New Study: Four Tests May Predict Who is Likely To Die After Hospitalization for Heart Failure

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Ronald Grisanti D.C., D.A.B.C.O., M.S.

New study may be a good guide for physicians about who is at high risk of dying after hospitalization for heart failure.

Heart failure is often referred to as one of the new "epidemics" of cardiovascular disease in the 21st century,

Nearly 1 million Americans will be hospitalized with heart failure this year, and this new study singles out those patients at highest risk for in-hospital death.

Overall, about one in every 20 patients hospitalized for heart failure died while still in the hospital.

Although it would appear that older people who are anemic or have suffered a stroke would be at the highest risk of dying from heart failure, researchers are baffled that this simply is not the case.

An Interesting Finding Baffles Doctors

According to Robert J. Goldberg, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of Massachusetts, Worcester, the odds of dying in hospital after heart failure was higher for people with specific blood markers such as:

Increased Blood Urea Nitrogen (BUN)

Serum Creatinine

Low Levels of Blood Sodium

Lower Blood Pressure.

Most intriguing was the fact that overweight and obese patients were more likely to avoid death while in hospital than their normal-weight peers.

Dr. Goldberg commented that doctors can use these factors in patients to select those "who should be monitored more aggressively.

Dr. Grisanti's Comments:

I find this study quite interesting in fact that I have known this for a number of years.

It appears that some research is slow to catch up with functional diagnostic medicine.

I can't tell you how many patients are told everything is fine on their blood tests when in reality that is far from the truth.

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Reference

The study is reported in "Incidence and hospital death rates associated with heart failure: a community-wide perspective" by Robert J. Goldberg, PhD, Cheryl Farmer, MD, Theo E. Meyer, MD, and Stephen Pezzella, MD. It appears in The American Journal of Medicine, Volume 118, Number 7 (July 2005), published by Elsevier.