Health
Heart disease risk could be affected by one surprising factor, new study finds
The form of an individual’s coronary heart might be a predictor of future cardiac illness, a brand new examine from Stanford College in California discovered.
Particularly, a coronary heart that has a extra spherical (spherical) form may have a 47% increased chance of creating cardiomyopathy, which is a “illness of the guts muscle that makes it more durable for the guts to pump blood to the remainder of the physique,” based on the Mayo Clinic.
Utilizing synthetic intelligence (AI) to investigate greater than 38,897 MRIs of wholesome hearts from the UK Biobank, researchers examined a big biomedical database that features data from 500,000 U.Ok. contributors.
HEART DISEASE, THE SILENT KILLER: STUDY SHOWS IT CAN STRIKE WITHOUT SYMPTOMS
Within the examine, revealed within the journal Med on Wednesday, the researchers measured the roundness of the left ventricle, a sometimes cone-shaped chamber of the guts that pumps oxygen-rich blood to the physique.
Subsequent, the researchers analyzed the contributors’ well being data to determine which of them had sure genetic markers for coronary heart circumstances.
They discovered an overlap between the rounder-shaped hearts and a predisposition for coronary heart illness.
“Most individuals who follow cardiology are effectively conscious that after somebody develops coronary heart illness, the guts will look extra spherical,” stated Dr. Shoa Clarke, a preventive heart specialist and an teacher within the Stanford Faculty of Medication’s departments of drugs and pediatrics, in a press launch saying the findings.
Rounder-shaped hearts confirmed a predisposition for coronary heart illness.
Clarke was one of many examine’s senior researchers, together with Dr. David Ouyang of the Smidt Coronary heart Institute of Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles.
The lead writer was Milos Vukadinovic, a bioengineering scholar at UCLA.
The analysis workforce was shocked by the robust hyperlink between coronary heart roundness and the danger for future cardiomyopathy, Clarke instructed Fox Information Digital.
“It was potential that coronary heart form might not have instructed us something completely different than measurements of coronary heart measurement or power,” he stated.
“Nevertheless it turned out that coronary heart form gives extra details about danger and genetics that’s not picked up by different measurements.”
Rounder form may point out stress on the guts
Dr. Marc Siegel, scientific professor of drugs at NYU Langone Medical Heart and a Fox Information medical contributor, stated that when used correctly, AI will be “a clinician’s buddy” when evaluating coronary heart well being.
5 SIMPLE WAYS TO HELP PREVENT HEART DISEASE THIS YEAR
“On this occasion, AI appeared to point out a correlation between roundness of the guts and growth of cardiomyopathy, the place the guts balloons out and is a much less efficient pump,” Dr. Siegel instructed Fox Information Digital.
“This makes some sense, as a result of the guts is often extra rectangular,” he defined.
“A rounder form may conceivably put extra stress or stress on the valves and partitions, doubtlessly resulting in this final result.” He was not concerned within the new examine.
If the brand new examine is confirmed, it will add one other component to how cardiologists study sufferers’ echocardiograms (ultrasound of the guts), stated Dr. Siegel.
Medical imaging may maintain extra insights, researchers say
The researchers imagine that is simply the tipping level for rather more data-rich data from MRI imagery.
“A key takeaway of our work is that present methods for assessing the guts are good, however they have been established a long time in the past, earlier than the period of huge knowledge,” Clarke instructed Fox Information Digital.
“When used correctly, AI generally is a clinician’s buddy.”
“We now have the chance to suppose extra broadly and ask what different options of the guts can inform us in regards to the danger and the biology of illness.”
Co-author Ouyang instructed the journal Med that there’s an intensive quantity of untapped data that physicians aren’t at the moment utilizing.
The examine authors indicated that extra analysis is required into how coronary heart form can or ought to be thought-about when making medical selections.
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This specific examine was restricted to a single cohort throughout the U.Ok.
Whereas it checked out numerous contributors, Clarke stated the group lacked range.
“We count on that our outcomes will generalize broadly, however it will likely be necessary to point out that these findings replicate in different populations,” he stated.
Coronary heart illness is the main explanation for loss of life amongst women and men within the U.S. — with somebody dying from the situation each 34 seconds, per knowledge from the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC).
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Health
Summer is tick season, but these tips can help you avoid the bloodsucking bugs
Tick season is starting across the U.S., and experts are warning the bloodsuckers may be as plentiful as ever.
Another mild winter and other favorable factors likely means the 2024 tick population will be equal to last year or larger, some researchers say.
“It’s very bad and has only been getting worse,” said Susanna Visser of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
TICK BITES AND LYME DISEASE: WHAT TO DO IF A TICK BITES YOU OR YOUR PET
An increasing variety of ticks are pushing into new geographical areas, bringing unusual diseases. Exotic southern species like the Gulf Coast tick and the lone star tick are being detected in New York and other northern states, for example.
But the tick that experts warn of the most is a common blacklegged tick, which is found mainly in forests and spreads Lyme disease. Infection rates begin to peak in May, and U.S. health officials estimate nearly half a million Lyme disease infections happen annually.
Here’s a look at what’s expected this year and how you can protect yourself.
TICK FACTS
Ticks are small, eight-legged bloodsucking parasites — arachnids, not insects — that feed on animals and sometimes people. Some ticks are infected with germs that can cause illness, and they spread those germs when they bite.
There is no widely accepted estimate of how many ticks there are from one year to the next, but there is a scientific consensus that they are an increasingly common health hazard in large portions of the United States.
Blacklegged ticks — also known as deer ticks, since they feed on deer — are among the most common ticks in the eastern half of the U.S. They were plentiful centuries ago, then diminished when forests were cut down and deer were hunted, and rebounded alongside deer and wooded suburbs. The ticks have spread out from pockets in New England and the Midwest over a wider range.
Tick populations cycle throughout the year and their numbers depend on a few factors. They like warm, humid weather, and more can be seen after a mild winter. The more deer and mice available to feed matters, too.
Overall, the blacklegged tick population has been expanding for at least four decades, researchers say.
“This is an epidemic in slow motion,” said Rebecca Eisen, a CDC research biologist and tick expert.
2024 TICK SEASON FORECAST
Weather can play a role in the severity of a tick season.
Very cold, dry winters can whittle down tick populations, but recent winters have been mild — a trend some attribute to climate change.
As Scott Williams, a tick researcher at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, said: “Winters are no longer limiting the tick population.”
Ticks can withstand the heat but tend to almost hibernate when it’s a dry summer. That happened in Maine in 2020 through 2022, said Chuck Lubelczyk, a vector ecologist at the MaineHealth Institute for Research.
But last year was a very wet year, and tick activity multiplied in Maine — the state with the highest incidence of Lyme disease in the country. Weather service predictions call for higher temperatures and precipitation, so “on paper, at least, it could be a very good year for the ticks,” Lubelczyk said.
In Wisconsin, adult ticks were out longer than usual due to a mild winter. The tick nymphs are starting to emerge, and a wet spring is setting the stage for the possibility that the population will be robust, said Xia Lee, an entomologist at the Wisconsin Department of Health Services.
Ditto New York.
“It will be as bad as last year, or worse,” said Saravanan Thangamani, who studies ticks and tickborne diseases at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse.
WHAT IS LYME DISEASE?
Not all ticks are infected with disease-causing germs — about 20% to 30% of the blacklegged tick nymphs that emerge in the Northeast and Midwest this spring and into summer will be carrying the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, experts estimate.
Lyme disease symptoms tend to start between three and 30 days after a bite occurs and can include fever, headache, fatigue and a bull’s-eye-like rash. If you get bitten and develop symptoms, see a doctor to get treated with antibiotics.
HOW TO KEEP TICKS OFF OF YOU
Experts say the best thing to do is take steps to avoid a tick bite in the first place.
If you go outdoors, make note of wooded areas and where grassy properties start bleeding into wooded areas. Ticks tend to perch on ankle-level vegetation with their upper legs outstretched, waiting to latch on to an unsuspecting dog or human.
Try to walk in the middle of paths, wear light-colored and permethrin-treated clothing and use Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-registered insect repellents.
HOW TO CHECK FOR TICKS
When you come inside, check for ticks. They can be found anywhere on the human body, but common spots include around the waist, behind the knees, between fingers and toes, on underarms, in the belly button and around the neck or hairline.
They are harder to see when they are young, so look carefully and immediately pull them off with tweezers.
The CDC does not recommend sending individual ticks to testing services for analysis, because a person might get more than one tick bite and the results from the tested tick may not be sufficient information.
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