Word: blood
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...first clue is often the catastrophe itself: a fatal heart attack. But the events that set the stage for disaster, like those preceding an earthquake, have been occurring for years beneath the surface, painless and unnoticed. The culprit is silent ischemia, an intermittent interruption of blood flow to the heart, which kills tens of thousands of seemingly healthy Americans each year. Doctors estimate that the condition, undetected, exists in an additional 3 million to 4 million people known to have heart disease and further increases the likelihood they will suffer a heart attack...
Ischemia occurs when coronary arteries partly clogged with fatty deposits of plaque suddenly contract in spasms or are blocked by a clot, depriving the heart muscle of blood and thus oxygen. While painful or "noisy" ischemia (angina) often results from physical stress, like climbing stairs, even slight exertions, like balancing a checkbook, can trigger silent ischemia. During these episodes, which typically last a few minutes but can go on for ten hours, large portions of heart muscle can be damaged. Yet in more than 75% of all cases, for still unknown reasons, the victim feels no pain...
Then how is silent ischemia diagnosed? Doctors can detect attacks by monitoring electrical signals from their patients' hearts during exercise stress tests; a sudden decrease in blood flow to the muscle changes the signal. The condition can then be confirmed by a Holter monitor, a portable electrocardiograph worn by the patient for at least 24 hours...
...still a school of thought that believes, 'No pain, no worry,' " says Peter Cohn, chief of cardiology at the State University of New York's Health Sciences Center at Stony Brook. He recommends annual testing only for people who are at risk because of diabetes, smoking, high cholesterol, high blood pressure or a family history of heart disease. Healthy people not at risk probably should not be concerned, he says. Men at risk should begin testing between the ages of 35 and 40; women...
...AIDS were already under way before Koop's report. Last spring, after a student and staff member in two public schools were diagnosed as having AIDS, Boston prepared a 28-minute AIDS videotape filled with medical facts but also polite circumlocutions, including the message that AIDS spreads through blood and semen and "intimate sexual contact." For Boston, that was a shift. "Look, ten years ago, you couldn't even mention intimate sexual contact in this town," says Michael Grady, medical director for the Boston public schools. Grady's defense of the vagueness: "We'd rather do a little education than...