GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The headlines underscore the oddness of the crime: “Saint’s heart stolen in Dublin” writes the Irish Times. The heart of the city’s patron saint, St Laurence O’Toole, was taken from the metal cage where it has been held for more than seven centuries, in Christ Church Cathedral.
A metal cutter was used, police say, to cut the bars. The crime appears to have taken place between 09:30 and 12:30 Saturday 3 March.
The newspaper says that he was born Lorcán Ua Tuathail in 1128 in County Kildare. He was canonized in 1225 and his heart has been preserved since the 131th century in Christ Church Cathedral.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A couple aged 85 and 87 in Annemasse, France were found dead early Thursday by a member of the family, reports the Tribune de Geneve, apparently from accidents related to the cold. The couple were retired farmers and the wife, 85, may have slipped on the ice when she went out to feed her chickens. Her husband reportedly suffered from heart problems and died in the barn a few hours later, where he may have gone to look for his wife.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – One hundred students from 11 to 14 are learning how to save a heart today, thanks to a course organized by the International School of Geneva and the Swiss Heart Foundation.
They’ll be working with Mini-Anne, a new lifesaving measures self-teaching doll.
The students are given a hands-on course in the lifesaving measures needed when confronted by someone suffering from heart or circulatory failure.
The course was organized after the school’s application was accepted for Project Help, a cantonal project to educate and involve young people in lifesaving programmes.
Some 8,000 people die every year of heart failure, in Switzerland.
Only 5 percent of those live if the problem occurs outside a hospital setting. Only 1-2 percent of the population knows what steps to take to help the victim.
A study where a group of 201 African-Americans with narrowing of the arteries were told to take up lifestyle changes or transcendental meditation twice a day for 20 minutes “significantly” reduced heart disease, the BBC reports. The story is based on findings reported at a five-day scientific meeting of the American Heart Association where the latest heart research is being presented.Among other findings reported Monday 16 November: biotech soybeans may prove to be a good alternative to fish oil as a source of heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids and from another study, a telephone-based collaborative care programme speeds recovery and helps coronary bypass patients avoid depression.
Links to other sites: AHA and AHA Science News congress, BBC,
For the heart, better up than down: the Swiss Alps and Lake Geneva
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Researchers at the University of Zurich, in a study of 1.6 million German-speaking Swiss people over a 10-year period, confirm that the risk of having a heart attack or stroke is dramatically lower if you live above 1,000 metres, and that climate is probably a key factor. Previous studies have provided conflicting results, in part because of the mixed populations studied, say authors David Faeh, Felix Gutzwiller and Matthias Bopp for the Swiss National Study Cohort Group.
The people with the lowest risk are those born at high altitude who continue to live there, their study shows.
The risk of coronary heart disease falls by 22 percent for each 1,000 metres of altitude and the risk of stroke drops by 12 percent per 1,000m. The study included men and women ages 40 to 84, who lived at altitudes ranging from 259 metres to 1960m.
American Heart Association, 28 July 2009
Tolochenaz, Vaud, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Medtronic, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of cardiac stimulators, including pacemakers, is celebrating production of its three millionth device at its Tolochenaz plant. The research centre and manufacturing plant opened in 1996-97 and the first pacemakers made in Switzerland came out in May 1997. The company added a major global training centre in 2002 at the site. Medtronic’s devices also include neurostimulators.
Cantons Geneva, Jura and Solothurn, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland was the scene of violent deaths in three members of a family in Solothurn and of a University of Geneva professor out walking in the Jura the weekend of 6-7 June. Police have now arrested two people in connection with the Solothurn murders. The circumstances surrounding the death of Alain Monnier, professor of religion and anthropology in Geneva remain unclear for now, with police saying only that a knife was found in a nearby river and that he died of a stab wound to the heart.
Monnier was a professor for 21 years at the University of Geneva and he was last seen Thursday 4 June when he left his home in the Jura, near the Doubs river area, to go for a walk. His body was found Saturday. Police are not excluding all possibilities, from suicide to accident to murder.
A new study of 16,000 people in 52 countries identified three main eating patterns, reports the BBC, with the typical Western diet of food that is high in fat, salty, with meat, responsible for 30% of heart attack risk, and a diet high in fruit and vegetables reducing the risk by one-third.
Microbiologists in Dublin, Ireland have shown that brushing your teeth regularly and good dental hygiene is one of the secrets to avoiding heart problems. The mouth has some 700 bacteria and unhealthy teeth leading to unhealthy gums can provide a direct path to the heart. TSR, Fre and Society for Microbiology
