Pattern copyright 2012 by Sarah Anderson. This pattern is free for personal use. Please do not sell this pattern, or claim it to be of your own making. You are free to sell items made using this pattern, as long as credit is given to Sarah Anderson of Sarahndipities for the pattern used.

Crochet Heart Garland The Saturday Evening Post

Miniature electronics that power smartphones and gaming consoles are sparking new innovations in cardiology. Wireless devices monitor the heart 24/7 to save lives in specialized hospital units. Now, the sophisticated gizmos are standing watch over heart patients after they go home.

Today’s tiny implants monitor blood flow or heart rhythm, among other key measures. Then, when something goes wrong, the device signals a medical professional and alerts the patient to seek help immediately. Research proves that implanted heart failure monitors reduce hospitalizations and improve outcomes. Pacemaker and defibrillator monitors with wireless communication features routinely perform checkups without a trip to the doctor’s office.

On the horizon: an early warning system to detect heart attacks before symptoms occur, ensuring the best, most timely treatment possible. Clinical trials of the AngelMed Guardian device (the ALERTS study) are recruiting patients at nearly 80 study locations nationwide.

Innovations in Heart Health The Saturday Evening Post

Skip the traditional sticker tags, and send your love with these simple, heart-shaped gift tags.

Crafts and photos excerpted from Craft-a-Day: 365 Simple Handmade Projects by Sarah Goldschadt. Click here for more heart-felt valentine crafts.

Heart Gift Tag The Saturday Evening Post

If you prefer homemade ornaments instead of the store-bought variety, these easy-to-make decorations are right up your alley. You can save a little cash and create decorations that are usable year-round.

Crafts and photos excerpted from Craft-a-Day: 365 Simple Handmade Projects by Sarah Goldschadt. Click here for more heart-felt valentine crafts.

Felt Heart Ornament The Saturday Evening Post

Stitching felt hearts onto your greeting cards adds a pop of color and texture without extra hours of design work! You can even personalize each heart by writing a name or message on the heart with a permanent marker.

Crafts and photos excerpted from Craft-a-Day: 365 Simple Handmade Projects by Sarah Goldschadt. Click here for more heart-felt valentine crafts.

Heart-Felt Card The Saturday Evening Post

Adding these easy-to-make, reusable cake toppers to your desserts creates a festive, three-dimensional pop of color to even the simplest of cakes.

Crafts and photos excerpted from Craft-a-Day: 365 Simple Handmade Projects by Sarah Goldschadt. Click here for more heart-felt valentine crafts.

Mini Heart Garland Cake Topper The Saturday Evening Post

String these felt hearts together for whimsical decorations that you can hang outside or anywhere around your home.

You can even create a long chain to drape around door and window frames during the holidays.

Crafts and photos excerpted from Craft-a-Day: 365 Simple Handmade Projects by Sarah Goldschadt. Click here for more heart-felt valentine crafts.

Felt Heart Mobile The Saturday Evening Post

If you like to keep busy and enjoy making things with your own two hands, then you’ll love the 365 craft ideas in Craft-a-Day by Sarah Goldschadt. We’ve got six heart-shaped craft projects from her book to get you started—just in time for Valentine’s Day!

Mini Heart Garland Cake Topper from Craft-a-Day by Sarah Goldschadt

Mini Heart Garland Cake Topper

These felt and string cake toppers are both easy to make and reusable. You can also customize them to fit any size treat, large or small.

Heart Photo Stick from Craft-a-Day by Sarah Goldschadt

Heart Photo Stick

Take a cue from the photobooth-at-a-wedding craze and make these photo props for a splash of whimsy in your Valentine’s Day snapshots.

Heart Gift Tag from Craft-a-Day by Sarah Goldschadt

Heart Gift Tag

Skip the traditional sticker tags, and send your love with these simple, heart-shaped gift tags.

Heart-Felt Card from Craft-a-Day by Sarah Goldschadt

Heart-Felt Card

Make your greeting cards more lively with this cute and colorful design.

Felt Heart Ornament from Craft-a-Day by Sarah Goldschadt

Felt Heart Ornament

Invest in these homemade ornaments instead of the store-bought variety, and you’ll have cute decorations that are usable year-round.

Felt Heart Mobile from Craft-a-Day by Sarah Goldschadt

Felt Heart Mobile

String these felt hearts together for whimsical decorations that you can hang outside or anywhere around your home.

When you’ve finished with this heart-y supply of crafts, check out the Craft-a-Day Winter Edition app ($2.99, iTunes). Crafts and photos excerpted from Craft-a-Day: 365 Simple Handmade Projects by Sarah Goldschadt.

Heart-Felt Valentines The Saturday Evening Post

Take a cue from the photobooth-at-a-wedding craze and make these props to use in your home photos. They’re perfect for adding a splash of whimsy to your Valentine’s Day snapshot with your sweetheart or your kids.

Crafts and photos excerpted from Craft-a-Day: 365 Simple Handmade Projects by Sarah Goldschadt. Click here for more heart-felt valentine crafts.

Heart Photo Stick The Saturday Evening Post

Enjoying a glass or two of red wine each day is widely believed to lessen one’s risk for cardiovascular problems and other chronic diseases—although no one has really understood why. Until now.

A new study led by Roberta Cazzola from the University of Milan, Italy, and published in Food Research International says that the benefits stem from red wine polyphenols that protect omega-3s in the bloodstream from breaking down, reducing inflammation in the body and leading to a healthier heart.

The potent tag team is also attracting attention at Federico II University in Naples, Italy, where a study on the effects of dietary omega-3s and polyphenols on cardiovascular risk factors is expected to finish up in June 2012.

Polyphenols are plant chemicals with antioxidant properties that may exceed those of vitamins A, C, and E.  Flavonoids, resveratrol, lignans, and quercetin are among the many polyphenols.

Moderate wine consumption means one five-ounce glass a day for women and two for men.  In general, a serving of red wine adds about 0.5 grams of polyphenols to the diet; white varieties contain less. Looking specifically for flavonoids? Research at the University of California says the flavonoid favorite is Cabernet Sauvignon followed closely by Petit Syrah and Pinot Noir. Spanish reds may offer the most resveratrol, according to the Linus Pauling Institute.

Don’t drink alcohol? Don’t start! Get your polyphenols from red grapes, strawberries, boiled peanuts, and dark chocolate. In addition, green tea and coffee contain lesser yet significant amounts of the antioxidants.

Why Wine Works The Saturday Evening Post

Most study participants used extra-virgin olive oil, which accounts for 98 percent of the olive oil available in France.

The versatile product also appears to protect against cardiovascular risk factors such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and obesity.

Want to add olive oil to your diet? Go for it! But remember that even healthier fats like olive oil are high in calories, so use it in moderation; choose olive oil instead of butter and stick margarine—not in addition to them.

Here are 3 tips for buying, storing, and enjoying olive oil:

1. If you can, smell (and taste) before you buy. Olive oils encompass a wide range of flavor from fruity to peppery, mild to intensely strong. Don’t buy one you don’t like!
2. Good extra-virgin olive oil lasts about a year when stored out of the light and away from heat.
3. Virgin and extra-virgin oils are best used uncooked or cooked at low to medium temperatures. Try them in marinades, drizzle them over vegetables or bread, and add them at end of cook time for a burst of flavor.

Is Olive Oil Good For You? The Saturday Evening Post

While scientists continue to examine the evidence, experts agree it makes sense to take good care of your teeth and gums. Dentist Dr. Kevin Boehm, a holistic health expert with Chicago Healers offers these oral care tips that just might do your heart a favor, too:

Floss every day and brush twice daily — three times a day if heart disease runs in your family. Having clean and healthy gums lowers heart risk, but developing gum disease increases it. Dr. Boehm recommends using an electric toothbrush. But a $2 toothbrush is better than not brushing at all.

Chart a healthy eating plan. Browse the perimeter rather than center aisles of the grocery store. Add fruit, vegetables, and small portions of lean protein to your cart. Stay away from processed foods, and those with added sugar. Don’t even consider the snack items available at checkout lines. Eating well provides antioxidants and vitamins to help the body fend off gum and heart disease.

Do it now. Make a daily habit of good oral care and eating well to help heal your gums and reduce health risks.

National Heart (and Dental) Month The Saturday Evening Post

But many people are unaware they have the condition that, left untreated, can gradually put hearts—and lives—at risk.

A heart murmur may be the only sign of a problem, say experts. In most cases, the disease develops so slowly that people barely notice its symptoms.

To protect your heart, ask your doctor about testing for valve abnormalities if you experience any of the following:

▪    Shortness of breath when performing normal daily activities, exercising, or lying flat.

▪    Irregular heartbeats, a rapid heart rhythm, skipped beats or a “flip-flop” sensation in the chest.

▪    Swelling of the ankles, feet, or abdomen

▪    Fatigue, weakness, or dizziness

▪    Pressure or weight in the chest with activity or going out in cold air that is unrelated to heart attack or coronary artery disease.

Treating valve problems with prescription drugs is often effective. Those with more serious abnormalities, however, require surgical treatment to avoid heart damage and restore normal valve function.

A Scaffolding For the Heart

Around the world, more than 200,000 people have surgery to repair the aortic valve—the doorway through which oxygen-rich blood passes as it exits the heart. In addition, about 75,000 Americans have procedures to repair the heart’s mitral valve that opens into its main pumping chamber, the left ventricle, and keeps blood flowing normally through the heart.

An innovative new patch called CorMatrix ECM (extracellular matrix) allows doctors to expand an area of the heart to make room for the replacement valve, explains Marc Gerdisch, M.D., director of cardiothoracic surgery at the St. Francis Heart Center in Indianapolis. In other cases, the new material may be used for reconstructing a flap on a patient’s valve, adds the surgeon, who was the first in the world to use the ECM material to rebuild structures inside the heart.

See how ECM technology helps repair damaged heart tissue .

Mending Broken Heart Valves The Saturday Evening Post

We’re happy to say that the tradition continues. In the September 2010 issue, Post writer Elizabeth Svoboda profiles eight remarkable discoveries that offer hope for practical solutions to debilitating medical problems such as diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, and more.

Here’s a sneak peak at the upcoming issue, as well as a sampling of diabetes discoveries from the Post archives.

A Look Ahead

Artificial Pancreas (w/image and video of automated insulin delivery system)

When Tyler Wolf was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes as a teenager, his diabetes management routine abruptly became a looming part of his life. Like many of the nearly 24 million diabetes sufferers in the United States, Wolf had to test his blood sugar and give himself insulin injections every day. The grueling routine grated on him. He sometimes rebelled, refusing to check his blood sugar and ending up woozy and delusional as a result.

Dr. Stuart Weinzimer, an endocrinologist at Yale University, is working to ensure that someday patients like Wolf won’t have to wrangle with needles and home test strips anymore. In conjunction with Minneapolis-based Medtronic, Dr. Weinzimer is developing an “artificial pancreas” for diabetics. This automated insulin delivery system, about the size of a small paperback book, includes a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) that channels real-time blood sugar readings to an insulin pump, which then directs the pump to dispense the proper amount of insulin to keep blood sugar levels in equilibrium.

Wolf was among the first patients to evaluate the device, and he was immediately impressed at how it took over the work of managing his disease for him. “The idea of never having to worry about monitoring—that’s close to a cure,” Wolf says. Dr. Weinzimer hopes that it will be commercially available within the next decade.

Here’s a video of the experimental automated insulin deliver system from Medtronic.

A Look Back

Some 70 years before Dr. Weinzimer’s work on an artificial pancreas, research by Dr. F. G. Banting and Dr. Charles Best and colleagues at the University of Toronto led to the remarkable discovery of insulin for treating diabetes, as described in the June 9, 1923, Post article “Clearing the Skies for the Sugar-Poisoned” by Woods Hutchinson, A.M., M.D., who writes:

“Although the processes concerned were extremely complicated and progress correspondingly slow, we are now happily able to announce the first positive step toward the answer of the fateful riddle [why sugar builds up in the bloodstream], one that bids fair to give new hope to all diabetics.

“This is no less than the discovery of the hormone—Greek for stimulator—or spark juice, which enables our bodies to burn sugar and whose absence makes us diabetic.”

By May 15, 1948, the Post reported in “What Your Should Know About Diabetes” by Steven M. Spencer, that Dr. Priscilla White’s “baby-saving program” had dramatically decreased infant deaths by treating diabetic mothers with insulin shots during pregnancy. The US Public Health Service was conducting blood testing of entire communities, and leading expert Dr. Elliott Joslin (founder of today’s renowned Joslin Center in Boston) was described as a zealous archfoe of diabetes who was unmatched “in spreading hope among the known diabetics and urging intensive search for the unknown ones”.

Oral pills for older people with mild diabetes made their American debut in the August 24, 1957, issue of the Post. The article, “Good News for Diabetics” written by Milton Silverman, chronicled the accidental discovery and eventual controversial FDA approval of tolbutamide (Orinase). Early research by French physician Dr. Auguste Loubatieres in sulfa drugs ultimately gave rise to the new pill but was overlooked for more than a decade, wrote Silverman.

“Clearing the Skies for the Sugar-Poisoned” by Woods Hutchinson, published June 9, 1923. “What Your Should Know About Diabetes” by Steven M. Spencer, published May 15, 1948. “Good News for Diabetics” by Milton Silverman, published August 24, 1957.

Medical Breakthroughs: Past and Present The Saturday Evening Post

A: An electrocardiogram (ECG) records the heart’s electrical activity (heartbeat) while the echocardiogram records the mechanical or muscular activity (heart contraction). The ECG tells doctors about electrical problems that can cause arrhythmias while the echo diagnoses abnormal contractions that can cause heart failure.

Cardiac Test Basics The Saturday Evening Post