Coronavirus patients with high blood pressure twice as likely to die: study

PARIS, France - Patients with high blood pressure admitted to hospital with coronavirus infections are twice as likely to die as those without the condition, researchers said on Friday.

For in-patients with the virus who had stopped taking medication for high blood pressure, the risk of dying doubled again, they reported in the European Heart Journal.

"It is important that patients with high blood pressure realize that they are at increased risk of dying from COVID-19," said senior author Fei Li, a cardiologist at Xijing Hospital in Xian, China.

For the study, researchers in China and Ireland retroactively examined cases admitted to Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan between February 5 and March 15.

Nearly 30 percent -- 850 patients -- had a history of hypertension, another term for high blood pressure.

Four percent of those patients died, compared with just over one percent of the 2,027 patients without hypertension.

After adjusting for age, sex and other medical conditions, the researchers calculated that having high blood pressure increased the risk of dying two-fold.

In a separate meta-analysis of three other studies covering 2,300 COVID-19 patients from the same hospital, the researchers investigated the impact of different blood pressure drugs on death rates.

Contrary to their expectations, they found that a class of drugs known as RAAS inhibitors -- which include angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACE) and angiotensin receptor blockers (ARB) -- were not linked to higher COVID-19 mortality.

Indeed, the risk appeared to be somewhat diminished.

"We suggest that patients should not discontinue or change their usual anti-hypertensive treatment unless instructed by a physician," said co-author Ling Tao, a professor at Xijing Hospital.

The authors noted that their study was observational and not based on clinical trials, meaning further research was needed before they could make firm clinical recommendations.

Agence France-Presse

High blood pressure during pregnancy tied to heart problems decades later

Women who develop high blood pressure during pregnancy may be more likely than those who don’t to have heart attacks or strokes decades later, a Norwegian study suggests.

Compared to women with normal blood pressure during every pregnancy, women who developed hypertensive disorders, or high blood pressure, during one or more pregnancies were 57% more likely to have a heart attack or stroke at some point between ages 40 and 70.

“We knew that women who experienced hypertensive disorders in pregnancy have a 2-fold increased risk of cardiovascular disease compared to women without these complications,” said lead study author Eirin Beate Haug of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim.

“From our current study, we learned that most of the excess cardiovascular risk in women who had hypertensive disorders in pregnancy can be explained by higher levels of traditional cardiovascular risk factors, especially blood pressure and BMI,” Haug said by email.

High blood pressure and a high BMI (body mass index, a measure of weight relative to height) explained 77% of the excess risk of events like heart attacks and strokes among women who had hypertensive disorders during pregnancy, researchers report in JAMA Cardiology.

The study followed 23,885 women who had one or more pregnancies before age 40, including 2,199 women who had hypertensive disorders during pregnancy.

A total of 728 women only had “gestational” hypertension, when women who normally don’t have high blood pressure develop it during pregnancy. Gestational hypertension progressed to a more serious and potentially life-threatening version of high blood pressure known as preeclampsia in 1,391 women.

Overall, 1,155 women who never had hypertensive disorders during pregnancy still had events like heart attacks or strokes during the study period.

Compared to women who didn’t have high blood pressure during pregnancy, women who had any type of gestational hypertensive disorder were 64% more likely to have a heart attack between ages 40 and 70. Women with a history of hypertension during pregnancy were also 47% more likely to develop heart failure and 40% more likely to have a stroke.

The risk was even greater for the subset of women who had preeclampsia. They were 78% more likely to have a heart attack, 83% more likely to have heart failure, and 46% more likely to have a stroke between ages 40 and 70 compared to women without pregnancy high blood pressure.

Hypertensive disorders in pregnancy didn’t appear to influence the risk of heart problems after age 70, however.

One limitation of the study is that researchers only had data for hospitalized patients, and it’s possible some women had nonfatal events that were treated in other settings, the study team notes.

Another limitation of the results is that researchers didn’t examine whether women had risk factors for heart disease before they conceived.

Still, the findings suggest that women with a history of hypertensive disorders during pregnancy can minimize their risk of future heart issues by keeping their weight and blood pressure within healthy ranges as they age, said Laura Benschop, a researcher at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, who wasn’t involved in the study.

“Women should be aware of these cardiovascular risk factors and check their blood pressure and BMI regularly (annually) after pregnancy,” Benschop said by email.

While doctors typically screen for these cardiovascular disease risk factors in older adults, women with high blood pressure during pregnancy develop these risk factors earlier in life than women with normal blood pressure in pregnancy, said Jennifer Stuart, a researcher at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston who wasn’t involved in the study.

“Therefore, it is especially important for these women to regularly see their doctor after pregnancy to monitor their blood pressure, body mass index, glucose, and cholesterol,” Stuart said by email.

SOURCE: bit.ly/2XqFiQv JAMA Cardiology, online June 12, 2019.

Divorce tied to increased heart attack risk

Women who have been divorced once, or men who have been divorced at least twice, are more likely to have a heart attack than people who get and stay married, according to a new study.

“The negative health consequences of divorce have been known for some time,” said lead author Matthew E. Dupre of Duke Clinical Research Institute in Durham, North Carolina.

Remarriage only reverses the risk for men, the researchers also found. And for women divorced at least twice, the heart attack risk was comparable to that of having diabetes or high blood pressure.

The researchers analyzed data on more than 15,000 adults ages 45 to 80 at the beginning of the study period, who had been married at least once and were followed from 1992 to 2010.

At the outset, 14% of men and 19% of women were divorced. By the end of the study, more than a third of people had gone through at least one divorce.

Over the 18-year study period, 1211 people suffered a heart attack, and this was more likely to happen to those who had been divorced, according to the April 14 online paper in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. The authors accounted for age, socioeconomic, behavioral and health factors.

Women who had one divorce were 24% more likely to have a heart attack than women who were continuously married, and those who had been divorced at least twice were 77% more likely to have one.

Remarried women were 35% more likely than women who were continuously married to have a heart attack.

For men, risk only increased for those who had been divorced twice or more. They were 30% more likely to have a heart attack than men who remained married or who remarried.

“Earlier studies have suggested that marital loss has a greater impact on the health of women than men,” Dupre told Reuters Health by email. “The reasons for these differences are not entirely known; however, the prevailing view is that divorced women suffer greater economic losses and emotional distress than divorced men.”

“Men are also much more likely to remarry after divorce than women, and among those who remarry, men remarry sooner than women,” he said.

Though the results offer strong evidence that divorce increases heart attack risk, the authors were not able to account for other potentially important factors like elevated stress, anxiety and the loss of social support or changes in medication adherence, Dupre said.

They also were not able to account for whether the risk rises or falls over time following divorce, he said.

“There's already a substantial literature linking changes in marital status to physical health,” said David A. Sbarra of the psychology department at the University of Arizona in Tucson. “I would have predicted men to be at increased risk following divorce, but this is not what the paper reports.”

The immediate emotional shock of ending a relationship may lead to cardiovascular changes, or people who get a divorce may change their behavior, may start smoking to manage the stress of separation, for example, he told Reuters Health by email.

“The difficult spot all of us are in when working on this topic is that you cannot randomly assign people to divorce,” Sbarra said.

Divorce may be a proxy for other variables, like hostility, which lead people to end marriages and also convey heart attack risk, he said.

“If you feel your divorce was done for good reasons, you've coped well with the transition (after a period of grief, you've got most of your life back together . . . or, at least, you feel headed in the right direction), these results may not apply,” he said.

The study only involved people who had ever married, which includes 95% of the older adult population, but not those who remained single, Dupre said.

People cannot change their marital history in order to reduce their heart attack risk, but recognizing an increased risk may improve doctors’ decision making or screening for divorced people, he said.

“A greater recognition of social stressors will help physicians identify and treat adults at potentially high risk of having a heart attack, as well as provide patients a new (or heightened) awareness of how the social world can get under our skin and damage our heart,” he said.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Lechon 'maalat' takes on Cebu's pig roasters

MANILA -- When one says lechon, it’s usually Cebu that comes to mind.

But a fifth-class municipality in Zamboanga Sibugay is introducing another type of roasted pig that is slowly gaining cult among foodies in Manila.

Diplahan Lechon is named after the town where the “lechon maalat” was revolutionized. The salty taste – reminiscent of lechon kawali – and its golden brown color are what distinguish them from their more famous cousins in Cebu.

Businessman Jotle Viray, who brought this lechon in Manila, would not say if it is better than Cebu lechon. “I don’t want to say it’s the best, but it was worth my time,” he said diplomatically.

Viray, who is also the owner of G&G International Unlimited, Inc., was on one of his business trips to Zamboanga Sibugay when he met the couple who perfected the “lechon maalat.”

Ronnie and Becky Lumindas are actually the only ones who know the secret behind this one-of-a-kind lechon. The couple was able to teach another individual how to do the cracked look and taste of the lechon, but theirs has already garnered the loyalty of Diplahan and nearby towns and provinces.

It took a long time for Viray and his partners, including wife Luisa, to persuade the couple into teaching them the secret of roasting the Diplahan lechon. It was the promise of “giving back” that finally pushed the Lumindas to go to Manila and lend their expertise.

A portion of the proceeds for each lechon sold will be collected and given to the local government of Zamboanga Sibugay.

“Sayang ang potential,” Viray said.

Finally, the Lumindas were brought to Manila months back to teach the employees the technique.

“Diplahan lechon gets its blistered skin through the intermittent stirring of the coals, but the way we clean the pig and flavor it is the secret,” Viray said.

So secret that only two can enter the kitchen at their commissary in Antipolo today.

“When we [first] tried it in Manila, the people did not like the saltiness that much,” Viray said, adding that they had to temper the saltiness in order to make it more palatable to those in Manila who have been accustomed to the lechon in Cebu.

In order to bring the business a notch higher still, Diplahan lechon only uses organically grown pigs sourced from Marikina. Organically fed pigs are more expensive, but provides the roasting another layer of taste.

Finally, the lechon was cooking.

A spicy liver sauce will not give the crisp skin the justice it deserves. The Virays were able to concoct a special kind of vinegar that further enhances the taste of the lechong maalat.

However, the crispy skin and juicy meat are best eaten sans the special sauce. With rice on the side, the tagline “magkakasala ka sa sarap” does really give a warning of sorts.

Diplahan Lechon has a booking office in Tomas Morato and can also be contacted via their social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

(LINK: facebook.com/DiplahanLechon; twitter.com/diplahanlechon; Instagram.com/diplahanlechon)

It is recommended that orders be given at least 24 hours before delivery. Because of the painstaking techniques, the cooking takes about six hours.

A medium pig is sold at P7,500, while the large one is P8,500. Diplahan lechon also sells smaller sizes, but these will depend on the availability of the organic pigs.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Vitamin D - plus calcium - tied to extra years

Older people who take vitamin D and calcium supplements may live a bit longer than their peers, according to an international review of several studies covering more than 70,000 people.

Researchers writing in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology found that older people who were given the supplements were 9 percent less likely to die over three years than those given placebo pills. Vitamin D alone had no impact on death rates.

A 9 percent dip in death risk over a three year period might sound small, but lead researcher Lars Rejnmark said that effect is "at least as pronounced" as the benefits linked to cholesterol-lowering statins and blood pressure drugs.

"In my view, a 9 percent reduced mortality in the general population of elderly is of major importance," Rejnmark, an associate professor at Aarhus University in Denmark, told Reuters Health by email.

"Except for stopping smoking, there are not many other known interventions that are capable (of) such a reduction in the risk of death."

Rejnmark and his colleagues combined the results from eight clinical trials that involved more than 70,000 older adults, mostly women.

In each trial, people were randomly assigned to take vitamin D or a placebo. Some studies used a combination of vitamin D and calcium.

The doses varied, but most trials used a daily vitamin D dose of 10 to 20 micrograms. In the United States, health officials suggest that most adults get 15 micrograms (or 600 IU) of vitamin D per day, while people older than 70 should aim to get 20 micrograms (or 800 IU).

In trials that used calcium, the dose was 1,000 milligrams per day. In general, women older than 50, and everyone over 70, are told to get 1,200 milligrams of calcium each day.

Vitamin D and calcium are probably best know as bone-builders. Older women often take the supplements to ward off the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis - and some trials have found that the supplement combination can prevent falls and bone fractures in the elderly.

But that probably does not explain the lower death risk in this study. When the researchers factored in hip and spine fractures, they did not account for the dip in death risk.

Another possibility is that supplements curbed people's risk of dying from cancer. Rejnmark said there's some evidence that calcium and vitamin D may lower the odds of colon cancer, but the evidence is not yet "firm".

For now, he said, the findings supported getting the recommended amounts of vitamin D and calcium.

Some members of Rejnmark's team had connections to supplement makers that market vitamin D and calcium products.

source: interaksyon.com

Mariah Carey hid pregnant body from hubby Canon

NEW YORK - Mariah Carey put on so much weight when she was pregnant with twins that she says she used to hide her body from husband Nick Cannon.

But the Grammy-winning singer has now dropped more than 30 lbs., and has a new job promoting U.S. weight-loss company Jenny.

Carey, 42, joined the weight loss program, formerly known as Jenny Craig, in late July just three months after giving birth to her first children -- twins Moroccan and Monroe.

"I had a lot of issues," Carey said of her pregnancy, which induced high blood pressure and diabetes. "I cooked soul food for Nick through my entire pregnancy," she added.

The first-time mom told a news conference on Wednesday she felt so large at the end of her pregnancy that she avoided learning her weight.

"You see those pictures," she said of the photographs of herself before giving birth in April. "Would you want to know?"

At her heaviest, Carey was so insecure she even wore a towel to cover her body in the bathtub. "You think I would let Nick see me looking rancid like that?" she asked with a laugh.

Twirling for reporters in a red, fitted vintage Halston dress, she said she would like to see herself looking as she did in the music video for her 2008 hit "Touch My Body."

"I'm not there, but I'm trying to get there," she said.

Carey is the latest celebrity to become a spokeswoman for Jenny, following "Dreamgirls" actress and singer Jennifer Hudson and former "Cheers" star Kirstie Alley.

Carey brushed aside rumors of problems between her and her actor/rapper husband of more than three years. The speculation was sparked by a TV interview in October in which Carey said that she trusts Cannon "sometimes."

"Me and Nick are the same team...we've never been better," she said, explaining that some jokes between the couple were cut from the interview.

"Here's the thing, I'm a real person" Carey said, explaining that she didn't want to give a "fake Hollywood" answer in the interview.

"Sometimes I make him mad, sometimes he makes me mad...that's why we aren't divorced after four months." — Reuters

Source: gmanews.tv