Eyelid marks warn of heart attack

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16 September 2011 Last updated at 00:18 GMT By James Gallagher Health reporter, BBC News Xanthelasmata are mostly made up of cholesterol Yellow markings on the eyelids are a sign of increased risk of heart attack and other illnesses, say researchers in Denmark.

A study published on the BMJ website showed patients with xanthelasmata were 48% more likely to have a heart attack.

Xanthelasmata, which are mostly made up of cholesterol, could be a sign of other fatty build-ups in the body.

Cardiologists said the findings could be used by doctors to help diagnose at-risk patients.

The research team at the Herlev Hospital in Denmark started following 12,745 people in the 1970s.

At the start of the study, 4.4% of patients had xanthelasmata.

Yellow alert

Thirty three years later, 1,872 had had a heart attack, 3,699 had developed heart disease and 8,507 had died - and the data showed that those with the yellow markings around the eyes were at greatest risk.

Those with the markings were 48% more likely to have a heart attack, 39% more likely to have developed heart disease and 14% more likely to have died during the study.

The authors believe patients with xanthelasmata may be more likely to deposit cholesterol around the body.

A build up of fatty material in the walls of arteries - known as atherosclerosis - leads to stroke and heart attack.

For both men and women in several age groups, the data said there was a one in five chance of developing heart disease in the next decade if the patient had xanthelasmata.

The authors said such patients were "generally considered to be at high risk" and should have "lifestyle changes and treatment to reduce [bad] cholesterol."

However they warned that: "Today, most people with xanthelasmata are seen by dermatologists, when they want their xanthelasmata removed for cosmetic reasons.

"Some of these people may not have been managed according to their increased risk of cardiovascular disease."

A review of the study, by US cardiologists Antonio Fernandez and Paul Thompson, concluded that: "Xanthelasmata could be used by general clinicians to help identify people at higher risk of cardiovascular disease."

Judy O'Sullivan, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said: "There are many different techniques to predict someone's risk of developing heart disease in the future, none of which are perfect. The most important thing is that any one of these techniques is used in the first place."

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VIDEO: 'Special' boy marks third birthday

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12 September 2011 Last updated at 11:24 GMT Help

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Eyelid marks warn of heart attack

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
16 September 2011 Last updated at 00:18 GMT By James Gallagher Health reporter, BBC News Xanthelasmata are mostly made up of cholesterol Yellow markings on the eyelids are a sign of increased risk of heart attack and other illnesses, say researchers in Denmark.

A study published on the BMJ website showed patients with xanthelasmata were 48% more likely to have a heart attack.

Xanthelasmata, which are mostly made up of cholesterol, could be a sign of other fatty build-ups in the body.

Cardiologists said the findings could be used by doctors to help diagnose at-risk patients.

The research team at the Herlev Hospital in Denmark started following 12,745 people in the 1970s.

At the start of the study, 4.4% of patients had xanthelasmata.

Yellow alert

Thirty three years later, 1,872 had had a heart attack, 3,699 had developed heart disease and 8,507 had died - and the data showed that those with the yellow markings around the eyes were at greatest risk.

Those with the markings were 48% more likely to have a heart attack, 39% more likely to have developed heart disease and 14% more likely to have died during the study.

The authors believe patients with xanthelasmata may be more likely to deposit cholesterol around the body.

A build up of fatty material in the walls of arteries - known as atherosclerosis - leads to stroke and heart attack.

For both men and women in several age groups, the data said there was a one in five chance of developing heart disease in the next decade if the patient had xanthelasmata.

The authors said such patients were "generally considered to be at high risk" and should have "lifestyle changes and treatment to reduce [bad] cholesterol."

However they warned that: "Today, most people with xanthelasmata are seen by dermatologists, when they want their xanthelasmata removed for cosmetic reasons.

"Some of these people may not have been managed according to their increased risk of cardiovascular disease."

A review of the study, by US cardiologists Antonio Fernandez and Paul Thompson, concluded that: "Xanthelasmata could be used by general clinicians to help identify people at higher risk of cardiovascular disease."

Judy O'Sullivan, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said: "There are many different techniques to predict someone's risk of developing heart disease in the future, none of which are perfect. The most important thing is that any one of these techniques is used in the first place."

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HEALTH MANAGEMENT. High Marks for Home Schooling, a Small Study Finds

In some cases, home schooling may give kids a leg up on their public-school peers, finds a small, new study published in the Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science.
As long as it's structured and follows a set curriculum, home schooling may actually lead to better scores on tests of math and reading, compared with public schooling, say the researchers from Concordia University and Mount Allison University in Canada.
The researchers studied 74 children aged 5 to 10 living in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick: 37 kids were schooled at home, and the other 37 attended local public schools. Each child was asked to complete standardized tests of reading, writing and math.
Researchers found that the public-school kids tested at or above their grade levels, but home-schooled children tested even higher than that — about a half-grade higher in math and 2.2 grades in reading, compared with the traditionally educated children.
VIDEO: At Home with Homeschoolers
The researchers said the difference remained even after they accounted for other factors that affect children's academic performance, like household income and mothers' education, employment and marital status. Although many previous studies have found higher academic achievement in home-schooled children, those results have often been ascribed to socioeconomic and education differences among parents who choose home schooling.
In the current study, the authors theorized that more personalized attention may have helped the home-schooled children do better. "This advantage may be explained by several factors including smaller class sizes, more individualized instruction, or more academic time spent on core subjects such as reading and writing," said author Sandra Martin-Chang, a professor in the Concordia department of education, in a statement.
The achievements associated with home schooling were seen only in those children who had structured academic curriculums, however. The 12 children in the home-schooled group whose education was unstructured — a method known as unschooling, which uses no teachers, textbooks or tests — did worse on all academic measures compared with the structured home school group, falling one to four grade levels behind.
MORE: Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Homeschoolers
Unschooling has been around for decades, but it has recently ticked up in popularity as more families seek to home school their children, according to an AP report published last month. Reported the AP's Leanne Italie:

Reliable data is hard to come by, but estimates of children and teens home-schooled in the U.S. range from 1.5 million to 2 million. Of those, as many as one-third could be considered unschoolers ... meaning their parents are "facilitators," available with materials and other resources, rather than topdown "teachers."
There's no fixed curriculum, course schedule or attempt to mimic traditional classrooms. Unless, of course, their children ask for those things.
...
In Sugar Land, Texas, Elon Bomani's 11-year-old son has never been to school and doesn't know how to write cursive. She doesn't care. When he was younger and had no interest in learning how to read, she found a video on the subject and put it on for him to discover — or ignore as he wished. He's a reader today. Her younger son, who's 6, learned to read when he discovered Garfield comic books.
"If children find something that they love, they'll read," Bomani said.

Proponents of unschooling argue that structured learning environments risk kids getting bored or feeling that they're being forced to study things in which they have no interest. Some kids simply do better in a more hands-on, choose-your-own-adventure kind of atmosphere, they say.
Perhaps a child's academic success depends on how parents choose to define it. If it's higher test scores you're after, children who have structured educational curriculums — either at home or at school — do significantly better than unschooled kids, according to the small Canadian study.
Meredith Melnick is a reporter at TIME. Find her on Twitter at @MeredithCM. You can also continue the discussion on TIME's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.

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