Health – Happiness – Page 135

Study Finds Heart Attacks May Affect Another Major Part Of Your Body Too

HuffPost

Study Finds Heart Attacks May Affect Another Major Part Of Your Body Too

Jillian Wilson – June 14, 2023

The connection between your heart health and brain health is underscored in a recent study.

We know heart attacks can take an immediate toll on our cardiovascular system, and potentially a long-term toll as well. Now new research is highlighting another part of the body that may be affected: our brains.

An extensive study published in JAMA Neurology suggests a connection between heart attacks and cognitive decline. The data was drawn from six smaller studies that ran for various lengths of time, and followed a total of 30,465 people with no history of heart attack, stroke or dementia. Researchers assessed each person’s cognitive function by measuring memory, global cognition and executive function. They also evaluated these metrics after any heart attacks that occurred during each of the study periods.

Researchers followed up years after each of the original assessments, ranging from between 4.9 and 19.7 years later, depending on the length of the study. (The median follow-up time was 6.4 years.) In all, 1,033 participants across the six studies had heart attacks during the study’s timeline.

Researchers found that people who suffered a heart attack experienced a faster cognitive decline than those who did not. (All participants naturally experienced some form of lost brain function as they aged — but it only happened at a faster rate for those who’d had a heart attack.)

“The eventual decline in global cognition for those in the study who experienced a heart attack was equivalent to 6 to 13 years of cognitive aging,” Dr. Percy Griffin, director of scientific engagement at the Alzheimer’s Association, who was not involved in the study, told Medical News Today.

The connection between heart and brain health

“I think in this study there’s a clear heart-brain connection. And I think that connection in this particular study likely has to do through what we call vascular health,” said Dr. Daniel Muñoz, executive medical director and chief medical officer at Vanderbilt Heart & Vascular Institute in Nashville, Tennessee. “Medically, a healthy heart is one that has, among other things, healthy blood supply and healthy blood vessels.”

“Similarly, a healthy brain is one that has, among other things, a healthy blood supply and healthy blood vessels,” Muñoz said. “So, vascular health, or blood vessel health, connects all organs — in particular, the heart and the brain, right?”

In the case of a heart attack, blood flow to the heart is blocked by things like cholesterol and plaque. And the same can happen with the blood vessels that supply the brain with blood, Muñoz noted, which can cause cognitive problems.

“So, a heart attack may be a dramatic indication or a sign that vascular health, or blood vessel health, is not what we ideally would like it to be in that person,” Muñoz said, noting that a heart attack can put multiple parts of the body at risk.

Dr. Eric Adler, a cardiologist and medical director of heart transplant and mechanical circulatory support at UC San Diego Health, said the study’s findings also make sense when you consider inflammation.

Your body’s inflammation system is triggered after a heart attack, Adler said ― “and we know… there are biological mechanisms in which inflammation can affect cognitive function.”

In fact, according to one study, people with higher inflammation in the body had 7.8% more cognitive decline than those who did not have as much inflammation.

Adler said there are some new medicines for Alzheimer’s disease that target plaque buildup in the brain (which underscores Muñoz’s point above), and some ideas about inflammation’s effects on the condition.

“There are some thoughts about the inflammatory cells in the brain, which are called glial cells, and if those cells are contributing to Alzheimer’s, those cells may be triggered by heart attacks to be more active,” Adler said.

Adler noted there are many unknowns when it comes to Alzheimer’s disease, but there are potential connections between this study’s research and what is already in the medical zeitgeist.

Some amount of brain function loss is normal as you age, but new research suggests that people who have heart attacks experience this loss at a faster rate.

How to protect your heart and brain before or after a heart attack

All this is to say, you should work to better your heart and brain health.

“With regards to patients or our loved ones who experience a heart attack, I think this study suggests that they are vulnerable cognitively in the long run,” Muñoz said.

If you’ve had a heart attack (or a loved one has), and you’re concerned about accelerated cognitive decline, try not to worry too much. Instead, take this as a sign that you should work on your mental health in addition to your physical health.

“Doing what we can to support their mental health, to support their overall health, I think becomes really important to try to protect them from a vulnerability that may be there,” Muñoz said.

This could look like making sure a person’s medical needs are fully supported, like ensuring loved ones take their heart medication or setting a reminder each day if you’re taking medication yourself.

Additionally, it’s important to work your brain to keep it as sharp as possible. Studies show that crosswords and jigsaw puzzles can help challenge your brain, which can help slow mild cognitive decline.

“People aren’t doomed to this fate after a heart attack, but the study suggests that there’s a vulnerability there,” Muñoz said. “So, addressing that vulnerability head-on and working to support and protect patients who might otherwise be vulnerable, I think, could potentially do a lot of good.”

If you haven’t experienced a heart attack, keep taking steps to reduce your risk.

“For folks who have not had a heart attack, where the focus is on maintaining well-being and avoiding a heart attack… thanks to decades of research and better understanding, we know what the key tactics are for prevention,” Muñoz said.

“A healthy lifestyle ― which I think is a trifecta of healthy eating, exercise and, frankly, learning more about social engagement and lack of social isolation ― those kinds of things actually can be quite impactful on both your risk of heart attack and your risk of Alzheimer’s,” Adler said.

Additionally, maintaining healthy blood pressure is important, Muñoz explained. If you do have high blood pressure, make sure you manage it — whether through medicine or lifestyle changes, whatever your doctor says — so it stays in a healthy range. The same goes for cholesterol, Muñoz said.

“When [cholesterol is] abnormally high, that can accelerate the development of blood vessel disease everywhere, including in the heart, including in the brain, including other places,” Muñoz said. You should also stay away from tobacco products or, if you smoke, try to quit.

Adler stressed that it’s important to see your primary care doctor on a regular basis. They’ll help make sure your blood pressure is under control, along with your cholesterol, and will help figure out the best management tools for these things — and any other issues that could arise.

Seeing a doctor regularly, Adler noted, can help you catch any issues before it’s too late.

Related…

Here’s How Long You Should Walk Every Day to Keep Your Heart Healthy

Verywell Health

Here’s How Long You Should Walk Every Day to Keep Your Heart Healthy

Alyssa Hui – June 13, 2023

<p>Alexander Spatari / Getty Images</p> — Alexander Spatari / Getty Images

Fact checked by Nick Blackmer

Key Takeaways

National guidelines recommend that adults get at least 150 minutes of moderate physical activity each week for a healthy heart. That adds up to walking for about 20 minutes every day.
Walking daily can help you lose and maintain weight, lower your blood sugar levels, and reduce chronic stress—all of which can be beneficial to your heart and overall health.
Besides walking, you can also engage in other physical activities and lifestyle changes to support your health.

According to guidelines from the Department of Health and Human Services that are supported by the American Heart Association (AHA), adults should try to get at least 150 minutes of moderate physical activity a week.

While 150 minutes of physical activity may sound like a lofty goal, experts say that if you break it down day by day, you could meet that goal by walking for about 20 minutes a day.

The reality is that fewer than 1 in 4 adults are able to meet the recommended amount of physical activity, and certain groups—including older adults, females, and those in lower socioeconomic statuses—are even less likely to meet the goal.

Here’s why walking matters for heart health, and what other activities you can do to support your overall well-being.

How Much Do You Need to Walk?

While the scientific statement highlights that many people are not able to meet the recommended guidelines, the authors hope those findings will provide an opportunity to focus community efforts on physical activity programs in places where people need them the most.

The authors wrote that even though bringing awareness to the lower levels of physical activities in certain groups “will not address the underlying structural inequities that deserve attention,” it’s still important to promote physical activity—especially in adults with “both low physical activity levels and poor cardiovascular health.”

Experts say your daily 20-minute exercise goal can be cumulative: Walking throughout the day adds up.

“Going for a brisk walk gets you moving toward that goal,” Gerald Jerome, PhD, FAHA, volunteer chair of the writing committee for the scientific statement and a behavioral exercise scientist and professor in the Department of Kinesiology at Towson University, told Verywell. “Taking the stairs or parking a little farther away from a store entrance also helps you move toward your goal.”

How Does Walking Improve Heart Health?

Smadar Kort, MD, a cardiologist and Director of the Echocardiography and Structural Heart Imaging Program at Stony Brook Heart Institute, told Verywell that going for a walk increases your heart rate so it can pump more oxygen and nutrients to your muscles. It also improves blood flow in your body, can lower blood pressure, and can make your heart stronger over time.

“Walking can help a person maintain a healthy weight or lose weight if he or she is overweight, and it can lower blood pressure,” Kort added.

Smadar Kort, MD

It’s never too late to start getting active. Even people who never engaged in physical activity can start.

According to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, regular activity such as walking can help lower LDL or “bad” cholesterol and increase HDL or “good” cholesterol levels. That can be another step in the right direction for heart health because high levels of “bad” cholesterol can clog your arteries and increase your risk of heart disease and stroke.

Regular physical activity can also reduce inflammation throughout your body and lower your risk of chronic diseases like diabetes, cancer, and coronary heart disease. Additionally, it’s good for your mental health.

“Walking, especially in nature, can help reduce stress,” said Kort. “We know that stress has a negative effect on our health—including cardiovascular health.”

What Other Activities Support a Healthy Heart?

Walking every day isn’t for everyone—and that’s OK. Kort said there are many other activities that you can do to improve your cardiovascular health.

Yoga, running, swimming, cycling, dancing, playing soccer, tennis, or pickleball, weight lifting, climbing stairs, jumping rope, hiking, and even engaging in gardening or heavy yard work like digging can help your heart, mind, and body.

“Any physical activity counts! These are all great activities that can count towards that required weekly exercise,” said Kort. “It’s never too late to start getting active. Even people who never engaged in physical activity can start.”

When picking an activity to do and deciding how long to do it daily, Christopher Tanayan, MD, the Director of Sports Cardiology at Northwell Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, told Verywell you should try to spread the minutes throughout the week to get into a habit of regular physical activity.

Depending on your interests, Tanayan said that using different cardio tools like bikes, ellipticals, and taking stairs, will help you “achieve the recommendation more easily and consistently than sticking to one routine,” since mixing it up helps you avoid getting bored.

Kort added that you should talk to your healthcare provider before you start an exercise program—especially if you were not active before. They can help you figure out the safest activities for you to do and recommend a routine that will be most beneficial for your health.

Other Ways to Make Your Heart Stronger

Besides being active and getting in physical activity, experts say that there are some other things that you can do to improve your heart health and strength:

Eat a nutritious diet (including a variety of fruits and vegetables, as well as protein from plants and seafood)
Cut down on high-sugar foods (like candy and soda) and limit foods rich in salt (such as frozen meals and snacks and canned goods)
Avoid smoking and quit if you do
Limit your alcohol intake
Manage your stress levels
See your provider for regular check-ups and health screenings

What This Means For You

Walking for about 20 minutes every day can improve your heart health. Other physical activities like hiking, running, biking, or gardening can also improve your health. Before you start a routine, talk to your provider. They can help figure out what the safest and most beneficial physical activities will be for you.

Did you breathe in a lot of wildfire smoke? Here’s what to do next

CNN

Did you breathe in a lot of wildfire smoke? Here’s what to do next

Katia Hetter – June 13, 2023

Smoke from more than 430 active wildfires in Canada spread south last week and led to the worst pollution the New York and Washington regions have ever experienced. More than 75 million people in the eastern US were under air quality alerts as wildfire smoke shrouded major cities. Some flights were grounded, events were canceled, and millions of people breathed unhealthy air.

Much of the smoke has dissipated, but people still have questions. Do we need to be concerned about air quality? What are the short-term effects of wildfire smoke inhalation? Are there long-term consequences? And how can people prepare for future wildfires, which, according to the UN Environment Program, will be even more frequent and more severe going forward?

To guide us through these questions, I spoke with CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen. Wen is an emergency physician and professor of health policy and management at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health. She previously served as Baltimore’s health commissioner.

CNN: How do people know if they are in the clear from wildfire smoke?

Dr. Leana Wen: The federal government has an excellent website, airnow.gov, where you can put in your city or zip code and see what the current air quality is in your area.

Just as the weather forecast in your area can change, so can the air quality. As we’ve seen from the spread of smoke from Canada’s wildfires, events hundreds of miles away can lead to pollution in another area. You can use this website to track air quality, and if necessary, change your plans and add precautions accordingly.

CNN: Are there people who should still be concerned about air quality due to the Canadian wildfires?

Wen: It depends on the air quality in their area and their underlying medical circumstances. The air quality in many parts of the country has gotten much better, returning to near normal, while other areas still have unhealthy levels of pollution.

Record-breaking smog due to smoke from Canada’s wildfires partially obscures the US Capitol in Washington on June 8. People with chronic lung and heart conditions should continue to monitor air quality, CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen said. – Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

Those most at risk during days with poor quality are young children, the elderly, pregnant individuals and people with underlying medical conditions, in particular chronic lung and heart conditions. Those people should be cautious, closely monitoring air quality in their area on a regular basis. If there are alerts and advisories, refrain from heavy exercise, stay indoors when possible and run air purifiers in indoor areas.

CNN: What are the short-term health effects of wildfire smoke inhalation?

Wen: During last week’s event, many people may have experienced adverse effects, such as throat irritation, hoarseness and cough. Some may have had worsening of their underlying asthma, bronchitis, COPD, which is short for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or other respiratory conditions. These are most pronounced in the initial days following smoke exposure. Studies have shown that exposure to wildfire smoke leads to an increase in emergency department visits and hospitalizations for respiratory disease in children and the elderly.

Studies have also demonstrated a more surprising link, which is the association between wildfire smoke exposure and serious cardiovascular events, including heart attacks and cardiac arrest. And there is research that has linked wildfire smoke exposure events to an increase in influenza months later, suggesting that there could be lagging effects.

It’s thought that many of these effects are due to microscopic particles called particulate matter that can enter deep into the lungs and even enter the bloodstream. These pollutants can induce inflammation and a stress response in the body, which can worsen existing medical conditions.

CNN: If people were exposed for a few days to bad air quality, should they be worried about long-term consequences?

Wen: There are people who live in parts of the world where exposure to hazardous amounts of particulate matter and other pollutants is an everyday reality. These populations are at risk for long-term consequences. Research has linked this type of chronic exposure to an increase in some cancers, for instance, and reduced lung capacity.

For most people, a one-time exposure event probably won’t cause major lasting problems. The worry is that these may not be one-time events going forward. Some people already live in areas prone to wildfires and could have exposure to events several times a year. And, as we have seen, wildfires from hundreds of miles away can cause such significant effects on air quality. With climate change, experts predict more frequent wildfires, which can lead to more days of hazardous air quality for all of us.

CNN: How can people prepare for future wildfires?

Wen: Invest in air purifiers for your home. Bad outdoor air leads to bad indoor air. Air purifiers can help remove smoke and those microscopic particles that are harmful to health.

Workplaces and schools can do this too, and also look to upgrade their ventilation system. Improving ventilation will also reduce virus transmission, including the spread of influenza and Covid-19.

People should optimize their medical health as much as possible. Those with lung disease especially should make sure to have an ample supply of inhalers and consult their physicians about whether there should be increased use in times of worse air quality.

Everyone should have a “go bag”— a bag of emergency supplies — to take with them when an emergency hits. That includes water, nonperishable food, prescription medications, flashlights, first aid kits and more.

Finally, we need to understand the intimate link between the environment and health, and work to prevent environmental hazards that can lead to many significant health problems, now and in the future.

Democrats need to wake up

Chicago Suntimes

Democrats need to wake up

Federal indictments against Trump are not a turning point.

By Neil Steinberg – June 11, 2023

Donald Trump addressed the North Carolina Republican state convention on Saturday, June 10, 2023. — Donald Trump addressed the North Carolina Republican state convention on Saturday, two days after becoming the first former U.S. president indicted on federal charges.

This Friday, June 16, marks many things. It’s Bloomsday, the day in 1904 when the entirety of James Joyce’s great novel, “Ulysses” takes place. It’s also my parents’ anniversary — 67 years and still going strong. (Happy anniversary, Mom and Dad!) And my younger son’s birthday.

It’s also the date in 2015 when Donald John Trump descended that escalator in the vomit-colored lobby of Trump Tower in New York City, declared himself a candidate for president and promised to save this country from the twin perils of Mexican immigrants and Muslims.

Eight years. Three thousand days, most of which saw Donald Trump twirling like a demented ballerina in drippy orange makeup in the spotlight of American life. From that introductory moment — the first words out of his mouth a lie, natch, inflating the few dozen people present into “thousands” — to last week, when he was indicted by federal authorities on 37 counts related to seven charges under the Espionage Act.

What a strange, terrible time in American history. Sometimes I consider it punishment for, having missed the tumult of the 1960s, wishing I could have lived in a momentous era of American history when great issues were being resolved. I take it back.

No time for regret now. Not with Trump followers urging violence at the prospect of his being prosecuted for his crimes. Not when they question the value of law enforcement before they’ll ever question their Chosen One.

Trump certainly will never pause from lying. Why would he? The lies work. The federal case, outlining his betrayal of national interest and endangering our security by exposing America’s military secrets to her enemies, was instantly shrugged off. Republicans have honed a variety of survival skills — perpetual imaginary victimhood, look-a-squirrel whataboutism, but-the-trains-run-on-time tunnel vision — allowing them to instantly ignore anything Trump does, did, or ever could do.

If Republicans are in a trance, so are Democrats. Because we keep waiting for Republicans to wise up.

“It has become impossible to ignore Trump’s many transgressions over the years,” the Sun-Times said in an editorial Sunday. At the risk of contradicting the editorial board, that’s a complete inversion of the situation. It is not impossible to ignore Trump’s crimes. Rather, it is mandatory, among his followers. Ignoring Trump’s misdeeds is not a flaw, but a feature.

To toss out another date: Jan. 6, 2021. Trump goaded a mob to assault the Capitol trying to overturn a free and fair American election. If that didn’t shake his followers awake to the peril, what is going to now? This latest indictment?

If they can laugh off Jan. 6, what can’t be chuckled at? His being ordered to pay $5 million for slandering the woman who claimed Trump raped her boosted his poll numbers.

His millions of followers are never going to be disillusioned with Trump, just as 40% of Russians approve of Joseph Stalin, the millions starved or pact with Hitler notwithstanding. A hundred years from now, Trump will be a revered figure, like Jesus, and for the same reason: the need to worship something. Charges, investigations, convictions, are just the Romans lashing their savior as he drags his cross to Calvary.

Jan Plemmons, of Columbus, Ga., waits at a private airfield for former President Donald Trump’s arrival in Georgia on Saturday, June 10, 2023. — Jan Plemmons, of Columbus, Ga., waits at a private airfield for former President Donald Trump’s arrival in Georgia on Saturday.

Wake up. Liberal do-gooders are constantly calling upon values that just aren’t there. Remember former Ald. Leon Despres (5th), nicknamed the “conscience” of the Chicago City Council? Paddy Bauler, his notoriously corrupt Council colleague, once said to him: “Leon, the trouble is you think the whole thing’s on the square.”

The trouble with Democrats is they think the whole thing’s on the square. Still. Despite everything that has happened over eight years. We’ve learned nothing, and must start learning, fast. Time to stop invoking decency that isn’t there. If we are to continue to be a nation of laws, votes and varied voices, we must see the Trump menace for what it is: the gravest threat our nation has faced. The peril isn’t weakening; it’s growing stronger.

Someday, should America survive the Trump onslaught and become great enough to view history clearly, perhaps June 16 can become kind of a semi-official Day of Infamy, like Dec. 7 and Sept. 11. A cautionary tale for future generations. Not that we are anywhere near that safe perch where we can look back on the nightmare. Rather, we are in the thick of it, with more, maybe worse shocks to the American spirit speeding toward us.

It felt like I had indigestion. I was having a heart attack.

The Washington Post

It felt like I had indigestion. I was having a heart attack.

Ken Budd, Special To The Washington Post – June 11, 2023

Upper body pain is a common if lesser-known indicator of a heart attack. (Getty Images)

My symptoms started at least a day before I felt any chest pain. I’d become winded and sweaty after carrying some boxes up and down steps. That evening, I felt pain in my shoulder, neck and back that made it hard to sleep. Twice during the night I woke up sweating.

I assumed my ailments were remnants of a stomach bug – I’d thrown up twice two days before – but when pressure began building in my chest, I thought, Whoa, is this my heart? My dad had died of a sudden massive heart attack years before, so even though I didn’t feel terrible, I went to an emergency room. “I’m sure it’s nothing,” I said sheepishly to the triage nurse, feeling a bit like a hypochondriac.

Less than an hour later, I was rushed by helicopter to a hospital with a cardiac catheterization lab, where doctors can identify potential blockages and possibly reopen a clogged artery.

“Most people will say, ‘You know, a couple days ago, I wasn’t feeling good, I had indigestion’ – there’s usually something that’s not right,” said Alan Schneider, a cardiologist and electrophysiologist who works at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, where I was treated. “It doesn’t have to be crushing pain.”

Upper body pain is a common if lesser-known indicator of a heart attack. “Anything between the belly button and the forehead could be heart-related symptoms,” said cardiologist Donald M. Lloyd-Jones, immediate past president of the American Heart Association and chair of the Department of Preventive Medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.

Gen Xers like me – I’m 57 – may remember Fred Sanford’s recurring chest-clutching heart attack routines on “Sanford and Son,” but the pain isn’t always dramatic. In my case, I experienced a mild discomfort, like a weight was pressed against my ribs, or my chest was overinflated with air.

“The classic symptom is that elephant sitting on the middle of your chest – this heavy, crushing pressure, mid-chest,” Lloyd-Jones said. “Never ignore that. It’s the most common warning sign.”

Other possible warning signs include arm pain (typically on the left side), stomach pain and even pain in your gums or jaw. If discomfort is accompanied by other symptoms such as sweating, shortness of breath, or lightheadedness or feeling faint, consider calling 911. For women, the symptoms of heart attacks can be more diffuse or vague – sudden arm aches, neck or jaw ache, nausea or vomiting, dizziness or being unusually tired.

Also, heart attack symptoms can appear “hours, days, or weeks in advance,” as the Mayo Clinic explains on its website.

Lloyd-Jones’s advice: “If the symptoms seem more common with exertion and they’re better when you rest, that’s a red flag for any doctor to say, ‘Let’s get you in and see what’s going on.'”

One thing that’s not a predictable heart attack warning sign: elevated blood pressure. Mine was high – 156/84 before I went to the ER – but “some types of heart attacks can lead to very low blood pressure,” Lloyd-Jones said.

Other lessons from my experience include:

Act fast – really fast

My approach to health issues is usually, “Eh – I’m sure it’s nothing.” But once I realized that my symptoms matched many of the Mayo Clinic’s warning signs, I went to the ER.

Within an hour of my arrival, cardiologist Yuri Deychak had received an electrocardiogram (EKG) of my heart at his home, diagnosed a blockage in a coronary artery leading to the heart and activated the catheterization lab team at Suburban Hospital to unblock my artery.

“Time is muscle,” Deychak later told me, and it’s a common phrase among cardiologists. To prevent heart cells from dying, doctors need to quickly restore blood flow and oxygen levels. Their goal: to get a patient into a catheterization lab to insert a stent – a tiny expandable metal mesh coil that once in place will keep an artery open – within 90 minutes of experiencing symptoms.

Procrastination can be deadly, as one of my nurses learned. She shared the story of a friend, age 49, who showed signs of a heart attack. The friend called his primary care physician that evening but decided to see if his symptoms improved overnight. By morning he was dead.

Call 911, not Uber (or a friend)

I made a mistake: I asked a friend to drive me to the ER. That’s smarter than driving yourself, experts say, but I should have called 911. If my heart had stopped during the drive, EMTs could have treated me immediately. They have a defibrillator to restart a heart, an EKG machine to test your heart rhythm, lifesaving medications, and they know which hospitals have the right facilities to treat a heart problem. My friend took me to the nearest hospital, but it didn’t have a catheterization lab, which is why I ended up having to be flown by helicopter to one that did. A cath lab is mandatory for unblocking an artery

The New Jersey-based Atlantic Health System found that heart attack patients who called 911 received treatment 30 minutes faster on average than those who drove themselves. Yet many patients, like me, don’t make that call. My symptoms seemed mild, so 911 felt extreme and an ambulance can be costly depending on circumstances.

Some heart attack sufferers choose ride services like Uber or Lyft. A 2017 study found that ambulance usage rates had dropped by 7 percent in cities where Uber operates. But taking an Uber for a heart attack is no safer than riding with a friend, since your driver’s sedan probably won’t have an EKG machine or defibrillator.

Deychak said he remembers a patient who arrived at the hospital via Uber, then suddenly experienced ventricular fibrillation (a heart arrhythmia that is the most frequent cause of sudden cardiac death). If the driver had arrived even five minutes later, she may have died.

“You want EMTs monitoring you all the way,” Lloyd-Jones said. “If something happens, they can respond instantaneously.”

Embrace gratitude

Having a heart attack is stressful. In the ER at the first hospital, I could hear the alarm in a nurse’s voice after she read my EKG report. I could see the helicopter crew’s concerned faces as they wheeled me to the helipad. In the cath lab, staff darted around the room, shaving parts of me that shouldn’t be shaved, inserting a catheter in an artery and injecting a dye to detect blockages on a screen. (“It’s going to feel hot,” a technician said, and yes, the dye blazed in my arm and my chest.)

And yet to my surprise, the overwhelming emotion I felt was not fear but gratitude. Amid the life-or-death bustle, I felt grateful for the people I love, and the people who love me, and for the team that was treating me. Those peaceful feelings may have reduced the strain on my heart.

For patients who are understandably scared and upset, “one of the treatments we often give in the emergency room is anti-anxiety medicine,” Lloyd-Jones said. “If we can keep the heart rate low, and keep blood pressure moderate, the heart works less hard, and fewer heart muscle cells will die.”

I soon had another reason for gratitude. Once the team had snaked the catheter through my arm to my heart, they expected to find major blockage. But my arteries looked clean. So what happened?

Doctors suspect that a piece of plaque – fatty buildups on artery walls caused by cholesterol and other substances – had ruptured and clotted an artery, and the clotted plaque passed through on its own. I was incredibly lucky. What if the clot had been larger and hadn’t moved through? Sometimes even slight heart attacks can make patients’ heart rhythm “go haywire,” Deychak said.

Instead, less than 36 hours after the heart attack, I was pacing with my IV pole in my hospital room, ready to be released. Scans showed no damage to my heart muscle. I was lucky.

Now that I’ve had one heart attack, I’m a likely candidate for another, Lloyd-Jones said. It’s clear that plaque can form in my arteries. I largely feel okay – the worst part was two weeks of wrist and arm soreness from the catheter. In the weeks following the heart attack, my EKG readings were irregular, and I experienced occasional heart palpitations, sometimes as often as three to five times a day. But nearly five months after my visit to the cath lab, everything is happily back to normal.

I also have an excellent long-term prognosis, Schneider said. I’ve finished cardiac rehab (picture a gym where everyone wears heart monitors and submits to blood-pressure checks), which helped me lose seven pounds and lower my blood pressure. I’m also taking some new heart meds, including a platelet inhibitor and a daily aspirin, to reduce my risks (I was already taking a statin and beta blocker). Even before the heart attack, I was more likely to eat a salad than a burger, but my doctor suggested that I lower my daily sodium consumption, which has meant some sacrifices – including a favorite: pizza.

But from where I stand now, it’s worth it to prevent a return visit to the ER.

“This was a shot across the bow,” Schneider said. “You could have dropped dead, but instead, here you are, alive.”

And yes, I’m grateful.

In Bones of Crows, Grace Dove found healing among the heaviness

CBC – Entertainment

In Bones of Crows, Grace Dove found healing among the heaviness

Prince George, B.C., actor says she got into the craft to share hard stories

CBC News – June 10, 2023

Woman standing in field. — Starring as Aline Spears, Grace Dove in Bones of Crows plays a Cree woman who navigates her trauma from the residential school system. (TIFF)

After a decade in the acting industry, Grace Dove knows why she chose this field.

“I really believe I became an actor and a storyteller to share hard stories,” she told CBC’s Eli Glasner.

Dove stars as Aline Spears in Bones of Crows, a film written and directed by Marie Clements.

The film follows a Cree woman’s journey from her childhood to old age as she navigates trauma from her time in the residential school system. WATCH | Grace Dove talks about handling difficult subject matter:

Bones of Crows star Grace Dove says she became an actor ‘to share hard stories’

Dove says both heaviness and healing were involved in making the upcoming film and mini-series that deals with intergenerational trauma and residential schools.

As with any role, there’s research involved.

“I have to do the homework. I have to study about World War II. I have to study about code talking,” Dove said. “I have to study about even being a Cree Indigenous person. I’m Secwépemc, so that brings so much to learn about.”

And an actor, she says there’s something from within that she must also bring to the role.

“I have to bring a piece of me,” she said. “Especially when it comes to Indigenous representation, when it comes to Indigenous films, this is my story. This is my family story. So there is so much heaviness to it.”

“But also it’s so healing, and I think that every role I do, it really brings out what I need to almost let go.”

Grace Dove sitting and facing away from the camera for a sit-down interview — Dove says she gave a piece of herself to her character, Aline Spears, in the film. (CBC)

She says Bones of Crows is another way to address a subject where some may want to look away.

“I think there’s a time and place for films about love, a rom-com. And we will see that,” she said. “I hope for more of that, that we have more light Indigenous cinema, but … we can’t do that yet until the truth is out there.”

Expanded series

Bones of Crows will also be a five-part limited series on CBC and APTN beginning Sept. 20. The story will expand on the feature film, with a broader focus on Spears’ relatives over the span of 100 years.

“I think the most important message that I took away is, what happens to you and how you deal with those adversities is going to last for, we say seven generations,” Dove said.

“It really shows the impact generation by generation and I think that’s what the series is really going to delve into.”

A young, Indigenous woman stands in a newsroom with desks and computers visible behind her. She wears a silver necklace and long silver earrings, her hair is tied back in a ponytail and she is only visible from the waist up wearing a denim jacket open over a grey shirt. — Dove grew up in Prince George, B.C. She says Bones of Crows can help educate young people and anyone else about the traumas that Indigenous people still face today. (Matt Sayles/ABC)

The breadth of the project meant a large cast, many of whom came to the production with lengthy resumes.

“We’ve had so many Indigenous creatives fighting for us to be here, for me to be here, and so it’s just constantly passing the torch and getting better every time,” she said.

Dove had a breakthrough role in the 2015 film The Revenant, playing the wife of Leonardo DiCaprio’s character Hugh Glass. DiCaprio is starring in the upcoming Killers of The Flower Moon, from director Martin Scorcese, which centres around the Osage Nation in Oklahoma.

CUTAWAYS Bones of Crows is a striking cinematic response to Canada’s ‘reign of terror against Indigenous people’

She says she was in the running to be cast in that film and met Scorcese.

“I think it would be weird if me and Leo got married again, especially, you know when it happens eventually in real life as well,” she joked.

Lessons for the audience

There’s a practical lesson Dove wants viewers to take from Bones of Crows.

“I hope that audiences can walk away and think about their actions, and think about the way that they treat people. Because the way that you treat someone today might affect their family for generations,” she said.

“It just comes back to human kindness, and seeing people for real people.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joseph Pugh is a writer with the Entertainment department at CBC News. Prior to joining CBC he worked with the news department at CHLY, Nanaimo’s Community radio station, and taught math at Toronto’s Urban International School. He can be reached at joseph.pugh@cbc.ca

With files from Eli Glasner, Laura Thompson

Putin asserts Ukrainian counteroffensive has begun, while drones strike within Russia

Associated Press

Putin asserts Ukrainian counteroffensive has begun, while drones strike within Russia

Jamey Keaten and Joanna Kozlowska – June 9, 2023

Broken windows and traces of fire are seen after a drone fell at a residential building in Voronezh, Russia, Friday, June 9, 2023. A Russian regional governor says three people were lightly wounded after a drone crashed into a residential building in central Voronezh, a city in southwestern Russia near the border with Ukraine. (Ara Kilanyants/Kommersant Publishing House via AP)

People with pets are evacuated on a boat from a flooded neighbourhood in Kherson, Ukraine, Thursday, June 8, 2023. Floodwaters from a collapsed dam kept rising in southern Ukraine on Thursday, forcing hundreds of people to flee their homes in a major emergency operation that brought a dramatic new dimension to the war with Russia, now in its 16th month. (AP Photo/Libkos)

Emergency workers evacuate an elderly resident from a flooded neighbourhood in Kherson, Ukraine, Thursday, June 8, 2023. Floodwaters from a collapsed dam kept rising in southern Ukraine on Thursday, forcing hundreds of people to flee their homes in a major emergency operation that brought a dramatic new dimension to the war with Russia, now in its 16th month. (AP Photo/Libkos)

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin asserted Friday that Ukrainian troops have started a long-expected counteroffensive and were suffering “significant” losses. His comments came just hours after a string of drone strikes inside Russian territory.

It was Putin’s latest effort to shape the gut-wrenching narrative of the invasion he ordered more than 15 months ago, sparking widespread international condemnation and reviving Cold War-style tensions.

The conflict entered a complex new phase this week with the rupture of a Dnieper River dam that sent floodwaters gushing through a large swath of the front in southern Ukraine. Tens of thousands of civilians already facing the misery of regular shelling fled for higher ground on both sides of the swollen and sprawling waterway.

Kyiv has played down talk of a counteroffensive, reasoning that the less said about its military moves the better. Speaking after he visited flood zones on Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he was in touch with Ukrainian forces “in all the hottest areas” and praised an unspecified ”result” from their efforts.

Putin said Russian forces have the upper hand.

“We can clearly say the offensive has started, as indicated by the Ukrainian army’s use of strategic reserves,” Putin told reporters in Sochi, where he was meeting with heads of other states in the Eurasian Economic Union. “But the Ukrainian troops haven’t achieved their stated tasks in a single area of fighting.”

Kyiv has not specified whether reservists have been mobilized to the front, but its Western allies have poured firepower, defensive systems, and other military assets and advice into Ukraine, raising the stakes for the expected counteroffensive.

“We are seeing that the Ukrainian regime’s troops are suffering significant losses,” Putin said, without providing details. “It’s known that the offensive side suffers losses of 3 to 1 — it’s sort of classic — but in this case, the losses significantly exceed that classic level.”

On Friday, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said Russia was on the defensive in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia province, though the epicenter of fighting remained in the east, particularly in the Donetsk region. She described “heavy battles” in Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Marinka.

Valerii Shershen, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s armed forces in Zaporizhzhia, told Radio Liberty that they were searching for weaknesses in Russia’s defense, which Moscow was trying to strengthen by deploying mines, constructing fortifications and regrouping.

Earlier, regional authorities in southwest Russia near the Ukrainian border reported the latest flurry of drone strikes. The strikes have exposed the vulnerabilities of Moscow’s air defense systems.

The regional governor of Voronezh, Alexander Gusev, said on the Telegram app that a drone crashed into a high-rise apartment building in the city of the same name, injuring three residents who were hit by shards of glass. Russian state media published photos of windows blown out and damage to the facade.

Gusev said the drone was targeting a nearby airbase but veered off course after its signal was jammed. The city lies some 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of Ukraine’s Luhansk region, most of which is occupied by Russia.

Separately, Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov of the neighboring Belgorod region, which also borders Ukraine, said air defenses had shot down two unspecified targets overnight. An apartment building and private homes were damaged, he said, without saying by what. He also said a drone fell on the roof of an office building in the city of Belgorod. It failed to detonate but caught fire on impact, causing “insignificant damage,” he wrote.

The leader of a third region of Russia, Kursk Gov. Roman Starovoit, said a drone crashed to the ground outside an oil depot and near water reservoirs in the local capital, causing no casualties or damage.

Ukrainian authorities have generally denied any role in attacks inside Russia. Such drone strikes — there was even one near the Kremlin — along with cross-border raids into southwestern Russia have brought the war home to Russians.

In Ukraine, the governor of the Kherson region, Oleksandr Prokudin, said Friday that water levels had decreased by about 20 centimeters (8 inches) overnight on the western bank of the Dnieper, which was inundated starting Tuesday after the breach of the Nova Kakhovka dam upstream.

Officials on both sides indicated that about 20 people have died in the flooding. The United Nations’ humanitarian coordinator in Ukraine, Denise Brown, visited the flood-hit town of Bilozerka on Friday, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

“Ms. Brown said that although initial estimates indicate that 17,000 people are being impacted in the areas controlled by Ukraine alone, it is important to understand that the crisis has not stopped and continues to evolve rapidly,” Dujarric said.

Kyiv accused Russia of blowing up the dam and its hydropower plant, which Russian forces controlled, while Moscow said Ukraine bombarded it.

The Norwegian earthquake center NORSAR said Friday that a seismological station in neighboring Romania recorded tremors in the vicinity of the dam at 2:54 a.m. Tuesday, around the time Zelenskyy said the breach occurred.

“What we can see from our data is that there was an explosion in the area of the dam as the same time as the dam broke,” NORSAR head of research Volker Oye told The Associated Press.

The Norwegian center is part of a global monitoring system that helps verify compliance with the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

Experts predicted the consequences of the dam’s collapse would last for months. Continued fighting in the region was bound to slow recovery efforts.

Viktor Vitovetskyi, a representative of Ukraine’s Emergency Service, said 46 municipalities in the Kherson region have flooded, 14 of them along the Russian-occupied eastern bank of the river.

Even as efforts were underway to rescue civilians and supply them with fresh water and other services, he said Russian shelling over the last day killed two civilians and injured 17 in the region.

Kozlowska reported from London. Jon Gambrell in Kyiv; Hanna Arhirova in Warsaw, Poland; Edit M. Lederer at the United Nations; and David Keyton in Stockholm, Sweden, contributed to this report.

One Doctor Used an ‘Elimination Diet’ To Shed Stubborn Pounds and Boost Energy — Here’s How

Woman’s World

One Doctor Used an ‘Elimination Diet’ To Shed Stubborn Pounds and Boost Energy — Here’s How

Allison Nemetz – June 7, 2023

Do your best efforts to get healthier usually end with disappointment, low energy and weight gain? You’re not alone, says popular TikTok doctor Emi Hosoda, MD, who once experienced similar results. “I even went on a 1,200-calorie vegan diet and didn’t take off a single pound,” the Seattle-based internist recalls. At first, she blamed stress and aging. Then a colleague made an offhand comment: “You shouldn’t be so overweight. There must be something wrong with your gut.” Intrigued, Dr. Hosoda turned attention to her belly, eventually going back to school to learn more. She discovered that inflammation in the GI tract can cause hidden thyroid issues, and with the right tests, confirmed this was her problem. Fortunately, she notes that simple steps including adopting an elimination diet (cutting out thyroid-slowing foods) “were life-changing” for weight loss and vitality. Now, she’s sharing her tips and insights on the elimination diet along with her recommended meal plan for best results.

The Factors That Cause Thyroid Issues

You might be wondering what your GI tract has to do with your thyroid, a.k.a. the little gland in your neck that controls metabolism. Turns out, a key reason the thyroid slows down is that the body mistakenly attacks it — and Dr. Hosoda explains these autoimmune attacks “are very often triggered in our gut.”

Here’s the main way it happens: Little by little, things like stress hormones, antibiotics, and irritants in food damage the thin gut lining; if it gets bad enough, tiny tears form and microscopic food particles escape. While scientists don’t fully understand why, this can cause the immune system to malfunction and begin targeting healthy cells and tissue as they would a virus or toxin. And since the thyroid is delicate, Dr. Hosoda notes it’s prone to getting roughed up so much that it becomes sluggish and diseased.

So does your thyroid need help? Symptoms like fatigue, stubborn weight gain, brain fog, and frequent GI issues hint that the answer is yes. Be sure to talk to your doctor; you may need prescription meds to protect your well-being. But most experts agree that Dr. Hosoda’s basic style of eating can benefit virtually everyone. In fact, research shows it can help prevent future issues and even offer significant relief to folks already diagnosed with a slow thyroid.

To be fair, Dr. Hosoda says the perfect gut-soothing diet will be a little different for each of us. If you have access to a functional medicine expert, you can get high-tech tests and a personalized list of foods to avoid. Not an option? No problem! Making changes to your diet is a low-tech approach that gets pretty amazing results too.

The Best Eating Habits To Boost Thyroid Function

The gist of an elimination diet, or autoimmune protocol, is to give your body a break from foods that often cause inflammation and thyroid attacks, “like grains, dairy, sugar, artificial colors and flavors, and any highly processed food,” Dr. Hosoda says. At the same time, you’ll aim to get plenty of nutrients proven to help relieve inflammation and repair damage — especially antioxidants from produce (organic if possible, to avoid pesticide residue), amino acids from high-quality protein, and omega-3s from good fat.

As you narrow down what you eat and pay more attention to your body, you may notice a seemingly healthy food causes bloating or tummy trouble. Remove that item from your diet too. After you give your system time to rejuvenate, you can add things back one at a time and reincorporate any that don’t trigger reactions. “I used to have trouble with coconut, but now that my gut has healed, I can handle it again,” Dr. Hosoda shares. “The key is to find things that are damaging for you and replace them with things that are healing.”

Bonus: “As your gut heals, it becomes better able to absorb nutrients essential for making thyroid hormones, like magnesium and selenium,” Dr. Hosoda notes. A healthy gut also absorbs more minerals like chromium that are key to preventing inflammatory blood-sugar spikes.

For Dr. Hosoda, blood tests showed a significant drop in markers of autoimmune attacks. “I felt energized and better right away. And then the weight started coming off pretty quickly, about 2 to 4 pounds every week or so,” she adds. “If you take steps and don’t get better, a hidden infection or other issues can be at play. Don’t struggle alone. Keep looking until you find a doctor who helps you.”

Dr. Hosoda’s Elimination Diet Meal Plan for Thyroid Health

To try Dr. Hosoda’s way of eating, use a free app like MyFitnessPal to keep portions healthy and enjoy lots of nonstarchy veggies, protein, and good fats. Include a little low-sugar fruit and grain-free starch like sweet potato, beans, and quinoa into your daily diet. Choose organic or grass-fed ingredients if possible. Also, avoid sugar, dairy, grains, and processed food. Below, you can find three easy meal ideas if you’re following the elimination diet plan:

Breakfast: Halve and slightly hollow baked sweet potatoes. Brush with olive oil and then add raw eggs. Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit until the eggs reach your preferred level of doneness, 10 to 15 minutes.
Lunch: Dress up a large bowl of spring greens with grilled chicken, fresh berries, nuts, spring onion, and a drizzle of olive oil vinaigrette.
Dinner: On a sheet pan, top salmon and veggies with olive oil and seasoning. Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit until the fish flakes, 15 to 20 minutes.

Large body of misinformation is fueling American gun violence

Palm Beach Daily News – Opinion

Large body of misinformation is fueling American gun violence

Tom Gabor and Fred Guttenberg – June 7, 2023

Slogans like “Guns don’t kill, people do” and “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” reflect the decades-long campaign by the gun lobby and its allies to convince Americans that owning guns makes them safer. This campaign, based on a large body of misinformation, has made America a far more dangerous place. Our book American Carnage identifies and debunks close to 40 core myths that have led many Americans to mistakenly believe that carrying a gun and keeping one in the home will protect them rather than expose them to an elevated risk of harm.

Much of this misinformation stems from the radicalization of the gun lobby, beginning in the 1970s. Since then, the gun industry and gun rights organizations have made it their priority to convince Americans that an armed citizenry is the most effective way to shield ourselves from violence. This campaign has included stoking the public’s fear of crime, funding dubious scholarship by gun-friendly researchers, and shutting down federal funding of research showing that guns in the home put occupants at an elevated risk.

Before you fight over the word ‘woke,’ learn its history. It will blow you away.

AZ Central – The Arizona Republic – Opinion

Before you fight over the word ‘woke,’ learn its history. It will blow you away.

Phil Boas, Arizona Republic – June 7, 2023

Poster of Leadbelly at the Rusty Nail in Wilmington.

Someday when the cultural moment that many have called “The Great Awokening” is finally, mercifully, over, Americans of all races should fight to give African Americans their word back.

Less than 10 years ago, “woke” was a word so deeply layered with history and meaning it could evoke years of pain suffered by descendants of slaves coming of age in Jim Crow America.

You don’t have to be African American, however, to feel its history. The word woke is seminal to our larger culture in ways most of us have never understood.

It’s one of the great words in American English and it should be preserved in its purest form.

At the moment it is being hijacked by politics – first by white liberals, then by white conservatives.

A battle over ‘woke’ in the Republican Party primary

This week the word “woke” is igniting a family spat within the 2024 Republican primary for president, pitting Donald Trump against his former apprentice, Ron DeSantis.

DeSantis, the Florida governor, uses the word frequently to describe an ideology steeped in identity politics that has taken over our universities, media, large corporations, medicine, arts, entertainment and sports.

Trump argues he doesn’t use the word. “I don’t like the term ‘woke’ because I hear, ‘Woke, woke, woke.’ It’s just a term they use, half the people can’t even define it, they don’t know what it is.”

There’s a good chance none of us would know the word today had the Library of Congress not set out in the 1930s to preserve American folk music in the South.

That project took library archivists to Louisiana where they discovered a little-known African American blues singer named Huddie William Ledbetter or “Lead Belly.”

The archivists recorded on aluminum discs Lead Belly and his 12-string guitar, preserving what would become some of the great Blues standards such as “Cotton Fields,” “Goodnight, Irene” and “Rock Island Line.”

‘Woke’ emerges with a song about race and suffering

In Lead Belly’s song “The Scottsboro Boys,” the nine African-American young men falsely accused of raping two white women in Alabama, he admonishes his listeners to, “Best stay woke!”

It’s believed to be the first recorded instance of the word.

As Huddie Ledbetter used “woke,” it meant that when you’re a Black person travelling through a deeply racist state such as Alabama, you need to know what you’re dealing with – a highly refined form of evil.

Ledbetter would know. He travelled the byways of Louisiana, Alabama and Texas singing his songs and confronting white bigotry and its violence against Black people.

In a way that history has of surprising us, Lead Belly would become essential to white culture in America and Great Britain. All white people reading this and learning the name Huddie Ledbetter for the first time, should know that they have likely felt his influence, far more than they could have imagined.

The driving rhythms of Lead Belly’s version of “Rock Island Line,” would in the 1950s inspire an early British pop singer named Lonnie Donegan, who adopted the song’s musical style called skiffle, a mash of American folk, blues and jazz.

Lead Belly influences Rock ‘n Roll’s greatest band

Donovan became “the king” of the U.K. “skiffle craze” and eventually inspired new skiffle groups across England, such as Liverpool’s The Quarrymen, then led by an aspiring singer-songwriter named John Lennon.

By 1960, the group would evolve into The Beatles, and its lead guitarist, George Harrison, would one day tell an interviewer, “If there was no Lead Belly, there would have been no Lonnie Donegan; no Lonnie Donegan, no Beatles. Therefore, no Lead Belly, no Beatles,” as recounted by Smithsonian Magazine.

Lead Belly was inspiring many musical forms of that day. Those same early recordings that preserved his music and the word “woke,” found their way into the imagination of another young artist of some note.

“Somebody – somebody I’d never seen before – handed me a Lead Belly record with the song ‘Cottonfields’ on it,” recalled Bob Dylan in his 2017 lecture to the Noble (Prize) Foundation. “That record changed my life right then and there. Transported me into a world I’d never known.

“It was like an explosion went off. Like I’d been walking in darkness and all of the sudden the darkness was illuminated. It was like somebody laid hands on me. I must have played that record a hundred times.”

The biggest names in many genres sing his songs

By the end of the century, Led Belly’s influence on American popular music was its own constellation of stars. Artists covering his songs included Gene Autry, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Tom Jones, Harry Belafonte, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, The Beach Boys, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Aerosmith, Lead Zeppelin, Tom Petty, The Grateful Dead.

When Beat Generation author William S. Burroughs wrote, “These new rock ‘n roll kids should just throw away their guitars and listen to something with real soul, like Lead Belly,” a young musician in Seattle named Kurt Cobain took up his challenge.

Years later, he recalled on an MTV stage: “I’d never heard about Lead Belly before so I bought a couple of records, and now he turns out to be my absolute favorite of all time in music. I absolutely love it more than any rock’n’roll I ever heard.”

After he said it, his band Nirvana began to play Huddie William Ledbetter’s “Where Did You Sleep Last Night.”

Our chattering classes, and I include myself among them, have been poor caretakers of the word “woke.”

When this battle over wokeness is finally over, it would do us well to give the word back.

And while we’re at it, maybe we could make the name Huddie Ledbetter, one of America’s most important songwriters, as easily recognizable as say, Ringo Starr.

Phil Boas is an editorial columnist with The Arizona Republic. Email him at phil.boas@arizonarepublic.com.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: