Surprising findings about people who have suffered heart attacks reveal that many of these people may have diabetes – and not know it.

Research from the American Heart Association’s Quality of Care and Outcomes Research Scientific Sessions 2014 found that about 10 percent of heart attack patients have undiagnosed diabetes, a condition that can raise the risk for cardiovascular events.

According to the American Heart Association, two out of three people with diabetes die from cardiovascular disease.

Patients from 24 US hospitals studied

A total of 2,854 patients from 24 U.S. hospitals were included in the study. Researchers tested the participants’ A1C levels, which determines blood sugar levels for the previous two to three months.

Findings showed that 287 patients (a little more than 10 percent) were newly diagnosed with diabetes while being treated for heart attack, and less than one-third of those 287 patients received any sort of diabetes medication or education when released from the hospital.

Even more discouraging was that doctors failed to diagnose diabetes in 69 percent of the previously undiagnosed patients, but they were 17 times more likely to recognize the blood sugar condition if they conducted an A1C test during treatment for heart attack.

Research highlights role diabetes plays in heart disease

Suzanne V. Arnold, M.D., M.H.A., lead study author and assistant professor at Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute and the University of Missouri at Kansas City, said that catching diabetes in patients who have experienced heart attacks is crucial because of the role diabetes plays when it comes to heart disease.

“By recognizing and treating diabetes early, we may be able to prevent additional cardiovascular complications through diet, weight loss and lifestyle changes in addition to taking medications,” Arnold said. “Another important reason to diagnose diabetes at the time of heart attack is that it can guide the treatments for the patient’s coronary artery disease.”

The American Heart Association recommends that people who have had a heart attack be tested for diabetes.

How sport can teach someone to deal with life’s ups and downs by developing a winning mentality and a more positive frame of mind.

Very rarely in life is everything simple. Just as things are going great, life has a cruel way of dashing hopes and upsetting carefully formed plans. Whether it is to do with family life, job security, illness or simply ruining a good score on the golf course, sometimes things go wrong.

At that point it is being able to adopt a positive attitude that can make the difference between defeat and victory. For many it is not natural to relish the challenge of fighting back, but it is definitely a form of behaviour that can be learned. The seed of success in many champions has been sewed at the time of maximum dejection. Tell Gary Player he was four down with five to play and the adrenaline would immediately start to flow.

Body Language When the Going Gets Tough

Some people naturally want to fight their way out of trouble, others have to learn a winning frame of mind. For those who struggle the first thing to do is control body language. Irrespective of whether it’s to do with golf, or life in general, when things go wrong it can drain a person of energy.

Look at the body language of a second class sportsman taking a beating – shoulders slump, the head drops, we can almost see the negative thoughts swamping the brain. To start the comeback these physical signs have to be controlled.

• Keep the head up
• Straighten the shoulders
• Walk tall
• Take deep breaths (and try to smile)

How to Make a Come Back

When things start going wrong there has to be a ‘timeout’ when problems can be accurately analysed. It may not be your fault that the going has got tough, luck cruelly plays its part sometimes. But as the great Bobby Jones once said, “you have to learn to play the ball as it lies”. Whatever situation you find yourself in it’s probably your fault and you have a responsibility to make the best of a bad job and turn things around.

It is the acceptance that problems do exist, and the commitment to positively do something about them, that is the second step to forming a winning plan. Most golfers fail at this point blaming conditions, injury, or their last lesson. The list is endless. But rather than deliberating on the past, a winning frame of mind embraces the effort to follow a positive plan: there must be a way out of this trouble — what can I do to make the situation better?

Advice, Planning and Golf Lessons

No matter what situation someone faces — the thickest rough on the course, bankruptcy, job loss, illness – there are two ways of devising a plan to get out of trouble. The plan can be your own or you can rely on an expert or trusted friend. It is not generosity alone that makes PGA pros pay their caddies so much money — they earn it with advice when things go wrong.

A golf professional or good caddie can certainly help sort out a golf swing. A financial adviser can possibly help out with the family budget. A doctor can obviously advise on health matters. Find an expert you trust and follow their advice. It may not be what you want to hear but it is probably what is right for you to do. Effort sometimes requires pain. Always remember to carry out a plan with positive body language. Keep that head up!

Positive Frame of Mind and Patience

The initial effort to continue with a positive frame of mind is often the hardest, but without immediate results it is then easy to capitulate and throw in the towel. To turn a situation around it often takes time. In golfing terms it is unlikely a golfer will birdie the next hole after dropping two shots on the previous. Patience at this point is vital.

Whatever your new plan is, whether it is to eat more healthy food, swing the club better, look for a new job; good results do not happen overnight. The courage to keep going when things are difficult is perhaps the single most important characteristic of a winner. It is very true that the tough do get going when the going gets tough.

“Should we or shouldn’t we?”

After the decision has been made to go through with and file for divorce, two spouses must ask themselves the above question regarding whether or not they should arrange a financial settlement in divorce by way of spousal support.

Many couples tend to experience puzzlement when it comes to the manner in which spousal support operates. Confusion can center around the circumstances that allow one spouse to request the alimony support; which party is eligible to receive support payments and for how long a period of time the paying spouse will be obligated to make those payments; and what happens to the payment itself once the receiving spouse decides to remarry.

Contrary to popular belief, not all divorcing spouses are entitled to alimony payments.

For example, it is easy to assume that in a situation such as adultery, the divorce judge will punish the cheating spouse by ordering him or her to pay spousal support to the scorned party. Yet unfortunate to the affair’s victim, divorce laws does not work this way.

Another very common assumption is that because a wedded couple has spent time together sharing a marriage, one of the parties is now entitled to spousal support after divorce regardless how long the union lasted.

So if these assumptions are incorrect, what are the rules governing alimony guidelines, and how do they apply to the two spouses who are petitioning the Court for a marital dissolution?

The first thing to consider before any guidelines come into play is that the two spouses are free to come to their own arrangement for spousal support payments if they so choose.

If they opt for the mutual agreement route, the parties will then have to specify to the Court the amount of support to be paid; the length of time the payments will last; the reasons why the payment figure may increase or decrease in the future; as well as any other matter the spouses wish to include in their spousal support arrangements.

A second advantage to coming up with their own support plan is the parties can agree that the Court will not have the power to change the alimony payment amount at any time, no matter what the current (financial or otherwise) circumstances are of either spouse.

And what about those couples who need a spousal support order but cannot agree on an appropriate amount?

The state of California comes to the rescue with very specific standards for determining how much will be awarded to the receiving spouse.

To start, if the parties were married for less than ten years then alimony will normally be required to be paid for half the length of the marriage. For example, in a marriage lasting eight total years, payments will last for four years.

For marriages that lasted ten or more years, spousal support will be paid until the receiving spouse either remarries or dies.

But how does the divorce judge come to a decision about what constitutes a fair alimony payment amount?

Spousal support figures are determined with court-approved software, which uses the following guidelines when calculating an appropriate amount: the total income each spouse brings in from his or her job; the living expenses for each party; whether there were children born of the marriage and if so, how many days of the year the children spend with each parent; and various other factors.

Should the parties choose to have the Court decide for them on a fair spousal support figure, it is important for them to remember that the Court then has the right to adjust the total payment amount in the event the paying spouse loses a job, declares bankruptcy, becomes disabled or suffers from an unexpected hardship.

Yet this modification by the Court goes both ways, i.e. it will be applied to the receiving spouse as well if similar misfortune occurs and there is now a need for a higher total support amount.

So then what can one expect when it comes to spousal support?

It is really up to the spouses themselves.

In other words, the parties can opt to figure out their own agreement regarding payments; they can ask the Court to calculate and enforce a guideline figure for them; or they can choose to forgo alimony altogether, and become self-sufficient once the final divorce has been granted.