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Dairy products do not have to be a significant source of fat in your diet. To get an idea of the differences among dairy products, consider that 8 ounces of whole milk contain about as much fat as 8 ounces of skim milk plus 2 teaspoons of butter or margarine. Skim milk has an added advantage—the calcium content is higher than that of whole milk. For women who especially need adequate calcium to help prevent osteoporotic dairy products are a main source of calcium. You can get the benefits without the fat by focusing on low-fat or no-fat varieties.For example, instead of eating a slice of regular American cheese, you can cut the calories in half and reduce the fat by three-fourths by choosing reduced-fat American cheese.Although switching to milk with less fat is a good way to reduce calories and fat in the diet for most adults, infants and children younger than age 2 may need the extra calories and fat in whole milk.*294\252\8*

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So powerful was our tradition of regarding the heart to be the spiritual as well as the physical centre of our existence that it led to a feeling that the heart was somehow sacrosanct when compared with other organs of the body: this untouchable organ was definitely not to be violated by a surgeon.
Indeed, the great physicians of antiquity believed the heart to be a delicate natural mechanism that, once interfered with, could not be repaired. Two thousand years ago Hippocrates wrote that injuries to the heart were sure to be fatal, while Aristotle too considered that ‘The heart alone of all viscera cannot withstand serious injury’. Somewhat later, Galen studied the wounds received by gladiators and concluded that a sword or spear to the heart was sure to cause death if it reached the ventricles – a belief echoed in the eighteenth century by Boerhaave, who was similarly convinced of the mortal dangers attendant to piercing wounds.
By and large this was the medical orthodoxy for around 20 centuries, although a few observant individuals had, on occasions, noticed that not everyone with a heart injury actually died from it. Moreover, from early in the seventeenth century there is a report of two autopsies in which undeniable evidence of previous cardiac injury was found, even though neither of the deceased had met their deaths as a result of this. This finding was confirmed later in another report: at the autopsy a scar had been found in the heart of a man who had been pierced by a sword some four years before. The heart, it seemed, could be touched without killing a person – indeed, it seemed to be positively robust!
It was, however, some time before surgeons began seriously to build on these early observations and to contemplate deliberately operating on people with heart disease or injury. There were exceptions, such as Napoleon’s famous surgeon Baron Dominique-Jean Larrey, who in 1829 successfully managed to drain fluid off the heart of a soldier who had suffered a stab wound. After the operation, he ventured to suggest that his fellow doctors had taken ‘too grave a view of the effects of wounds’ in this hitherto untouchable area, but his fellow surgeons were far from quick to respond. In fact, it was not until the late 1860s that the medical profession began to consider surgery as a serious option in the treatment of cardiac disease – and even then fairly reluctantly, the heart was still beyond the ‘last frontier’, which few were keen to cross. As late as 1896 Stephen Paget could affirm that ‘no new methods, no new discovery, can overcome the natural defects that attend a wound of the heart’. Around the same time, the celebrated Viennese surgeon Christian Albert Theodor Billroth warned, ‘Let no man who hopes to retain the respect of his medical brethren dare operate on the human heart’. This was, said Billroth, ‘prostitution of the surgical art, if not downright madness’.
As the twentieth century drew nearer, then, the heart was still regarded as out-of-bounds by most of the medical profession – but, significantly, not by all. One of the most fascinating stories in the whole of medical history was beginning to take shape. Bit by bit, the ‘forbidden territory’ would slowly be opened up by courageous and farsighted doctors, whose skill and intelligence would be matched only by their remarkable determination.
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Damaged or weakened valves are vulnerable to an infection called endocarditis. Infective endocarditis is inflammation of the endocardium, the membrane that lines the inside of the four chambers and valves of your heart. Usually, the inflammation is caused by actual infection of a valve with bacteria or other germs. Endocarditis can occur whenever bacteria circulate in the bloodstream.   Bacteria   (and other microorganisms) tend to settle on and then multiply on the misshapen valves where blood flow is turbulent.
Endocarditis is a major illness and can be fatal. It almost always results in a worse valve condition because of further destruction of the valve. Because of its severity, endocarditis may require 6 weeks or more of intravenous administration of antibiotics in the hospital, often followed by surgical treatment
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