Lower Blood Pressure

A research project based in Sweden has indicated that the stress of being diagnosed with prostate cancer may significantly increase your risk of suffering an imminent and fatal heart attack.

Furthermore, the cause of the heart attack appears to be linked to the actual shock of receiving the bad news about the diagnosis of the prostate cancer, rather than an underlying or pre-existing heart disease condition. This is according to the findings of the study published in the medical journal PLoS Medicine Reports.

Prostate cancer is a serious and potentially fatal cancer of the prostate gland, and is a medical condition that is responsible for nearly one eighth of all male deaths from cancer in the United Kingdom. The highest actual number of diagnosed prostate gland cases occur in the United States, although the US lies in eighth place in terms of mortality from the disease.

In 2007 there were more than ten thousand deaths in the UK from prostate cancer, and each year more than thirty five thousand new cases are diagnosed. The only type of cancer that kills more people after prostate cancer is lung cancer.

The majority of prostate cancer deaths occur in men aged 65 and over, After the age of 85 it overtakes lung cancer to become the most common cause of cancer deaths.

The heart attack research was based on a study of the medical records of more than four million men, and spanned over forty years. From the study group approximately four percent, or 170,000 men went on to develop prostate cancer.

It has revealed that in the crucial short term period following the diagnosis of prostate cancer, the patients were found to be over ten times more likely to die from heart related problems and heart attacks during the first week after the initial diagnosis.

Another shocking statistic that emerged is that young people as well as those with no history of cardiovascular disease were found to be particularly at risk.

But the problem remained active for far longer than one would imagine, with an elevated risk still present in patients up to a year after the initial diagnosis of the prostate cancer.

However, the British Prostate Cancer Charity has reacted cautiously to the study findings. A statement by the charity’s Head of Policy and Campaigns, Sarah Cant, has highlighted that the Swedish study failed to take into account certain factors such as pre-existing cardiovascular disease, hypertension and high blood pressure and even mental health problems and suicide. She is quoted as saying that more research into the subject and linkage needs to be performed.

It is also interesting to note that, whilst prostate cancer is predominantly a male disease, the same principal of shock news potentially triggering heart attacks could reasonably be applied to women who have been recently diagnosed with breast cancer.

Strokes kill 200 people per day in the United Kingdom, and leave many more disabled or living with the debilitating after effects, or the threat of a second or third potentially fatal recurrence.

Now a new type of medical diagnostic device has been developed that could provide much earlier diagnosis of a stroke than ever before, and could help to save lives by allowing the correct form of treatment to be administered sooner by doctors.

There are two types of stroke – ischemic and hemorrhagic. The ischemic stroke accounts for nearly three quarters of strokes, and occurs when a blood clot forms inside one of the blood vessels in the brain, cutting off the supply of blood and oxygen. The hemorrhagic stroke is caused by a blood vessel that bursts and leaks blood into the surrounding brain tissue causing brain damage.

Depending on the type of stroke that you may suffer, vitally different treatment needs to given, as quickly as possible, by the attending doctor or surgeon. In order to do this it is critical to diagnose the exact nature of the stroke. For instance, it would be no use whatsoever to prescribe an anti clotting medication if the patient was suffering a hemorrhagic stroke, as this could make the hemorrhaging even worse, and possibly kill the patient. Hemorrhagic strokes almost always require emergency surgery to repair the damaged blood vessel and remove the blood from the surrounding brain tissue.

The new device is a type of helmet that is placed over the head, and connected to a computer. It uses advanced ultrasound techniques, and newly developed software to overcome previous problems associated with passing ultrasonic sound waves through the head. It can produce a complete and detailed video image of the inside of the brain to assist doctors to make a rapid and accurate diagnosis of the patient’s condition.

Developed by the scientists and engineers at Duke University, North Carolina, the high tech ’stroke helmet’ could provide emergency paramedics with the advanced diagnosis of the patient’s condition, allowing instant treatment to take place inside the ambulance, or by transmitting a graphical image of the brain to the nearest hospital, and allowing the correct medical team to be assembled, and ready to perform the correct treatment on the arrival of the ambulance.

This could save vital hours compared to the present system where a CT scan is performed at the hospital after the patient has been admitted. Where clot busting drugs are required, these are only effective if they are administered within a few hours of the suspected stroke, so the time factor may be critical in determining the recovery prospects of the patient.

The research team are working on a version of the helmet that will allow clinical trials to take place, although it may be some time yet before your local paramedics are able to offer the new device to their suspected stroke patients.

If you’ve been following our research and updates on swine flu, and it’s relevance to those of our many thousands of readers with an interest in heart disease, our last update on swine flu and heart disease was posted on July 20th 2009. We’re issuing this latest update as we feel there are significant developments that now need to be reported.

Because Swine Flu or any other type of Influenza virus places extra strain on the body, we’ve been especially concerned to warn our readers that prevention really is better than attempting to deal with the illness, especially if you are unfortunate enough to also suffer from a heart complaint.

How to avoid getting Swine Flu

The UK government’s advice is ‘catch it – bin it – kill it’ – and refers to using a disposable tissue (catching the virus) when sneezing or coughing in public, then quickly disposing of the tissue (bin it) and hence killing the virus by preventing it from easily spreading.

Because the common cold and flu viruses are so resilient, the best defence is avoidance of coming into contact with the virus. The main attack method of the swine flu virus is  by getting into the body via the nose, mouth or eyes. The best chance of avoiding this is by avoiding public places where you may be exposed to airborn particles containing the virus as a result of a sneeze or a cough from an affected individual. Secondly, because the virus can survive on hard surfaces such as door handles, it is essential that you wash your hands frequently with soap and water whenever you come into contact with these surfaces in public, or at home if another member of your family has been diagnosed.

Cases of swine flu are rocketing again this Autumn

During the intervening period through the summer months, the spread of the Swine Flu virus has been much reduced, as expected. But with the advent of late autumn, moving into winter in the northern hemisphere, and the reduction in average temperatures we are starting to see the predicted rise (or second wave) in the number of diagnosed cases of the virus.

During the last week of October, the number of confirmed swine flu cases in the United Kingdom has increased by over fifty percent in just one week, reaching nearly 80,000 !

Over half a million people have now contracted the swine flu virus in the UK since the start of the current flu pandemic in the early part of 2009, and there have been 137 deaths from the illness during this period. Although this figure is relatively small, representing just over 2 people dying per 10,000 confirmed cases, there must surely be many heart disease sufferers who may not have died after contracting the virus, but whose condition has suffered as a result of the additional strain placed on their heart disease condition by the swine flu illness. This may translate into unknown future premature deaths from heart attacks, heart failure and strokes, but is impossible to calculate.

More swine flu patients are now requiring intensive care

Another worrying statistic is that the percentage of swine flu victims requiring intensive care has risen substantially, according to the UK government’s chief medical officer – Sir Liam Donaldson. There are currently over 750 people hospitalised in the UK with swine flu, but 20% of these patients are in intensive care, and this is following the pattern  established in Australia and the southern hemisphere during their winter.

So, although the level of infection is approaching the 100,000 new weekly cases maximum established in July 2009, the number of serious cases has far exceeded that level reached in July.

Swine Flu Vaccine is now available !

A new swine flu vaccine has been developed by drugs giant Glaxo SmithKline, and is now starting to become available at doctors surgeries in the UK. The initial batch is to be targetted at high risk patients, and the UK government plans to immunise all high risk patients by the middle of December.

We urge all our readers who have any problems with their heart health or immune system to contact their physician to enquire when they can obtain a vaccination against swine flu, as it is not clear whether there will be an automatic system of contacting vulnerable patients, including those with heart conditions.