One of the largest studies of its kind has found that people with coronary artery disease who have even a modest beer belly or muffin top are at higher risk for death than people whose fat collects elsewhere. The effect was observed even in patients with a normal Body Mass Index (BMI).
Scientists at Johns Hopkins have shown in laboratory experiments in mice that blocking the action of a signaling protein deep inside the heart’s muscle cells blunts the most serious ill effects of high blood pressure on the heart. These include heart muscle enlargement, scar tissue formation and loss of blood vessel growth.
A gene known to be important in cardiac development has been newly associated with congenital heart malformations that result in obstruction of the left ventricular outflow tract. These are the findings from a study conducted by Nationwide Children’s Hospital and appearing in the journal Birth Defects Research Part A.
Declining rates of hospitalization have discouraged primary care doctors from seeing their patients in the hospital and encouraged the growing use of “hospitalists,” a specialty focused on the care of hospitalized patients. Further developments in the field mean that frequently hospitalized patients also may need a specialist focused on their care.
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is common and linked with heart disease in the very elderly, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society Nephrology (CJASN).
Fatty liver disease is one of the best markers of coronary artery disease. It can also lead to cirrhosis, fibrosis and liver failutre.
Elizabeth Taylor died of congestive heart failure (CHF) at the age of 79 on March 23. Her death raises awareness of this serious condition that affects an estimated five million Americans. What is CHF and can it be prevented?
A new study of coronary artery calcium scanning – a simple, noninvasive test that gives patients baseline information about plaque in their coronary arteries—has shown that the scan helps them make heart-healthy lifestyle changes and lower their heart disease risk factors.
A daily dose of safflower oil, a common cooking oil, for 16 weeks can improve such health measures as good cholesterol, blood sugar, insulin sensitivity and inflammation in obese postmenopausal women who have Type 2 diabetes, according to new research.
Sildenafil, a drug used to treat erectile dysfunction and pulmonary hypertension, has another possible use—helping children and young adults with congenital heart disease to better tolerate exercise.
The Mount Sinai Medical Center has become the first hospital in the United States to perform a cardiac catheterization procedure using the TactiCath force-sensing ablation catheter for the treatment of symptomatic paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (AF), or periodic rapid and irregular heartbeats. The new procedure will allow physicians to more safely and effectively treat AF, which affects more than two million Americans.
U.S. Senators Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) today reintroduced legislation to ensure that heart disease, stroke and other cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are more widely recognized and effectively treated in women.
Using aspirin for coronary heart prevention is less costly and more effective than doing nothing in men older than 45 with more than 10 percent 10-year-risk of the disease, according to a study by researchers at RTI International, University of Michigan, and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
A team of heart experts at Johns Hopkins has found that dual lab tests of blood clotting factors accurately predict the patients whose blood vessels, in particular veins implanted to restore blood flow to the heart during coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), are more likely to fail or become clogged within six months. One test gauges the speed of blood platelet clumping and the other measures the level of a clumping chemical byproduct.
A study led by the University of Michigan Cardiovascular Center found women who received treatment such as an angioplasty had higher unadjusted in-hospital heart attack deaths. But these differences appear to be related to women’s ages and additional health problems – not gender.
Cross-disciplinary teams of scientists studying genetic pathways that are mutated in many forms of cancer, but which also cause certain forms of congenital heart disease – including hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), a thickening of the heart muscle that is the leading cause of sudden death in children and young adults –, have introduced these mutations into mice and successfully treated HCM in the lab.
Congenital heart diseases affect approximately one in 100 patients, making them the most common type of birth defect and the number-one cause of pediatric deaths.
Cardiologists and pulmonologists at Rush University Medical Center have teamed up to provide a new and better approach to treating patients with pulmonary hypertension, a disease affecting the heart and lungs. The new Rush Pulmonary Hypertension Clinic brings together a multidisciplinary team of clinicians with specialized training to care for patients with this very complex disease.
Healthcare practitioners can increase the number of patients with heart disease referred to a cardiac rehabilitation program by 40 per cent, helping them to reduce their risk of dying and improve their quality of life, say researchers at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre.
A study from researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine shows that a different metric, a measure of HDL function called cholesterol efflux capacity, is more closely associated with protection against heart disease than HDL cholesterol levels themselves.
A team of scientists at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere has discovered that a single alteration in the genetic code of about a fourth of African-Americans helps protect them from coronary artery disease, the leading cause of death in Americans of all races.
Employees with myocardial infarction (heart attack) and other types of acute coronary syndrome (ACS) are a major source of direct and indirect health costs, reports a study in the January Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, official publication of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM).
Fruit fly study demonstrates how lipotoxic cardiomyopathy might occur in genetically obese individuals, revealing potential therapeutic targets for fat-related heart disease.
Scientists coax stem cells (created from skin cells of a patient with an inherited heart disease) into cardiac cells. Method holds promise for personalized medicine, and for studying diseased cells that can’t be easily biopsied.
Prompt diagnosis and surgery can be lifesaving for older adults with aortic stenosis, according to an article in a recent issue of Medicine®. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health, a leading provider of information and business intelligence for students, professionals, and institutions in medicine, nursing, allied health, and pharmacy.
In a study published in December 2010, in Hypertension, a journal of the American Heart Association, investigators have shown that early treatment with blood pressure-lowering medications provides a long-term benefit of reducing the risk of death from cardiovascular disease. The study was conducted by researchers from the Cardiovascular Institute of New Jersey (CVI) at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, in collaboration with researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital and the University of Leuven, Belgium.
New research from the University of Pennsylvania shows that a different metric, a measure of HDL function called cholesterol efflux capacity, is more closely associated with protection against heart disease than HDL cholesterol levels themselves. Findings study could lead to new therapies in the fight against heart disease.
Did you know that a good night's sleep can help prevent heart disease? There are many simple ways to lower your risk. During February, American Heart Month, Dr. Holly Andersen, director of education and outreach at the Ronald O. Perelman Heart Institute of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, offers some easy steps to improve heart health and overall well-being throughout the year.
Depression and diabetes appear to be associated with a significantly increased risk of death from heart disease and risk of death from all causes over a six-year period for women, according to a report in the January issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
An international team of researchers led by Daniel J. Rader, MD, associate director of Penn Medicine’s Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics, has received a $6 million grant from the Paris-based Fondation Leducq to study the molecular genetics of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.
Patients with diabetes, kidney disease and anemia who don’t respond to treatment with an anti-anemia drug have a higher risk of cardiovascular disease or death, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found.
By tweaking a single gene, scientists have mimicked in sedentary mice the heart-strengthening effects of two weeks of endurance training, according to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center researchers.
UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have now developed a clinical risk prediction rule using factors such as sex, race and health history to assess the danger the surgery poses, while a modified version will help patients make a more fully informed choice about whether to have the procedure.
1) Increased risk for cardiovascular disease appears to be a drug class effect; 2) Risk is small in general population, but may be high in patients with risk factors; 3) Switching to aromatase inhibitors after tamoxifen use may decrease mortality unrelated to breast cancer.
With the use of a highly sensitive test, detection of the blood biomarker cardiac troponin T, a cardiac-specific protein, is associated with structural heart disease and an increased risk of all-cause death, according to a study in the December 8 issue of JAMA.
Leading soy experts agree that including soyfoods in a balanced diet will have beneficial effects and improve nutrient intake among the U.S. population.
Testing for 11 specific genetic variations in hundreds of people with no history of heart disease provided information that led to revision of their estimated heart attack risk, say Mayo Clinic researchers.
Rolling back suggestions from previous studies, a Johns Hopkins study of 950 healthy men and women has shown that taking daily doses of a cholesterol-lowering statin medication to protect coronary arteries and ward off heart attack or stroke may not be needed for everyone.
Heart imaging specialists at Johns Hopkins have shown that a combination of CT scans that measure how much blood is flowing through the heart and the amount of plaque in surrounding arteries are just as good as tests that are less safe, more complex and more time-consuming to detect coronary artery disease and its severity.
Women with anti-SSA/Ro antibodies and a previous child who has heart block—a condition where the electrical signal that makes the heart beat is damaged—may potentially decrease their risk of delivering another child with life threatening heart disease by taking hydroxychloroquine (Plaquenil®), according to research presented this week at the American College of Rheumatology Annual Scientific Meeting in Atlanta.
The use of urate lowering therapy might successfully prevent death from cardiovascular disease in people with gout, according to research presented this week at the American College of Rheumatology Annual Scientific Meeting in Atlanta.
A fatal genetic disorder that frequently takes years to diagnose may soon be detectable with a simple blood test. For patients with Niemann-Pick type C disease, the test will make it possible to begin treatment earlier, when it is more likely to improve quality of life and to further extend lives.
On Friday, October 15th, Bradley Cantley, 41, headed home from UC San Diego Medical Center connected to a lifesaving heart machine called a left ventricular assisted device (LVAD). For patients with advanced heart failure, the mechanical pump rapidly improves circulation throughout the body and serves as a bridge to transplant.
ISHIB today released new recommendations recognizing that high blood pressure among African Americans is a severe health problem. The new consensus statement suggests that treatment should start sooner and be more aggressive among African Americans.
A protein called T-cadherin docks the fat hormone adiponectin to the heart, where it guards against stress-induced damage.
For a fetus diagnosed prenatally with the severe heart defect hypoplastic left heart syndrome, surgery affords an excellent chance of early survival in two thirds of cases. A comprehensive prenatal evaluation is essential.
Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute scientists identified that an injection of the protein apolipoprotein (apo)A-V may reduce high triglyceride levels in the blood and subsequently reduce coronary artery disease. Like cholesterol, elevated levels of triglyceride, a fat in the blood, is associated with the increased risk of heart disease—the number one cause of death in the United States.
Kennedy Krieger Institute announced today the launch of a first‐of‐its‐kind, phase II clinical trial to investigate a treatment for heart disease in individuals with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD).
Cardiac imaging researchers at Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute are recommending that physicians not overlook fatty deposits around the heart when evaluating patients for risk of major heart problems.
UCLA has received a five-year, $12.5 million contract award from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute to spearhead an international consortium of medical experts that will study proteins that may be involved in the development of cardiovascular disease.
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