Gastric Bypass May Help avoid Heart Disease in Teens: Study

Adults who undergo Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery prove improvement in biochemical cardiac risk factors, but teens that have the procedure may understand even greater heart health benefits, according to new research. In Roux-en-Y surgery, a very general gastric bypass procedure, surgical connections around the bowel help reduce stomach capacity and let food bypass part of the small intestine. The new study, slated for appearance Monday at the Digestive Disease Week conference in Chicago, analyzed 99 adults and 33 adolescents, ages 14 through 18. All of the patients undergo laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass between 2004 and 2010.

At least half of the participants previously had high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol and obstructive sleep apnea prior to the surgery, according to researchers from the Stanford University section of bariatric surgery. One year after surgery, however, both the adults and the teens showed important improvement in total cholesterol, triglycerides and homocysteine levels. The researchers noted, however, that after surgery the teenagers examine showed even more development than the adults in terms of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol. The adolescents' fasting insulin an indicator of diabetes risk fell by more than 400 percent after one year.

"The findings suggest gastric bypass may pick up the health-related quality of life for certain obese teens down the road. With the emerging proof of how early heart disease starts, we have to do something for these adolescents now, before a point of no return," Dr. John Morton, director of bariatric surgery at Stanford Hospital & Clinics, said in a news release from the meeting's sponsor, the American Gastroenterological Association. The study authors note that gastric bypass is not the only action for obesity. "This surgery is clearly not for each obese adolescent, and it should only be done at centers with experienced, fit surgeons," added Morton.

Abnormal response to irregular heartbeat may specify disease

Washington University School of Medicine scientists have found that cardiac death can be predict by the method in which the heart respond to an early on beat in the left ventricle. Lead author Phyllis K. Stein and her colleagues found that an irregular response to an early beat from the heart's major pumping chamber can identify high-risk patients, even those who have no other signs of suffer from cardiovascular disease. The paper, which was published in the Journal of Cardiovascular Electrophysiology, full the researchers' efforts to study patient response to ventricular premature beats (VPB).

These beats occur when the ventricle get an inappropriate signal that tells it to beat when it should not. This domino effect in the heart pump less blood to the body than it should. While a fit organ compensates by slowing down the heart rate, an abnormal response may point out cardiovascular disease. "It's a clear test of whether the autonomic nervous system, which control your heart rate, can adapt to a challenge," Stein explained. The Centers for Disease Control and avoidance report that heart disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S.

Think anxiety in ordering heart tests: study

Doctors diagnosing possible cardiac problems should take the patient's anxiety and depression into account when order heart tests, a new Canadian study suggest. An ECG stress test is often used to look for coronary blood vessel disease. During the test, electrodes from an electrocardiography machine are linked to the patient while they exercise on a treadmill. But in people pretentious by anxiety or depression, heart disease could be lessening under the radar in the ECG tests, according to the study. Researchers in Montreal tested more than 2,000 patients with ECG as well as a more luxurious and responsive procedure known as nuclear exercise stress testing, or SPECT.

This requires the inoculation of a radioactive dye into the bloodstream followed by a nuclear scan to assess whether blood flow to the heart is normal during work out. "When patients with anxiety had both tests done, nearly 25 per cent of the patients did not appear to have heart disease based on the ECG but were found to have the disease when we look at the SPECT results," study author Prof. Simon Bacon of the department of train science at Montreal's Concordia University said Friday. "This means that a number of populace may be under diagnosing if they only have the ECG examination." Among patients without anxiety, the ECG missed an analysis of heart disease about 20 per cent of time.

The study's authors suggested that physicians think doing additional screening of patients, such as simple pencil and paper tests, to charge for anxiety and depression. If a patient scores high for depressive or nervousness symptoms and has an ECG result that doesn't suggest heart disease, Bacon said, doctors should consider distribution them for more tests to be sure. The Montreal researchers said about 20 per cent of people with cardiac illness also suffer from anxiety or depression two times the rate among the general population. Doctors require being aware of the role that anxiety can play, agreed Dr. Andy Wielgosz, a professor of tablets and epidemiology at the University of Ottawa and a spokesperson for the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, which facilitate fund the research.

useful links : transport rankings