The last 3 months have been eventful in a negative way both for my family and I’ve also had greatly increased professional stress. My posts here have suffered greatly…
But I’m well and I’m back and more determined than ever to address my coronary artery disease in as serious a way as the science will allow and I am capable.
A special thanks to my local Jedi Master and especially to Dr. Davis of Track Your Plaque for their descriptions and explanations of that path and for their encouragement.
In the near future, I’ll post about what I’ve been up to related to my heart disease for the last few months.
But for now, and to celebrate my return in this brief post, I quote a Life Extension Foundation news release on a study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology just today.
The text of the LEF news release entitled Large study links obesity and inflammation to heart failure follows after the jump.
(image courtesy of http://krystalmae.blogspot.com)
The May 6, 2008 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology reported the latest findings from the Multiethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA) that obesity is associated with prolonged inflammation of the heart which can lead to congestive heart failure.
The current analysis, conducted by cardiology specialists at Johns Hopkins University in collaboration with other researchers, involved 6,814 MESA participants who were 45 to 84 years of age upon recruitment between 2000 and 2002. MESA researchers plan to follow the subjects until 2012.
Of the 79 participants who developed congestive heart failure after a median follow-up time of four years, 44 percent were obese. Obese subjects had higher levels of inflammatory proteins interleukin-6, fibrinogen and C-reactive protein compared with nonobese participants. Near doubling of interleukin 6 levels was associated with an 84 percent greater risk of developing heart failure, and near tripling of C-reactive protein with a 36 percent greater risk than those with lower levels. The researchers also found a link between elevated inflammation-associated proteins and metabolic syndrome.
“Our results showed that when the effects of other known disease risk factors - including race, age, sex, diabetes, high blood pressure, smoking, family history and blood cholesterol levels - were statistically removed from the analysis, inflammatory chemicals in the blood of obese participants stood out as key predictors of who got heart failure,” stated lead researcher João Lima, MD, who is a professor of medicine and radiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Study coauthor Hossein Bahrami, MD added, “The basic evidence is building the case that inflammation may be the chemical route by which obesity targets the heart, and that inflammation may play an important role in the increased risk of heart failure in obese people, especially those with the metabolic syndrome.”
It’s the inflammation stupid…
May 5th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
[…] brief post, I quote a Life Extension Foundation news release on a study …Original post by aCipher delivered by Medtrials and […]
May 5th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Welcome back! I was wondering where you had disappeared to!
May 6th, 2008 at 3:56 am
Nice to see you back!
May 24th, 2008 at 1:12 am
I too have noticed your absence, Hope life is slowing down and you can focus on you, I am in same boat.
June 9th, 2008 at 12:17 am
Back?? You don’t seem very back. Are you ok?