Studies have shown that exercise is better than heart surgery, or angioplasty.

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(NaturalNews) At the European Association of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation meeting recently held in Barcelona, Spain, new heart research was presented that shows one treatment in particular can provide remarkable help for patients with certain forms of serious heart disease. It’s not a new drug or surgical procedure. Instead, it’s a natural therapy — plain old-fashioned regular exercise.

In fact, in several studies just presented at the meeting, exercise reduced the markers of heart disease in patients following coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG). What’s more, it improved indications of disease in people with heart failure, a condition usually thought to be incurable and often just treated with symptom-relieving drugs. But the news that’s perhaps most likely to make some interventional cardiologists’ hearts skip a beat or two was the evidence presented that showed that exercise improved cardiac event-free survival in coronary patients better than angioplasty with stents.

Also called percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), angioplasty is commonly used to help people with coronary artery disease whose arteries are narrowed and even blocked by a build-up of sticky plaque. By threading a thin tube through a blood vessel in the arm or groin, interventional cardiologists perform angioplasty to restore blood flood through a clogged artery. A tiny balloon at the end of the tube is inflated when it reaches the exact spot of blockage. That pushes the plaque outward against the walls of the artery, restoring blood flow. A small metal device called a stent is also carried by the tube and deployed at the site of the blockage in order to prop open the artery.

This approach to treating heart disease is a huge business. A report in Bloomberg News last fall noted that about 800,000 angioplasties are performed each year in the U.S. at a cost of about $10 billion annually. And, although many cardiologists consider angioplasty to be the “gold standard” of care in most types of acute coronary events such as heart attack, the procedure’s long term benefits have been questioned by many doctors. In addition, the role of angioplasty in treating other kinds of coronary disease, like angina, isn’t clear....read more here…

Heart Drugs More Cost-Effective Than Angioplasty, Study Finds

By Alex Nussbaum

Sept. 24 (Bloomberg) — Artery-opening angioplasty adds $10,125 to a patient’s medical bill without significantly extending life or improving health for someone with chest pain, researchers said.

The figure, released today by the American Heart Association, is the latest finding that prompts some doctors to question the value of angioplasty procedures performed on more than 800,000 U.S. patients each year, at a cost of about $10 billion annually. Half of those are done to treat “stable” angina — temporary chest pains that can be treated with drugs, diet changes and exercise, the study said.

The procedure, in which a heart artery is unclogged with a balloon and propped open with a tiny tube called a stent, costs $34,843, including follow-up care. That compares with $24,718 for a regimen of anti-cholesterol medicines and lifestyle changes, researchers reported in the association’s journal, Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.

“Although the difference narrows somewhat over time, it is never made up,” the researchers said in the study. While angioplasties may make sense for heart attack or severe blockages, “medical therapy alone offered better outcome at a lower cost” for those with stable coronary disease.

The results pose a challenge for device makers including Boston Scientific Corp., Abbott Laboratories,Johnson & Johnson and Medtronic Inc., whose revenue from drug-coated stents topped $4 billion in 2007. Sales of the $2,000 tubes have rebounded after falling 30 percent last year amid concerns the products triggered fatal blood clots.

Seven-Year Study

The study, funded by the U.S. and Canadian governments, is the third installment of a seven-year investigation dubbed Courage. Last year, researchers said drugs and lifestyle changes prevented deaths and heart attacks just as well as angioplasty. A report last month found both methods effective at easing chest pains after two years, though angioplasty offered some early advantages.

Most of the increased expense of angioplasty came from the operation itself, which cost $12,162 compared with $752 for the initial drug therapy. After that, follow-up care and medication expenses were about the same.

Angioplasties increased costs by $206,229 per year of extended life, said the researchers, led by William Weintraub, a cardiologist at Christiana Health Care System of Newark, Delaware….read more here…

July 7, 2009 — The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is adding stronger warnings to pain medications that contain propoxyphene, such as Darvon and Darvocet, because of new data on fatal overdoses linked to propoxyphene products. The FDA is requiring the manufacturers of these drugs to strengthen the drug’s boxed warning and to create a medication guide for patients.

The agency is stopping short of a phased withdrawal from the market as demanded by a Public Citizen petition filed in 2006.

To reduce the likelihood of overdose, the FDA will now require that manufacturers of propoxyphene-containing medications strengthen their label and include a boxed warning on the potential for overdose. Manufacturers will also be required to develop a medication guide for patients stressing that they use the medication as directed. Propoxyphene has been on the market since 1957.

Between 1969 and 2005, an FDA database has linked a total of 91 deaths in persons taking propoxyphene related to accidental overdoses and suicide attempts, although a direct link to propoxyphene is difficult to establish because multiple drugs and other conditions were involved, the agency said.

The FDA is currently working with several organizations, including the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Veterans Health Administration, to collect data for a new safety study that will assess the cardiotoxic effects of propoxyphene at higher doses, particularly in elderly populations; findings from this study could lead to additional regulatory action. At this time, the FDA is looking at how Americans are using medications containing propoxyphene, and in which combinations.

Janet Woodcock, MD, director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, told reporters during a press briefing that propoxyphene is an accepted option for pain treatment at this time. “Pain is an important issue — it’s the fifth vital sign. Millions of people suffer from pain; it is so prevalent that 1 in 10 people have chronic pain, and the FDA is committed to appropriate treatment of pain. At this time, propoxyphene is an acceptable choice for the treatment of mild to moderate pain when taken as directed.”

Dr. Woodcock noted that after last week’s advisory meeting on acetaminophen safety, the FDA heard from hundreds of patients concerned about the availability of their medications that contain acetaminophen.

“When it comes to acetaminophen or opioids, the FDA is constantly balancing benefit vs risk,” she said.

The FDA said that in cases of overdose, propoxyphene can be a fatal medicine; however, most of the deaths connected to the drug in the FDA’s database were in cases of ingestion of multiple drugs.

The consumer group Public Citizen petitioned the FDA in February 2006, asking that propoxyphene-containing products, sold primarily as a generic drug, be removed from the market. The FDA declined today to take action on the petition. The drug was withdrawn from the UK market in 2005, however, when the British government said it was unimpressed with the efficacy of the drug and that the risk of toxicity in cases of overdose — both intentional and accidental — were unacceptable.

The FDA defended its position in not removing the drug from the market, pointing out that there are not a lot of alternative drugs without similar adverse effects...read more here..

Farah Fawcett lost her battle with Colon Cancer on July 25th, 2009.  Farah was at  TV superstar from the 1970’s hit show, Charlie’s Angels.   Could her colon cancer had been prevented?  While I do not know the specifics of her case- studies show that up to colon cancer can be reduced by up to 50% when one optimizes their vitamin D levels. Learn more about Vitamin D and cancer risk. Low vitamin D levels are associated with increased risk of breast cancer, prostate cancer, ovarian cancer and more…..

—-BELOW IS AN EXCERPT FROM VITAMIN D PRESCRIPTION BY ERIC MADRID MD, available on Amazon.com—-

Colon Cancer

Colon cancer is one of the top three cancers affecting those in developed countries. According to the American Cancer Society, colon cancer accounts for 8% of all cancer deaths in men and 9% of all cancer deaths in women in the U.S. Colon cancer will affect 1 in 18 men and 1 in 19 women at some point in their lives. Fortunately, the majority of cases can be prevented. Worldwide, the World Health Organization predicts that colon cancer rates will increase 50% by 2020 and will affect up to 20 million people annually.

Risk factors for developing colon cancer include:

• Colon Polyps
• Poor diet, especially high in red meats
• Overweight
• Obesity
• Racial Groups (African Americans &  Ashkenazi Jews)
• Lack of exercise
• Excess alcohol intake
• Family history
• Type 2 diabetes
• Vitamin D deficiency

Those with higher consumption of fruits and vegetables have a benefit in preventing colon cancer from developing in the first place. A 1996 study reported in JAMA suggested that the trace mineral selenium, a potent antioxidant, and part of the glutathione reductase antioxidant complex, could also be protective against precancerous polyps and colon cancer.

There has been renewed interest in the last few years on the ability of sunshine to prevent colon cancer. Specifically, the sunshine vitamin has anti colon cancer properties, observed back in the 1930s, and later confirmed in the 1980s by Cedric Garland, DrPH (Moores Cancer Center University of California, San Diego), and Frank C. Garland, PhD, FACE (Technical Director, Naval Health Research Center (NHRC), San Diego).
Drs. Cedric and Frank Garlands’ landmark study showed that the risk of colon cancer was associated with solar radiation exposure; many other studies have since confirmed this finding. Drs. Garlands’ 1980 study revealed that in the two states with the most solar radiation, New Mexico and Arizona, white males had cancer rates of 6.7 and 10.1, respectively, per 100,000 people. In the three states with the least solar radiation, New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire, white males experienced colon cancer rates of 17.3, 11.3, and 15.3, respectively, per 100,000 population. Data collection occurred from 1959 to 1961. The conclusion was that those with more sunshine exposure had less colon cancer when compared to those with less sunshine exposure.

A review of the CDC web site and the statistics for colon and rectal cancer from 2002–2004 shows similar results. The data today is more inclusive, with men and women from all ethnicities. Arizona and New Mexico have total colon and rectal cancer rates of 49.9 and 51.8, respectively, per 100,000 population. On the contrary, New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire have rates of 63.0, 57.9, and 59.9, respectively, per 100,000 population…..read more about vitamin D and colon cancer when you purchase Vitamin D Prescription by Dr. Eric Madrid

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NEW YORK TIMES CONFIRMS- MICHAEL JACKSON DEAD

FoxNews Reports He Is In Coma–

Pop star Michael Jackson dead: report Reuters Thursday, June 25, 2009 5:56 PM LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Pop giant Michael Jackson, who took to the stage as a child star and went on to set the world dancing to the thumping rhythms of his music for decades, died Thursday, TMZ website reported. He was 50. “We’ve just learned Michael Jackson has died,” TMZ said. “

Michael suffered a cardiac arrest earlier this afternoon and paramedics were unable to revive him. We’re told when paramedics arrived Jackson had no pulse and they never got a pulse back,” the entertainment site said. There was no official confirmation of the reported death and spokespersons for Jackson could not be reached for comment. Earlier, the Los Angeles Times said that the singer had been rushed to a Los Angeles-area hospital by fire department paramedics who found him not breathing when they arrived at the singer’s home.

The newspaper said paramedics performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation at the scene before taking him to the UCLA Medical Center hospital. Jackson had been due to start a series of comeback concerts in London on July 13 running until March 2010. The singer, whose hits include “Thriller” and “Billie Jean,” had been rehearsing in the Los Angeles area for the past two months. The shows for the 50 London concerts sold out within hours of going on sale in March.

 Jackson started out as a child star in the band “The Jackson 5″ more than 40 years ago. He has lived as a virtual recluse since his acquittal in 2005 on charges of child molestation. There have been concerns about Jackson’s health in recent years but the promoters of the London shows, AEG Live, said in March that Jackson had passed a 4-1/2 hour physical examination with independent doctors. (Additional Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Writing by Frances Kerry, Editing by Jackie Frank) © 2009 Reuters

A chemical found in green tea appears to slow the progression of prostate cancer, a study has suggested.

Green tea has been linked to a positive effect on a wide range of conditions, including heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

The research, in the US journal Cancer Prevention Research, found a significant fall in certain markers which indicate cancer development.

A UK charity said the tea might help men manage low-risk tumours.

Although previous studies have shown benefits from drinking green tea – including some positive findings in relation to prostate cancer, there have been mixed results.

In this study, Philadelphia-based researchers tested a compound called Polyphenon E.

They were looking for a number of biomarkers – molecules – including vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) which are indicators of developing cancer.

They also looked for prostate specific antigen (PSA) – a protein only found in the prostate. Levels can rise if cancer is present.

‘12 cups’

The study included 26 men, aged 41 to 72 years, who had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and who were scheduled for radical prostate surgery.

Patients took four capsules containing Polyphenon E for an average of 34 days, up until the day before surgery – the equivalent of around 12 cups of normally brewed concentrated green tea.

The study found a significant reduction in levels of HGF, VEGF and PSA, with some patients demonstrating reductions of more than 30%.

Dr James Cardelli, from the Feist-Weiller Cancer Center, who led the study, said the compound, which was provided by the company Polyphenon Pharma, “may have the potential to lower the incidence and slow the progression of prostate cancer.”

There were only a few reported side effects associated with this study, and liver function remained normal….read more here…

June 11 (Bloomberg) — Swine flu, causing mostly mild disease outbreaks on four continents, prompted the World Health Organization to declare the first influenza pandemic since 1968.

Margaret Chan, the WHO’s director-general, moved the alert to the top of the agency’s six-stage pandemic scale today on evidence the virus is spreading in communities outside the Americas. The new H1N1 flu strain has taken root in Australia, Chile, the U.K. and Spain since its discovery in Mexico and the U.S. in April.

The pandemic declaration confirms the fourth time in the last century a new influenza strain has swept across the globe. It’s the third time since April 27 that Geneva-based WHO has raised the alert level over swine flu, which has turned up in more than 70 nations as far removed as Iceland, New Zealand and the Bahamas. The move doesn’t mean there will be more deaths or severe cases, Chan said.

“We are seeing a moderate pandemic,” Chan told reporters on a conference call before making the announcement. “We are satisfied that this virus is spreading to a number of countries and it is not stoppable.”

Drugmakers will be finishing their production of seasonal influenza vaccine for the Northern Hemisphere winter in coming weeks, Chan said.

“We would advise them, as soon as they finish their seasonal vaccine production, quickly prepare to make commercial- scale pandemic vaccine,” she said.

Response Plans

WHO urged countries not to implement pandemic response plans designed for a more severe threat after government leaders said last month that moving to phase 6 may spur some countries to restrict travel, ban public events and adopt other measures that aren’t needed for mild flu, worsening the deepest economic slump since the Great Depression.

“Some political leaders worry about some unwarranted overreaction and some are also concerned that, because of the mildness of the disease, people will say ‘so what’s the big deal about pandemic?’” she said. “The balance between overreaction or complacency is another issue that’s of great concern.”

U.S. health officials said they won’t be changing their response to the virus based on the new pandemic designation and have already been responding to the outbreak like they would for a pandemic. There have been more than 13,000 confirmed cases in the U.S., which have caused about 1,000 hospitalizations and 27 deaths, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

‘Strong Message’

“For all intensive purposes, the U.S. government has been in phase 6 of the pandemic level for some time,” Thomas Frieden, director of the CDC, said in a conference call today with reporters. “This does send a strong message that the virus is here and likely to stay.”

In the U.S., the virus has been most severe in children, young adults and those with asthma or who are pregnant, Frieden said. The virus has spread the most widely in Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey. About 7 percent of New Yorkers likely had swine flu in May, according to a survey released yesterday by the New York City health department.

The United Nations health agency doesn’t advise border closures or restrictions on travel and trade, Chan said.

WHO is watching for any sign the disease is worsening as the germ circulates during the Southern Hemisphere’s flu season, creating opportunities for its genes to mutate or combine with those of other viruses, including the H5N1 bird flu strain that’s lethal in three of every five reported cases. The new virus has genes from other strains that have sickened humans, pigs and birds.

Biggest Concern

“The tendency to move into complacency is our biggest concern because we need to continue to monitor this virus, follow its track and not allow it to come back in the second wave to give us more trouble,” Chan said…read more here…

By Michelle Fay Cortez

June 16 (Bloomberg) — Medical imaging scans may be an appropriate alternative to colonoscopies for some people who have a high risk of colon cancer, researchers said.

The computed tomography, or CT, scans identified 85 percent of advanced abnormal-growth spots and colorectal cancers in the Italian study, and correctly ruled them out in 88 percent of cancer-free patients. The report in the Journal of the American Medical Association involved 937 patients with signs of the cancerous lesions or a family or personal history of the disease.

The scans are already one of the methods recommended for screening people with an average risk of cancer. For those who are most prone to the disease, however, doctors recommend colonoscopies that have higher cancer detection rates. These procedures require a tube with a tiny camera to be threaded through the rectum, and many people are reluctant to undergo the process.

A CT scan is “better accepted than colonoscopy,” said the researchers, led by Daniele Regge from the radiology unit at the Institute for Cancer Research and Treatment in Turin, Italy. “Thus, it may help increase the low adherence reported for individuals who are candidates for screening.”

About 210,000 Europeans and 50,000 Americans die each year from colorectal cancer, making it one of the most deadly tumor types, according to the American Cancer Society. Most cases arise when benign-growth polyps turn malignant, a process that can be circumvented by finding and treating the spots before they become cancerous.

Cost, Availability

The scans costs $600 to $1,200 and can be done using standard computed tomography equipment and software made by companies including General Electric Co.’s GE Healthcare unit, Royal Philips Electronics NV, Siemens AG and Vital Images Inc.

…read more here…

By Nicole Gaouette and Laura Litvan

June 17 (Bloomberg) — The largest expansion of U.S. health care since the creation of Medicare in 1965 may emerge from legislation designed to reshape the medical industry and change how Americans receive and pay for care.

Congress today begins crafting legislation that Democratic leaders plan to push through both chambers by their August recess. The measure may require all Americans to get medical insurance, force insurers to accept all patients and end the tax break for employer-paid health benefits. These changes may be hammered out with unprecedented speed at the urging of President Barack Obama, who four days ago said “this is the moment.”

Obama has made a health-care overhaul his top domestic priority, using his February budget proposal to call it a “moral” imperative to extend coverage to the country’s 46 million uninsured. Obama also tied the long-term fiscal soundness of the U.S. to controlling medical costs. Health care consumes 18 percent of the U.S. economy and may rise to 34 percent by 2040, the White House Council of Economic Advisers reported June 2.

“I don’t think we’ve ever had anything this large in American history aimed to go this quickly that touches everybody’s lives,” said Robert J. Blendon, a professor of health policy and political analysis at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in a telephone interview. “They’re moving at a pace we’ve never seen before.”

‘Moment is Right’

The U.S. will spend more than $2 trillion this year on health care, the Health and Human Services department reported in February. Today, the Senate Health committee will begin debating a bill that includes “gateways” where consumers may compare coverage plans. The Senate Finance Committee later this week will unveil a bill that among its provisions will call for taxes on health benefits, and House committees will release a draft of their own comprehensive measure that would create a government-backed plan to compete with private insurance.

“We know the moment is right for health care reform,” Obama told the American Medical Association in Chicago in a speech June 15. “We know this is a historic opportunity we’ve never seen before and may not see again.”

The coming weeks will be pivotal if the House and Senate are to meet their goal to send Obama a single bill in October, said Drew Altman, president of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, based in Menlo Park, California, one of the nation’s largest private foundations devoted to health…read more here…

By Shannon Pettypiece

June 15 (Bloomberg) — Drugs to treat attention deficit disorder were linked to an increase in sudden death among children, according to a government-sponsored study.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which funded the research with the National Institutes of Health, said the study had “limitations” and shouldn’t stop patients from taking the treatments. The findings, published today in theAmerican Journal of Psychiatry, showed that more children who died suddenly from heart complications or unknown causes were taking an attention-deficit drug than those who died in car accidents.

Attention-deficit medicines already carry the FDA’s strongest warning in their prescribing information about sudden death and cardiac risks. Doctors should assess patients for heart risks when prescribing stimulant-based drugs, such as Shire Plc’s Adderall and Novartis AG’s Ritalin, the agency said.

“The FDA believes that this study should not serve as a basis for parents to stop a child’s stimulant medication,” the agency said today in a Web site posting. “Parents should discuss concerns about the use of these medicines with the prescribing health-care professional.”

The agency said it will release a more definitive study on the potential risk later this year.

The research found that of 564 healthy children who died suddenly, 10 were taking stimulant medications at the time of death, the FDA said. That compares to two stimulant users among 564 children who died in traffic accidents.

The low use of stimulants in both groups may have affected the results, as well as inaccuracies in recording drug use by the children, the FDA said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Shannon Pettypiece in New York atspettypiece@bloomberg.net.