Most women who die from an abrupt loss of heart function (called sudden cardiac death) have no prior history of heart disease. However, 94 percent of these women have at least one cardiac risk factor such as smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes or obesity, according to a report in today’s rapid access issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
The use of the antidepressant, sustained release (SR) bupropion, triples quit rates among women and smokers with a history of depression as compared to placebo, according to a new study just published in Nicotine and Tobacco Research by researchers at the Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention. Historically, women and formerly depressed smokers are at particularly high risk of relapse.
Stress may be the most significant inherited risk factor in people who develop heart disease at a young age, according to a first-of-its-kind study conducted at Henry Ford Hospital. Stress also appears to have a greater impact on men than women. “The inherited nature of early heart disease may be largely due to the family transmission of psychosocial and emotional distress, and specifically anger in males,” says lead author Mark W. Ketterer, Ph.D., of Henry Ford Hospital’s Department of Behavioral Health.