Heart News
Sugary drinks contribute to millions of heart disease cases
A public health strategy to curb consumption is needed
Sugar-sweetened beverages play a role in causing 2.2 million new diabetes and 1.2 million new cardiovascular disease cases every year, according to a global study published in Nature Medicine.
Developing countries are the most affected. In Latin America and the Caribbean, for instance, sugary drinks are involved in about 24 percent of all new diabetes cases and more than 11 percent of new cardiovascular disease cases. Similarly, in South Africa, 27.6 percent of new diabetes diagnoses and 14.6 percent of new cardiovascular disease cases are attributed to sugary drinks. Diabetes is also a major risk factor for future heart disease, the most common cause of death worldwide.
Sugary beverages lead to increased blood sugar levels while offering little nutritional value, while long-term consumption can cause weight gain and insulin resistance.
“ Sugar-sweetened beverages are heavily marketed and sold in lowand middle-income nations. Not only are these communities consuming harmful products, but they are also often less well equipped to deal with the long-term health consequences,” Dr Dariush Mozaffarian, senior author on the paper and director of the Food is Medicine Institute at the Friedman School at Tufts University in the US, said in a press release.
As a result of their research, the authors are calling for a strategy to reduce consumption of sugary drinks, including public health campaigns, regulation of advertisements, and taxes.
Sex-specific heart disease guidelines can improve diagnosis in women
Personalised approaches lead to improved diagnosis in women
T
he diagnostic guidelines for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy( HCM) are based on male heart features and can miss cases of the disease in women, according to a study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology that also suggests customised diagnosis to make guidelines more effective for females.
HCM is a genetic condition that can thicken the walls of one heart chamber resulting in a reduction in the amount of blood that’ s taken in and pumped out to tissues. Though the condition often doesn’ t lead to significant problems, a minority of people is at risk of heart failure or sudden death.
While doctors typically review several tests to diagnose HCM, they mostly consider the thickness of the left ventricle, or the main pumping chamber, with a threshold of 15 millimetres for every patient. Researchers at University College London, however, have developed a new customised approach that leads to a 20 percent improvement in HCM diagnosis in women by taking into account age, sex and size to determine if the heart muscle is too large.
“ It is clear that this threshold, which is based on the results of studies from the 1970s, needs to be reconsidered. Having the same cut off for everyone regardless of age, sex or size completely ignores the fact that heart wall thickness is strongly influenced by these factors,” Dr Hunain Shiwani, lead researcher at the UCL Institute of Cardiovascular Science, said in a press release.“ Our research provides a long-overdue update, showing that a personalised approach improves the accuracy of diagnosis. Effective treatments for HCM are starting to be used for the first time, making it more important than ever that we can correctly identify those who need them.”
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