Sex and exercise can trigger heart attacks in older people who don't get much of either...

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Sex and exercise can trigger heart attacks in older people who don't get much of either..


SEX and exercise can trigger heart attacks in older people who don't get much of either, a new analysis finds.

The risk is low, but it's a good reminder that slackers should change their exercise habits gradually, especially in middle age.

People who exercise regularly have a much smaller risk of having a heart attack immediately after sexual or physical activity, said lead author Dr Issa Dahabreh of Tufts Medical Centre in Boston.

"It would be really bad if someone thought our paper means people should not exercise," Dr Dahabreh said. "If anything, it's the opposite."

The analysis, appearing in today's Journal of the American Medical Association, combined results from 14 studies involving more than 6000 patients.

The studies involved only people who'd had heart attacks or had died suddenly from a heart problem. The studies looked at what the people were doing during the hour or two before their heart attacks and compared that to the same people's activity on normal days with no major heart problems.

That study design is used to try to answer the question, "Why did the heart attack occur now?"

Physical activity and sex increased the risk of heart attack by a factor of about three, according to the analysis of the pooled results. Exercise increased the risk of sudden cardiac death by nearly five times. The researchers didn't find a triggering relationship between sex and sudden cardiac death, that is, a sudden death from a heart problem.

The risk for any one person is extremely low.

"If you were to follow 10,000 people for a year and if they all decided to increase their physical activity by an hour a week, you could expect to see two to three more heart attacks," Dr Dahabreh said.

That risk is offset for most people by the benefits of exercise. The more frequently people exercise, in general, the less risk they have of exercise or sex triggering a heart attack.

Most of the patients in the studies were in their late 50s and early 60s, but the findings are a cautionary tale for people in any age group who are slowing down.

Exercise might even be considered cross-training for sex, said Mercedes Carnethon, a heart disease researcher at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, who wasn't involved in the research.

"Engaging in regular physical activity is a requirement for maintaining a long, safe, healthy sex life," Dr Carnethon said.

"If this isn't more motivation for people to maintain some degree of physical activity, I'm not sure what is," Carnethon said. "Get out and walk. Do something.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/sex-a-heart-attack-risk-for-couch-potatoes/story-e6frfku0-1226026513156#ixzz1HHZIYM2D

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Cutting salt intake could prevent deaths,,,

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Cutting Salt Could Prevent Deaths...





Cutting just half a teaspoon of salt a day from the intake of most U.S. adults would prevent 92,000 deaths, 99,000 heart attacks and 66,000 strokes according to predictions from computer models that used actual clinical data to judge the effects of the change.



Less salt is as big a benefit to health as is quitting smoking, according to work that appears in the January 20, 2010 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.



"The [heart] benefits of reduced salt intake are on par with the benefits of population-wide reductions in tobacco use, obesity, and cholesterol levels," explains Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, PhD. Limiting your daily salt intake by half a teaspoon (3 grams) isn't enough of a reduction to bring many diets to the 3.7 grams a day that's the recommendation for about 70% of adults, or the 5.8 grams a day suggested for high risk adults.



In fact, the average U.S. man gets 10.4 grams of salt a day; the average U.S. woman gets about 7.3 grams a day.



Some of the biggest reductions in dietary sodium would need to come from food makers who would have to stop adding so much to processed foods.



The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that 77% of the salt in our diet comes from these types of foods. Surprisingly, the salt shaker accounts for just 6% of our daily intake, while salt used in cooking accounts for a mere 5% of intake.



Would we miss the salt if it were removed? "In the United Kingdom, a population-wide reduction in dietary salt of 10% was achieved in four years without a reduction in sales of the food products included in the initial effort and without consumer complaints about taste," Bibbins-Domingo and her colleagues point out.



Another plus, once you cut back on the salt (even if you don't know you're doing so) this encourages you to prefer less salty foods. The change in your taste for salt comes in just a few weeks.



In an editorial published along with the study, Johns Hopkins researcher Lawrence J. Appel, MD, MPH and Cheryl A.M. Anderson, PhD, MPH call for more regulations.



Of course such restrictions would certainly be opposed by industry, as we've seen with the effort by New York City to regulate sale in prepared foods. Opposition to the measure comes from the Salt Institute, a trade group that represents the industry.













..

Representative for the salt industry aren't convinced that the moderate reduction in blood pressure from cutting salt is worth the risks to health that come from depriving our bodies of this natural, necessary nutrient used for many thousands of years.




Morton Satin, speaking for the Salt Institute says, "Mediterranean diet consumers, such as the Italians, consume 40% more salt than Americans, but because they eat a balanced diet with plenty of salads and vegetables, they have the best cardiovascular figures in the world. I'm concerned that the reduction in salt in canned vegetables could lead to less vegetables being consumed. This would be harmful to consumers, especially children."



Making the change, even cutting just 1 gram of salt from your diet, would have quite an impact on the health of many of us according to the researchers.



If you have risk factors for early death or heart problems, limiting your salt intake could be a very smart move and natural too. What's more, you don't need to do anything beyond making the change in your salt intake to get the benefit to your health.



Acknowledgements: Kirsten Whittaker

Daily Health Bulletin Editor

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Its probably not unhealthy to have a big bum...

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Its probably not unhealthy to have a big bum - a big stomach is another matter.

According to researchers, a type of fat that accumulates around the hips and bum may help fight diabetes.

The green light to get a big bum:

This is the news every woman wants to hear — it's okay to have a big derriere, in fact, it's healthy! A new study by US researchers shows that a type of fat found commonly found around the hips and bottom, known as subcutaneous fat, or fat that collects under the skin, helps to improve the sensitivity of the hormone insulin. Insulin is responsible for regulating blood sugar and therefore might actually offer some protection against diabetes.

Fat that helps you lose weight:

It sounds like a bit of an oxymoron, but subcutaneous fat may also be able to help you lose weight.

The researchers conducting the study found that mice who had been given transplants of this wonder fat actually lost weight. The fat, which was injected into their abdomens, caused their fat cells to shrink even though they made no changes to their diet or activity levels.

"It was a surprising result," said Dr Ronald Kahn of Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA. "We found [subcutaneous fat] had a beneficial effect, and it was especially true when you put it inside the abdomen."

Pear-shaped bodies less prone to disease
It's already know that a type of fat, known as visceral fat, that collects in the abdomen can increase the risk of diabetes and heart disease, while people with more fat deposits on their bums and hips are less likely to suffer. But this new study reveals that subcutaneous fat may be able to combat thisthose same diseases.

The mice that got the subcutaneous fat transplanted into their stomachs actually began to lose weight after just two weeks and, on top of this, their blood sugar and insulin levels also showed improvements.

So it’s good news all around for rounded women. Dr Kahn agrees, saying, "It's an important result — [it says] that not all fat is bad."

Acknowledgements: MSN Health