Although Americans are suffering fewer heart attacks, the rate is dramatically increasing among those under 40.

In fact, 20% of people who have a heart attack are 40 or younger, a rate that has risen 2% a year for 10 years, new research reports.

Moving in the wrong direction

Some of these people are now in their 20s and early 30s, said senior study author Dr Ron Blankstein, a cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He said it used to be “incredibly rare” to see anyone under age 40 with a heart attack.

“Based on what we are seeing, it seems that we are moving in the wrong direction,” he said.

These young heart attack victims also have the same risks of dying from another heart attack or stroke as older patients.

“Even if you’re in your 20s or 30s, once you’ve had a heart attack, you’re at risk for more cardiovascular events and you have just as much risk as someone who may be older than you,” Blankstein said.

Risk factors such as diabetes, high blood pressure, smoking, family history of premature heart attack and high cholesterol were the same among older and young people who suffered a heart attack, researchers found.

Younger patients drank less alcohol but were more likely to be substance abusers – 18% used marijuana and 9% used cocaine.

Aggressive treatment

For the study, Blankstein and colleagues collected data on close to 2 100 patients under age 50 admitted to two hospitals for heart attacks.

“Many people think that a heart attack is destined to happen, but the vast majority could be prevented with earlier detection of the disease and aggressive lifestyle changes and management of other risk factors,” Blankstein said

To protect yourself, he recommends avoiding tobacco, getting regular exercise, eating a heart-healthy diet, losing weight if you need to, managing your blood pressure and cholesterol, avoiding diabetes, and staying away from cocaine and marijuana.

In a related study, Blankstein’s team found that one in five patients who suffer a heart attack before age 50 also have diabetes. Diabetics are more likely to have repeated heart attacks and die from a heart attack than other people.

These patients need aggressive treatment, Blankstein said. Some diabetes medications can reduce heart attack risk, he added.

The findings are to be presented March 17 at the American College of Cardiology’s annual meeting in New Orleans. Research presented at meetings is considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

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Hookah users inhale high levels of toxic chemicals that endanger the heart and blood vessels.

That’s the stark warning in a new American Heart Association (AHA) scientific statement.

Impact on heart rate and blood pressure

A single half-hour session of smoking tobacco in a hookah typically exposes the user to more carbon monoxide than a single cigarette. Even short-term exposure to carbon monoxide in the water pipes is toxic and can reduce exercise capacity, according to the statement published in the journal Circulation.

Hookah smoke also contains other potentially harmful chemicals that can affect the heart and blood vessels, authors of the statement said. Those chemicals include nicotine, air pollutants, particulate matter, volatile organic chemicals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, acrolein, lead, cadmium and arsenic. Levels of most are higher in hookah smoke than cigarette smoke.

“Hookah smoke contains harmful substances and the American Heart Association strongly recommends avoiding the use of tobacco in any form,” said Aruni Bhatnagar, chairman of the group that wrote the scientific statement. He’s director of the University of Louisville Diabetes and Obesity Center.

Hookah smoking addictive

Evidence that hookah smoking has a serious impact on heart rate and blood pressure is mounting, and chronic use has been linked to an increased risk of coronary artery disease.

“Many young people mistakenly believe that smoking tobacco from a hookah is less harmful than cigarette smoking because the tobacco is filtered through water, but there is no scientific evidence that supports that claim,” Bhatnagar said in an AHA news release.

“However, there is evidence to suggest that hookah smoking is addictive and can lead to the use of other tobacco products such as cigarettes,” he said.

Nearly 5% of high school students and close to 14% of 18- to 24-year-olds in the United States use hookahs, recent surveys suggest. Young adults account for 55% of hookah smokers nationwide.

Hookah use is also associated with an increased likelihood of smoking cigarettes.

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The campaign is a “danger to public health” as it encourages people to eat more, says MP Tom Watson.

A growing number of US children are being diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

But parents shouldn’t be too quick to get their child checked for ADHD, a child expert says.

“The key to determining if your child has the disorder is the consistent demonstration of at least six specific traits for a minimum of six months, and in two settings such as at home and at school,” said Ronald Brown.

“Also, the traits must be impairing how your child functions, and cause him or her to fall behind the normal development for his or her age,” he added.

Brown is dean of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas’ School of Allied Health Sciences.

People with ADHD have a number of traits within three main symptom categories: inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity.

“Some people have problems within one of the groups and others exhibit characteristics within two or three,” Brown said.

Traits within the inattention symptom group may include: disorganisation; difficulty paying attention to details and a tendency to make careless mistakes; trouble staying on topic while talking, not listening to others, not following social rules; being easily distracted by things such as unimportant noises usually ignored by others.

Traits within the hyperactivity symptom group may include: fidgeting and squirming when seated; getting up frequently to walk or run around; running or climbing frequently at inappropriate times; and having trouble playing quietly.

Traits within the impulsivity symptom group may include: having a hard time waiting for a turn; blurting out answers before someone finishes asking a question; frequently interrupting or intruding on others; starting conversations at inappropriate times.

“Many of these symptoms happen from time to time in all youngsters, and sometimes among adults,” Brown said in a university news release.

“The difference between an active, imaginative child and one diagnosed with ADHD is functional impairment. Those with the disorder may have consistently poor academic performance, trouble interacting with peers and friends, and even challenges at home,” he explained.

Among American kids aged 4 to 17, there was a 42% increase in ADHD diagnoses between 2003 and 2011, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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It’s not just lack of sleep and poor sleep that can put the heart at risk – getting to bed on time may also matter, new research suggests.

The new study took the unique approach of looking at how much night-to-night difference a person had in sleep duration and what time he or she fell asleep. People with irregular sleep patterns had a higher risk for a cardiovascular event, including stroke, congestive heart failure and coronary heart disease, the study found.

Sleep-monitoring wrist devices

“Sleep regularity is an understudied area with critical relevance to everyone. Understanding its relationship with cardiovascular disease has important public health implications and may identify novel strategies for cardiovascular disease prevention,” said Tianyi Huang, lead author of the study presented this week at the American Heart Association’s Epidemiology and Prevention/Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Health Scientific Sessions in Houston.

Researchers looked at data from nearly 2 000 people without cardiovascular disease at the start of the study. Participants wore sleep-monitoring wrist devices for seven-day periods from 2010 to 2013 and were followed for an average of four years. During that time, 95 people experienced or died from a stroke, heart failure or heart disease.

After adjusting for various factors, researchers found that people whose night-to-night sleep length during a seven-day period varied by more than two hours on average were 2.2 times more likely to have a cardiovascular event than people whose sleep length varied by an hour or less.

The time they fell asleep each night had a similar impact. Compared to people who went to bed within the same 30-minute window each night, those with a bedtime that varied by more than 90 minutes had double the risk of a cardiovascular event.

Digital distraction may be making the problem worse. Spending a lot of time staring at smartphones, tablets and other glowing screens could be messing with our sleep regularity, said Huang, an associate epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

“If our results are confirmed, the general public – particularly those at high risk for cardiovascular disease – needs to pay more attention to their sleep schedules,” he said. “People should be encouraged to reduce use of mobile devices or TV viewing before sleep to improve sleep regularity and maximise cardiometabolic benefits.”

A state of ‘jetlag’

Huang said the study is the first of its kind and called for larger studies with longer follow-ups, especially those that explore gender and age differences. He said studies are needed that focus on how irregular sleep is related to specific cardiovascular outcomes.

“I think it’s important for doctors to ask their patients about their sleep habits beyond the number of hours of sleep they get at night,” said sleep and nutrition researcher Marie-Pierre St-Onge. “Questions like, ‘How stable is your sleep?’ and ‘Do you have wide swings in the duration of sleep?’ would help to identify areas for improvement.”

St-Onge, an associate professor of nutritional medicine at Columbia University in New York City, was not involved in the new research and said the study seems to confirm that people with poor sleep habits can’t simply “catch up” on sleep.

“You can make an analogy between sleep and physical activity, where you have ‘weekend warriors’ who are absolutely sedentary during the week and then they hammer out two hours of physical activity in one day and think they’ll be fine. That’s not what we recommend, and it’s the same with sleep,” she said. “For optimal health, there has to be regularity to these behaviours, and that includes sleep.”

Another issue is that big changes in sleep timing can lead to a state of jetlag – referred to as “social jetlag” – without people even realising it.

“People might not have outward signs – they might not even feel sleepy or yawn, just like people don’t feel it if they have high blood pressure or high cholesterol levels. But the risk factor is still there,” she said. “People need to pay more attention and be more aware of the adverse impact poor sleep is having.”

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High levels of harmful bacteria found in many raw meat dog foods may be dangerous for more than just Fido, a new study suggests.

Not only can these foods put a dog at risk, but people who live with that dog, particularly the elderly, young and immunocompromised, are vulnerable, scientists say.

Harmful pathogens in raw food

“This research offers further compelling evidence to support vets’ concerns about the potential animal and public health risks associated with feeding pets a raw meat-based diet,” said veterinarian Dr Daniella Dos Santos. She is junior vice president of the British Veterinary Association.

“Bacteria such as E. coli and salmonella can cause significant gastrointestinal disease in animals,” Dos Santos explained.

“Pets can also shed potentially harmful pathogens present in raw food into their environment, so there is a risk to owners both in handling the food and coming into contact with the animal. Pet owners who choose to feed a raw food diet should be aware of the potential health risks and take full precautions while storing and handling the food,” she warned.

Raw meat-based diets have become popular for dogs in recent years. Unlike commercial dog foods, raw meat products are not heat-treated or freeze-dried to pasteurise their contents.

Researchers led by Dr Ingrid Hansson, from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala, Sweden, analysed samples from 60 packs of raw meat products for dogs. The food came from 10 different manufacturers in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany or England. The products contained either uncooked meat and/or edible bones and/or organs from cattle, chicken, lamb, turkeys, pigs, ducks, reindeer or salmon.

Dangers of E. coli

The samples were checked for bacteria that could potentially pose a health risk to animals and people: Enterobacteriaceae species; Clostridium perfringens, salmonella and campylobacter species.

All 60 samples contained Enterobacteriaceae species, which are indicators of faecal contamination. Levels varied, but 31 (52%) of the samples had levels above the European Union (EU) maximum of 5 000 bacteria per gram.

Most of the species detected in the samples are not known to cause infection, but E. coli – found in a third of the samples – does produce infection.

Another marker of faecal contamination and hygiene standards, C. perfringens, was found in 18 samples (30%). Two of the samples exceeded the maximum limits set by Swedish guidelines.

Salmonella and campylobacter bacteria can be passed from animals to people and cause infection. EU regulations don’t permit salmonella in any animal food.

But the researchers found salmonella in four (7%) of the samples, and campylobacter species were found in three samples from three different manufacturers.

Risk of antibiotic resistance

The study was published online in the journal Vet Record.

Raw meat dog food should be: kept frozen until use, and thawed at 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius); kept separate from other food; and handled with separate kitchen equipment or with equipment that is washed thoroughly after use, the researchers advised.

Never let dogs lick people’s faces immediately after they eat raw meat dog food. Also, don’t give dogs raw meat products it they’re being given antibiotics, because this could increase the risk of antibiotic resistance.

“Dogs in families with infants, elderly people or immunocompromised individuals should also not be fed [raw meat products], as these groups are more susceptible to infections,” Hansson’s team wrote.

The British Veterinary Association also does not recommend making a raw food diet at home without veterinary guidance due to the potential for nutritional deficiencies in homemade diets, Dos Santos said.

“We would advise any owner wanting to try a raw meat-based diet for their pet to first consult a veterinary surgeon,” she said in a journal news release.

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An egg allergy is no joke, but some children who have it could safely eat eggs after immunotherapy treatment, a new study claims.

“Egg allergy is one of the most common food allergies and usually appears in early childhood. It has significant risk for severe allergic reactions and negatively affects quality of life for children with the allergy,” said first author Dr Edwin Kim, director of the Food Allergy Initiative at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Though the allergy seems to go away with age, it can last into the second decade of life.

“Any treatment that can allow the introduction of egg into the diet of someone with egg allergy provides nutritional benefits and peace of mind for the patient and their family,” Kim said.

This study included 5- to 11-year-olds who were allergic to egg. Forty received egg oral immunotherapy (eOIT) treatment for up to four years; 15 received a placebo.

After patients completed eOIT, they were told to add concentrated egg (scrambled, fried or boiled) and/or baked egg (eggs used in cookies or a cake, for example) into their diet. For five years, they reported how much egg they ate and in what form, and how they felt afterward.

At the end of eOIT, half of the participants had sustained unresponsiveness (SU) to eggs, meaning eggs did not provoke an allergic reaction. Twenty-eight percent were desensitised, meaning they could eat about 2 teaspoons of pure egg without reaction, and 22% were not desensitized.

SU patients could eat both both baked and concentrated egg, while others had a higher risk of allergy symptoms.

“These results further support the effectiveness of eOIT as a safe way of desensitising children and youth with egg allergy,” Kim said in a university news release.

“Past research also suggests that eating egg may actually shorten the amount of time a patient has the allergy, so any amount of egg that is incorporated into an allergy patient’s diet is helpful.”

The study was presented recently at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology annual meeting in San Francisco.

Research presented at meetings is typically considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

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A study finds the bacteria and viruses in the nose could give clues to improve the diagnosis.

Nitrogen in rain and snow falls to the ground where, in theory, it is used by forest plants and microbes. New research by a scientific collaboration led by the USDA Forest Service shows that more nitrogen from rain and snow is making it to more streams than previously believed and flowing downstream in forests of the United States and Canada. The study, “Unprocessed atmospheric nitrate in waters of the Northern Forest Region in the USA and Canada,” was published this week in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

Making a revolutionary biosensor takes blood, sweat and tears. And saliva, naturally.