Islamabad - Serious heart attacks are affecting younger and more obese individuals, and rates of high blood pressure, diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease remain elevated, according to findings due to be presented at the American College of Cardiology’s 65th Annual Scientific Session in Chicago, IL.
Smoking and other lifestyle factors continue to jeopardize heart health. Factors that increase the risk of heart attack include age and family history, which are beyond the individual’s control.
However, heart health can also depend on dietary habits, exercise and smoking, lifestyle choices that are within the individual’s control.
Awareness of cardiovascular disease has increased dramatically in recent years, and people are more aware than ever of the need to address preventable causes.
ST-elevation myocardial infarction, or STEMI, is the most severe and deadly type of heart attack, which occurs when one of the heart’s main arteries becomes completely blocked by plaque, stopping the flow of blood. The risk of death and disability is high.
According to the American Heart Association (AHA), STEMI can be treated with clot-busting medications, effective if used within 30 minutes of the attack, or percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), a mechanical method for opening the arteries. PCI must be performed within 90 minutes, but in 2013, only 39% of hospitals had the capability to deliver this, and many people in rural areas will not be able to access it.
In the current study, researchers, led by Dr. Samir Kapadia, professor of medicine and section head for interventional cardiology at Cleveland Clinic, examined the risk factors for heart disease in patients who were treated for STEMI at the clinic. The scientists apportioned over 3,900 STEMI patients from 1995-2014 into four quartiles of 5 years each.
The average age of STEMI patients fell from 64 to 60 years. Rates of obesity among these patients rose from 31% to 40%, of diabetes from 24% to 31%, of high blood pressure from 55% to 77%, and the percentage of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) went up from 5% to 12%.
All of the changes are significant and in keeping with national trends. Meanwhile, the proportion of smokers in this population rose from 28% to 46%, despite an overall decline nationwide over the last 2 decades.
In addition, the percentage of patients with three or more major risk factors rose from 65% to 85%.
The authors say these are “strong messages” for health care professionals and the public.
Dr Kapadia calls for primary care practice to stay focused on prevention. Not only the cardiologist but also primary care physicians and patients must “take ownership of this problem,” he says.
Quit blaming sugar!
Many of us suffer from an insatiable sweet tooth. We can’t go through the day without hankering for cupcakes or sugary treats.
And, even when we’re watching our waistlines, we often feel powerless to the allure of sweets. Thus, in moments of desperation, we find ourselves giving into our sugar cravings.
But now, scientists have revealed that we aren’t actually craving sweet foods. Instead, our brain is merely craving calories – not reacting to an addiction to sweetness, experts found.
Different circuits in the same brain region are invoked by calories and sweetness, but pleasure is only derived from calories - not sweetness, scientists discovered.
Scientists discovered that different circuits in the same region process sweetness and calories - but dopamine is only released in response to calories, not sugar
Scientists from Yale University, as well as the University of São Paulo and Federal University in Brazil, teamed up to investigate the brain’s relationship to sugar.
They found that different brain circuits are invoked by the pleasure people derive from eating sweets – and the calories they supply.
And, given the choice between something calorific with an unpleasant taste and something sugary with less calories, many vertebrates choose calories over taste.
That’s because the brain prioritizes energy over taste to ensure survival. The team conducted a series of experiments with mice. They found that the pleasure derived from eating, in addition to the caloric value and nutrition of food, invokes neural circuits in the striatum – the region of the brain involved with rewards and cognition.
But, different neural circuits in that same region are involved in those two processes.
Circuits in the ventral striatum process pleasure or reward from food with a sweet taste.

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