Having a Heart Attack? Not on a Weekend Sep 14 01:01pm Well, the best option is not to have a heart attack at all. But if you have one and are admitted to the hospital on a weekend, you have a 5 percent higher risk of dying in the following month than if you were admitted on a weekday. That's the... Read more

Quiz: Your Heart-Health Nutrition Knowledge Sep 13 08:21pm Everyone knows that a healthy diet is one way to help prevent cardiovascular disease and possibly avoid taking medications. But you may be confused about which dietary recommendations to follow, because they change over time and the media doesn't... Read more

Finding the Trans Fats Sep 12 02:53am I was pleasantly surprised the other day when my wife brought home a brand of margarine whose package proclaimed that the product contained no trans fats. I hope this statement is accurate and not just an advertising ploy.      Trans fats are... Read more

Lifelong Low LDL Cholesterol: Are You Off the Hook? Sep 11 04:20pm Some people are fortunate enough to have an uncommon genetic variant that speeds the removal of harmful low-density lipoprotein (LDL) from the blood - these lucky people have significantly lower LDL cholesterol levels throughout their lives. In fact,... Read more

Low-Carb vs. Low-Fat Diets Sep 09 09:52pm Will the debate about the relative virtues of low-carbohydrate vs. low-fat diets for weight loss never end? All the chatter is doubly annoying since, until now, all the talk is backed up by little data comparing the two diets. A recent review of... Read more

Assessing Your Heart Attack and Stroke Risk Sep 08 06:26am Are there accurate ways to predict the likelihood that you will have, or die from, a heart attack or stroke in the near future? Quite a few "biomarkers," or predictors, of these dire events have been discovered. But how helpful are these... Read more

Waist-to-Hip Ratio vs. BMI: What's the Better Heart Disease Predictor? Sep 07 09:29am Researchers have put their seal of approval on a simple, do-it-yourself method to accurately assess your risk of acute heart trouble.   Up to now, BMI (body mass index) has been the time-honored measure of the coronary risk associated with... Read more

How Hard Should You Exercise? Sep 06 09:32am When it comes to exercising, the trick is to work out hard enough to produce heart-healthy benefits and yet not so fiercely that you do yourself harm. Luckily, there are several easy ways to determine whether your level of activity is helping or... Read more

Know the Latest Recommendations to Protect Your Heart Aug 23 08:10pm When I came across these recommendations in the journal Circulation, I decided to provide them to my readers almost verbatim because they represent such a concise, yet sweeping, description of heart-healthy lifestyle measures, as well as the proper... Read more

Diabetes Ups Heart Disease Risk 15 Years Earlier Jul 25 02:57pm If you have diabetes, you probably already know about your increased risk for heart disease and stroke. But did you know that the risk of atherosclerosis (narrowing of the arteries) and its associated risks - heart disease, stroke, and peripheral... Read more