What Is Heart Disease?
The heart is the organ that pumps blood, with its life-giving oxygen and nutrients, to all tissues of the body. If the pumping action of the heart becomes inefficient, vital organs like the brain and kidneys suffer. |
What are the Symptoms?
Symptoms often associated with heart disease. |
Diagnosing Heart Disease
Numerous links about the most common tests used to diagnose heart disease. |
Treatment of Heart Disease
Major advances have taken place over the past several decades, and continue to take place, regarding the treatment of heart disease. |
Preventing Heart Disease
The best way to "treat" heart disease is to avoid it altogether. Taking steps to adopt a healthy lifestyle can significantly reduce your risk of heart disease, and increase your odds of living a long and healthy life. Here's what you need to know. |
Assessing Your Own Risk For Heart Disease
The bad news about heart disease is that it remains extremely prevalent in our society. The good news is that the factors that determine our risk of developing heart disease are, to a large extent, under our control. |
Cardiology 101
Whether you are new to the topic of heart disease or an old pro, this is the place to find the resources you need. |
Assessing Your Own Risk For Heart Disease
A review of the blood lipids that play such an important role in developing cardiovascular disease. What they mean, when to treat them, and how they should be treated. |
Raising Your HDL Levels
While it has been known for a number of years that high HDL cholesterol levels (the "good" cholesterol) seem to confer some degree of protection from heart disease, until relatively recently almost all the attention in the "cholesterol wars" has been focused on lowering total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol levels (the "bad" cholesterol). |
Five Lifestyle Choices that Save Lives
Summary of findings of various studies on lifestyles and their effects on cardiovascular events. |
Trans Fatty Acids and the Heart
Recent studies have suggested that trans fatty acids have a deleterious effect on cholesterol levels and the risk of heart disease, and point out that we're eating far more of these evil fats than we should, and far more than we used to. |
Fish Oil and the Heart
Three new studies add strongly to the growing evidence that consumption of fish and fish oil supplements can reduce death from heart disease. |
Olive Oil in the Heart Healthy Diet
The US Food and Drug Administration has given its backing to the claim that olive oil can lower the risk of heart disease. |
Alcohol and the Heart
Doctors have struggled for several years now over whether to tell their patients about the potential cardiac benefits of alcohol. Over 60 clinical studies have suggested that light to moderate alcohol consumption can increase HDL cholesterol levels, and can reduce the incidence of myocardial infarction. |
Say Nuts to Heart Disease
In a recent issue of Nutrition Reviews, researchers from Penn State University report that regularly eating nuts significantly reduces the incidence of coronary artery disease. |
Low Fats, or Low Carbs
Is there common ground between these two warring camps? |
Even Moderate Exercise Reduces Risk
In the November 5 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers from Duke University report that moderate exercise produces favorable changes in lipid profiles - even if it is not enough exercise to lead to weight loss. |
Cardiac Risk Factors in Women
The risk factors for cardiac disease are similar between men and women, but there are some important differences. |
The Statin Drugs
Statins are drugs that improve cholesterol levels primarily by inhibiting the liver enzyme called "HMG C-A reductase." Statins have proven to be very effective in reducing cholesterol and in reducing the risk of heart attack and death. |
Non-prescription Cholesterol Lowering
Relatively recent on the non-prescription cholesterol lowering radar is policosanol. Policosanol, which originally became popular in Cuba, consists of a mixture of fatty alcohols derived from waxes of sugar cane (the main source of marketed policosanol,) yams, and beeswax. |
