This week's article

From Health News:

Cardiac Device Won't Help Some Heart Failure Patients
They performed no better with Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy, researchers say

TUESDAY, Nov. 6 (HealthDay News) -- Heart failure patients treated with a device that synchronizes pumping in the heart's ventricles showed no improvement in exercise capacity, researchers report.

The results were presented Tuesday at a late-breaking clinical trial session at the American Heart Association's annual meeting, in Orlando, Fla., and were expected to be published in the Dec. 13 print issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy (CRT) devices are surgically implanted and deliver electrical impulses to both ventricles at the same time, making both chambers contract simultaneously and thereby improving pumping efficiency.

While current guidelines support using CRT in patients with moderate to severe heart failure, this study aimed to see if the device could benefit patients outside those recommended parameters.

For this trial, 172 heart failure patients were randomly assigned to receive treatment with CRT or not.

Those treated with CRT showed no significant improvement in exercise capacity as measured by peak oxygen consumption. Some symptoms did improve, but quality-of-life scores and results of the six-minute hall walk test did not change significantly, the researchers reported.

"There was no significant difference in the change in peak oxygen consumption between the treatment group and the control group during cardiopulmonary testing," Dr. John Beshai, study lead author and director of pacemaker and defibrillator services in the division of cardiology at the University of Chicago, said at a news conference Tuesday. "Further research is necessary," he said.

The trial was funded by St. Jude Medical, which makes the CRT device.

(no subject)

From a much longer list of supposedly healthy soups, I've culled down the ones that are less than 400 mg of sodium per serving, so that you can have crackers or half a grilled cheese sandwich with your soup:

Canned Soups (per 1-cup serving)

Brand and Variety	Calories	Fat (g)	Protein (g)	Fiber (g)	Sodium (mg)
Pritikin, Chicken with Pasta	60	0.5	3	2	290
Pritikin, Chicken and Rice	80	1	3	0	290
Pritikin, Hearty Vegetable	80	0	3	2	290
Pritikin, Lentil	130	0	9	6	290

Cups and Microwavable Soup Bowls (per 1-cup serving)

Brand and Variety	Calories	Fat (g)	Protein (g)	Fiber (g)	Sodium (mg)
Healthy Valley Fat Free, Chicken Noodle Vegetable	100	0	5	3	390
Healthy Valley Fat Free, Creamy Potato Broccoli	80	0	3	4	390
Healthy Valley Fat Free, Garden Split Pea	110	0	7	4	290
Healthy Valley Fat Free, Spicy Black Bean Couscous	130	0	6	5	290
Healthy Valley Fat Free, Zesty Black Bean Rice	100	0	5	4	320

Dried Soups (per 1-cup serving) (only one of these was under 400, so I'm not going to bother making a table)
Tasty Adventure, Minestrone 160 cal, 0.5 g fat, 10 g protein, 9 g fiber, 250 mg sodium