News & Politics - Former President Bill Clinton Hospitalized

vc318 · 02-11-2010, 05:57 PM

Former President Bill Clinton Hospitalized at The Insider

Former President Bill Clinton Hospitalized

Former President Bill Clinton has been hospitalized after feeling "discomfort in his chest."

"The Insider" confirms the 42nd president of the United States was taken to New York Presbyterian Hospital for a condition related to his heart.

"The Insider" received the following statement from Clinton's counselor, Douglas Band, reading in part: "Today President Bill Clinton was admitted to the Columbia Campus of New York Presbyterian Hospital after feeling discomfort in his chest. Following a visit to his cardiologist, he underwent a procedure to place two stents in one of his coronary arteries. President Clinton is in good spirits, and will continue to focus on the work of his foundation and Haiti's relief and long-term recovery efforts."
An official from the State Department tells us Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is heading to New York from Washington D.C. to be with her husband. Meanwhile, CNN reports that Chelsea Clinton is with her father at the hospital.

This isn't the first time Clinton, 63, has had heart problems. In 2004, he had a quadruple heart bypass surgery to free four blocked arteries.

Oh gosh - I hope he'll be okay.

**Melis** · 02-12-2010, 02:06 AM

It sounds like he is going to be okay. Good to hear.

vc318 · 02-13-2010, 08:26 AM

But considering that he had a quadruple by-pass and now this? Man, I hope he'll be okay.

**sunnykerr** · 02-15-2010, 07:27 PM

Well, it's normal for someone who's had any kind of bipass to have to go back down the line for further work. And it's likely he'll have to undergo something else down the line, too. It's heart disease. He wasn't cured. He was fixed up. There's a reason why it's the leading cause of deaths just about everywhere.

There's only so much you can do to change your habits and your lifestyle. A lot of it is genetics, too. His father, I think, had heart disease as well.

And, let's face it, the man is a work horse. Like him or hate him, you can't find fault in this guy's work ethic. Blow job jokes aside, he's a man who's always put in the effort and worked really hard, and it looks like "retirement" hasn't slowed him down one bit.

vc318 · 02-15-2010, 08:05 PM

Bill Clinton Recovering at Home After Heart Procedure - NYTimes.com

Bill Clinton Recovering at Home

CHAPPAQUA, N.Y. (AP) — Former President Bill Clinton was recovering at his home on Friday after leaving a Manhattan hospital where he underwent a heart procedure to fix a blocked artery.

“I feel great,” Mr. Clinton said from the driveway outside his home. “The doctors and the hospital crew did a great job.”

“I even did a couple miles on the treadmill today,” he added.

A State Department spokesman, P. J. Crowley, said Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was with her husband at the family’s home here in Westchester County.

A Clinton adviser, Douglas Band, said in a statement that Mr. Clinton left NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia hospital “in excellent health.”

“He looks forward in the days ahead to getting back to the work of his foundation,” the statement said, “and to Haiti relief and recovery efforts.”

Mr. Clinton, 63, had quadruple bypass surgery in 2004. He returned to the hospital on Thursday to have a clogged heart artery opened after suffering discomfort in his chest for several days.

Dr. Allan Schwartz, his cardiologist, said tests had shown that one of the four bypasses from the earlier surgery was completely blocked.

Instead of trying to open that bypass, doctors reopened the original clogged artery and inserted two stents to keep it open.

The procedure took about an hour, and Mr. Clinton was able to get up two hours later, Dr. Schwartz said. Mr. Clinton should be able to return to work on Monday, he said.

Do the arteries normally clog up again whether one eats healthy or not?

**sunnykerr** · 02-15-2010, 08:22 PM

Oh, sure. It depends what made them clog up in the first place.

I mean, diet is, of course, the number one thing to watch out for. But, for one thing, there is no perfect diet. It just doesn't exist. There is bad cholesterol in a lot of things and we all accumulate it differently anyway. Not to mention that changing your diet is an awesome, awesome way to deal with heart disease, but it's not a time machine.

It's just like, as women, we need to build up on calcium during the first 20-25 years of our life in order to properly prevent osteoporosis when we reach an older phase in our lives. Or like you can get skin cancer years after you've started using sunblock properly. Heart disease doesn't happen overnight and sometimes your body has stored up things that won't come into play till later on. I would assume (though I don't know for a fact) that it's even more so the case when there are genetic factors, such as was the case here.

What President Clinton had here was the addition of stents, which open up arteries (or veins) that have had a narrowing. The technical term for that is stenosis. A bagillion things can cause vascular stenosis: diabetes, smoking, angina/ischemia (two different things, but the one causes the other so...), infections, artherosclerosis (a thickening of the walls of the artery, which can also have a bagillion separate causes)...

A bypass is to clear out blockages. Stents are to open up stenosis. They're two separate things, but they're obviously very connected.

Of course, this is not the kind of illness you wish on anyone, and there's no way to say that this is just business as usual. It's a serious disease and it should be taken seriously.

I'm just saying that there is no cure, just treatment. And, knowing that, this intervention is in no way especially alarming. He's no getting worse or better. It's just part of the deal.

vc318 · 02-15-2010, 08:41 PM

That makes sense. I really hope his McDonald days are over if he knows what's good for him.

**sunnykerr** · 02-16-2010, 06:14 PM

I'm sure they are. I can't see how his doctors, his wife, his daughter, his employees... Given the stature of the man, I can't see how he could get away with an ongoing diet of junk food. It's not like he's anonymous, wherever he goes.

Then again, a single hamburger never hurt anyone. And it's not like it's cocaine or heroine and just the one could strike him dead.

Now, if he's a fast-food addict, then he's probably better off staying completely away from burgers and fries. But, so long as his diet is good, I don't see how "cheating" a little, once in a blue moon, would really be all that dramatic.

**sunnykerr** · 02-23-2010, 08:02 PM

Quote:

Medicine and 'luck' on multiple heart attack survivors' side

A fifth heart attack, such as the one suffered this week by former Vice President Dick Cheney, is not rare because of advances in modern medicine, cardiologists say.

"It's something we see often enough that we're not surprised about it," said Dr. Cam Patterson, chief of cardiology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, who is not involved in Cheney's care. "But it's also an indication that somebody has some luck on their side."

More patients are surviving multiple heart attacks because of procedures and drugs, Patterson said.

"We have patients who are taken to the [cardiac catheterization labs] to have blocked arteries opened up," he said. "We have stents to keep blocked arteries opened and high-potency drugs like statins that protect against risk factors that make heart disease progress rapidly."

Although these options help heart disease patients, they may not prevent another heart attack. Patients who've suffered a heart attack usually have more blockages in other vessels that weren't problematic earlier. But over time, the blockage builds and could cause future heart attacks, doctors said.

Cheney, 69, went to the George Washington University Hospital after experiencing chest pains Monday and underwent a stress test and a heart catheterization, according to his office.

In a cardiac catheterization, a thin, flexible tube is threaded into the heart, usually from the groin or the arm, to examine blood pressure within the heart and how much oxygen is in the blood.

Cheney has a long history of heart problems. He suffered his first heart attack in 1978, when he was 37.

He had his second heart attack in 1984 and a third in 1988 and underwent a quadruple bypass surgery to unblock his arteries. Shortly after Cheney was elected vice president in November 2000, he had a fourth heart attack and received a stent to open an artery.

In some cases, even patients who follow instructions do not respond to therapies and drugs, and they continue to get heart attacks, said Dr. Randall Starling, vice chairman of the department of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, who also is not involved in Cheney's care.

"I'd like to believe that if patients take their meds, exercise, they're on a great diet, they reduce their risk," he said. "But unfortunately, there are patients who have progressive disease even by following all their doctor's orders. That's where some of the genetics get into things."

In 2001, doctors implanted a monitoring device to keep track of Cheney's heart rhythm and slow it down if necessary. In 2008, he underwent a procedure to restore his heart to a normal rhythm after doctors found that he was experiencing a recurrence of the condition, known as atrial fibrillation.

Since Cheney left office in 2009, the former vice president has remained visible, appearing on political talk shows, most recently on ABC's "This Week," where he was highly critical of President Obama's policies.

Cheney is expected to be discharged from the hospital in the next day or two, according to his office.

This month, former President Clinton was also hospitalized briefly because of a heart problem. Clinton received two stents to restore blood flow to a coronary artery after doctors discovered blockage.

The two have heart disease. This condition is the leading cause of death in the United States; more than 630,000 people die each year from it, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Having the kind of medical care that Clinton and Cheney receive increases the chances of the patient's survival.

"There is very strong data that shows both access to care and socioeconomic status has marked impact on outcomes with people with heart disease," said Patterson, director of the UNC McAllister Heart Institute.

And even after several heart attacks, someone like Cheney can continue to live an active life.

"If his heart function remains strong, he's got good medical care and is taking care of risk factors, he can be in very good shape," Patterson said.

Medicine and 'luck' on multiple heart attack survivors' side - CNN.com

I posted this on the Health thread, since that's technically where this kind of information belongs, but my interest in this article did emanate from the discussion we were having here, so I thought I would bring it over...


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