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TUESDAY, Feb. 25, 2020 (American Heart Association News) -- Socioeconomics might impact the chance of surviving a cardiac arrest, suggests a new study that found survival rates are lower in heavily black than in heavily white neighborhoods, and in low- and middle-income areas compared with wealthy ones. More than 350,000 people each year in the U.S. have out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, when the heart's electrical system abruptly malfunctions, and it can't beat properly. In research published recently in the Journal of the American Heart Association, people whose hearts stopped in neighborhoods where more than half the residents were black were 12% less likely to survive until hospital discharge than those whose cardiac arrest occurred in areas where more than 80% of residents were...

TUESDAY, Feb. 25, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- It's a dangerous equation: Poor sleep triggers a bad diet, and the two can equal a higher risk for obesity and heart disease in women, a new study contends. "Women are particularly prone to sleep disturbances across the life span, because they often shoulder the responsibilities of caring for children and family and, later, because of menopausal hormones," said study senior author Brooke Aggarwal, an assistant professor of medical sciences at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons. The researchers analyzed the sleep and eating habits of an ethnically diverse group of nearly 500 women, aged 20 to 76. Similar to previous studies, this one found that women with worse overall sleep quality consumed higher amounts of added...

TUESDAY, Feb. 25, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- The crisis aboard the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan shows how germs can spread rapidly through air conditioning systems that can't filter out particles as small as the new coronavirus, one air quality expert says. The quarantine ended last Wednesday, but not before the number of coronavirus cases reached 690 and three deaths were reported, according to the Associated Press. By Tuesday, 36 American passengers of the hundreds evacuated from the Diamond Princess and quarantined in the U.S. have so far tested positive for the virus. Typical conditions onboard cruise ships probably contributed to those case numbers, one expert said. "It's standard practice for the air conditioning systems of cruise ships to mix outside air...

TUESDAY, Feb. 25, 2020 (American Heart Association News) -- Risk factors that can lead to heart disease and stroke include obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure. For African Americans, another issue also threatens their cardiovascular health: discrimination. "This is an uncomfortable subject for many people," said Dr. Keith Churchwell, executive vice president and chief operating officer at Yale New Haven Hospital in Connecticut. "Most of us want to think about health care as a monolithic bloc where everyone has the opportunity for equal access to care and there's really not a difference. There is." One jarring number illustrates the gap. As of 2017, the average life expectancy at birth was 78.8 years for white people and 75.3 years for their black peers, a difference of 3.5 years,...