Comments on: Could Russert's Death Have Been Prevented?

Tim Russert Recently Passed A Stress Test, But It Couldn't Predict His Heart Attack

[talkingham]

I got started looking into this oil/fats mess back when I started a low-carb regime about 12 years ago before it was a fad.

Turns out that all this corn, soy and numerous other veggie oils have some pretty lousy characteristics, the least appetizing of which is the fact that they go rancid incredibly fast.

There is great reading on the subject of animal fats versus the edible oils industry at the Weston A Price Foundation web site, which includes articles by Mary Enig and others who disagree with many aspects of nutrition that have have been marketed to us under the name of low fats. Really nice to have a perspective that the bought and sold news media will never provide.

A friend of mine recently nearly died from a clot caused by one of these cholesterol reducing drugs, unfortunately the news media are too busy selling these drugs to ask any real questions about the philosophy and lack of any viable data to really support their use.

Most of the fats data in this country is totally skewed by the fact that trans fats were never broken into a separate category in any of the many studies that are now used in Public Health policy, no accident since the edible oils industry owns half of Congress. Can u say Archer Daniels Midland Corp?

[jerr11]

Good question!

Could the Iraq war have been prevented?

Why didn''t Russert ask the hard questions?

Was he intimidated by the neocons like the rest of the spineless press?

Shouldn''t his program have be renamed "Meet the Neocon Propagandists?"

[edwzar]

Please people. The time has passed for a question such as this... Let''s remember him for who he was and how he touched soo so many of us.. God Speed Tim!!

[gwagener]

Several posts suggest it was his time to go. You cannot possibly know that. lorenzen6 is right. A defibrillator can revive some people in cardiac arrest. I do not know if Russert could have been saved by a defibrillator, or if someone had done CPR on him. The article does not say.

[oktexchic]

talkingham ... how do you know so much about this ... what is your source?

[credibility2]

What hasn''t been fully explored with the sudden death of Russert was all of the stress in the weeks leading up to his death. His son graduated from college. He placed his father in an assisted living home. He was traveling and vacationing heartily in Italy with his wife and son; the trip probably also included dining on perhaps less than healthy cuisine, given his health issues. He returns home one day ahead of doing the videotaping of his weekly program, presumably with no proper rest and recovery from the long cramped flight and acclimation to the time difference. Russert clearly was pushing himself beyond reasonableness and wasn''t giving himself sufficient recovery time and at a healthy pace. Work is fine, but when combined with other tangential factors, it''s not worth the stress and pressure some of us place ourselves under. All of this shows too that Russert was trying to do too much in too confined a space of time. I think his stress and his work contributed immensely to his too early a demise.

[gwagener]

What I want to know is if he could have been revived if they had a portable defibrillator or if someone had done CPR on him. Sure, if he had lost weight and exercised more he might have lived longer, but the question not addressed is, "Could adequate emergency medical treatment have kept him alive?"

[georgew1956]

leave it to cbs to carie on the pain just to get a story on the wire , this is scum reporting.

[oktexchic]

One report I read said he Russert died due to high cholesterol. Yet I listen to experts who say the cholesterol is not the problem.

GrammaWhamma,
you seem to know a lot about this .. where did you get your information? I''m trying to help my mom be protected, but she listens to her doctors who have her on all kinds of meds, including Lipitor for cholesterol.

[talkingham]

Well after 30 years of heart specialists suggesting men stop eating butter in favor artery clogging trans fat loaded margarines it''s hard to tell how many men and women have died from the low-fat anti-animal fats edible oil lobby that owns half of Congress.

Do you realize it took a quarter of a century since nutritionist Mary Enig''s testimony about transfats was cut from the Congressional record for this travesty to be revealed.

There are quite a few people being killed by these "anti" cholesterol drugs that cause the plaque which is actually plugging gaps in many people''s artery walls and heart walls. When you remove the plaque you get a rupture or blockage.

The "low-fat" rancid edible vegetable oils industry is doing a great job.

It''s amazing how many incredibly fat people you see eating all this low fat slop.

[walker1209]

To answer the question - NO, it was his time to go; it is as simple as that. I don''t believe that people die before their time. That being said, Mr. Russert was privileged to have great medical care and access to some of the best physicians in this country. That is a lot more than many hard working Americans have.
Approximately 830 Americans are stricken by this condition everyday, that is more than 200,000 a year. While this is a sad event for Mr. Russert''s family, loved ones, and colleagues, I am not sure why this has continued to be National news; is there nothing of importance going on in the country, world?

The death of this man only reinforces what I already believe; that we should live each day to the fullest, make a contribution to society in whichever way we can, treat our fellow humans as that, humans, and tell our families/loved ones each day that we love them. Tomorrow is not promised we can not undo what was done yesterday.

[lovemy3boys]

Some people don''t make it out of the womb and children die every day...it''s sad, but true. We''re not all going to live to a "ripe old age" no matter how well we take care of ourselves.

I''m not saying that you don''t have to take care of yourself..if you do, your QUALITY of life will be better, but the QUANTITY was predetermined by God at your conception.

There''s an old saying, "Eat Right, Exercise, Die Anyway."

[rational_1]

I don''''t wish bad things to happen to anyone. Mr Russert was too young to die.
By the looks of him, AL Gore will be next.
Posted by GrammaWhamma at 05:10 AM : Jun 17, 2008

Ya never know. Like someone else already noted, George Burns lived to over a hundred, smoking those stogies like a fiend. The points the article makes about cholesterol, exercise, diabetes, etc. - on average. However, you can''t say anything definitive about any one person. Remember Jim Fixx, the guy who helped popularize the running phenomenon? Dropped dead of a massive heart attack at 52. You just never know...

[missybelle-2009]

58 is to young to have a "time to go" so I wholeheartedly disagree with that thinking now
Posted by soshljustic at 02:52 AM : Jun 17, 2008


We can any of us go at any time, just be grateful for the time you have had, and every day is just a gift. Disagree all you want, but you can''t change it, right?

[lorenzen6]

It may be that if NBC had bought the heart defribillator and used it, russert would still be alive - all companies were advised to buy these but apparently NBC did not. Many people are saved if they can have a "heart re-start" in this type of situation. Americans need someone to believe in that is a national figure and russert fulfilled that role.

[grammawhamma]

I don''t wish bad things to happen to anyone. Mr Russert was too young to die.


By the looks of him, AL Gore will be next.

[wblanchet]

Tim was a champion of the truth, here is some sad truth!

Tim Russert died from his first symptom of coronary artery disease as do 150,000 Americans each year. It touches almost every family. It is America''s most underreported tragedy and it cries for more exposure! Especially since it is an unnecessary tragedy caused by ignorance on the part of physicians as well as the public!.

First an indictment of the current standard:

Using standard risk factor stratification, we will find only about 40% of individuals at risk for heart attacks

Of those identified as being at risk, less than half are treated at all and fewer than one third are treated to goal

Treating patients to goal using current National Cholesterol Education Panel guidelines (NCEP-III) will prevent optimistically 40% of heart attacks.

Stress tests would be normal in over 80% of patients who will have a heart attack this year.

Stents cause more heart attacks and coronary death than does medical management alone(9,10).

What we should be doing:

EBT coronary Calcium Imaging is an inexpensive, safe, low radiation procedure that looks at the calcium contained within the plaque in coronary arteries. EBT coronary calcium imaging will identify over 95% of individuals at risk for heart attacks and treating to a goal of coronary calcium stability will prevent over 90% of the heart attacks in the group treated regardless of how much coronary disease they have at the beginning of treatment.

[soshljustic]

58 is to young to have a "time to go" so I wholeheartedly disagree with that thinking now, as I did when my father died the same way at his "time" of 55. This is just another reason to come up with less invasive and harmful ways to measure plaque build-up on vessel walls before a chunk breaks off and leads to an MI or Stroke. A bleed is a bleed is a bleed is not true. some have a decent quality of life after, some need never occur thru preventive measures as I know,working cardiac care in the 80''s - no more of that since I had a partial lobectomy in 2002 for 35-50 seizures a day--every threat to life can be mediated thru medicine--only need to keep coming up with the how to''s thru research and proper diagnostic tools.

[mr_totten]

NO!

[truth_police]

What happened to Russert (dying) is what will happen to every single human currently living on the planet. Because we are alive and he is dead, we who are alive tend to erroneously believe that what happened to him (dying) would not have happened, if ....if....if... In reality, death is an inevitability for all of us. When our moment comes it will always be ''too soon'' ... ''too aweful'' ... ''too painful'' ... ''too unfair'' for us to contemplate NOW. Death is always delivered by a medical-biological malfunction of some kind. The only remaining question is "when?" Since most humans do not frequently reside in the ''Here & Now'' the ''when'' question looms large. Whenever it happens, it will be in the ''Here & Now'' and everyone else will express utter tumultuous shock and surprise that such a thing could happen.