Drink Responsibly

(HealthDay News) -- Provided you don't have a drinking problem, are of legal age, and are not pregnant, the U.S. National Library of Medicine offers these suggestions for drinking alcohol responsibly:

Never drive a car if you've been drinking.
Drink alcohol with food -- never on an empty stomach.
Drink slowly and in moderation to avoid severe impairment.
If you are taking any medications, don't drink alcohol without checking first with your doctor.
Alcohol is not safe -- even in moderation -- if you have a history of alcohol abuse.
-- Diana Kohnle

Health

Health Tip: Ward Off Jet Lag
(HealthDay News) -- Jet lag occurs when the body has trouble adjusting to travel across time zones.

The American Academy of Family Physicians offers these recommendations to minimize symptoms:

Get plenty of sleep before you leave.
Avoid alcohol consumption right before, during, and right after your flight.
Eat healthy, well-balanced meals and healthy portion sizes.
Get plenty of exercise during your trip.
If you take sleep medication, use it only for a few days.
Follow the local schedule of your new time zone, not the old one.
-- Diana Kohnle

Women Health

Faster Heart Attack Care Saving Lives

After an Indiana hospital introduced a new protocol to get heart attack patients into the cardiac catheterization lab more quickly for artery-opening procedures, patients received lifesaving care up to an hour sooner than before and suffered less heart damage, researchers report.

They also had shorter hospital stays, according to a study published in the June 11 issue of Circulation.

The study included patients with a type of heart attack called ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), which is caused by a completely blocked artery. The sooner the artery can be opened, the lower the risk of death or permanent heart damage.

Emergency angioplasty -- also called percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) -- is the preferred treatment for this kind of heart attack, according to background information in the study.

"The benefit of emergency PCI depends on how quickly a patient receives treatment. However, only about a third of patients in the United States receive treatment within the recommended 90 minutes," study lead author Dr. Umesh N. Khot, a cardiologist at Indiana Heart Physicians/St. Francis Heart Center in Indianapolis, said in a prepared statement.

He and his colleagues made two major changes to the hospital's STEMI treatment protocol. First, the emergency department doctor who first sees the heart attack patient now immediately activates the cath lab. Next, an Emergency Heart Attack Response Team -- which includes an emergency department nurse, a critical care unit nurse, and a chest pain unit nurse -- moves the patient to the cath lab and prepares the patient for emergency PCI.

"Traditionally, most hospitals require the emergency department physician to contact a cardiologist who comes to see the patient. Only after the cardiologist sees the patient is the cath lab activated. Waiting for the cardiologist before activating the cath lab delays care without any clear benefit," Khot said.

Then, "patients have to wait in the emergency department for the catheterization team members to prepare the cath lab or arrive from home during nights and weekends."

Khot and his colleagues compared 60 STEMI patients who had emergency PCI before the new protocol was implemented and 86 STEMI patients treated after the new protocol was in place.

The median time it took for a patient to be treated after arriving at the hospital decreased by a third -- from 83.5 minutes to 64.5 minutes during regular hours and from 123.5 minutes to 77.5 minutes in off-hours. The proportion of patients who received emergency PCI within 90 minutes increased from 28 percent to 71 percent, the research team say.
(American Heart Association)

Drug May Cut Aneurysm Risk for Heart Defect Patients

The drug doxycycline delays dangerous aneurysm rupture in mice genetically engineered to have many of the clinical features of humans with Marfan syndrome, says a U.S. study.

In Marfan syndrome, a genetic flaw causes the walls of the heart's major arteries to weaken.

Thoracic aneurysms are the main cardiovascular complication in Marfan syndrome patients. This study found that doxycycline -- a non-specific matrix metalloproteinases (MMP) inhibitor -- blocked the proteins that break down the aorta and significantly delayed aneurysm rupture, tears and bleeding.

The researchers also found that doxycycline reduced elastin degradation and expression of two MMPs -- MMP-2 and MMP-9 -- believed to play an important role in aneurysms.

The Marfan syndrome mice who received doxycycline in their drinking water lived nearly twice as long as mice who did not receive doxycycline.

The study was to have been presented Saturday in Baltimore at the annual meeting of the Society for Vascular Surgery.

In the past, beta blockers have been used to lower blood pressure and slow the heart rate in an attempt to delay the aorta's enlargement, study author Dr. B. Timothy Baxter, a professor in the department of surgery at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, said in a prepared statement.

However, beta blockers provide only modest benefit to patients and the side effects caused by drugs have a negative impact on a patient's quality of life.

"In patients with Marfan syndrome, the need for surgical intervention is determined by following the aortic enlargement with ultrasound or CT scans done at six- to 12-month intervals, until a specific threshold of growth is reached when surgery is recommended. This approach of watchful waiting is unsettling and stressful for patients," Baxter said.

He said more research is needed to determine whether treatment with doxycycline can delay or prevent the need for surgery in Marfan syndrome patients.
(Society for Vascular Surgery)

Risk for Glaucoma

Blood Pressure Trouble Leaves Eyes at Risk for Glaucoma

TUESDAY, June 12 (HealthDay News) -- People with high pulse pressure -- the difference between systolic (beating heart rate) and diastolic (resting heart rate) blood pressure readings -- may be at increased risk for high-tension open-angle glaucoma, an eye disease involving the loss of certain retinal cells and atrophy of the optic nerve, experts say.

Researchers in the Netherlands studied more than 5,300 people, including 215 with probable or definite open-angle glaucoma. At the start of the study in 1990-1993, the participants underwent eye examinations and blood pressure checks.

By the third phase of the study, in 1997-1999, the researchers assessed the participants' arterial stiffness -- a change in artery structure associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

They also checked the intraocular pressure (pressure within the eye) of participants with open-angle glaucoma in order to determine whether they had high-tension open-angle glaucoma (intraocular pressure greater than 21 millimeters of mercury) or normal-tension open-angle glaucoma (pressure of 21 millimeters of mercury or less).

"We found that high-tension open-angle glaucoma was associated with high pulse pressure, possibly with increased carotid artery stiffness and, only in persons treated for systemic hypertension, with low diastolic perfusion pressure," the study authors wrote in a prepared statement.

"In these persons, normal-tension open-angle glaucoma was associated with high diastolic blood pressure, whereas the association between normal-tension open-angle glaucoma and low diastolic perfusion pressure was inverted,'" they added.

Further studies need to be conducted in order to confirm the findings, they said, but "we conclude that the mechanisms involved in the [cause] of high-tension open-angle glaucoma may be different from those in normal-tension open-angle glaucoma."