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The life of a heart attack victim who collapses in public can often be saved by an onlooker who knows how to give CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation). In CPR, mouth-to-mouth breathing pushes oxygen into the lungs while rhythmical pressure over the heart maintains the circulation. Without this, permanent brain damage or death would result in four to six minutes.

Those who have heart attacks when alone are in much greater danger. Without help, the person whose heart stops beating properly and who begins to feel faint has only about 10 seconds left before he loses consciousness.

According to Emergency Medicine, however, heart attack victims can help themselves by repeated coughing. A very deep breath must be taken before each cough, and the cough must be strong and prolonged, as in producing sputum from deep inside the chest. A breath and a cough must be repeated every one to two seconds without letup until help arrives or until the heart is felt to be beating normally again.

Deep breaths get oxygen into the lungs, and coughing movements squeeze the heart and keep the blood circulating. In this way, heart attack victims can get to a telephone and, between breaths, call for help.

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Adverse reactions to medications are much more likely to occur and to be serious in older people than in the young, the American Family Physician (34#6:118) reports. In several studies of elderly people, an adverse reaction was found to be the cause of admission to the hospital in 25 to 40 percent of cases.

The reasons for this common problem are various, and one cannot single out anything that applies to them all. Nevertheless, many drugs can cause nutritional depletion by interfering with the absorption of food and the sense of taste. This, in turn can lead to a deficiency of vitamin C, which makes such people much more prone to stomach injury by aspirin and anti-arthritis drugs, with gastric ulcer and internal bleeding as the result.

Blood pressure medicines, waterpills (diuretics), and pain drugs can all produce lightheadedness and fainting when one stands up, leading to falls and injuries. Blood pressure medicines are also a very common cause of mental depression. Because side effects so often simulate natural illness, anyone who begins to feel unwell while taking medication should wonder whether the drug is to blame and should ask the pharmacist or doctor what to do.

Some medicines, such as cimetidine (trade-named Tagamet), can impair the liver’s ability to chemically dispose of other drugs.This is because the liver steadily decreases in 40 percent smaller than that of a young adult. On top of this, by virtue of hardening of the arteries, the liver’s blood supply tends to be reduced, thereby further impairing the organ’s ability to break down and dispose of drugs.

While aging, there is also a reduction in the amount of blood circulating through the kidneys. Since many drugs are I eliminated from the body in proportion to the kidney’s blood flow, here is another good reason for the elderly to take reduced doses.

A recent editorial in Geriatrics (38#11:39) concluded that elderly persons often cannot tolerate the “usual adult dosage” that is recommended on the labels of most medicine bottles. In view of what we now know, this is understandable. When in doubt, therefore, it is usually safer for older persons to take only about half the usual adult dose. However, if a drug is prescribed by the doctor, take it as ordered, but then ask him to confirm that the dosage is appropriate for your age, if you are over 65.

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Just about everybody knows that the more cholesterol you have in your blood, the more likely you are to die from a heart attack. This association, confirmed over and over again in many parts of the world, is why most physicians now advise people to avoid foods rich in cholesterol and, if necessary, to take medicine to lower the blood cholesterol. But is there also a link between cholesterol levels and cancer?

One surprising opinion was recently reported in the Lancet (2:603) by a University of Minnesota researcher. He said that, after studying the medical histories of    284 professional men in Minneapolis and St. Paul, he had found more deaths from cancer than expected among men who had reduced their blood cholesterol levels by dieting, etc. He even went so far as to suggest that high blood cholesterol levels may help to protect the body against cancer. It must also be stated, though, that not everyone who analyzed the Minneapolis-St. Paul data agreed with him about this.

So important is this issue that the government recently appointed a team of experts from the National Heart Institute and the National Cancer Institute to examine it from every angle. According to the Wall Street Journal, the experts concluded, “…the two institutes agree that the risk of heart disease from high cholesterol levels seems to exceed the small and uncertain risk of cancer from low cholesterol levels. Therefore, it is still prudent for anyone with high cholesterol levels to attempt to lower them.”

Researchers at Chicago’s Northwestern Medical School go much farther. They suspect that it is the excess cholesterol in the American diet that accounts for our high incidence of colon carcinoma. They reached this conclusion after studying the colon cancer death rates of different countries in relation to their diets.

Finland is an exception to the rule that high fat intake is linked with high death rates from heart attack and carcinoma of the colon. The Finnish diet, which provides the world’s highest fat intake, is associated with the world’s highest heart attack rate. Surprisingly, however, Finland has one of the world’s lowest colon cancer death rates.

Looking into this more closely, Northwestern researchers found that the Finnish diet is an unusual one. Finns eat excessive amount of butter and cream but very little fat from meat or eggs. Thus, their high fat intake consists mostly of triglycerides but contains relatively little cholesterol. The Northwestern study therefore suggests that cholesterol plays a far more important role in colon cancer than do any other types of fat.

Although probably not a carcinogen (a cause of cancer), they think cholesterol is a “promoter” (a substance which multiplies the effect of carcinogens). Diets rich in cholesterol would thus enhance the probability of colon cancer, especially in families that are naturally more than usually prone to develop that type of tumor.

So, if you wish to minimize your chances of getting cancer of the colon, use eggs sparingly, trim the fat off your meat, and take enough bran every day (most people need two to three heaped tablespoonfuls) to make your bowels move easily.

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The belief expressed by many asthmatics that coffee drinking can help relieve their attacks has been given scientific support by a study that has just been reported in the Medical World News (24#23:21). Theobromine, a natural chemical of the coffee plant, affects the body in almost the same way as theophylline, one of the most commonly used drugs for asthma.

Not surprisingly, therefore, asthmatics who have taken a normal dose of theophylline experience unusually intense side effects from that medication if they drink coffee at the same time. This, of course, is due to the additive side effects on the body of the two very similar chemical compounds. Asthmatics who drank three cups of coffee as well as taking their medicine experienced nervousness, headache, palpitations, and upset stomach.

These were the side effects that they might get with theophylline anyway, but they were much more intense than the asthmatic patients expected them to be. Tea and cola drinks, even though containing similar chemical stimulants, are not strong enough in this respect to produce additive effects.

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An expert on aging, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association (243:47), believes that the risk of death from hypothermia (body coldness) in the elderly has been greatly underestimated. The expert believes that many elderly people with heart disease or pneumonia really die from the effects of low body temperature rather than from the illnesses listed in their death certificates.

Elderly people do not always sense how cold they are, and this, combined with a decline in the ability of their bodies to conserve and generate heat when needed, makes it difficult for them to tolerate cool surroundings. Even when they are not ill, and the room temperature does not fall below 65° F (18°C), older people can slide slowly, over a period of several days, into a dangerous state of hypothermia.

Nowadays, as we try to conserve energy during the winter by keeping our houses cooler, electric blankets and long underwear become essential for older members of the family.

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