TheWellnessLiving Health Tips

Aspirin and cardiovascular diseases

Aspirin is one of the oldest drugs, which continue nowadays to surprise us. This common product, inexpensive protects the heart of a future attack or even death. Thus, it was found that aspirin help to reduce the number of deaths that occur in less than an hour after a heart attack.

A research has brought to the surface a clear evidence regarding the evaluation of aspirin in preventing heart attacks for men and treating coronary artery disease for both sexes. Dozens of studies involving thousands of people, showed that low doses of aspirin reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease or a heart attack by 25%.

A study reported in 2005 concluded that the records are not very clear on how to prevent heart attacks in women. But except is that you are allergic to aspirin that will trigger other problems, other people should take an aspirin if:

• Have diabetes;
• Have angina;
• Had a cardiovascular attack;
• Had a heart attack or a preinfarct;
• Coronary artery disease;
• Shows a high risk for cardiovascular disease.

Despite the benefits of aspirin, it has some side effects. According to existing records, the risks are higher in men than in women, at least in terms of primary prevention (i.e. avoiding a cardiovascular event).

Aspirin increases the risk of significant gastrointestinal disease. Even people who are treated with aspirin occasional may have problems and go through painful experience if aspirin is administered regularly over a long period of time. Particular, aspirin might not be a good choice for people who have uncontrolled hypertension (the leading cause of bleeding in brain).

Tips – If you’re one of the women who already suffered a heart attack or other cardiovascular events, is recommended to take aspirin to reduce your risk of a second event.

What are the symptoms of anemia, how many types of anemia are there?

The most frequent and first symptom of anemia is prolonged fatigue. In addition, some of the following symptoms may appear, depending on the severity and how long the anemia has been around:

• Weakness
• Pale skin
• Breathing hard
• Chest pain
• Dizziness
• Trouble concentrating and memory loss
• Cold hands and feet
• Headaches

Types of anemia

Iron deficiency – Is the most common form of anemia, usually caused by poor dietary iron or blood loss. To produce red blood cells (red blood) the body needs iron.

Vitamin deficiency – Besides iron, the body needs folate and vitamin B12 to produce red blood cells. People who do not absorb these substances due to intestinal diseases are most likely to be sick.

Anemia from chronic diseases – Some chronic diseases like cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease and other disturb the formation of red blood cells. Anemia of this type can occur when your kidneys not work well, because the kidneys produce a hormone that stimulates formation of red blood cells. Cancer treatment, chemotherapy sometimes affects kidney function.

Aplastic anemia – It is a very dangerous category of anemia because the body is not able to produce any blood cells – either white or red, or platelets.

Anemia associated with bone disease – Red blood cells are produced in the bone marrow. Marrow disease – leukemia, myelodysplasia. Sometimes anemia remains very light, sometimes is a real danger.

Hemolytic anemia – When red blood cells are destroyed faster than they are produced is called hemolytic anemia. If the body’s immune system is disturbed, and fight against its own red blood cells, bone can not restore.

Sickle cell anemia – Their life is much shorter than the normal red cell shape. Hereditary disease, affecting mostly African and Arab populations.

Besides these known categories of anemia and other rare forms, such as thalassemia whose cause can be identified and not fall into any category.

Sleep disorders affect most people at some point of their lives, but in many cases it may become chronic and constitute a severe, debilitating condition that jeopardizes every aspect of the life of the sufferer. Generally specialists classify sleep disorders among these five types: insomnia, sleep apnea, snoring, restless legs syndrome (RLS)/periodic limb movements in sleep (PLMS) and narcolepsy, each of which have specific characteristics. By far the most commons type of sleep disorder is insomnia, although not everyone manages to find the way around and get better without the aid of psychoactive pills.

Insomnia (also know as a chronic inability to get high quality sleep) is the most frequent types of sleep disorders, and most people will experience it at some point. Insomnia can be triggered by many factors, most frequently stress, a change in time zones, changes in sleep patterns and inappropriate or insufficient bedtime habits. If the causal factors are identified, insomnia can be easily treated in most situations. By aiming to improve sleep habits, learn and perform relaxation techniques routinely many insomniacs see important improvements. Sometimes a deeper approach is needed and trying cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) can be of great help.

There are also natural supplements that can help improve the sleep patterns significantly by working out the levels of serotonin in the brain. 5HTP, the active component of NightCalm is proven to boost the serotonin levels and this leads to a notable improvement in sleep after a few days.

Stem cell treatment for acute myocardial infarction. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2008;(4):CD006536 Authors: Martin-Rendon E, Brunskill S, Dorée C, Hyde C, Watt S, Mathur A, Stanworth S BACKGROUND: Stem cell therapy offers a promising approach to the regeneration of damaged vascular and cardiac tissue after myocardial infarction (MI). This has resulted in multiple randomised controlled trials (RCTs) worldwide. OBJECTIVES: To critically evaluate evidence from RCTs on the effectiveness of adult bone marrow-derived stem cells (BMSC) to treat acute MI. SEARCH STRATEGY: MEDLINE (1950 to August 2007), EMBASE (1974 to August 2007), The Cochrane Library (Issue 3 2007), and CINAHL (1982 to August 2007) were searched. In addition LILACS, KOREAMED, INMED, Current Controlled Trials Register, the UK National Research Register and other handsearching was undertaken to August 2007. SELECTION CRITERIA: RCTs comparing autologous stem/progenitor cells with no autologous stem/progenitor cells in patients diagnosed with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) were eligible. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: Two reviewers independently screened all references, assessed trial quality and extracted data. Meta-analyses using a random-effects model were conducted and heterogeneity was explored using sub-group analyses. MAIN RESULTS: Thirteen RCTs (811 participants) were included. There were insufficient events on clinical outcomes like mortality to draw clear conclusions. Stem/progenitor cell treatment does not appear to be associated with an increase in adverse events but again the data do not allow clear conclusions. Left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) was the outcome with most results and there was marked heterogeneity between trials. There was however a consistent pattern indicating that BMSC treatment generally improves short-term LVEF, with similar trends for left ventricular end systolic and end diastolic volumes (LVESV and LVEDV), infarct size or cardiac wall motion. There was a positive correlation between cell dose infused and the effect on LVEF measured by magnetic resonance imaging. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: The results of this systematic review suggest that there is little evidence to assess the clinical effects of this treatment. Larger trials using optimal dosing and more reliable, patient-centred outcomes are required. Several trials are ongoing but is unclear whether these will overcome the limitations of the current evidence base. PMID: 18843721 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Stem cell treatment for Crohn's disease. Expert Rev Clin Immunol. 2010 Jul;6(4):597-605 Authors: Panés J, Ordás I, Ricart E While stem cell-based treatments have been established as a clinical standard of care for some conditions, such as hematopoietic stem cell transplants for cancer, the scope of potential stem cell-based therapies has expanded in recent years due to advances in stem cell research, paving the way for the increasing utilization of stem cell therapies in severe immune-mediated diseases including inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs) and, in particular, Crohn's disease. Both hematopoietic stem cells and mesenchymal (stromal) stem cells are considered to be of potential therapeutic benefit in immune-mediated conditions. A growing body of experimental and clinical evidence shows that hematopoietic stem cell transplant induces long-lasting remission in a majority of patients with active severe Crohn's disease refractory to drug treatments, and the differential effect of potent immunosuppression and immune reconstitution in this setting is under evaluation. Mesenchymal stem cells have been shown to exert immunomodulatory action on various types of immune-mediated diseases, and in experimental models of IBD, but evaluation of the potential efficacy of this therapy in IBD is still in the early stages. PMID: 20594133 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]