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DALLAS, Jan. 27, 2021 Stroke survivors who completed a cardiac rehabilitation program focused on aerobic exercise, currently not prescribed to stroke survivors, significantly improved their ability to transition from sitting to standing, and how far they could walk during a six-minute walking test, according to new research published today in the
Journal of the American Heart Association, an open access journal of the American Heart Association.
Cardiac rehabilitation is a structured exercise program prevalent in the U.S. for people with cardiovascular disease that has been shown to increase cardiovascular endurance and improve quality of life. Despite many similar cardiovascular risk factors, stroke is not among the covered diagnoses for cardiac rehab. Physical inactivity is common among stroke survivors, with more than 75% of all U.S. patients who survive a stroke not receiving the guideline-recommended amount of exercise (150 minutes of moderate-intensity or 75 minu
If you have high cholesterol, you’ve probably been warned: Failure to control this beast ups your odds of heart disease and can cause a heart attack or stroke. It’s a no brainer to take your meds, right? Wrong.
Remarkably, 50% of all people who’ve been prescribed cholesterol-lowering drugs don’t take them even though the consequences to heart health can be dire. Blowing off your cholesterol meds can be deadly, says Guy L. Mintz, M.D., director of cardiovascular health and lipidology at Sandra Atlas Bass Heart Hospital in Manhasset, NY. “The stakes are high.”
So, what’s keeping folks from staying the course with a treatment plan? Some people just hate the side effects. Others say routinely remembering to take a pill (or pills) is the problem. As is failing to understanding just how important it is to take your meds.
Mark Harris
YOU WOULD never think that a 1988 American Heart Association (AHA) conference would set the stage for decades of debate around of all things sodium and race. But that’s where Clarence Grim, M.D., seeded a theory about Black health that has been difficult to uproot ever since.
Dr. Grim, then the director of the hypertension research center at the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles, hypothesized that high rates of hypertension among African Americans were due to the horrors of slavery, including the Middle Passage, the mass transport of slaves from West Africa to North America from roughly 1600 to 1800.
Extreme athleticism and the risk of atrial fibrillation
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Consider the following sports icons: tennis legend Billie Jean King, basketball veteran Larry Bird, triathlete Karsten Madsen, baseball pitcher Kenley Jansen, and cyclist champion Haimar Zubeldia.
What do all of these well-known professional athlete heroes have in common? They are athletes with atrial fibrillation, also called AFib. AFib is the most common heart rhythm disorder worldwide, accounting for 750,000 hospitalizations per year in the US alone. It is estimated that 6 million Americans have AFib, and this number will increase exponentially over the next few decades. Traditionally AFib was considered a disease of aging. However, younger patients are now being seen. This includes athletes.