Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0018799 (heart disease)
 34,133 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

More Americans try to change their health behaviors through self-help than through all other forms of professionally designed programs. Mutual support groups, involving little or no cost to participants, have a powerful effect on mental and physical health, yet little is known about patterns of support group participation in health care. What kinds of illness experiences prompt patients to seek each other's company? In an effort to observe social comparison processes with real-world relevance, support group participation was measured for 20 disease categories in 4 metropolitan areas (New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Dallas) and on 2 on-line forums. Support seeking was highest for diseases viewed as stigmatizing (e.g., AIDS, alcoholism, breast and prostate cancer) and was lowest for less embarrassing but equally devastating disorders, such as heart disease. The authors discuss implications for social comparison theory and its applications in health care.
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PMID:Who talks? The social psychology of illness support groups. 1071 68

While considerable improvements have been made over the last 30 years in hypertension (HTN) awareness, treatment, and control, a recent reversal of these trends has been documented with African-American adults, particularly among those continuing to suffer from uncontrolled hypertension and its adverse consequences. This paper presents data from a cross-sectional representative survey of the health status of an urban African-American community. The study was designed in partnership with community leadership to improve HTN care and control. The baseline survey was a face-to-face interview (including blood pressure [BP] measurements) of 2,196 adults residing in randomly selected blocks in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood in Baltimore City. These sample data were compared with national data from the NHANES III survey, and demonstrated similar awareness of hypertension. However, hypertension control rates among treated hypertensives were significantly lower in the study community (28%) than in the national survey (44%). Compared with normotensive individuals, those with HTN were significantly older, had less education, were less likely to be employed, and had lower annual incomes. Individuals with HTN were also significantly more likely to rate their health as poor/fair, to report a history of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, kidney disease, obesity, high cholesterol, and lack of exercise, as well as to be at greater risk of alcoholism or alcohol problems. Hypertensive individuals (88% with reported prior history, 12% newly detected) were significantly more likely to have a usual source of care, have seen a health professional in the last 12 months, and to be extremely satisfied with the provider; however, 20% of individuals with hypertension reported no health insurance. These data indicate the need for focused interventions to enhance hypertension maintenance of care and adherence to treatment.
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PMID:Community health survey in an urban African-American neighborhood: distribution and correlates of elevated blood pressure. 1076 34

To better define the overall characteristics and risk factors for dying of adult pneumococcal endocarditis (PE) focusing on the echocardiographic diagnosis, the impact of surgery, and emergence of penicillin resistance, the medical and microbiologic charts of adult PE cases observed between 1991 and 1998 in university and general hospitals were reviewed through a nationwide retrospective study in France. Thirty cases of PE (22 men, 8 women; median age, 53 yr; range, 27-87 yr) were collected and validated. Twenty patients (66.7%) had no known predisposing cardiopathy; 4 had a bioprosthetic valve. The primary focus of infection was pneumonia in 10 (33.3%), and meningitis was noted in 12 (40.0%). Half the patients suffered from chronic alcoholism. Echocardiography detected vegetation(s) in 29 cases (96.7%), valvular perforation in 6 (20.0%), and/or valve ring abscess in 4 (13.3%). The most frequent complications were congestive heart failure (n = 19), large arterial emboli (n = 8), and focal abscesses (n = 7). Five strains were penicillin-resistant. Twenty (66.7%) patients underwent valve replacement, 12 of them during the first month. The overall mortality rate was 24.1%. According to a multivariate analysis, the risk factors independently associated with dying were age > or = 65 yr and septic shock, while cardiac surgery was protective (p < 0.01). In conclusion, PE is usually fulminant and causes severe valve damage and embolic complications; its short-term prognosis might be improved by early valve replacement.
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PMID:Streptococcus pneumoniae endocarditis in adults. A multicenter study in France in the era of penicillin resistance (1991-1998). The Pneumococcal Endocarditis Study Group. 1103 81

The objective of this study was to assess the relative impact of undernutrition during the first year of life on brain development, intellectual quotient (IQ), and scholastic achievement (SA) of poor Chilean high-school graduates (mean age = 18.3 +/- 0.9 y). A comparative study of two groups of high-school graduates from a low socioeconomic stratum was carried out. The undernourished group (n = 16), who had suffered from severe undernutrition during the first year of life, was compared with the non-undernourished group (n = 16). The final sample consisted of 32 right-handed high-school graduate students born at term who had no history of alcoholism or symptoms of brain damage, epilepsy, or heart disease and whose mothers had no history of smoking, alcoholism, or drug intake before and during pregnancy. Socioeconomic status was measured by using Graffar's modified method. Birth weight was used as the prenatal nutritional status index, and postnatal nutritional status was assessed by the body mass index, Z score for head circumference, and brachial anthropometry. IQ was determined with the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Adults, and SA was determined with test in language and mathematics with the academic aptitude test. Brain development was evaluated by magnetic resonance imaging. Statistical analysis included variance tests, Scheffe's test for comparison of means, correlation, and multiple regression. Maternal schooling, brain volume, and undernutrition were the independent variables, with the greatest explanatory power in IQ variance (r(2) = 0.714). Only IQ explained SA variance (r(2) = 0.860); IQ, corpus callosum length, anteroposterior diameter, and maternal schooling were the independent variables, with the greatest explanatory power in the academic aptitude test variance (r(2) = 0.949). Results show that the long-term effects of malnutrition at an early age may affect brain development, IQ, and SA in school-age children. These findings are useful for nutrition and educational planning.
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PMID:Long-term effects of severe undernutrition during the first year of life on brain development and learning in Chilean high-school graduates. 1111 25

A 70-year-old man who had been drinking a bottle of whisky each day was scheduled for laser resection of a tongue tumor. His electrocardiogram showed sinus bradycardia (heart rate was 35-40 bpm), and transient complete heart block was observed. Echocardiography showed hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. After a temporary transvenous pacemaker had been inserted, anesthesia was induced with thiopental and vecuronium bromide, and maintained with sevoflurane and fentanyl. Heart rate was 45.min-1 before the induction of anesthesia, and after the induction increased to 70-80.min-1. Analysis of heart rate variability suggested that the increase in heart rate was due to augmentation of sympathetic nervous activity after intubation and operation stress. After the operation his bradycardia improved gradually, and after 3 months heart rate settled at about 55.min-1. Cadiomyopathy is known to be one of the complications of alcoholism. It was reported that alcoholic heart disease was improved promptly by abstinence from alcohol. During his long hospitalization, abstinence might have improved his severe bradycardia. Thiopental is useful for induction of anesthesia in a patient with severe bradycardia from alcoholic cadiomyopathy.
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PMID:[Anesthesia for a patient with alcoholic heart disease and transient complete heart block]. 1171 50

Caspases are cysteine proteases which participate in different stages of apoptosis. Apoptosis, cell death, programmed by its nucleus is associated also with a number of diseases and tissue damage. To this process increasing attention is paid also in the sphere of forensic medicine, in particular to make use of the diagnostic contribution in investigation of cause of death, vital reaction and time when the injury developed. In damaged tissues by immunohistochemical methods caspase activity was assessed. Caspase 8 activity (Flice) was detected in the heart muscle in congenital heart disease in a two-week old infant but also in ischaemia in a 58-year old woman with thrombosis of the coronary artery or in acute circulatory failure after an overdosage of pervitin in a 39-year-old drug addict. In the liver there was a positive finding in hepatocytes in chronic inflammatory changes caused by chronic alcohol abuse. An early caspase 8 reaction after an injury is suggested by positive findings in skeletal muscles of the neck and larynx in a 47-year-old man who was strangled. A positive reaction was proved only at the site of the line caused by the strangulation tool. However macroscopically nor by common histological staining the muscle tissue did not display any signs of injury at the mentioned sites. The results suggest that immunohistochemical evidence of caspase 8 can be used as a suitable complementary examination not only for detection of damaged tissue but also for evaluation of early stages of the vital reaction.
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PMID:[Detection of caspase as a sign of tissue damage]. 1181 92

We describe clinical and socio-demographic features of patients with dementia attended in a tertiary outpatient clinic during a three years period (56.9% of the total attendance). Most of them were men, white, from the local community, urban district. Nobody had a job at the moment, two thirds of them got social welfare benefit. They lived with their family, the caregiver being the spouse or a daughter. The education level was very low, a quarter of them being illiterate. They were referred mostly from the public health care service, by neurologists or psychiatrists due to cognitive disorders. Family history as well as individual history of previous neurological/psychiatric disorders were frequent, especially alcoholism, stroke, head trauma and dementia. The neurological exam showed abnormalities in two thirds of cases, chiefly extra-pyramidal and pyramidal signs. Alzheimer's disease was the most frequent cause, followed by cerebrovascular disorder; alcoholism and normal pressure hydrocephalus were also frequent causes. Most patients presented concomitant non-etiological neurological/psychiatric disorders, mainly alcoholism and depression, and non-neurological/psychiatric diseases, predominantly hypertension, cardiopathy and diabetes. Most patients had been referred under medication, frequently politherapy, including psychotropics.
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PMID:Clinical and demographic features of patients with dementia attended in a tertiary outpatient clinic. 1224 88

The aim of the present study is to establish a highly sensitive method for the determination of uric acid (UA) in human saliva. The monitoring of UA levels in less invasive biological samples such as saliva is suggested for the diagnosis and therapy of gout, hyperuricemia, and the Lesch-Nyhan syndrome, and for detecting such conditions as alcohol dependence, obesity, diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, kidney disease, and heart disease. Reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography with electrochemical detection (HPLC-ED) was employed for the determination of UA obtained by solid-phase extraction from saliva. To quantify UA, we compared the ED efficiencies of an amperometric ED (Ampero-ED) with a single electrode and a coulometric ED (Coulo-ED) with a multiple electrode array. The results showed that the detection limits (S/N=3) were 3 nM for Ampero-ED and 6 nM for Coulo-ED, and the linearity of the calibration curves of 60-6000 nM had correlation coefficients exceeding 0.999. In addition, the total analytical time was 10 min. In the sample preparation of UA in saliva, an Oasis MAX solid-phase cartridge was used. The recoveries of UA spiked at 0.6 and 3 microM in saliva were above 95% with a relative standard deviation (RSD) of less than 15%. Therefore, the present method may be used in the routine and diagnostic determination of UA in human saliva.
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PMID:Determination of uric acid in human saliva by high-performance liquid chromatography with amperometric electrochemical detection. 1253 38

The cardiovascular effects of the ingestion of ethyl alcohol are determined by the amount consumed and time factors as well as the nutritional status of the individual. Acute alcoholism produces various cardiac manifestations that are related primarily to the concentration of alcohol in the blood. Chronic alcoholism is associated with three identifiable cardiovascular syndromes that have been designated alcoholic myocardosis, nutritional heart disease and beriberi heart disease. Differentiation is indicated because of their respective distinguishing diagnostic features and prognostic implications. The therapeutic effects of alcohol in coronary artery disease are apparently attributable to cerebral responses rather than demonstrable increase in coronary blood flow.
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PMID:The heart and alcohol. 1330 84

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with high rates of medical service use and with self-reported poor health. Male veterans admitted to a rehabilitation unit for PTSD (N=55) or alcohol dependence (N=38) were evaluated for comorbid psychiatric and medical conditions and health risk factors. Patients with PTSD were more likely to have osteoarthritis, diabetes, heart disease, comorbid depression, obesity, and elevated lipid levels. These findings suggest that there may be a relationship between specific medical conditions, possibly mediated by behavioral risk factors, among the aging population of veterans with PTSD.
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PMID:Comparison of comorbid physical illnesses among veterans with PTSD and veterans with alcohol dependence. 1469 7


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