Steve Anthony: True Canadian Pharmacy

Robert Ross, an exercise physiologist at Queen’s. Impediments to greater use may include the time required, uncertainty about who should take the measurements, and a lack of familiarity with methods, Iglar suggested. That’s why waist circumference is important to watch for the 65 per cent of Canadians adults who are overweight or obese. A tape measure around the waist helps show who is at risk for heart disease beyond standard body-mass measurements, but not all family doctors are routinely using it. 94 centimetres (37 inches) for most men. For some reason, I never thought of it that way before, and it kind of gave me a visual as to ‘That can’t be good. Those risks explain why Canadian family doctors are encouraged to watch their patients’ waistlines. It might lead to lifestyle interventions at an earlier stage than with BMI alone. When your waist circumference is bigger, all that fat is around all your organs, said Grant Barber, who is participating in a study on weight loss through exercise at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont. Scientists are learning more about how the deep abdominal fat that surrounds vital organs is worse than fat just beneath the skin in terms of risk of developing heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and other obesity-related illnesses.

Using waist circumference alongside BMI helps doctors, nurses, dietitians, kinesiologists and psychologists to tease out who is in greater need of weight-loss counselling, said Prof. It would put people potentially in a different risk category if their waist circumference was above the cutoff, said Dr. Research suggests that if the waist circumference climbs to more than 102 centimetres (40 inches) for most men or more than 88 centimetres (35 inches) for women then the risk of Type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, and other obesity-related illness also rises. Since a healthy diet and exercise can shrink the waist while weight stays the same, a smaller waist circumference may reflect health improvements from lifestyle changes that might otherwise be abandoned by those discouraged by numbers on the scale that barely budge, Ross said. 80 centimetres (31. 5 inches) for women. While it’s simple for doctors to wield a tape measure alongside their prescription pads, there is room to improve on their use of the tool, said Iglar, who developed the checklist. Karl Iglar, an associate professor of family medicine at the University of Toronto.

In 2007, waist circumference became part of a preventive care list for family doctors in Canada — a checklist for physicians to use during checkups for adults that also includes measures like colonoscopy and hepatitis B screening.

p Regina General Hospital is $1. When the lab is in place, the region hopes it will be able to recruit more specialists to diagnose and treat such patients. The lab would fill an urgent need in southern Saskatchewan, the foundation says. The donation, aimed at establishing an electrophysiology lab at the hospital, was announced Thursday by the Kinsmen Telemiracle Foundation. The new lab will diagnose and treat arrhythmias, which are life-threatening !–more– abnormal heart rhythms. Currently, arrhythmia patients in south Saskatchewan are given medication — considered an inadequate treatment — or are sent out of province for treatment, the health region says. Last year, around 700 patients were admitted to the Regina Qu’Appelle Health Region for atrial fibrillation, the most common type of arrhythmia. 25 million closer to building a laboratory to help people with heart rhythm disorders. Electrophysiology concerns problems related to electrical activity of the heart. George Garbe, the section head of cardiology for the health region, said in a release. Heart rhythm abnormalities are a major cause of death and disability in heart patients, Dr.

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p But the procedure didn’t go smoothly, according to Sandy Wood, Grace’s mother. Grace’s father, John Wood, told The Canadian Press that his daughter has been through 35 medical procedures, including three previous open-heart surgeries. An 11-year-old Ontario girl who had risky heart surgery in Edmonton will be released from Stollery Children’s Hospital and head back home Friday. At one point the balloon burst. Grace Wood of Peterborough has DiGeorge !–more– syndrome, which causes heart defects and airway blockage. Surgeons in Edmonton performed an experimental procedure to give the little girl a new pulmonary valve. They inserted the valve through the girl’s jugular vein and then used a balloon to open it when it was in place. But doctors were later able to retrieve it and continue with the surgery. People in Peterborough, a city 150 kilometres east of Toronto, have raised money for Grace to have surgeries in California and Edmonton.

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p Fall-prevention campaigns targeting the elderly, with focus on such measures as installing grab bars, and greater awareness about the importance of not drinking and driving were an important part of the declining injury trend, Angus said. In a separate finding unrelated to heart disease but published in the same report, researchers found that hospitalization rates for traumatic injury — sustained through such things as falls, traffic accidents !–more– or assaults — decreased nine per cent from 593 to 541 per 100,000 population between 2001 and last year. The reduction in heart attack rate and stroke are really good news, but there are other areas where improvement has been more difficult or uneven across the country. This is a signal that we may need to continue to look at how stroke care is managed, Pulchins said. The Health Indicators 2009 report by the Canadian Institute for Health Information suggested the rate of heart attacks in Canada (i. Canada is making progress in preventing heart attacks, according to a report released Thursday. The rates do not include Quebec because of differences in data collection, the institute said. There were 251 hospitalizations for heart attacks per 100,000 people the first year, which dropped to 219 hospitalizations per 100,000 last year. She suggested the provinces target their efforts to lower income areas that are most likely to benefit from improving primary care, such as treatment of hypertension. Research shows better outcomes when stroke patients are treated by specialist stroke teams, but the challenge is to organize stroke services in this manner for more people, Angus said. e.
Changes in treatment, including less invasive procedures for treating heart conditions such as earlier angioplasty — a procedure to widen blood vessels — appear to be paying off, Angus said. The rate of deaths from heart attack within 30 days of being admitted to hospital also dropped, decreasing by 11 per cent between 2003 and 2008. Fewer Canadians are dying after being admitted to hospital for heart attack. Researchers also found decreases in the rate of stroke hospitalizations over the last five years. For the first time in 10 years of producing these reports, the institute looked at rates of new heart attacks by neighborhood incomes levels. The heart attack rate for Canadians in the poorest neighbourhoods was 66 per cent higher than for those living in the most affluent neighbourhoods, according to the report. Differences in the root causes of heart disease — such as smoking, obesity and lack of physical activity — are probably an important part of the explanation, said Angus. Indra Pulchins, CIHI’s director of indicators and performance management. There’s some marked improvement, Helen Angus, vice-president of research at CIHI, said in an interview. That rate fell 14 per cent from 152 per 100,000 between 2003-2004 to 130 per 100,000 in 2007-2008. the number of people per 100,000 hospitalized for heart attacks) dropped 13 per cent between 2003-2004 and 2007-2008, after taking population growth and aging into account. Unlike with heart attacks, however, deaths within 30 days of admission to hospital from stroke have stayed relatively constant, said Dr.

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CARDIOVASCULAR
DISORDERS            Omar
Badawi, Section Advisor
Revised heart failure guidelines
strengthen recommendations on use of hydralazine and isosorbide
dinitrate in African Americans, streamline information on use of
implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) and cardiac
resynchronization therapy (CRT), clarify treatment options for patients
with heart failure and atrial fibrillation, and include a new section (more…)

Eating vegetables raw or lightly steamed is a healthier option than boiling. To rank the foods, Anand’s team used criteria developed by Sir Austin Bradford Hill, the late British scientist who helped establish the link between smoking and lung cancer. Starchy carbs such as white bread, white rice and white potatoes that are high on the glycemic index were also linked to an increased risk of heart disease. Fish. Vegetables. They found little strong (more…)

Heart attack patients who are already taking the right medicines to prevent future problems get no added benefit from taking fish oil capsules, a large study in Germany finds.
The study tested a 1-gram daily dose of a prescription version of highly purified omega-3 fatty acid — the “good fat” contained in certain oily fish that is thought to help the heart.
Researchers led by Dr. Jochen Senges of the University of Heidelberg gave fish oil (more…)

Kaylee Wallace suffers from a rare brain abnormality that can stop her heart in her sleep. ” ‘Thank you’ isn’t even the right word. This was expected to lead to her death shortly after. The medical team waited for about an hour, but she continued to breathe on her own and doctors called off the transplant surgery. Kaylee suffers from Joubert syndrome, an extremely rare brain abnormality that can stop the baby’s breathing during sleep. The planned (more…)

This article mentions the polypill, but doesn’t break down the ingredients. Here it is: atenolol 50mg, ramapril 5mg, ASA 100mg, simvastatin 20mg and hydrochlorothiazide 12.5mg.
Canadian researchers say a single, daily pill combining five medicines could potentially cut by half the number of heart attacks and strokes in middle-aged people.
The pill — called Polycap — is a cocktail of three blood-pressure lowering drugs, Aspirin to (more…)

Higher prices for food and shelter pushed Canada’s annual inflation rate up to 1. The fatal injuries sustained by British actress Natasha Richardson after a spill at a Quebec ski resort have renewed debate over the idea of making helmets mandatory for snowboarders and downhill skiers. 1 per cent rate seen in January, Statistics Canada reported Thursday. 4 per cent in February from the 1. Bells at the largest church in Newfoundland and Labrador (more…)