It's hard to imagine cutting out anything as small as a half-teaspoon of anything in your daily diet would make an impact on your health as great as reducing your risk of heart attack or even death. As we've observed time and again in this space, however, making the simplest changes -- like eating foods more slowly -- can have a huge impact on your health for the positive.

That's why we're far less skeptical than some of you may be about the impact of reducing your salt intake by just a half-teaspoon, based on the results culled from the Coronary Heart Disease Policy Model, a digital simulation of heart disease among adults used by scientists to predict the benefits derived from making changes to the collective diets of Americans.

Saving the lives of some 92,000 Americans and preventing nearly 100,000 heart attacks, merely by reducing one's salt intake by 3 grams isn't just the healthy thing to do (although it's comparable to the effect of quitting smoking). The projected savings to the nation's spiraling-out-of-control health care tab by reducing salt alone may save as much as $24 BILLION.

If you like to add salt liberally to your foods, this single change should be a fairly easy one to make. Making this change may be a bit tricky for some folks, however, who don't add salt to anything (that's me). For example, an average 14-ounce can of green beans contains nearly 1,300 mg of salt.

All the more reason for me and you to pay closer attention to nutritional labels, particularly the salt that hides in processed foods.

New England Journal of Medicine January 20, 2010 Free Full Text Study

EurekAlert January 20, 2010

Last month in this space, we told you about the fight many childhood cancer survivors may face with heart disease as they mature into adulthood. Evidently, the reverse may be true as well, specifically for patients undergoing heart transplants who have a greater risk of skin cancer.

Although it's no secret organ transplant recipients cope with a greater risk of skin cancers, Mayo Clinic researchers learned heart transplant patients are at least twice as likely to tackle skin cancer issues compared to those who receive new kidneys.

Based on health reviews of 312 heart transplant patients, nearly half developed skin cancer over the course of the 19-year study. Additionally, the incidence of squamous-cell carcinoma after the diagnosis of the first basal-cell carcinoma (the most common form of nonmelanoma skin cancer and the most easily treated one) was nearly 100 percent, within seven years. The primary culprits for this growing risk: The older age of the patient and the immunosuppressant drugs heart transplant patients take to prevent their bodies from rejecting their new organs.

Surprisingly, however, the mortality rate associated with skin cancer among transplant patients was very, very low: Only one transplant patient died from skin cancer.

Archives of Dermatology, Vol. 145, No. 12, pp. 1391-1396, December 2009

heartwire December 29, 2009

ScienceDaily December 24, 2009

Shortly after the release of a stinging study linking the presence of Bisphenol A (BPA) to an elevated risk of heart disease among Americans, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has allotted $30 million to study the health effects of this common, and quite possibly, very harmful chemical used in the production of baby bottles, water bottles and plastic food containers.

In fact, this latest study merely confirmed the findings of earlier research released two years ago by the same team of British scientists who discovered a connection between elevated urinary BPA concentrations and adverse health problems in adults related to obesity, diabetes, liver function and insulin.

Although urinary concentrations of BPA among Americans for the latest study had dropped by nearly a third compared to the previous report, those levels were still linked to a higher prevalence of heart disease among some 3,000 adults (ages 18-74). To put the numbers into perspective, a 60-year-old male whose BPA levels were in the top third has a 10 percent risk of having heart disease.

Despite the dose of reality delivered across the pond from UK researchers, the FDA still supports -- for now -- the use of BPA in bottles, deputy commissioner Dr. Joshua Sharfstein says, "because the benefit of nutrition outweighs the potential risks of BPA." Still, big business has already paid attention to this take-home message long before the feds: Ninety percent of the baby bottles now produced for the American market contain no BPA.

PLOS One January 13, 2010 Free Full Text Study

ScienceDaily January 13, 2010

WebMD January 12, 2010

healthfinder.gov January 15, 2010

Prostate cancer is the most common form of cancer experienced by American men, other than skin cancer, according to the American Cancer Society. And, even though some 16 percent of all men (close to one out of every six) will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lifetimes and it is the second leading cancer-related deaths, only one of every 35 will die from it.

Sounds like reasonably good odds and not particularly deadly ones either, especially if you take care of your health and get the right amount of exercise. So why does the stress of receiving such a diagnosis put male patients at greater risk of cardiovascular problems and suicide?

A study of nearly 169,000 Swedish men culled from the Swedish Cancer Registry from 1961-2004 discovered patients prior to 1987 were 11 times more likely to experience a fatal cardiovascular event during the initial week after being told about their prostate cancer diagnosis. Over a year's time, prostate cancer patients were twice as likely to have a heart attack. Thankfully, those numbers dropped significantly after 1987 to just triple the risk of a cardiovascular event during the first week after a diagnosis, compared to healthy men, and a constant, but slightly elevated risk during the first year after a diagnosis.

And, although the risk of suicide was very tiny (136 patients took their lives during the study), the greatest danger for men came during the first week after a diagnosis.

Just another reason the proper care and handling of emotions is an important part of any cancer survivor's tool kit.

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PLOS Medicine December 15, 2009 Free Full Text Study

Natural News.com December 29, 2009

Yahoo News December 15, 2009

A pair of recent studies about the benefits of chocolate should make chocoholics worldwide a lot happier and their hearts, perhaps, a little healthier.

In one study, Spanish researchers studied the effect of flavonoid-rich chocolate supplements on 42 seniors (average age 70) who were at an elevated risk or had a history of coronary heart disease (CHD) in their families. Patients received either a daily dose of skim milk or skim milk plus cocoa powder containing proanthocyanidins, a beneficial class of flavanols for four weeks, then switched treatments for the same duration.

At least two molecular biomarkers responsible for promoting inflammation in blood vessels were found in far lower levels among patients following the consumption of skim milk enriched with the cocoa powder than after drinking skim milk alone. In fact, these results led researchers to speculate that regular nutritional doses of cocoa may be beneficial to high-risk CHD patients.

In the latter report, Swedish scientists tracked some 1,170 nondiabetic men and women after suffering an initial heart attack, with questionnaires asking patients about their consumption of chocolate over the previous year. After being discharged from hospitals, researchers monitored their collective health for eight more years.

Interestingly, the amount of chocolate patients consumed each month was linked to a reduced risk of death from heart disease by as much as 66 percent among folks who ate it twice or more each week. The bottom line: Based on data culled from other research, a co-author of the study believes chocolate may lower a patient's blood pressure.

American Journal of Clinical Nutrition September 23, 2009

ConfectionaryNews.com September 29, 2009

Journal of Internal Medicine, Vol. 266, No. 3, pp. 248-257, September 2009

New York Times September 14, 2009 Subscription Required

The surgical options of Baby Boomers may sharply decline over the next 15 years, thanks to a severe shortage of cardiothoracic surgeons coupled with a health demands of a growing, aging population, according to a new study.

Simply put, experts believe a boom in retirements -- the number of Americans turning age 65 will double to 70 million over the next two decades -- will coincide with a diminishing supply of physicians -- a minimum 21 percent drop in the number of available heart surgeons -- by 2025, creating an increased demand for surgeons nearing 50 percent.

Why the shortfall? Medical residents with training in cardiothoracic surgery had difficulty finding jobs as the number of heart bypass surgeries dropped by 28 percent and the use of stints -- procedures done by cardiologists -- dramatically increased by 121 percent.

Even worse, an immediate increase in cardiothoracic professionals wouldn't be enough to prevent a dire shortage, taking into account the anticipated increase in patients over age 65, because it takes a decade of training to become a cardiothoracic surgeon.

Circulation, Vol. 120, No. 6, pp. 488-494, August 11, 2009

healthfinder.gov July 28, 2009

heartwire July 27, 2009