all JoAnn E. Manson stories

Exercise cuts risk of sudden cardiac death

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:25:47 -0400

Exercise improves your health, but can you kill yourself with too much snow shoveling, yard work, jogging, or playing tennis?

"Despite all of the known benefits of exercise, there are also well-documented associations between acute episodes of exertion and sudden cardiac death," notes Christine Albert, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. "Although relatively rare, these deaths commonly occur in an unexpected fashion among those who appear quite healthy."

In the largest study ever done to get a better handle on this question, Albert and her colleagues followed the exertions of almost 85,000 women for 24 years, while keeping track of their hearts. The women, selected from an ongoing study of registered nurses known as the Nurses Health Study, were between 34 and 59 years old in 1986. From then until 2004, the women filled out questionnaires about how much time they spent jogging, running, bicycling, swimming, playing tennis or squash, and undertaking other activities that require moderate to vigorous exertion.

"To our knowledge, this analysis is the first to assess both the transient and long-term risk of sudden cardiac death associated with physical activity among women," says Albert, senior author of the study and also director of the Center for Arrhythmia Prevention at the Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. Results of the study appeared in the March 22/29, 2006 Journal of the American Medical Association's theme issue on Women's Health.

The findings are encouraging. Out of almost 85,000 women, only nine died while doing yard work, housework, swimming, or physical therapy. To put this in numbers, as scientists always like to do: Their investigation covered 1.93 million person years of exercise and recorded only one death for each 36.5 million hours of exertion. In other words: Sudden cardiac death during exertion is an extremely rare event in women.

And there's still more good news. Regular exercise may significantly minimize this small risk, in both the short and long term.

HSPH joins battle over America's waistline

50443248 — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 10:54:06 -0400

The Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) weighed in on the battle over America's bulging middle Thursday (May 26), with a panel of health experts saying a government study showing that being somewhat overweight may actually save lives is flawed and sends a dangerous message.
The event, "Weighing the Evidence: A Forum to Examine the Latest News About Overweight, Obesity and Mortality in America," presented a panel of health experts from the Harvard School of Public Health, the American Cancer Society, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

Simple test predicts heart attack

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 07:20:26 -0400

White cell counts can be easily measured by inexpensive, widely available tests, raising the possibility of lowering the toll of heart disease fatalities, the leading cause of death among women in the United States.

"For years, researchers have suspected a link between elevated white blood cell count and heart attack," notes JoAnn Manson, one of the study leaders and Elizabeth F. Brigham Professor of Women's Health at Harvard Medical School. "The present study is the largest to test this association and provides the strongest evidence to date that WBC (white blood cell) count predicts the risk of heart attack."

Manson, who is also chief of the division of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, sums up their findings. "WBC count appears to be a very promising way to identify people at increased risk of heart disease. At this point, it may add information that physicians can use when evaluating a patient's risk factors. With additional research, it may become one of the routine screening tests for heart disease."

Physically active women reduce risk of stroke

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:07:41 -0400

A Harvard study followed 72,488 nurses for eight years and concluded that the more a woman exercises, the lower the odds she will suffer a stroke. Two large Harvard studies of men also show that exercise reduces their chances of getting strokes. However, the more-is-better association has not yet been proven for men as it has now been done for women. "Previous research demonstrated that increased exercise may substantially reduce a person's risk of heart disease, but the role of exercise in the prevention of stoke has been less well studied and not very conclusive," said Frank Hu, assistant professor of nutrition and cardiovascular disease at the Harvard School of Public Health. "Another important finding of our study is that sedentary women who become active in middle and later adulthood have lower stroke risk than those who remain sedentary," Hu added. "This implies a relatively prompt effect of physical activity. Older people can enjoy the benefit of exercise even if they were sedentary for a long time."

Male baldness linked to higher incidence of heart disease

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:09:14 -0400

A Harvard study examined the relationship between hair loss and heart conditions, including nonfatal heart attacks, angina or chest pains, and procedures to open blocked coronary arteries. "We found men with extensive baldness that involves the top of their heads have the greatest risk of heart disease," says JoAnn Manson, a professor at Harvard Medical School. "However, those with mild frontal hair loss, or a receding hair line, have no appreciable increase in risk." Compared with men with no hair loss, risks for such events increased 9 percent in those starting to lose hair on the front of their heads. When a bald spot appears on the crown, relative risk jumps to 23 percent. When all hair is gone from the top of the head, the risk rises to a worrisome 36 percent.