Certain traits, conditions, or habits may raise your chance of developing CAD. These conditions are known as risk factors.

Some of them are modifiable whereas others are not.

Risk Factors

The more risk factors you have, the greater chance you have of developing coronary artery disease.

• Unhealthy blood cholesterol levels
• High blood pressure
• Smoking
• Insulin resistance
• Diabetes
• Overweight
• Lack of physical activity
• Older Age
• Family history
• High levels of a protein called C-reactive protein (CRP)
• Sleep apnea
• Stress
• Alcohol

The usual preceding event is an damage to internal layer f blood vessel. When damage occurs, the body starts a healing process. Excess fatty tissues release compounds that promote this process causing a plaque to build up where the arteries are damaged.

The buildup of plaque in the coronary arteries may start in childhood. Over time, plaque can narrow or completely blockcoronary arteries leading to reduction of the  flow of oxygen-rich blood to your heart muscle.

Plaque sometimes causing   platelets to clump together and form blood clots at the site of the cracks leading to further narrowing of arteries.

When the crtical level of reduction occurs, it causes pain or angina.

Two major functions of the musculoskeletal system are structural support and purposeful motion. The activities of the human body depend on the effective interaction between joints and the neuromuscular units that move them.

Following components constitute the musculoskeletal system.

• Muscle
• Tendons
• Ligaments
• Cartilage
• Bone.

All of these structure contribute to structure and mobilty

Collagen, elastin and adhesins, and proteoglycans are the building blocks of musculoskeletal system. The different connective tissues differ in their composition of macromolecules.

A gradual loss of blood flow to the brain over years or decades could be a major trigger for Alzheimer’s disease, according to a study. Up till now, the cause for this disease has remained a mystery, even if the mechanism causing the damage is well understood.

The new research shows that an insufficient supply of sugar glucose, transported by blood, sets off a biochemical chain reaction resulting in the accumulation of the neuron-attacking proteins that cause Alzheimer’s.

“This findings is significant because it suggests that improving blood flow to the brain might be an effective therapeutic approach for prevention or treatment of Alzheimer’s,” said Robert Vassar, a professor at North Western University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, and lead author of this study.

“Exercising, reducing cholesterol intake and managing hypertension are the measures that could provide added protection”, he said. “For persons who already show symptoms of constricted arteries, taking vasodilators (drugs that boost blood flow) could help deliver nourishing oxygen and glucose to the brain,” he added.

Drawing from experiments with humans and mice, Vassar and colleagues showed that reduced blood flow alters a protein called elF2alpha. In its changed form, elF2alpha increases the output of the enzyme that spurs production of the fiber-like knots of amyloidal beta protein that form outside neurons and disrupt their ability to send messages.

The finding published in the journal Neuron could lead to drugs designed to block the elF2alpha production that begins the formation of the protein clumps, also known as amyloid plaques, Vassar added.

Alzheimer’s disease is incurable and is the most common form of dementia among older people. It affects the regions of the brain involving thought, memory and language.

Source: TOI

A large glass of wine a day increases the risk of liver and bowel cancer by a fifth, experts have warned. What’s more, the same goes for a pint of beer or a couple of spirits such as vodka or gin.

Rachel Thompson, science programme manager for World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF), warned that just two units of alcohol a day increases the risk of bowel cancer by 18 percent and the risk of liver cancer by 20 percent.

The warning appears to conflict with other studies which suggest moderate alcohol intake and help combat heart disease. “If you are drinking a pint of lager or a large glass of wine every day then this might not seem like a lot, but the science shows you are increasing your risk of bowel cancer by 18 percent and your risk of liver cancer by 20 percent,” she said.

She added: “When you consider how many cases of these types of cancer are diagnosed in the UK every year, it is clear that drinking even relatively small amounts of alcohol can make a significant difference.”

More than 3,000 people in the UK are diagnosed with liver cancer each yea and a similar number die. The WCRF said there was convincing evidence that drinking alcohol also increased the risk of breast cancer and cancers of the mouth, pharynx, larynx and oesophagus.

Source: TOI

Offering yet another reason to never start smoking, a new study finds that both current and former smokers run an elevated risk of the heart rhythm disorder atrial fibrillation.

The condition, also known as AF, is the most common heart arrhythmia in the United States, affecting about 2 million people. During an episode of AF, abnormal electrical activity in the heart causes its upper two chambers to beat in a rapid, uncoordinated rhythm; the arrhythmia itself is not life-threatening, but over time AF can contribute to stroke or heart failure in some people.

While smoking is a well-known risk factor for heart disease, it has not been clear whether the habit boosts the risk of AF specially.

The new findings, reported in the American Heart Journal, suggest that it does even after a smoker quits.

Researcher found that of nearly 5,700 Dutch adults age 55 and older, current smokers and former smokers were about 50 percent more likely to develop AF over 7 years.

The bottom line, lead researchers Jan Heeringa said, is that AF “has to be added to the long list of diseases” linked to smoking.

“An independent effect of smoking on atrial fibrillation has never been found, until now, in our study,” noted Heeringa, of Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Even when the researchers took other factors into account-such as age, and whether participants had high blood pressure or had ever suffered a heart attack-smoking itself was still linked to higher AF risk.

It is surprising that former smokers had an AF risk comparable to current smokers’, according to Heeringa.

But the finding does not mean that quitting the habit is “meaningless”, the researcher stressed. It’s known that smokers who quit lower their risk of developing a number of smoking related ills, including lung cancer and heart attacks.

Source: TOI

• Wash yours hands often. Frequent washing of hands can destroy viruses that you have acquired from touching surfaces used by other people.

• Avoid touching your face, if you are around someone with a cold.

• Don’t smoke. Cigarette smoke can irrigate the airways and increase susceptibility to colds.

• Keep household surfaces clean. Door knobs, drawer pulls, keyboards, light switches, telephones, remote controls, countertops, and sinks can all harbor viruses for hours after their use by an infected person. Wipe these surfaces frequently with soap and water.

• Use paper towels in the kitchen and bathroom for hand-washing. Germs can live for several hours on cloth towels. Alternatively, have separate towels for each family member.

• Throw tissues away after use. Used tissues are sources of virus that can contaminate any surface where they are left.

• Maintain a healthy lifestyle. While there isn’t direct evidence to show that eating well or exercising and prevent colds, maintenance of a healthy lifestyle can help ensure that your immune system is in good condition and ready to fight infection.

• Control stress. Studies have shown that people experiencing emotional stress have weakened immune systems and are more likely to catch a cold than their calmer counterparts.

Source: TOI

Scientists have grown a living bandage from a patient’s own stem cells to heal a common sporting knee injury.

Every year about 80,000 men and women in Britain suffer tears to the meniscal cartilage, which acts as a shock absorbing cushion between the bones of the upper and lower leg.

Many are men and women in their twenties and thirties encounter knee injures and the tears are frequently the result of twisting the leg during jogging, football, rugby, horse riding or skiing.

The footballers Martin Petrov, a winger for Manchester City, and John Kennedy, the Celtic and Scotland player, have reportedly got the injury.

At the moment attempts to sew together ripped meniscal cartilage are often unsuccessful and can result in players spending a long time off the pitch undergoing rehabilitation.

Many sportsmen opt to have the tissue removed. Removal of loose cartilage allows the athletes to recover but it leaves bones in the knees exposed and osteoarthritis may develop.

Scientists at Bristol University have now managed to heal cartilage tissue in a laboratory with stem cells taken from a patient’s own bone marrow.

They used the cells to coat a sponge-like scaffold, made from collagen (a fibrous protein) and placed it inside the tear in the cartilage. The stem cells pulled the two pieces of torn cartilage together.

The team, led by Anthony Hollander, professor of rheumatology and tissue engineering, will now test out the treatment on their first patients.

Hollander said: “The stem cells knit across the two sides of the lesion and cause a reuniting of the two sides. We hope that in the patient we can reunite the cartilage in a strong enough way to heal the wound completely.”

Jonathan Webb, a rugby fullback who played 33 times for England, became a victim of a meniscal cartilage injury in 1989.

Webb, 45, who became an orthopaedic surgeon specializing in sports injures after retiring from professional rugby, had cartilage removed but still needs repeated surgery on his knee.

He said the stem cell break-through “offers the opportunity to rebuild the meniscal cartilage if it cannot be repaired. It may be that the professional sportsmen, who have the most to lose, will drive the technology forward”.

In an unrelated development news agencies reported that Pfizer, the world’s largest drugmaker, will spend $100 million during the next five years to harness stem cells to treat heart disease, diabetes an vision loss common among the elderly.

Scientists from Pfizer, working in labs in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Cambridge, England, will research new treatments to spur stem cells already in people’s bodies to become active in healing.

Source: TOI

Bad posture can lead to multitude of problems, not only in the back but other regions of body also. If you have a habit of maintaining a bad posture, use following tips to improve your posture

• Do not slouch. When sitting, avoid slumping or leaning forward.

• Stretching exercises help to keep you flexible. Yoga helps to improve your flexibility and posture.

• Sleep on a firm mattress that will support your spine while sleeping. Don’t stack to many pillow so that your neck is at an awkward angle. If you sleep on your side, placing a pillow between your knees helps to keeping the spine aligned.

• Walk straight. Make sure your weight is evenly distributed on both feet and your chin is level with the ground. Arms should be relaxed at your sides with your shoulders back. Continue practicing until you’re able to walk with the book balanced on your head.

Body contains two types of cholestrol HDL i.e. high density lipoproteins and LDL i.e. low density lipoproteins.. While LDL has adverse effect on heart, HDL is considered to be beneficial .

Researchers in United States  have developed a synthetic form HDL in an effort to check bad cholesterol.

The compound is manufactured using nanotechnology and contains a tiny core of gold. It is considered to have potential to rid the body of excess bad cholesterol. The  study has been published on in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

The molecule mirrors the size and structure of high-density lipoprotein, or HDL.

It is comprised of a carefully sized gold particle swathed in fat molecules known as lipids and capped off with a protein layer. It is designed to attract and trap low-density lipoprotein, or LDL, the bad kind of cholesterol that can build up in arteries and cause heart attacks and strokes.

Commonly used antilipid drugs known as statins can help lower LDL levels, but levels of protective HDL are not raised much.

raising the HDL level, might be able reverse a lot of the damage and plaques that are already there.

Niacin is another drug in current use that raises HDL levels but causes unpleasant side effects like flushing.

Would this be a wonder drug. Only time would tell.

Smokers who are trying to gradually kick the butt can effectively do so with the help of nicotine gum, says a new study. Nicotine gum has been in use for over 20 years to help smokers quit abruptly.

However, the new study suggests that smokers who wish to quit by slowly reducing their smoking habits can substantially increase their chances to succeed by using nicotine gum to help in cessation.

In a double blind, placebo-controlled study involving more than 3000 smokers,the participants were allowed to choose between 2-mg and 4-mg doses of nicotine gum, with the higher doses generally being selected by heavy smokers.

Within each dose group, participants were then to receive either the active gum or a placebo (a substance which a patient accepts as medicine but has no therapeutic quality), yielding four equal groups.

The researchers assessed initial 24-hour abstinence and 28-day abstinence, and participants were followed up at 6 months to determine overall success rates for quitting. They found that the odds of smokers achieving 24-hour abstinence were 40 to 90 percent higher using active gum compared to placebo, and 2 to 4.7 times higher for attaining 28-day abstinence.

Moreover, at the end of 6 months, while absolute quit rates were somewhat low, the odds of quitting were about 2 to 6 times greater for active gum users, with a quit rate of 6 percent in the 4 mg group.

“This is the first study to demonstrate that smokers wanting to quit by gradual reduction can substantially increase their success by using nicotine gum to facilitate reduction and cessation,” said researcher Saul Shiffman.

“Nicotine gum helped smokers reduce smoking, achieve and maintain abstinence. This expands treatment options for the substantial proportion of smokers who prefer quitting gradually, who have relatively low chances of quitting and who have heretofore been implicitly excluded from the use of NRT to help them quit.”

Source: TOI