Word: heart
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Here's why: Beta-blockers counteract the body's fight-or-flight reactions to stress. More specifically, the drugs block the so-called beta-adrenergic receptors--molecules, found in muscles, that respond to surges of adrenaline. The beta-blockers thus relax the heart, causing it to beat more slowly. This seems like the last thing you would want to do for someone whose heart isn't pumping much blood in the first place...
...turns out, however, that much of the damage caused by congestive heart failure occurs when the body overreacts to the chronic lack of blood. It responds by pumping out more and more adrenaline, which forces the ailing heart to work ever harder. Beta-blockers interrupt this destructive cycle, allowing the heart to stabilize...
Researchers hope it won't take too long to convince doctors that they can safely prescribe beta-blockers for congestive heart failure. "Fewer than 5% of these patients are now on beta-blockers," says Dr. Milton Packer, professor of medicine at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City. "But if we could get 75% to 90% of them on the drugs, we'd be saving tens of thousands of lives...
...fatigue, insomnia and, in men, impotence. Physicians must start the patient on low doses to allow the body to adapt to the medication. They must monitor the patient closely, at least in the first few weeks, for signs of overdose. The drugs cannot be taken by people with severe heart failure or asthma. Nor are they appropriate for folks whose heart condition is a result of valve disease. Even certain over-the-counter medications, such as Tagamet, can interfere with their action. But many patients whose lives have been constrained and threatened by congestive heart failure will probably agree that...
What would Dracula say? The thickness of arterial walls in the neck may be a more powerful predictor of heart attack and stroke for elderly folks than high blood pressure or cholesterol, scientists reported last week. The walls of the carotid arteries can be easily viewed with a $250 sonogram...