Heart attacks may be predicted Heart attacks may be predicted ADVERTISING WASHINGTON (AP) — Too often, people pass a cardiac checkup only to collapse with a heart attack days later. Now scientists have found a clue that one day may
Heart attacks may be predicted
WASHINGTON (AP) — Too often, people pass a cardiac checkup only to collapse with a heart attack days later. Now scientists have found a clue that one day may help doctors determine if a heart attack is imminent, in hopes of preventing it.
Most heart attacks happen when fatty deposits in an artery burst open, and a blood clot then forms to seal the break. If the clot is too big, it blocks off blood flow. The problem: Today’s best tests can’t predict when that’s about to happen.
“We don’t have a way to get at whether an artery’s going to crack, the precursor to a heart attack,” said Dr. Eric Topol, director of California’s Scripps Translational Science Institute.
On Wednesday, Scripps researchers reported a new lead — by searching people’s blood for cells that appear to flake off the lining of a severely diseased artery. Topol’s team measured high levels of those cells, deformed ones, floating in the blood of 50 people who’d just had a heart attack.
Next, Topol said his team soon will begin needed studies to learn how early those cells might appear before a heart attack, and if spotting them could allow use of clot-preventing drugs to ward off damage.
Iran has done NYC surveillance
WASHINGTON (AP) — Authorities have interviewed at least 13 people since 2005 with ties to Iran’s government who were seen taking pictures of New York City landmarks, a senior New York Police Department official said Wednesday.
Police consider these instances to be pre-operational surveillance, bolstering their concerns that Iran or its proxy terrorist group could be prepared to strike inside the United States, if provoked by escalating tensions between the two countries.
Mitchell Silber, the NYPD’s director of intelligence analysis, told Congress that New York’s international significance as a terror target and its large Jewish population make the city a likely place for Iran and Hezbollah to strike.
Silber testified before the House Homeland Security panel about the potential threat. Much of what Silber said echoed his previous statements on the potential threat, but he offered new details Wednesday about past activities in New York.
In May 2005, for example, Silber said tips led the NYPD to six people on a sight-seeing cruise who were taking pictures and movies of city landmarks like the Brooklyn Bridge.
Hundreds march for slain teen
NEW YORK (AP) — The parents of a black teenager shot to death by a Hispanic neighborhood watch captain in Florida marched in his memory on Wednesday with hundreds of other people demanding arrests in the case.
“We’re not going to stop until we get justice,” said the teenager’s father, Tracy Martin, after thanking the crowd. “My son did not deserve to die.”
Martin’s son, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, was killed Feb. 26, in Sanford, Fla. He was returning to a gated community in the city after buying candy at a convenience store. He was unarmed and was wearing a hooded sweat shirt, called a hoodie.
The neighborhood watch captain, George Zimmerman, has not been charged in the shooting.
