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Interesting Results for Participants

This is a selection of papers over the years. 

Predicting Heart Disease Risks in Families

All of our follow-up studies over 20 plus years have shown that brothers and sisters of people who were hospitalized with early onset coronary disease have a risk that is much higher than the general population. The risk is particularly high in brothers.

Happiness As a Trait Protects Against 10 Year Risk of Heart Attack

Using the General Well Being Schedule, a 26 item questionnaire, we have consistently found that people who have a trait that lends more toward happiness may has as much as a 50% lower rate of heart attacks, independent of all other risk factors.

Women Have "Stickier" Platelets than Men: Still Achieve Benefit with Aspirin

Some trials suggest that women may not accrue the same heart protective benefits as men do from low-dose aspirin therapy used in primary prevention, although they do get a benefit in terms of stroke reduction. Our results showed that women’s platelets were significantly more reactive at baseline, in other words, stickier and more likely to form a clot. Aspirin still produced an effect on this.

Diabetes Increases the Risk for Heart Disease More in Women than in Men

Controversy exists about the coronary heart disease risk conveyed by diabetes in women. We investigated sex differences in heart disease rates by diabetes status in healthy individuals in GeneSTAR. Although heart disease rates were lower among most women versus men, diabetic women had disease rates that were as high as men. Diabetes is more prevalent in African Americans, especially in African American women. Click on the photo for the original paper.

Manual Dexterity in Healthy People and Silent Early Findings on Brain MRI

We proposed that manual dexterity would be affected by silent white matter intensities on brain MRI, representing very early small vessel disease. Manual dexterity is controlled by many areas of the brain, including those that affect vision, motor function, anticipation, precision, and planning. We found that minor deficits in many brain areas resulted in lower levels of manual dexterity using the pegboard test. Click on the photo for the original paper.

Dark Chocolate May be Good for Your Platelets

Healthy adults (1535) in the GeneSTAR aspirin study were told not to eat chocolate for the 2 weeks they were taking aspirin. Almost 10% (141) were unable to do this and truthfully reported their chocolate intake over the two weeks. Despite being otherwise identical to other participants, the people who ate had less sticky platelets. We concluded that small amounts of dark chocolate without a lot of sugar conveyed some benefit to people. Click on the photo for the original paper.

To Our Participants 

There are many other papers that may be of interest to you. We maintain a library of the technical papers and if you contact us, we are happy to share a portfolio based on your interest. Although they are very technical, all of our studies are reported under the Bibliography tab. Use the Contact Us tab and we will send you what you might wish. We will from time to time post newer papers for your interest as well. Use the Tools for You Page to find tops on lowering your own risk of heart disease and stroke and interesting information.