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Overweight mothers linked to infant heart defects

Overweight mothers linked to infant heart defects

Women who are overweight or obese when they get pregnant are more likely to give birth to children with congenital heart defects, according to a U.S. government study released on Thursday.

The study, conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, concluded that women who were overweight or obese at the time they became pregnant were 18 percent more likely to give birth to babies with heart defects, while severely obese women had a 30 percent increased risk.

The babies had problems including obstructive defects on the right side of the heart and defects in the tissue separating the heart’s two upper chambers, the researchers reported in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

“Congenital heart defects are the most common types of birth defect, and among all birth defects, they are a leading cause of illness, death and medical expenditures,” said Dr. Edwin Trevathan, a CDC expert on birth defects and developmental disabilities.

The CDC, the U.S. government’s disease watchdog, recommends that overweight women work with their doctors to achieve a healthy weight before pregnancy.

Researchers examined the health of 6,440 infants with congenital heart defects and 5,673 infants without problems, all of whose mothers were interviewed as part of the CDC’s National Birth Defects Prevention Study.

They assessed obesity according to each woman’s body mass index, or BMI, which relates weight to height. A woman 5 feet, 5 inches tall and weighing 190 pounds (86 kg) would have a BMI of 31.6, while a woman of the same height who weighs 160 pounds (72 kg) would have a BMI of 26.6.

The researchers defined overweight as a BMI of 25 to 29.9, moderate obesity as a BMI of 30 to 34.9 and severe obesity as a BMI of 35 or above.

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Defibrillators may not save women, study finds

June 30, 2012Uncategorizedabnormal heart rhythms, and, archives of internal medicine, be, beating, bf1, blister, blood, california san francisco, calories, Cancer, chronic condition, clinical trials, dangerous heart, Defibrillators, Defibrillators Asia, Defibrillators Gallery, Defibrillators Health, Defibrillators Health History, Defibrillators Health Information, Defibrillators Health Latest, Defibrillators Photo Gallery, Defibrillators Picture, Defibrillators Video, Defibrillators Web, DefibrillatorsHealth latest, DefibrillatorsHealth Photo, Defibrillatorsover Picture, diet, Drug, eating, Exercise, Exercising for Weight Gallery, Exercising for Weight Health Story, Exercising for Weight Health Photo, Exercising Weight, Exercising Weight Health, Flu, for, gallery, Gym, Health Health, Health Latest, health video, Healthy Minnesota, Healthy Minnesota Asia, Healthy Minnesota Health Story, Healthy Minnesota Photo Gallery, heart, heart failure, heart institute, heart quivers, heart rhythm, heartbeat, history, hundreds of thousands, implantable defibrillators, in, laparoscopy, Malaysia Health, may, medical, nine times, not, Nutrition, of, operation, organic, organs, photo, physical, protect, providence hospital, skin, spiritual, study, substantial evidence, sudden cardiac death, Surgery, symptoms, tips, to, training, university of california san francisco, use implantable, video, video photo, video surgery, virus, web, web Health, web Health picture, weightloss, womenazuan

Defibrillators may not save women, study finds

Despite their widespread use, implantable defibrillators to protect against deadly heart rhythms do not prevent deaths in women with advanced heart failure, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

They said implantable defibrillators — which detect abnormal heart rhythms and offer a life-saving shock to restore a regular heartbeat — do not appear to protect men and women equally.

“There seems to be much less significant benefit” in women, said Dr. Christian Machado of Providence Hospital Heart Institute and Medical Center in Michigan, whose study appears in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

“Implantable cardioverter-defibrillators are being implanted in hundreds of thousands of women without substantial evidence of benefit,” Dr. Rita Redberg of the University of California, San Francisco, wrote in a commentary in the journal.

Nearly 22 million people worldwide suffer from heart failure, a chronic condition in which the heart struggles to pump blood. Heart failure affects about 5.3 million Americans, and nearly half are women.

People with heart failure are six to nine times more likely than most people to suffer sudden cardiac death, a dangerous heart rhythm in which the heart quivers but does not pump blood to the organs. Implantable defibrillators can detect this rhythm and deliver a shock to restore a normal heart beat.

Many clinical trials have found implantable defibrillators save lives and are cost-effective; but too often, the studies are overpopulated with men, Machado said.

He and colleagues searched published clinical trials data on implantable defibrillators from 1950 to 2008.

“Our trials are biased toward males. Seventy to 80 percent are made up of male subjects,” Machado said.

His team analyzed five trials with a total of 934 women with advanced heart failure. None showed defibrillators significantly decreased the rate of death from any cause compared with drug therapy alone.

Among the 3,810 men in the studies, however, there was a significant reduction in the rate of death among those who had a defibrillator.

Machado said many women with heart failure are routinely offered defibrillators to safeguard against sudden cardiac arrest, even though the device may not help them live longer.

He said it would not be ethical to do a randomized clinical trial to prove women do not benefit, but said ongoing studies should be sure to focus on the effects in both men and women.

“We need to do a better job in trials recruiting at least the same amount of women as we do men. We have failed to do that,” he said.

Implantable defibrillators, which cost between $20,000 to $30,000 to implant, represent a $6 billion global market for companies such as Medtronic Inc, Boston Scientific Corp and St. Jude Medical Inc.

Dr. Mark Carlson of medical device maker St. Jude Medical said in a statement that women enrolled in clinical studies evaluating heart failure have tended to be sicker than men in the same studies, and they have tended to be undertreated in general.

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High street pharmacy offers cervical cancer vaccine for £405

High street pharmacy offers cervical cancer vaccine for £405

The Cervarix vaccine which protects against the two strains of humanpapilloma virus responsible for the majority of cases of cervical cancer is available to girls aged between 12 and 18 on the NHS as part of a national vaccination programme.

However older women have been requesting the vaccine from their GPs only to be turned down in most cases. Cervarix and its rival Gardasil are available privately.

Government scientists advised that young girls be offered the vaccine as the virus is transmitted through intimate contact and sex and is less effective in women who have already been exposed to the virus.

Fears have also been raised that women may be given a false sense of security through having had the vaccine and not attend for cervical smear tests in future.

Boots the chemist is offering the service to women aged between 18 and 54 in 134 of its stores in England and Wales following successful pilots in ten stores in London which began in November last year.

Lloydspharmacy also offers the vaccine in almost 300 of its stores.

Women will not be tested to establish if they have already been infected with the HPV strains 16 and 18 which are included in the vaccine and so cannot be sure whether it will offer them substantial benefit.

Evidence considered by the Government advisers on the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation showed that one in ten women aged between 20 and 29 were already infected with HPV strain 16.

In recommending that girls aged 12 be routinely vaccinated with a catchup campaign offering it to all girls aged up to 18, a statement from the JCVI said: “Vaccination of girls above this age was not cost-effective given the assumed cost of vaccine and administration, and the increase in prevalence of previous infection in this age group.”

Sarah Woolnough, Cancer Research UK’s head of policy, said: “The best way that older women can protect themselves against cervical cancer is through the free NHS cervical screening programme, which has saved 100,000 lives since its introduction in 1988.

“We strongly advise all women to attend cervical screening when invited, even if they have had the HPV vaccination.

“We don’t yet know how effective the vaccine is in women who have already come into contact with HPV.”

However Dr Anne Szarewski, clinical consultant at Cancer Research UK’s centre for epidemiology at the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, is backing the Boots programme.

She said the chances of having contracted both strain 16 and 18 were just five per cent.

Dr Szarewski said: “And, even if you do catch HPV then a lot of people – around 50 per cent – will clear it from their bodies and not be immune.

“Even if you have an antibody response, this does not mean you are protected in the future.

“There is no reason why an individual woman should not have this vaccine.”

Dr Graham Marshall, Boots Medical Director, said: “As this vaccination is only available on the NHS through the schools’ vaccination programme, most women above the age of 18 will not be aware that they could benefit from the vaccination. Pharmacists are well placed to offer this service with convenient high street locations and a welcoming, familiar atmosphere.

“Boots pharmacists have undergone comprehensive training – written and agreed by an independent panel of experts – to provide this innovative, patient-led service. The consultation includes advice on sexual health and the importance of regular cervical screening.”

A Department of Health spokesman said: “The NHS runs a free HPV vaccination programme for girls from 12-18 years of age which will save the lives of up to 400 women each year.

“We strongly encourage all women over 25 to be regularly screened to help protect them from cervical cancer.

“Careful consideration was given to vaccinating older women. However, the national HPV vaccine programme aims to protect girls and young women before they are exposed to the human papillomavirus, where research shows that vaccination is most effective. The programme has been a great success with over three quarters of girls aged 12-13 years already having received all three doses of the vaccine.”

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