enormously to cope with any extra flow of blood needed when the demand rises.

Naturally, this demand for a flow of blood varies hugely. When you’re asleep or at complete rest, the heart rate falls to sixty beats per minute or below, and the blood pressure falls accordingly. At such times, the-heart’s demand for oxygen and glucose is low. At the opposite end of the demand spectrum are times of extreme exercise. Sprinting, whether it is to catch a train or bus or to win an Olympic gold medal, can increase the heart’s need for oxygen by twenty times or more. And if the heart is beating at or above a rate of 180 per minute, the time for recovery between beats shortens to a tenth of a second. The myocardium must be very efficient, and awash with oxygen and glucose, in order to cope with that.

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Comments (0) Apr 02 2009

Don’t let anyone tell you that growing older means you’ll have to stop enjoying sex. It simply isn’t true. According to a new study involving two surveys of over 5,500 people, more than one third of married men and women over 60 make love at least once a week. Moreover, the study reveals that 10 percent of those people over 70 make love-at least once a week.

Many people find that the later years can provide the opportunity for partners to perfect their sexual skills as well as to be more sensitive to each other’s needs. The new study of the sexuality of people over 60 found that not only was older people making love at least once a week, they were far from being routine about it. Many of the people surveyed reported making love outdoors, swimming in the nude, undressing each other, and buying sexy lingerie.

Experts say that once a woman has reached the menopause and pregnancy is no longer possible, both partners often discover renewed interest and pleasure in their sexual relationship. For couples under age 60, the average amount of sex is about 1 1/2 times a week.

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Comments (0) Mar 24 2009

Doctors are usually pretty busy people which often means that patients spend a lot of time waiting for their appointments. In order to avoid waiting to see your doctor, many experts recommend that you try to have your appointment scheduled at a time when there may not be as many other patients with appointments. This may mean going in as soon as the office opens in the morning or, in some cases late in the evening, depending on the doctor’s schedule.

Talk with your doctor about the best times to schedule your appointment. You may be able to avoid sitting in the waiting room for 45 minutes or an hour if you are scheduled as the first patient the doctor sees, or possibly the last appointment scheduled for the day. If you have a good relationship with your doctor, don’t be afraid to ask about scheduling your appointments at those times when he can see you without delay. You should also phone the doctor’s office before leaving for your appointment to see how long the current delay in seeing patients is – you may be able to leave later and wait less!

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Comments (0) Mar 24 2009

According to two major studies presented at the 1992 annual meeting of the American Heart Association (AHA), vitamin E supplements may help reduce the risk of heart disease. However, the scientists involved in the studies stopped short of recommending that everyone take the supplements. The scientists say that while they have found a statistical relationship between the intake of vitamin E supplements and a reduction in the risk of heart disease, no physical proof exists as yet.

Also presented to the AHA meeting were the results of a study into the possible association of the consumption of fish and a reduction in the risk of heart disease. The results of the study were somewhat surprising as they suggested that while fish is an important part of a low-fat diet to prevent heart disease, it doesn’t appear to have protective capabilities in and of itself. The researchers say that after following over 20,000 men for 4 years, it appears that consuming fish may not necessarily result in a lowered risk of heart disease.

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Comments (0) Mar 24 2009

Many common medical symptoms can be treated safely at home for the first 24 to 48 hours, but there are some other conditions in which you should call for an ambulance without delay.

A) Severe central chest pain that is not relieved by rest. This symptom may signal a heart attack, especially if it is accompanied by weakness, moist, pale or bluish skin, breathing difficulty, sweating, changes in heart rate, and a pain in the arm.

B) Sudden, unexplained drowsiness or loss of consciousness. Possible causes for either condition may include an overdose of drugs, a biochemical disturbance such as uncontrolled diabetes, or a brain disorder such as meningitis.

C) Severe abdominal pain. If such pain is not relieved by vomiting, or if it is accompanied by sweating or faintness, or any abdominal pain which is centered on one side of the body and persists for 3 hours, it could signal a serious problem such as appendicitis. The symptoms require immediate medical attention.

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Comments (0) Mar 24 2009

When you need the services of a hospital emergency room, your need is almost always sudden and unexpected. Far less frequently, people use such facilities for primary health care rather than maintaining a continuing-care relationship with a family doctor. In effect, these people use emergency rooms as their “doctors”.

While emergency rooms have their advantages, such as easy access and not requiring an appointment before being examined and treated, there are also some potential dangers involved. Here are some of the most common problems associated with emergency room treatment:

1) If the emergency room is busy (and they usually are) a patient may have to wait up to several hours before being able to consult a doctor. Call a head to see the wait – you may be able to see your regular doctor sooner.

2) There is the possibility that you won’t even be treated by a doctor. In some cases, emergency room technicians recommend x-rays and perform minor treatment, such as cleaning and bandaging wounds. This can increase the risk of improper or inadequate treatment.

3) Most emergency room treatment does not involve any personal communication, such as a patient usually has with a family doctor or in a hospital. There simply isn’t time in an emergency room environment for a doctor to discuss a medical problem with a patient and get his or her medical history. As a result, the patient’s own participation in his or her medical care is very limited. In an emergency room situation, a patient has almost no say as to what type of treatment he or she will receive.

4) Many emergency rooms, even those that are open 24 hours a day, are often under-staffed. In some cases, new doctors, with little practical experience, moonlight in emergency rooms, meaning the patient does not get the benefit of being treated by an experienced physician.

5) While some ER’s are staffed by board certified emergency physicians, with qualified surgeons, anesthesiologists, cardiologists, and pediatricians on duty, others are not.

6) Because of the often “frantic pace” in emergency rooms, treatment is usually superficial and arranging for needed follow-up care is difficult. Such arrangements are usually left up to the patient.

7) Emergency rooms offer little if any privacy. Patients with all sorts of ailments and injuries may be crowded together. There may be an increased risk of coming into contact with “tainted” blood from open wounds, cuts and/or abrasions.

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Comments (0) Mar 24 2009