Word: angina
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...physiological effects of smoking marijuana have been as little documented and almost as hotly disputed as the psychological and social results. Two physicians at the Long Beach (Calif.) VA Hospital have now produced some firm data for one class of pot smokers: those with angina pectoris, a condition that causes intervals of intense chest pains. Knowing that smoking any tobacco cigarette (even the nonnicotine variety) hastens the onset of angina in men with coronary-artery disease, Drs. Wilbert S. Aronow and John Cassidy tested ten such volunteers with a marijuana cigarette and a nonmarijuana cigarette. Before smoking, the men exercised...
...according to Dr. Henry Russek, a professor of cardiology at New York Medical College. At a conference on cardiology at the Texas Heart Institute in Houston last week, Russek claimed that drugs and other forms of medical care are far better treatment than surgery for most cases of angina pectoris, the pains arising from the oxygen-starved heart muscle that can be forerunners of heart attacks. Said he: "More lives have been lost through bypass surgery than have been saved...
...than 5%, complications such as myocardial infarction (the classic heart attack), brain damage, hemorrhage, kidney failure or closure of the bypass are not uncommon. Despite these risks, Russek noted the tendency of some doctors to perform the operation as a "preemptive procedure" on patients who have not yet experienced angina or who suffer only mild symptoms...
Changing Life-Style. What bothers Russek the most, however, is the dearth of medical treatment preceding a decision to operate. Russek reviewed the medical treatment that had been given to 200 patients admitted to hospitals for surgery to correct uncontrollable angina. Nearly half had been treated with nothing other than nitroglycerin, a drug used to dilate or expand the arteries. In most of these cases, the drug had been used only to help abort an attack of angina-not to modify the conditions that led to the pain. On the other hand there had been insufficient effort to deal with...
...rush to surgery, Russek feels, is self-destructive; good medical treatment is now available that can control the causes of angina and the crippling heart attacks that often follow. Russek treated one series of 102 patients suffering from severe angina for six years with a special combination of drugs: propranolol (Inderal), a drug that slows down the heart and reduces its need for oxygen, and long-acting nitrates that dilate the blood vessels and increase blood flow to the heart muscle. Only 1.2% of Russek's coronary patients died each year-about the same mortality rate from heart attacks...