NBC's Tim Russert Dead at 58

[birdgirl73]

Oh, dear! Diabetes. I'm sorry to learn that. Hadn't heard that anyplace. That alone is a huge risk factor.

My mom has just been diagnosed with type II diabetes and is being completely non-compliant dietarily. She already has high blood pressure, congestive heart failure, emphysema, a family history of stroke, and a 35-year history with cigarettes, which she quit 15 years ago. It's not a great new diagnosis to combine with those others. I heard Dave giving her his standard spiel two weekends ago about how "A diagnosis of diabetes alone automatically puts patients into the same risk category for heart disease/heart attack as people who've had at least one previous heart attack." She's the reason I go a little overboard in the opposite direction about watching my weight and fitness level. Don't want to look into the future 25 years from now and be faced with the same situation.

Sorry. Didn't mean to go off on a personal tangent. Thanks for the info about the diabetes. Guess that explains why Tim Russert was at elevated risk for heart disease, though.

[painretreat]

By 7P.M. P.S.T. the news reported that he had already had an autopsy. Seemed odd to me! Said, enlarged heart and embolism!

He just got back from his son's graduation celebration overseas and returned to work that day.

Diabetes, they did not say anything about hardening of the arteries, but had to be some.

Wonder if it had to do with the length of airplane ride with no exercise. Who know!

No matter what, it is sad. Especially for his son, Dad, wife and everyone that admired his work. He always seemed a little too emotionally invested! That is what I liked about him.

So, even getting checked out before 58 yr. old, doesn't mean you can avoid it! Guess, we have to live better sooner. Which is not how we were taught for that generation, as we are now. When he was born, I believe the life expectancy was about 65 for a man! Things have changed.

[Coelho]

When he was born, I believe the life expectancy was about 65 for a man! Things have changed.

Just remember that the life expectancy is only (and just only) an average. It dont means that usually every man will die at 65, but rather that for every one who dies at 95, there will be one who dies at 35.

[silkyblue]

he was a notoriously driven, hard-working, type A sort of journalist, too, so that fits with the profile, too.

we cannot work like that

we cannot work like horses and drop on site

I never watched Tim he was way too serious

someone like Dr Phil rocks my world Dr Phil

hes so calm

Tim prolly had Diabetes, full blown, clogged arts, the whole gammit of symptoms. Why did Tim ignore the symptoms? 24/7? Was Tim on meds to control his vitals? I read he had high blood pressure

maybe NBC kept it goin and shoulda gave Tim A vaction? Did he have an Internist? NBC could be at fault? POOR GUY! he was blessed really, to go, so fast ~

whats the scoop? where was he? maybe he choaked to death ,

he didnt get those chubbie cheeks from talking someone down <-----


Diabetes is s seriuos illness

there is no cure


your blood becomes like syrup it cannot get through
the veins if its too thick

RIP Tim Russert

[birdgirl73]

Silky, if you'd watched Tim Russert, you'd have seen that he was not too serious at all. He was often funny and easy-going on air. If a guest were not prepared--and he asked easy-to-prepare-for, fair, easy-to-anticipate questions--yes, he'd grill them and often reveal them as the fools that they were. But he always respected his guests and was frequently hysterically funny. He worked hard himself to prepare and do all the reading and background work that his job required. So he was certainly driven to achieve according to his own standards, and journalism is a high-pressure, deadline-driven field, of course, which is stressful. But he was far from too serious most of the time. You should have seen him on the subject of sports!

Phil McGraw comes from this same community I live in and has worked with various legal and medical professionals in this area for many years. He's not laid back at all. He's one of the most driven, workaholic types there is. Notoriously exacting and perfectionistic and widely hailed as one of the most difficult, egotistic men there is--in this community and now in California, too. He clearly keeps that fairly well masked on his TV show, but you can ask anyone who's worked with him and they'll confirm this. They'll use far more colorful language than I've used here, too, including the word "jackass."

That's not what folks say about Russert. He was upbeat. Cared deeply. Believed in people doing their jobs well and cared about getting to the truth. And was always professional, courteous, friendly and fair, even to idiots and people with whom he disagreed. He was respected by everyone on both sides of the political spectrum as all the tributes have revealed.

Tim Russert - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
NBC's Tim Russert dead at 58 - Politics - MSNBC.com

His cause of death was a coronary thrombosis. He was under the care of a physician for asymptomatic heart disease, meaning he didn't have chest pain and hadn't yet had a heart attack when that diagnosis was made. He did indeed have diabetes. He'd had a stress test in April that had come back fine, but my husband wondered if anyone also checked his C-reactive protein levels, a marker of inflammation in the blood. Mr. Russert was on anti-cholesterol medicine, but on Friday the 13th, probably not helped by the fact that he'd just returned from a long, overseas flight back from Italy, the sinister forces of inflammation in his artery walls, plaque build-up inside the lining of that artery wall (the bad thing about anti-cholesterol medicines is they reduce build up in the center of the arteries but not that which is inside the lining of the artery walls along the sides), hypertension, and circulatory challenges from diabetes conspired to cause a tiny break in his left anterior descending artery, which then bled and formed a clot. That clot, in turn, blocked that artery and caused his heart not to be able to supply his brain or body with oxygenated blood. I don't think a case could ever be made that it was NBC's fault. He'd just returned from a vacation. He simply had too many risk factors and his number was, sadly, up.

[Dave Byrd]

Bird, you need to consider a career in cardiology. I mean this. You explained that better than I could have. The only thing you took a shortcut through--I think it's because this step is one you automatically understand so it seemed like a given--was right after the clot blocked the artery. That blockage from the thrombus caused the heart to go into ventricular fibrillation (first v-tach, then v-fib after about 45 seconds of the tach, most likely). The random quivering of the ventricles is what made Tim's heart unable to supply his brain and body with oxygenated blood rather than the blockage itself.

Poor Mr. Russert. He was my favorite broadcast journalist. His death killed the spirit of heart docs all over the country worse than any others. It's the the sad story of our specialty. You can treat and treat and treat this devil disease. But it will still kill far too many people--more than any other disease--with sudden death out of the blue.

[rebgirl420]

I didn't always agree with the man but I don't wish a heart attack on anybody.

My dad just died of one and it kills me. I feel so bad for his son.

[silkyblue]

Silky, if you'd watched Tim Russert, you'd have seen that

BG,

Oh I did partake in watching him
but noit near as much as you birdgirl

maybe Tim shouldav 'shed the weight' sooner than later

RIP again Tim

moral of the story

hopefully folks can push the plate away and lay the fork down

hes an example of what excess phat does to a body

[birdgirl73]

This is old news now, but it was important to me to clarify this here since we were discussing Mr. Russert's health details. Breuk, may you well have seen this in one of the news stories and can provide a link faster than I can. I can't find it again now that I want to.

Yesterday or the day before in a news story about Russert's heart disease I saw a direct quotation from his doctor, a gentleman with a name like "Newman" I think. That direct quotation included the words "Tim Russert did not have diabetes or the circulatory risk that attends that condition" or something to that effect. It was a legit major network news story, too.

Anyway, Breuk, I know you saw a mention that he had diabetes someplace originally. Then that Wikipedia link above that I posted certainly had it in there. I saw diabetes mentioned in one other place. But apparently, if the quote I saw within the last couple of days was correct, he wasn't diabetic after all. At least not according to the quoted doctor.

It's all moot now, unfortunately, but I thought it was important to clarify that the Wikipedia link above might not have its facts straight.

[Breukelen advocaat]

This is old news now, but it was important to me to clarify this here since we were discussing Mr. Russert's health details. Breuk, may you well have seen this in one of the news stories and can provide a link faster than I can. I can't find it again now that I want to.

Yesterday or the day before in a news story about Russert's heart disease I saw a direct quotation from his doctor, a gentleman with a name like "Newman" I think. That direct quotation included the words "Tim Russert did not have diabetes or the circulatory risk that attends that condition" or something to that effect. It was a legit major network news story, too.

Anyway, Breuk, I know you saw a mention that he had diabetes someplace originally. Then that Wikipedia link above that I posted certainly had it in there. I saw diabetes mentioned in one other place. But apparently, if the quote I saw within the last couple of days was correct, he wasn't diabetic after all. At least not according to the quoted doctor.

It's all moot now, unfortunately, but I thought it was important to clarify that the Wikipedia link above might not have its facts straight.

The sources who have said that Tim Russert had diabetes, based on a Diabetes Forcast magazine article, may have gotten him confused with Chris Matthews. There was an article about Matthews in the Dec. 2007 issue of Diabetes Forecast. http://www.diabetes.org/uedocuments/...thews-1207.pdf