h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Heart Disease - A7709565
Author: Straighttalker - The Poorly Pussycat of HooToo (almost always prowling) - U2723325

My first article is, I think, ready for the rigours of Peer Review.

Gently does it please...I have the condition!!

...here we go.............

Hi Straighttalker.

Had a quick skim through and it looks very informative, but is a bit similar in some parts to an entry already in the EG, A571105 Coronary Artery Disease. How about comparing them and focusing your entry on areas that that Entry does not cover?

That's not actually an edited entry Deakie...

Hi ST,

Nice article

Dont really have time to look over it in detail right now.
Just a suggestions for now... Instead of centering your headings make them propper heading using . Will look more liek the other guide entries then.

Ill look at it in more detail tonight, but looks good .

SI x

Oooh, I'm sure it came up edited in the search thingummy! Then again, we all know how well that works!!

Ok then, Straighttalker, as you were and just ignore me!!!

It's ok Deakie...I did spend some time looking via hootoo search for similar and did see that one and noted it wasn't edited..

SI...will do the header thingy...

*I love technical terms, did you notice?*

Err, just to let you know, I had forgotten to add the surgical treatment on the end of the article...have now done that!!

I had written it in notepad due to recent server probs. and forgot to paste it!!....

Hi straight-talker ~ you've got a lot of good information here

I've just come out of hospital after a double coronary artery bypass graft and treatment nowadays is such that I had the operation on the 17th and I came home on the 20th.

I'll have a more detailed read when I've got more time.

hi strighttalker,

On a formatting / grammer issue

reading through I think that there a possibly quite a few too many commas in the entry and not enough spaces which makes it difficult for me to read

Hi, The_Jon_m - Scout,
Have had a re-read and made a few alterations, see what you think.Not sure what you mean by 'not enough spaces though?'

text is easier to read + conforms to convention if there are spaces after punctuation marks

hi again, The_Jon_m - Scout

have made changes accordingly.

Have re-read and altered the numerous punctuation marks and corrected the spacing.
I await with bated breath for the on rush of comments over the next few weeks or so!!

The best thing to do while you're waiting for reviews is to go read (and comment) on other entries in PR

wow, I can't believe we don't already have an entry covering this in the guide.

nice one

Wow, this really is a yawning gap in the Guide if we don't have an edited entry on heart disease!

First of all, I really like the style and the way you explain things. There are a couple of things that need to be tidied up in terms of House Style eg the first person references ("the main one I will be writing about..." etc), but these aren't a huge problem.

However, I think there's room for more detail here and there. Don't be downhearted if this turns into a long list, I'm making the effort becuae your Entry is worth it!

-You should list all of the major risk factors for heart disease right up at the top in a list, as it's not just high cholesterol... you've missed smoking (!!!) for a start. I'd also put diabetes, high blood pressure, advancing age etc all in the same paragraph so people can see all of them at once.

- Not everybody realises that the heart doesn't really get oxygen from all the blood swishing around inside it, it has to go out to the coronary arteries around the outside. Might be worth mentioning

- You could use s a little more detail as to exactly what happens when you you get atherosclerosis and get angina or have a heart attack, something like:

"Through a combination of these risk factors, a fatty sludge (called atherosclerosis) builds up on arteries everywhere, but especially the small arteries that supply blood to the ouside of the heart (the coronary arteries), causing them to narrow. This means that when the heart works harder, not enough blood can get through to supply the heart muscle and you get the symptoms of angina. A heart attack, on the other hand, is when a piece of that sludge breaks off and completely blocks part of the artery downstream. This causes the part of the heart that's deprived of blood to die." You get the idea.

- I would put the symptoms in an easy to read bullet-pointed list as well so they're all laid out for people.

- If you're going to mention diagnostic tests it's useful to mention troponin blood tests for completeness and explain in a sentence or two what they measure.

- In order to figure out the damage to the heart, an echocardiogram without the stress-inducing drug can be used as well.

- I'd probably put all the treatments in the same place in the Entry, so you can read about angiogram and angioplasty one after the other (as you have to do one to do the other!)

- Maybe give an example of a (generic) drug name for each class of drugs so people can get an idea of what each is called.

- About warfarin - " Clopidrogel... does the same job without the need for as much regular monitoring and can be taken orally as opposed to injections." Warfarin isn't given as injections, I think you're thinking of heparin (which is used short-term after some types of heart attack, but not long-term usually).

- Nitrates do get less effective with continued use, but only with the long-acting tablets (isosorbide mononitrate) if they're taken more than once a day, or if you leave nitrate skin patches on for 24 hours a day. Mostly the spray is okay if you only take it when you get pain.

- Finally, I would suggest changing the name of the Entry to something like "Coronary Heart Disease - Angina and Heart Attack" or something similar, because there are many (many, many...) more forms of heart disease than you've mentioned here - and summarising them all in one Entry is probably too big a job!

That'll do for now, you've done a fantastic job so far, this is a great idea for a first Entry and it's written well. Keep it up!

Matt

Hi DrMatt....I am assuming your name indicates you are in fact a Doctor and your comments certainly seem to confirm this I think!....I was hoping there was a doctor in the house that would be able to assist somewhat!! I have printed off your comments cos they are interesting and shall study them and make adjustments as necessary.

Thank you for your remarks,very useful and informative,look out for the amendments, they are on the way!!.

I think this Entry is brilliant and much needed. With the amendments suggested by the doc it should go straight (no pun intended) into the Guide, and on the Front Page at that.

J

All amendments carried out I think!
Have refrained from naming drugs as not sure what the policy is re possible copyright or advertising issues. Perhaps a sub-editor or editor could advise on that.I do make reference to the BHF site where drug names are given however.
Everything else suggested to date I think has now been covered.
Thanks for comments so far.
ST.

Nice, it looks a lot more complete now. I think that somebody needs to go through it from a proofreading point of view as there's a bit of idiosyncratic punctuation and phrasing at times. I don't have time to do this at the moment, but there are several lovely scouts who do this sort of thing all the time.

With regards to drug names, basically there are two ways of naming them. There's the brand name (eg Prozac) and the generic name which can be reprinted anywhere without a TM next to it (eg fluoxetine). Here are some examples of generic names that you can use without worrying about copyright etc.

Beta-blocker - metoprolol
Statin - simvastatin
ACE inhibitor - enalapril
Ca channel blocker - felodipine
Aspirin, Warfarin, GTN spray are all generic names as well.

Matt