Posts Tagged "blood clot"

Men who slept badly were twice as likely to suffer a heart attack and up to four times as likely to have a stroke compared with those who slept well, according to a Russian study presented at EuroHeartCare.

“Sleep disorders are very closely related to the presence of cardiovascular diseases. However, until now there has not been a population based cohort study examining the impact of sleep disorders on the development of a heart attack or stroke,” lead investigator Valery Gafarov, MD, PhD, professor of cardiology at the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences in Novosibirsk, said in a press release.

The study included 657 men ages 25 to 64 with no history of cardiovascular disease or diabetes. They were enrolled in 1994 as part of the World Health Organization’s MONICA (multinational monitoring of trends and determinants in cardiovascular disease) project.

Sleep quality was assessed at baseline with the MONICA-psychosocial interview sleep disturbances scale. Incidence of new cases of myocardial infarction (MI) and stroke were determined at 5 years, 10 years, and 14 years of follow-up. The investigators used Cox proportional regression models to estimate hazard ratios.

Compared with men who rated their sleep as “good,” those who rated it “poor” or “very bad” had more than twice the risk of experiencing MI at 5 years.

This increased risk for MI was also seen at 10 years and at 14 years of follow-up.

Nearly two-thirds (63%) of the men experiencing their first MI described their sleep as “poor” or “very bad.”

Compared with men who rated their sleep as “good,” those who rated it “poor” or “very bad” had nearly quadruple the risk of stroke at 5 years.

Source: Medpage Today

In an analysis of cohort studies, a history of kidney stones was associated with an increased risk for coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke. The data suggest that the risk may be higher in women than men.

The studies included close to 50,000 patients with kidney stones and 3.56 million controls. Results found kidney stone history to be associated with a 19% greater risk for CHD and a 40% greater risk for stroke. Additionally, women showed a statistically significant increased risk for myocardial infarction, while men did not.

The researchers noted that a lack of studies separately evaluating for effect modification by sex, along with other limitations, could explain the risk difference among men and women. Though, they added that several recent studies have shown a gender difference in kidney stone-related CHD and stroke risk.

One was reported in JAMA in July 2013.

The prospective study included 45,748 men and 196,357 women in the U.S. without a history of CHD at baseline, including 19,678 who reported a history of kidney stones. Two cohorts of women and one of men were followed for up to 24 years.

The study found that women with a history of kidney stones had about an 18% increased risk for CHD and a 48% increased risk compared with women who had never had a kidney stone.

An even larger study from Alberta, Canada, reported in March of this year, showed similar differences in risk by gender.

The study included close to 3.2 million people registered in Alberta’s universal healthcare system between 1997 and 2009 who were followed for a median of 11 years.

The study showed that people who had at least one kidney stone had a 40% higher risk for heart attack, a 63% higher risk for blockage of blood flow to the heart and other organs, and a 26% higher risk for stroke. The magnitude of increased risk appeared more pronounced for women than men.

Both studies were included in the newly-published meta-analysis.

Gary C. Curhan, MD, who was a co-author on both, said the new data make a strong case for a real gender difference in cardiovascular disease risk associated with kidney stone history.

Curhan is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a renal disease specialist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston.

“The risk certainly seems to be higher in women than men, but I would not say the risk is zero in men.” “These two studies give us more confidence that this association is real. The next step is to try and answer the question ‘Why is there a difference?'”

Source: medpage Today