Healthwrap: Grape Pulp Helps Heart

By ALEX CUKAN

The flesh of grapes is equally cardioprotective as the skin of grapes, according researchers at the University Of Connecticut School Of Medicine, the University of Milan and several other research institutes in Italy.

The study, published in the American Chemical Society Journal of Agricultural & Food Chemistry, found evidence that the pulp of grapes appears just as heart-healthy in laboratory experiments as the grape skin.

Past studies indicated that the cardioprotective compounds in grapes — polyphenolic antioxidants — reside in the skin and seeds. Grape skins, which contain purple pigment, are crushed with the pulp to make red wines. The study challenges the idea that red wine is more heart-healthy than white wine.

— Nearly 40 percent of U.S. workers experience fatigue, a problem that carries billions of dollars in costs from lost productivity.

Judith A. Ricci of Caremark in Hunt Valley, Md., analyzed data from a nationwide study of the relationship between health and productivity at work.

Of the nearly 29,000 employed adults interviewed, 38 percent said they had experienced low levels of energy, poor sleep, or a feeling of fatigue during the past two weeks.

With adjustment for other factors, fatigue was more common in women than men, in workers less than 50 years old, and in white workers compared with African-Americans.

Workers with high-control jobs — relatively better-paid jobs with decision-making responsibility — also reported higher rates of fatigue, according to the study published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

— The mini-Maze is a minimally invasive version of the Cox-Maze procedure that scars the heart for those with atrial fibrillation.

Dr. Richard Lee, a Saint Louis University School of Medicine cardiac surgeon, is one of only a handful in the country to perform the mini-Maze, which is for patients with non-continuous atrial fibrillation.

Atrial fibrillation is a condition that occurs when the upper and lower chambers of the heart begin beating at mismatched rhythms. Left untreated, it increases the risk of stroke and can lead to long-term heart failure.

With the help of micro-miniature television cameras, surgeons ablate — or destroy tissue by burning it — and electrically isolate the pulmonary veins, where the triggers that activate atrial fibrillation are located.

— The advice of U.S. newspaperman Horace Greeley to Go west, young man a century ago may have been good advice — the death rate from cardiovascular disease in Canada is highest in Newfoundland and Labrador and lowest in British Columbia.

In fact, the further east in Canada a person lives, the greater the chance of dying of heart disease, according to the Canadian Cardiovascular Atlas, a project of the Canadian Cardiovascular Outcomes Research Team.

The Atlas also found that, across Canada, deaths from heart disease are highest in rural areas of Canada and lowest in major urban centers.

Close to half of the regional variation can be attributed to a greater prevalence of risk factors for heart disease, such as smoking, poor diet, lack of exercise and obesity, according Dr. Jack Tu, Atlas editor at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Toronto.

— A review by the Ohio State University Medical Center found that birth-control pills have little, if any, effect on a woman’s sex drive.

Dr. Jonathan Schaffir, an obstetrician and gynecologist with the medical center, reviewed more than 25 years’ worth of studies, examining the relationship between oral contraceptives and libido.

Based on the review of studies from 1975 to 2004, Schaffir found that only a small minority of oral-contraceptive users experienced a negative effect on sexuality.

The findings are published in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy.