Other factors—or, more precisely, markers—may be related to CHD, although there isn’t as much evidence yet to support their role as independent risks as there is for the ones discussed so far. They include: Low magnesium. When researchers at the Centers...
Fibrinogen is a protein that helps your blood clot (picture the fibers in a cloth soaking up liquid). That’s a good thing unless, as too often happens, you wind up with too much of a good thing. Then fibrinogen plays a...
An increasing body of evidence suggests that high levels of iron may explain several heart disease anomalies. For instance, men who regularly donate blood (and thus rid themselves of iron) have a lower risk of heart disease, as do premenopausal women,...
High cholesterol is usually tied to lifestyle, genetic factors, or a combination of the two. But there are other causes. One explanation for high cholesterol that isn’t attributable to lifestyle is hypothyroidism, or an underactive thyroid gland. Now comes research that...
You’ve probably heard of gout. It’s caused by the buildup of uric acid, a by-product of the breakdown of purines (components in many foods we eat), Over time an elevated uric acid level leads to the formation of needle-like crystals in...
Blood pressure is the force of blood against the walls of your arteries. The more forceful it is—the higher it is—the more likely it is that the walls of your arteries will women who are depressed have a risk of dying...
Blood pressure is the force of blood against the walls of your arteries. The more forceful it is—the higher it is—the more likely it is that the walls of your arteries will enter cells. The body tries to compensate by churning...
Few conditions sound as mysterious as the one often called Syndrome X. What is it, and why should you care? During the groundbreaking Framingham Heart Study, when the link between high cholesterol and heart attack risk became clear, researchers noticed a...
When Kilmer § MeOully, M.D., first proposed a link between levels of an amino acid nd heart disease in 1969, the medical community largely ignored him. But four decades and hundreds of studies later, that corununity is int linking high levels...
Since bacteria, VITUses, and other germs are a common cause of inflammation mn general (think about the white blood cells the body dispatches to fight an infection), researchers have begun investigating a possible link between germs and heart disease. Same of...
