Pumping Marvellous

Heart Failure + Depression = Bad Chemistry 

Now we all know how important it is to not get depressed about your condition so certainly to us this is not surprising however this is a strong step in the right direction to demonstrate the importance of being positive.

Depression could make heart failure even more fatal, a new study suggests.

Researchers from the Mayo Clinic in the US found that people with heart failure who are moderately to severely depressed have a 4x higher risk of death, compared with people with heart failure who are not depressed. They also have a 2x higher risk of being hospitalised or having to go to accident and emergency.

The study shows just how important it is to pay attention to patients’ mental health, as “depression is a key driver of healthcare use in heart failure,” study researcher Alanna M. Chamberlain, Ph.D., M.P.H., an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Mayo Clinic, said in a statement. The new study is published in the journal Circulation: Heart Failure.

The findings are based on 402 people with heart failure, with an average age of 73, who were from three Minnesota counties in the US. The study participants completed a survey with nine questions some time between 2007 and 2010 that analyzed their depression status. Then, the participants were followed for about a year and a half.

Researchers found an association between having depression and risk of being hospitalized or dying in the followup period. The risks went up with severity of depression. For example, according to the survey, people with mild depression were 60% more likely to die, and 35% more likely to have to visit the emergency room than those without depression. They were also 16% more likely to be hospitalised.

However, researchers did note a caveat to the findings. “We measured depression with a one-time questionnaire so we cannot account for changes in depression symptoms over time,” Chamberlain said in the statement. “Further research is warranted to develop more effective clinical approaches for management of depression in heart failure patients.”

Similarly, another new study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association shows that anxiety and depression raise risk of death among people with heart disease. Specifically, anxiety doubles risk of death from any cause among heart disease patients, and patients with both anxiety and depression have a tripled risk of dying. That finding, from Duke University researchers, is based on data from 934 people with an average age of 62.

Heart Skips a beat with the new Pumping Marvellous Toolkit

The BHF have got staying alive and now Pumping Marvellous have got “heart skips a beat” by Olly Murs. We would like to thank everybody for their hardwork and dedication in making this video such a success and we really hope it energises people who have been newly diagnosed with heart failure to have some attitude, belief and success in managing their heart failure symptoms. Also remember this video is also good for carers / caregivers and families to learn about how to help.

This video accompanies the Patient Heart Failure toolkit that has been developed by Pumping Marvellous for the NHS in England and Wales to support self management.

The Jigsaw – Self Management Support for Heart Failure

Self Management support for Heart Failure

Self Management support for Heart Failure

Heart Failure Toolkit Launch

We have confirmed that Pumping Marvellous will be handing over it’s first Heart Failure toolkits to the NHS on 14th February 2013 on the cardiology wards at the Royal Blackburn. the HEart Failure toolkit has 42 components and is a complete self care patient management system. We believe that this is the most comprehensive discharge and educational coaching tool for heart failure patients. If you have any questions about our toolkit or would like to have the toolkit for your trust then please email us.

Pumping Marvellous Heart Failure Toolkit

Heart patients and the cold – our top tips

As a person who has to deal with a heart condition in cold weather we thought you may find it useful if we gave you some tips to help you manage better. These are our recommendations below:-

Top ten tips for people suffering with a heart condition in winter

Had your Flu jab, but what is it really! 

You should really be interested in what gets injected into your arm?

Chickens play a crucial role in the process of making vaccines and Hens eggs have been used to grow the flu virus since the 1940′s as the provide the right conditions and nutrients.

There are 5 drug companies that manufacture the world’s flu vaccines and 70 years later all of them are using eggs to grow the vaccine.  Every year the NHS buys nearly 16 million doses a year.

Before the eggs are inoculated with the virus they are put into warm storage. When the eggs come out of the warm storage room they are tehn inoculated with a small amount of virus. Each needle will go into an individual egg and inject it with 2ml of flu virus. The eggs are then put in incubators for 72hrs

The incubators temperature and humidity is controlled at 35 degrees celsius and the virus inside will start to grow.When the eggs come out of incubation they go into the harvest area where the tops are cut off. A probe will then suck out the allantoic fluid, the liquid near the edge of the shell, and that is effectively a version of the flu virus. the process takes 8 hrs from start to finish

The eggs are sourced from special farms based in the UK, where tight biosecurity controls and immunisations guard against diseases which might damage egg quality.

The vaccine is made-up of 3 different types of flu virus and a different drug is made every year based on the strains scientists predict will be circulating.

Beverly Taylor, head of technology at Novartis said: “We manufacture one strain at a time so we don’t mix during the manufacture. We produce all strains individually and then blend them together to make the final vaccine.”

Predicting strains

The World Health Organization (WHO) has a global network of 147 laboratories in 110 countries monitoring influenza outbreaks.

The data collected informs which strains should be vaccinated against for the next winter.

Omega 6 not too be confused with Omega 3

This is very confusing as there is so much conflicting information and Omega 6 is not to be confused with Omega 3. This information has been extrapolated from The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, November 28, 2012.

Despite evidence suggesting omega-6 fatty acids might protect the cardiovascular system, a large new study of men finds the fats typically found in flax seeds and some vegetable oils do nothing to prevent heart failure. ”Although we know omega-6 fatty acids could influence blood pressure in a good way, we don’t see that translate into a lower risk of heart failure,” said Dr. Luc Djousse, one of the authors of the study and a professor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Omega-6 fatty acids are relatively abundant in the Western diet, and are found in many cooking oils, such as sunflower and canola oils.

The effect of omega-6s on heart health has been controversial, however, according to William Harris, a professor at the University of South Dakota‘s Sanford School of Medicine and a senior scientist at Health Diagnostic Laboratory in Richmond, VA.

“Some people like me and others at the American Heart Association say higher intake of omega-6 is good for your heart from the heart attack point of view. Another group of people are saying high omega-6 is causing inflammation, so that’s a bad thing,” said Harris, who was not part of the current study.

One heart benefit linked by past research to omega-6 consumption is lower blood pressure and because high blood pressure is a risk factor for heart failure, Djousse and his colleagues wanted to see if people who ate more omega-6s also had a lower risk of heart failure.

They used data from a long-term study of 22,000 male physicians in the U.S. At the beginning of the study the men gave a blood sample, from which the researchers determined the level of omega-6 fatty acids in the men’s bodies. Over an average follow-up period of 17 years, 788 of the participants developed heart failure.

Djoussa’s group compared these men to 788 others in the study, who were otherwise similar in age and other measures but had not experienced heart failure.

They found no differences between the two groups of men in the amount of omega-6 fats in their blood. “There’s no evidence of benefit. It’s just one of those things where it doesn’t appear to be playing a role in this particular disease,”  indicated William Harris.

Djoussa said his findings suggest that researchers can shift their priorities away from looking to omega-6s as a possible way to reduce the risk of heart failure.

Another recent study by Djousse and his colleagues found that getting a lot of omega-3 fatty acids in the diet by eating fish is tied to a lower risk of heart failure.

Our Heart Failure patient toolkit is the most comprehensive patient self care programme for Heart Failure patients. Where your journey starts at A&E or even your GP through to maybe acute and then into community care, the toolkit is a guide for not only you but also your carer and family as to how to manage your new life and opportunities. Throughout the world we see different methods of engagement with patients from clinicians engaging with patients through a checklist to handing out books to read.

The difference between our toolkit and others is this -

• It is authored and put together by a Heart Failure patients experiences
• Subject matter is from patient and carer inputs from all over the world
• Specialist charities and organisations have written there own sections
• Clinicians from the NHS Trusts have provided the technical data
• Companies specialism in heart failure treatments have lent their hand
• It is geographically transferable
• It is attractive and engaging for patients
• It is digitally available to specialist heart failure nurses along with a suite of APPs for tablets therefore enriching the patient experience and self learning.

and if Carlsberg made patient waiting rooms…

We are pleased to announce that if you like reading or would like to give a perfect present then visit the Royal Blackburn Cardiology Out Patients Department for a selection of superb books by famous authors including Tom Clancy, Lee Childs, John Grisham, Michael Connolly, Stephen Brown and David Baldacci to name a few.

All I can say is a very generous man called Russ who lives near Ewood Park has donated over 200 books to the charity. Now these aren’t tatty books these are hardback books with covers and are in perfect condition and we mean perfect.
If you bought all these books from Amazon or a book shop you would be looking to pay at least £2800.

Travel Insurance for Heart Patients

We have worked with ALLClear Insurance Services for the last 6 months to bring you tailored Travel Insurance for people with Heart Conditions. We know how difficult it is to get well priced travel insurance that really works for you. This is not Pumping Marvellous travel insurance this is offered by All Clear and what Pumping Marvellous has helped with is the process, price, questions and the actual cover you get. We think it is a massive step forward in readressing how people get to live a normal life and also the significant problem of going on holiday without any cover at all. If you would like to get a quote then please click here and you will be taken to our dedicated website.