Feb
27

Fun Facts About Heart Health! (2)

drscheetz on February 27th, 2012

A Cold Heart Isn’t Always a Bad Thing!

Therapeutic hypothermia is actually a form of treatment for cardiac arrest. According to American Heart Association guidelines for inducing hypothermia, doctors cool a patient’s body to 91 degrees F, 7 degrees below average, in order to slow damage to brain and other organs that begin when the heart stops and restarts.

Research published in the Annals of Neurology in late 2010 found that two-thirds of patients who received the therapy after revival from cardiac arrest recovered and went home with good heart function.

Monday is the Most Common Day of the Week for Heart Attacks

Mondays get a bad rap — Manic Mondays, Monday blues, case of the Mondays — but where heart health is concerned, maybe it’s deserved. Research has shown that more heart attacks occur on Mondays than any other day of the week. One 2005 study published in the European Journal of Epidemiology found that the incidence of heart attack was 20 percent higher in men and 15 percent higher in women on Mondays.

Some experts theorize that the spike has to do with the stress of returning to work after a relaxing weekend, while others correlate Monday heart attacks with the effects of boozy Saturday nights.

Other common heart attack days, unfortunately, are Christmas, the day after Christmas, and New Year’s. Wow.

HAPPY HEALTHY HEARTS! – inside and out!

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Feb
8

Fun Facts About Heart Health! (1)

drscheetz on February 8th, 2012

The all-important heart is constantly at work, pumping blood (about 2,000 gallons a day) filled with essential oxygen and nutrients to your body’s organs 24/7. Everything about the heart and how it works is interesting, but here are some nuggets of information we found particularly fascinating.

The Heart Sits in the Center of the Chest, Not On the Left Side

Does this blow your mind because you’ve always been told it’s on the left? When we place our hands over our hearts to pledge allegiance, we actually go a tad too far to the left. The heart is located in the middle of the chest, snuggled between the lungs.

A small percentage of people are born with dextrocardia, a condition in which the heart points more toward the right side of the chest than the left. According to the National Organization for Rare Disorders, people who have dextrocardia with situs inversus (when visceral organs like the liver and spleen are reversed too) can live normal lives without any disability.

In many cases, though, dextrocardia is associated with other heart defects or other misplaced, and even missing, organs that might require surgery to correct.

It’s important to watch your normal heart rate over time, too. A recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found people whose resting heart rates increased from under 70 beats per minute to more than 85 beats per minute over 10 years had a 90 percent increased risk of suffering from heart disease compared to those whose heart rates stayed around 70 beats per minute.

MAINTAIN HAPPY HEALTHY HEARTS – inside and out!

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