Word: heart
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Medical researchers believe they may have found a powerful predictor of heart disease, the health problem with the highest mortality rate in the nation. A study of 5,621 men and women over 65 published in Thursday?s New England Journal of Medicine reveals that the presence of a benign condition known as aortic valve sclerosis may be associated with a 50 percent higher risk of death from heart disease. The finding is significant because the condition, a hardening or thickening of a tiny heart valve, ?is incredibly common among the elderly,? says TIME medical columnist Christine Gorman. About...
...because it prevents the valve from closing properly. ?But sclerosis was thought to be benign because it does not impede the closing of the valve,? says Gorman. The new findings will now prompt further study to determine more precisely why there appears to be an association between sclerosis and heart disease fatalities. It will also prompt doctors to monitor patients with the condition more closely. The new findings, if borne out by further research, could add a potent new tool in the battle against heart disease...
...middle of talks over the Chinese embassy bombing. The State Department quickly declared that the "One China" stopgap was still on. "This is tricky for the U.S.," says Dowell. "They want to support Taiwan?s democratic government and capitalist economy, but this is so dear to China?s heart that jumping in would be very bad for relations." To calm them down, the U.S. might send the communists a reassuring reminder of some truths about democracies: Leaders and their policies change often, and election-year rhetoric is almost always meaningless...
...easy to misdiagnose. "Just because you have a click doesn't make you sick," says Dr. Robert Levine, a cardiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and a co-author of both of last week's reports. Because the mitral valve is shaped like a saddle when the heart is beating--something that Levine discovered 10 years ago--an ultrasound scan can indicate a bulging of the valve where none actually exists. Since then he has determined that the front-to-back view is more reliable than the side-to-side one. (Both views are standard on ultrasound exams...
...brought under control. Even with a recently announced crackdown, travelers are still a good deal safer in the wide-open spaces than in South African cities, where muggings and more violent crimes are rarely out of the news. Despite plans to clean up Johannesburg and revive its commercial heart, the country's northern gateway remains economically distressed. The Carlton, the city's main hotel, closed down last year. To avoid the dangers of the former gold-mining center, many visitors begin their stay instead in the wealthy new Rosebank-Sandton area to the north, which offers luxury hotels, office blocks...