If you suffer from sleep apnea, it may be doing more than causing you to feel sleepy during the day, it may be affecting your heart health.

OSA or obstructive sleep apnea causes a person to repeatedly stop breathing during the night, disturbing sleep. Recent studies link sleep apnea with cardiovascular disease.

Sleep apnea is associated with a 45% higher risk of hypertension. In addition, sleep deprivation is linked to weight gain and diabetes, which are risk factors for heart disease.

Ralph Downey III, PhD, of the Sleep Disorders Center at Loma Linda University Medical Center in Loma Linda, California explains:

“It makes not only scientific sense that such a relationship exists, but common sense as well,” said Downey. “If someone were to suffocate you with a pillow several hundred times a night, you would call the police. In the case of patients with sleep apnea, the airway blocks off due to obstruction and they stop breathing for 10 seconds to a minute, which is repeated hundreds of times in a night. The body, in essence, is being assaulted by the damage done from intermittent lack of oxygen to the heart, brain and other important organ systems, and yet such an assault goes unreported. That is, patients who have these symptoms don’t always have their sleep apnea corrected. Perhaps in the light of a metaphor such as the one of being assaulted by our own sleep disorder, people would take more care of their sleep. Their hearts will thank them.”

Medical News Today

American Academy of Sleep Medicine

Getting your flu shot may not only help you avoid suffering from a bout of influenza but it may also reduce your risk of heart attack and stroke.

Researchers say that when you reduce your risk of getting the flu, you also avoid the inflammatory effects in your heart’s arteries that can cause a heart attack.

Now an article in the journal Stroke says that the same may be true for stroke. According to the article, getting a flu shot cut the risk of stroke by nearly 60% for people aged 60 to 75.

This conclusion was based on a study of 90 survivors of stroke over age 60 compared with a control group. 56% of the control group had gotten a flu shot within five years compared to only 40% of the stroke group.

We think of the holidays as time of goodwill and cheer. Busy times to be sure, but even if it is in our idealized childhood memories, we think of Christmas as a time of mirth and miracles.

But studies show that during the holidays - Christmas and New Year’s - there is a spike in daily mortality, occuring from both cardiac and non-cardiac disease. But separate studies have shown that December and January are the two most likely months for death from cardiac events.

What about Christmas and New Year’s make them so risky for cardiac death? One might think it correlates to cooler temperatures or perhaps snow shoveling. But a study done by the Heart Institute of Good Samaritan Hospital in North Carolina found that the risk of cardiac death was greatest in December and January even in temperate climates, such as that of Los Angeles County, CA.

The most likely reason is that people overindulge during the holidays, are under more stress, busy with multiple tasks and less likely to pay attention to important warning symptoms or fail to seek medical help in time.

Warning symptoms include:

* Pressure or crushing pain in your chest, sometimes with sweating, nausea or vomiting
* Pain that extends from your chest into the jaw, left arm or left shoulder.
* Tightness in your chest
* Shortness of breath for more than a couple of seconds

If you experience any of the symptoms of heart attack, do not delay - call emergency personnel immediately. When they arrive or when you arrive at the hospital, do not offer explanations of heartburn or any other possible reason for your symptoms even if you suspect something else may be the cause. Say: “I think I am having a heart attack”. Do nothing to delay important diagnostic and possibly life-saving treatment.

Information regarding the studies referenced above can be found at:

The “Merry Christmas Coronary” and “Happy New Year Heart Attack” phenomenon - National Institutes of Health

A new study published in the October 11 issue of JAMA says that patients with severe psoriasis are at a higher risk for heart attack. Researchers adjusted the results to take into consideration other risk factors like smoking, weight and BMI.

The younger the patient with psoriasis, the higher the risk. A 30-year-old patient with severe psoriasis having a risk three times greater than someone without psoriasis, but a 60-year-old patient with severe psoriasis had only about a 36% increased risk.

The researchers say that psoriasis is an indicator of system inflammation. Psoriasis affects approximately 2 to 3 percent of the population.

Psoriasis Linked To Heart Attack