Brittany Murphy Died of a Heart Attack?!

Be careful what you read!! Many people are being misled by the media when they read that this young 32-year-old actress died of a heart attack. For people who actually have heart disease, you should know a little bit more than the lay person off the street! For instance, most people think that a heart attack must be caused by plaque blockages in the arteries (also called Coronary Artery Disease). It is highly unlikely that the young actress had blockages in her arteries. The most likely scenario is that something else caused her heart to have an electrical problem called “cardiac arrest.”

Cardiac arrest is a completely different problem than what most people call a heart attack. A heart attack with blockages in the arteries CAN cause cardiac arrest and death. However, a person can have cardiac arrest without ever having blockages in their arteries. So, don’t be fooled by the media when you hear that a young, healthy person like Brittany Murphy died of a heart attack. Reportedly, the autopsy results are pending a drug screen so this may in fact be a similar case to Michael Jackson and NOT Tim Russert.

The Book is Fully Available!

What To Do When You Have Heart Disease is now fully available for ordering! Soft cover copies are $15.95 plus shipping. You can order a copy through the following link:

iUniverse Ordering Website

E-Book is Now Available!

The electronic version of What To Do When You Have Heart Disease is now available online! Click on the link below to order:

Book Details

Save Money on Your Medicines!

I briefly discussed in my book some ways to save money on your heart medicines. For instance, you might be able to spend less money if you get your prescriptions from more than one place. I'd like to show you all an example of how this works. In this example, I am using pricing options through United Health Care insurance for Medco Mail Order Pharmacy versus Walmart. This means that the person HAS health insurance and is getting their medicines ONLY from mail order or Walmart. The prices are also listed for 90 day supply.


Plavix 75mg prices: Medco $50, Walmart $75
Metoprolol 25mg twice a day prices: Medco $9.38, Walmart $10
Simvastatin 40mg prices: Medco $20, Walmart $48.88
Lisinopril 5mg prices: Medco $20, Walmart $10

Adding up these prices, it would cost $99.38 per 90 days receiving all the pills from Medco only and $143.88 picking them up at Walmart only. However, if you use Medco for ordering the Plavix, Metoprolol and Simvastatin but picked up your Lisinopril at Walmart, you'd be saving $10! That $10 would pay for another 90 days of lisinopril at Walmart!

Another option is to ask your cardiologist if you could substitute Pravastatin for Simvastatin and pick it up at Walmart for only $10. There are so many ways to save money but you have to do the research and work with your cardiologist for the best substitutes. I know it is not an easy task to work out the cheapest solution but I am happy to help you out if you have any questions! :-)

Heart Healthy Christmas Gift Ideas

There are plenty of great gifts available for patients with heart disease. From clothing that supports finding a cure to gift baskets to low-sodium foods. Some of my favorite ideas include a gift certificate to the local cardiac rehab facility or a freshly made meal by a specialty catering store that is low fat and low calorie. Below I've posted some links to websites which offer some new and interesting ideas for specialty gifts:

Heart Disease Clothing
Heart Disease Gift Baskets
Heart Healthy Food Store Website
Healthy Heart Meals Delivered

Of course, an informative book about heart disease is a must-have as well. Unfortunately, What To Do When You Have Heart Disease will probably not be available until just after Christmas. But keep it in mind for January when everyone is vowing to keep their New Year's resolutions!

Stress and Heart Disease

Are you feeling the stress of the economy, the holidays, work and family? Around this time of year we all feel a little more pressure than usual to get things done on time and economically. You may be wondering though if the stress is too much for your heart! What exactly are the facts about how stress effects your heart? It may not be quite what you are expecting...

Physicians and scientists have hypothesized for many years that stress can play a big role in heart attacks. However, where are all the studies to support this? There have been a few over the past 30 years but the most recent study was done in London in 2008. It showed that chronic work stress can significantly increase the risk of heart disease in people younger than age 50. One of the important things to note from the study is that a person's risk was MOST significantly increased when the stress made them prone to bad behaviors such as smoking, lack of exercise and increased alcohol intake.

The bottom line is that we need more studies to support the reduction of stress in high risk people. If you have a hard time de-stressing, especially during the holidays, just remember the more important things to do are avoid the bad behaviors and KEEP EXERCISING!

Breaking New Study May Help To Reduce Heart Damage

Scientists in Canada are conducting ground-breaking new studies for heart disease using injections of a substance derived from a virus. It sounds insane to inject something that was made by a virus but their logic is very reasonable. Remember that some of the regular vaccines most people receive are composed of live viruses! The substance for this heart study is called VT-111 and it has been shown in animal studies to delay or prevent inflammation in the blood vessels. Heart attacks and Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS) are caused by the body's inflammatory response to an injury in the heart arteries.

The scientists tested VT-111 on a small group of patients and found that the injections were helpful in some respects. When a patient has a heart attack, the heart sends out chemicals in the blood suggesting that the heart is being damaged (Troponin and CK-MB). The levels of these chemicals were significantly reduced in the patients receiving the injections. Based on this study, the scientists feel that VT-111 may help to reduce heart damage for patients with heart attacks or ACS in the future! If further studies support these results, VT-111 may certainly be viewed as a novel idea that could bring some big changes to heart disease treatment in the future!

Don’t Give Up On Your Statin! It May Prevent Gallstones As Well As Heart Disease!

A new study published in the November issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that long-term statin use may prevent the need for gallstone surgery. Statins include Liptor, Zocor (simvastatin) and Crestor. Most heart disease patients take a daily dose of statins to reduce the risk of heart attack or death from heart disease. Apparently statins have a newly discovered side effect of preventing progression of gallstones. When a person develops too many gallstones they may need to have their gallbladder removed in the future. In other words, taking a statin everyday may help to reduce your risk of having belly surgery in addition to lowering the risk of heart attack! Anything that keeps you out of the hospital is an important part of staying healthy! So if you want to avoid going under the knife, take your cholesterol medicine everyday!