Health News

Middle Age: Not Too Late for Fitness
If you’re middle-aged and feeling unfit, you can still benefit from exercise. The American Heart Association says if you get moving at 40 or older, you can reduce heart failure risk.
Safety of Heart Rx Digoxin Debated
While digoxin helps the heart beat stronger, its safety has been debated. One study found the medication to be linked to higher mortality, but re-analysis of the data found no such connection.
Hip Stem Cells Repair Failing Hearts
Stem cells have the potential to become any type of cell in the body. For those with heart failure, stem cells may offer a new means for fixing damaged tissue.
Mortality Rates Up in Smaller Hospitals
Though hospitals are the place to receive care fast, smaller hospitals might not be keeping up with the bigger ones. It appears the quality of care delivered does vary between hospitals.
Depression Can Sink a Failing Heart
Positive feelings can make a world of positive difference in a person’s health. For patients with failing hearts, however, negative feelings and depression can have the opposite effect.
Give Your Heart a Good Night’s Sleep
It's frustrating enough when you toss and turn, unable to fall asleep. It's worse when you can't stay asleep. And now it seems these sleeping problems may affect more than your rest.
Heart Stoppers: Two Emergencies Often Confused
Often the terms 'cardiac arrest' and 'heart attack' are used interchangeably. These two heart emergencies, however, are very distinct, and knowing the difference can save lives.
Very Ill May Prefer to Turn Off Heart Device
Like pacemakers, implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) are implanted in the chest to regulate arrhythmias (irregular heartbeats). ICDs, however, are programmed to deliver a high-voltage shock to return a heart to a normal beat.
Can Alzheimer’s Therapy Help Heart Patients?
Each year, millions of adults are affected by heart failure—when the heart fails to pump effectively. New therapies have been slow to develop, but Alzheimer’s treatment may offer a solution.
Former New York Mayor Ed Koch Dies
Ed Koch wasn’t just the brash and wildly popular mayor of New York, as one political aide and longtime friend, John LoCicero, put it, “He was New York.” Mr. Koch has died of congestive heart failure.