An analysis of heart disease and stroke statistics collected from 192 countries by the World Health Organization shows that the relative burden of the two diseases is closely linked to national income.

University of California researchers found that developing countries tend to suffer more death and disability by stroke than heart disease.  Meanwhile, the United States and other countries with higher national incomes tend to experience the opposite.

This finding may help health officials design tailored interventions to best fit the needs of developing countries, the researchers say.

“In general, heart disease is still the number one cause of death worldwide, but there is quite a lot of variation across the globe,” said Anthony  Kim, MD, MAS, assistant professor of neurology at UCSF .

For instance, there was a wide variation in the mortality rate for stroke highlighted by the new research.  Rates ranged from a worldwide low of 25 deaths per 100,000 in the island nation of Seychelles to a high of 249 deaths per 100,000 in Kyrgyzstan – a rate nearly 10 times greater.

In the United States, there are approximately 45 deaths per 100,000 people due to stroke.

Heart disease and stroke are similar in that they are both are caused by reduced or restricted blood flow to vital organs and share many of the same common risk factors, such as hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol, obesity, physical inactivity and smoking.

However, because they affect very different tissues – the heart and the brain – they diverge in terms of symptoms, approaches to critical care, follow-up treatment and the duration and cost of recovery.

“There was a striking association with national income,” Kim said.

In the United States, for instance, heart disease is the number one killer and stroke the number four, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This also holds true for the Middle East, most of North America, Australia and much of Western Europe.

The opposite is true in many developing countries. Stroke  is more prevalent in China, many parts of Africa, Asia and South America.

Overall, nearly 40 percent of all nations have a greater burden of stroke compared to heart disease.

“This is significant,” said Kim, “because knowing that the burden of stroke is higher in some countries focuses attention on developing a better understanding of the reasons for this pattern of disease and may help public health officials to prioritize resources appropriately.”

The study was published in the journal Circulation.

Arthritis sufferers appear to be at an increased risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, according to a new study.

The good news, the researchers reported, is that drugs used to treat the condition are able to reduce that risk.

Researchers followed 400 rheumatoid arthritis sufferers for a period of five years, periodically measuring progression of their disease using markers of inflammation and physical appearance. They also monitored the patients’ treatment regimes.

The results indicated that heart disease and stroke risk corresponded with the intensity of a patient’s arthritis. However, disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs, which are used to reduce inflammation, helped to mitigate the risk.

“Inflammation associated with rheumatoid arthritis increases patients risk of heart disease and other cardiovascular events,” the researchers said. “However it is possible to reduce this risk in a two-pronged attack by treating both the inflammation and traditional risk factors for heart disease.”

Other risk factors for heart disease include obesity, smoking, high blood pressure and alcoholism.

The study was published in the journal Arthritis Research & Therapy.

The leading cause of death in otherwise healthy babies more than a month old is SIDS, or sudden infant death syndrome. It occurs in about 50 of every 100,000 births in the U.S. SIDS applies to any infant whose death is sudden and unexplained.

Usually, the infant is found dead after having been put to sleep, and a subsequent autopsy finds absolutely nothing wrong with the baby. For parents, it is the most horrific of experiences.

No one knows what causes SIDS, but there are several risk factors asociated with it. Babies who are born prematurely are at increased risk for SIDS; so are those who are exposed to tobacco smoke. Laying an infant to sleep on his or her stomach also increases the risk, as does excess bedding, a soft sleep surface or the presence of stuffed animals.

There is no surefire way to prevent SIDS, but in light of these known risks, parents can take precautions to reduce its likelihood. Here are seven quick tips for avoiding SIDS.

–Don’t smoke in the house

–Don’t sleep with your baby in your bed. More and more evidence suggests that parents, especially overweight ones, may inadvertently smother their babies when they’re sleeping with their child.

–Do choose a crib with a firm surface

–Do keep blankets and stuffed animals to a minimum. Infants have little control over their heads and may smother themselves in their bedding.

–Do place baby on his or her back to sleep, never on the stomach.

–Do breastfeed if you can. One recent study showed that breastfed infants are five times less likely to have SIDS as forumula fed infants.

–Do use a pacifier. A recent study has noted that the use of pacifiers is associated with a 90 percent decrease in the risk of SIDS.

Off the heels of a test that claims to be able to predict early death from heart disease, a new test says it can predict early death from diabetes.

Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center researchers have followed nearly 1,500 patients as part of a diabetes heart study for a period of 13 years.  As original study participants began to die, the researchers sought to understand why – and if there were any warning signs.

Diabetes, which affects more than 25 million Americans, puts people at an increased risk of developing heart and vascular disease.  At least 60 percent of diabetes patients ultimately die of a vascular event like heart attack or stroke.

Doctors have long known that a high coronary artery calcium (CAC) score is a strong indicator of coronary heart disease.  The score provides a measure of how much calcified “plaque” is present in the heart’s blood vessels.

The plaque is measured with a gated CT scan which takes about 10 minutes to perform.

Among diabetes patients, researchers found a wide range of CAC scores of the arteries and the heart, from individuals with none at all to those whose entire vessels were nearly completely calcified.

“We saw a dramatic risk of dying earlier in the people with highest levels of calcified plaque in their blood vessels,” said Donald Bowden, Ph.D., the director of the Center for Diabetes Research at Wake Forest Baptist and lead investigator, in a press release.

When comparing the group with the highest CAC scores to the group with lowest, the risk of dying was more than six times greater among those with high levels of calcified plaque, researchers found.

According to Bowden, the findings are important because diabetes is associated with many other medical problems, so it is crucial to identify who is at the highest risk and needs that most intensive medical monitoring and care.

“The striking magnitude of the risk suggests very strongly that other research samples should be evaluated, especially in individuals with diabetes,” he said.

The study was published in the journal Diabetes Care.

Even healthy children as young as 9 can start to show an increased risk of future heart problems if they do not exercise, according to a new study.

Researchers from Sweden and Denmark assessed the level of physical activity in 200 children, with an average age of 9.8 years, over a period of four days through the use of an electric waist belt.

The children were also tested for various cardiovascular disease risk factors, including blood pressure, resting heart rate, fitness and body fat.

Results showed that children who were more physically active had a lower risk factor score for cardiovascular disease than children who were less active.

“It is well known that physical inactivity in adults is associated with a wide range of diseases and all causes of death” said lead author Dr Tina Tanha from the Department of Clinical Sciences at Skane University Hospital in Malmo, Sweden.   ”We believe that our study now demonstrates a clear clinical association between physical inactivity and multiple cardiovascular disease risk factors in children.”

Physical activity, she added, may account for up to 11 percent of the variance in scores between active children and less active children.

The results are important, according to Tanha, because cardiovascular disease is often a result of an accumulation of factors over time.

The study was published in Acta Paediatrica.

We run into a number of warning labels in day-to-day life, but sometimes it’s the most routine activities that can have surprising – and deadly – consequences.

A new study has compiled a list of everyday actions that can temporarily raise your risk of rupturing a brain aneurysm and suffering a stroke.

Check them out here:

-Coffee consumption (increases risk by 10.6 percent)

-Vigorous physical exercise (7.9 percent)

-Nose blowing (5.4 percent)

-Sexual intercourse (4.3 percent)

-Straining to defecate (3.6 percent)

-Cola consumption (3.5 percent)

Being startled (2.7 percent)

-Being angry (1.3 percent)

How many of those “risky” activities have you done today?  No need to worry excessively – intracranial aneurysms (IAs) only affect an estimated 2 percent of the general population, and most never rupture.

The reason these activities increase the risk of an IA rupture, according to researchers, is that they all cause a sudden and short increase in blood pressure, which seems to be a common cause for aneurysmal rupture.

The study was published in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.