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The number of heart disease deaths in American women is decreasing, according to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health. Newly analyzed data show that the number of women who die from heart disease has shifted from 1 in 3 women to 1 in 4—a decrease of nearly 17,000 deaths from 2003 to 2004.
“We have much to celebrate with the release of this data,” said NHLBI Director Elizabeth G. Nabel, M.D., in making the Feb. 1, 2007, announcement. “It is very good news indeed. To see such a significant reduction in deaths underscores that the efforts of many individuals and organizations to raise awareness, improve treatment and access, and inspire women to take action are truly saving lives.”
NHLBI experts analyzed preliminary data for 2004, the most recent year for which data are available. This analysis showed that the last few years in particular have seen a steady decline in the number of heart disease deaths in women—deaths have gone down in each of the five years from 2000 to 2004, a consecutive yearly decline that has not occurred previously. Furthermore, in 2004, life expectancy at birth reached an all-time high for women: 80.4 years. “The steady decline in heart disease mortality has certainly contributed to this trend,” said Nabel.
Additionally, significant progress has been made in increasing awareness among women that heart disease is their leading killer—up from 34 percent in 2000 to 55 percent in 2005.
“We are confident that recent advancements in the women and heart disease movement have helped to propel this change,” said Nabel. “More women are aware that heart disease is their leading killer, and research shows that this heightened awareness is leading them to take action to reduce their risk. They are more likely to step up their physical activity, eat healthier, and lose weight.”
Despite this progress, challenges remain, Nabel said. Heart disease continues to be the leading killer of women, yet many women still do not take heart disease seriously or personally, and millions have one or more of the risk factors that can dramatically increase their risk of developing the condition. And, by just about any measure—from awareness of risks, to prevalence of risk factors, to numbers of deaths—heart disease remains more serious among women of color.
“Our goal continues to be achieving even greater awareness and contributing to the trend of steady decline in deaths,” said Nabel.
Some risk factors, such as age and a family history of early heart disease, can’t be changed. Women can, however, control certain risk factors, such as high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, diabetes, smoking, being overweight or obese, and being physically inactive. Eighty percent of midlife women, ages 40 to 60, have one or more of these risk factors. Having even one risk factor doubles a woman’s chance of developing heart disease, and having three or more risk factors increases the risk tenfold.
Nabel announced the study results at the Red Dress Collection Fashion Show in New York City, an annual event that seeks to increase the awareness of heart disease among women.
Lonely individuals may be twice as likely to develop the type of dementia linked to Alzheimer’s disease in late life as those who are not lonely, according to an article in the February 2007 issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.
Social isolation—characterized by having a small social network, being unmarried, and participating in few activities with others—has been linked to an increased risk of dementia, according to background information in the article. “In contrast, little is known about the association of dementia with emotional isolation, or loneliness, which refers to perceived social isolation and feeling disconnected from others—that is, to dissatisfaction with social interactions rather than their absence,” the authors write.
Robert S. Wilson, Ph.D., Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, and colleagues analyzed the association between loneliness and Alzheimer’s disease in 823 individuals with an average age of 80.7 years. At the beginning of the study and every year after for up to four years, participants underwent evaluations that included questionnaires to assess loneliness, classifications of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, and tests of their thinking, learning, and memory abilities. Loneliness was measured on a scale of one to five, with higher scores indicating more loneliness. Data for the study, supported by grants from the National Institute on Aging and by the Illinois Department of Public Health, were collected between November 2000 and May 2006.
At the first examination, participants’ average loneliness score was 2.3. During the study period, 76 individuals developed dementia that met criteria for Alzheimer’s disease. The risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease increased about 51 percent for each point on the loneliness score, so that a person with a high loneliness score (3.2) had about 2.1 times the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease than a person with a low score (1.4). The findings did not change significantly when the researchers factored in markers of social isolation, such as a small social network and infrequent social activities.
Autopsies were performed on 90 individuals who died during the study, supported by grants from the National Institute on Aging and by the Illinois Department of Public Health. Loneliness during life was not related to any of the hallmark brain changes associated with Alzheimer’s disease, including nerve plaques and tangles, or tissue damaged by lack of blood flow. “The results suggest that loneliness may contribute to risk of an Alzheimer’s disease, like dementia in late life and does so through some mechanism other than Alzheimer’s disease pathology and cerebral infarction,” or the cutoff of blood supply to the brain, the authors write.
The mechanism that does link dementia and loneliness is unclear. Because loneliness levels remained relatively stable even in individuals who developed dementia, it seems unlikely that loneliness is caused by dementia, the authors note. “In human beings, loneliness has been associated with impaired social skills,” they write. “Thus, neural systems underlying social behavior might be less elaborated in lonely persons and, as a result, be less able to compensate for other neural systems compromised by age-related neuropathology.
Further clinicopathologic and clinicoradiologic research is needed to investigate these and other possibilities.”
The Influenza Genome Sequencing Project, funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has announced the completion of the entire genetic blueprints of more than 2,000 human and avian viruses taken from samples worldwide.
“This information will help scientists understand how influenza viruses
evolve and spread,” said NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D., “and
it will aid in the development of new flu vaccines, therapies and diagnostics.”
The completion of the genomes, announced on Feb. 21, 2007, means that the sequence
data and other information critical to developing treatments and vaccines
are available in a public database.
“Scientists around the world can use the sequence data to compare different strains of the virus, identify the genetic factors that determine their virulence, and look for new therapeutic, vaccine and diagnostic targets,” said NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.
The Influenza Genome Sequencing Project, initiated in 2004, has been carried out at the NIAID-funded Microbial Sequencing Center managed by The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) of Rockville, Md. Recently, growing sequencing capacity has enabled the production rate to increase to more than 200 viral genomes a month. Eclipsing the milestone of 2,000 genomes, the Microbial Sequencing Center will continue to rapidly sequence more influenza strains and isolates and will make all the sequence data freely available to the scientific community and the public through GenBank. This Internet-accessible database of genetic sequences is maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Library of Medicine, another major contributor to the project.
Seasonal influenza is a major public health concern in the United States, accounting for about 36,000 deaths and 200,000 hospitalizations annually. Globally, influenza results in an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 deaths annually. Seasonal flu shots are updated every year to target the latest strains in circulation. Developing such vaccines is challenging because the influenza virus is prone to high mutation rates when it replicates, and these mutations can alter the virus enough that vaccines against one strain may not protect against another strain.
An even greater concern is the potential for an influenza pandemic caused by the emergence of a new, highly lethal virus strain that is easily transmitted from person to person. Influenza pandemics have occurred three times in the past century, the most lethal of which was the pandemic of 1918, which caused an estimated 40 million to 50 million deaths worldwide.
“A few years ago, only limited genetic information on influenza viruses existed in the public domain, and much of the sequence data was incomplete,” says Maria Y. Giovanni, Ph.D., who oversees the NIAID Microbial Sequencing Center. “The Influenza Genome Sequencing Project has filled that gap by vastly increasing the amount of influenza sequence data and rapidly making it available to the entire scientific community. Subsequently, there has been a marked increase in the number of scientists worldwide depositing influenza genome sequence data into the public domain including scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”
Along with the NIAID, TIGR, and NCBI, other collaborators on the project
include the Wadsworth Center of the New York State Department of Health in
Albany, N.Y.; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta; St.
Jude Children’s
Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.; the World Organization for Animal Health/Food
and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Reference Laboratory for
Newcastle Disease and Avian Influenza in Padova, Italy; Ohio State University
in Columbus; Children’s Hospital Boston; Baylor College of Medicine in
Houston; and Canterbury Health Laboratories in Christchurch, New Zealand.
More information about the Influenza Genome Sequencing Project and access to
the influenza virus sequence data is available at