Statins: a heart helper

Okay, garlic may not be the ticket to lowering your cholesterol levels but new research says statins, are.

Research from the Methodist DeBakey Heart Center in Houston shows a combination statin therapy lowers bad cholesterol by 70%. That's the biggest drop ever seen in a study. Moreover, it also reduced inflammation that can lead to heart disease. Bad cholesterol is the LDL cholestoral. The so called good cholestoral is the HDL.

This study was done on high risk patients... those who already had cholestoral levels that put them in danger of developing heart disease.

The statins used in this study were Crestor and Zetia.

So what does this mean to you? That's something to be decided by talking with your doctor who can assess all your heart disease risks.

Napping for your heart

Remember the book 'Everything I needed to know I learned in Kindergarten" - seems we should have remembered to nap. A new study from Greece finds napping protects our hearts. The researcher found napping for 30 minutes, 3 times a week reduced death from heart disease by 37%.

The study was done over 6 years on more than 23,000 otherwise healthy men.

The researcher goes on to say, even if you can't find the time to nap, 5-10 minutes of time away from it all with your eyes closed might also do a 'heart' good.

Just one thing, if you're caught napping on the job, PLEASE don't blame me.