News

The health benefits of regular physical activity are well documented and hard to overstate, but too often they are left out of the doctor–patient conversation. In December 2015, JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, published the Viewpoint “ Making Physical Activity Counseling a

Martin Green, MD, vividly recalls the day in 1971 when he attended a medical school lecture on electrical activation of the heart, a subject that doctors and researchers were just beginning to explore. “There were 225 people in the class and 224 of them walked out saying ‘That was the worst lecture

Patient Alumni makes big changes and begins to roll out new services

More than 32,000 Canadians go into cardiac arrest each year outside of a hospital and more than 90 per cent of them die. In many cases, this is because bystanders didn’t have adequate knowledge of CPR or access to an automated external defibrillator (AED). Guidelines and studies presented at the

Canadians eat more salt than is good for them, increasing their risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke. The Heart and Stroke Foundation estimates that the average adult Canadian consumes about 3,400 mg of sodium per day (roughly one-and-a-half teaspoons), most of it from processed

Over the last decade, much has been learned about the genetic risk factors for cardiovascular disease. In the long run, as researchers uncover how variations in these genes lead to heart disease, this knowledge may lead to new preventive drugs and treatments. But in the meantime, doctors have been

At this year’s premier international gathering for heart disease, the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions, sharing expertise was a major aspect of the University of Ottawa Heart Institute’s presence. In Ask the Expert and seminar sessions, surgeons Marc Ruel, Munir Boodhwani, David

Although most cases of high blood pressure have no easily identifiable cause, the condition’s effects are clear, including increased risk of stroke, heart attack, and heart failure. The medical consensus is that using medications to lower blood pressure benefits patients, but how low has remained an

Sugar has been getting a lot of negative attention lately. American cities have tried to ban extra-large soft drinks. The Canadian Diabetes Association and some municipalities want a tax imposed on sugar-sweetened beverages. Some articles claim certain kinds of sugar are worse for you than others

Thanks to advances in gene sequencing technology that have made better, faster, and cheaper exploration of variations in the human genome possible, scientists have spent the last decade in a mad dash to catalogue the genetic variations associated with acute and chronic diseases. But identifying