"I don't smoke." "I exercise regularly." "Yeah, I floss." If you've ever looked into your doctor's eyes and told her a half-truth — or even an outright falsehood — join the club. But those little health fibs can have serious consequences: Your dishonesty may keep your doctor from preventing heart attacks, pregnancy complications, even cancer. Read on to learn why it's worth it to come clean.

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WEDNESDAY, Oct. 1 (HealthDay News) -- The largest observational study of hormone replacement therapy since the landmark Women's Health Initiative finds that how and when women take hormone replacement therapy affects their heart attack risk.

Younger women had a higher risk of heart attacks, especially younger women who took hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for a long time, Danish researchers found. Certain formulations also lead to different results.

By Ed Edelson
HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, July 14 (HealthDay News) -- Young adults with the borderline high blood pressure called prehypertension are more likely later in life to have calcium deposits in their coronary arteries, a new study finds.

"They're too young to have very many heart attacks and strokes," lead author Dr. Mark J. Pletcher said of the 3,560 participants whose ages were 18 to 30 when the study started. "But looking at coronary calcium is a way of measuring atherosclerosis, which is a strong predictor of heart attacks."

TUESDAY, July 8 (HealthDay News) -- Although heart attacks are rare among young women, becoming pregnant does double or triple a woman's risk, a new study finds.

"This is a unique phenomenon in the sense that these are young women who are not supposed to have [heart attacks]," said lead researcher Dr. Uri Elkayam, a professor of medicine at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

By Ed Edelson
EmpowHer's HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, April 29 (HealthDay News) -- Secondhand smoke not only damages the delicate cells that line blood vessels but also disrupts the body's natural repair mechanism for those cells, a new study shows.

By Ed Edelson
EmpowHer's HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, March 31 (HealthDay News) -- Treatment with an ACE inhibitor drug was as effective in reducing deaths, heart attacks and stroke in a high-risk group of patients as a newer and more expensive angiotensin-receptor blocker (ARB) drug, a large international study has found.

MONDAY, March 24 (HealthDay News) -- Patients with heart attacks or other acute heart events may receive better care and have lower death rates in hospitals that take part in clinical trials, U.S. researchers report.

BBC

Rheumatoid arthritis patients may be able to reduce their high risk of heart attacks and strokes with a gluten-free, vegan diet, a study suggests.

Heart attacks and strokes are among the leading causes of death for sufferers, as the inflammation caused by the disease impacts upon the arteries.

But an Arthritis Research and Therapy study found those who pursued a vegan regime had less "bad" cholesterol.