Feature Channels: Heart Disease

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People who survive a major heart attack often do better in the years afterward if they’re mildly obese, a study by UT Southwestern Medical Center cardiologists showed.

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While there is solid evidence that adolescent overweight and obesity are associated with coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke, less is known about the association between body mass index (BMI) and rarer cardiovascular diseases. A new large-scale, 45-year Israeli study published in the Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism found that higher BMI as well as BMI in the accepted normal range in late adolescence may be related to a higher risk of death in mid-adulthood from non-coronary non-stroke cardiovascular diseases such as fatal arrhythmia, hypertensive heart disease, cardiomyopathy, arterial disease, heart failure and pulmonary embolism.

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The American Heart Association (AHA) awarded investigators at University of Utah Health $3.7 million to conduct collaborative research to prevent and treat congenital heart disease. U of U Health is one of four groups across the country to join the AHA’s Strategically Focused Research Network (SFRN) for children.

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Working Towards New Therapies for Cardiovascular Disease

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Using a new skin cell model, researchers have overcome a barrier that previously prevented the study of living tissue from people at risk for early heart disease and stroke. This research could lead to a new understanding of disease progression in aortic aneurysm – ballooning of the large artery in the chest that carries blood from the heart to the body.

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/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The National Minority Quality Forum (NMQF) and the American College of Physicians (ACP) today announce that the CMS-approved ACP Genesis Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR) now includes a performance measure for the treatment of heart failure in African Americans beginning with the 2017 Reporting Period for CMS' new Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS).

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A Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute investigator and his team have developed a new risk assessment tool that brings physicians closer to predicting who is most likely to suffer a sudden cardiac arrest, a condition that is fatal in more than 90 percent of patients.

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A Mississippi State University researcher is developing new miniature models to better understand the factors that lead to heart disease and sickle cell anemia.

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Researchers at the George Washington University published research finding that certain symptoms are more and less predictive of patients’ risk for acute coronary syndrome, which includes heart attack, in patients of different gender and race.

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Going for a walk outside, reading, listening to music—these and other enjoyable activities can reduce blood pressure for elderly caregivers of spouses with Alzheimer’s disease, suggests a study in Psychosomatic Medicine: Journal of Biobehavioral Medicine, the official journal of the American Psychosomatic Society. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer.

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Women and their physicians are largely uneducated when it comes to females and heart disease, putting women’s health and lives at greater risk, a new study out today shows. The study, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, shows that 45 percent of U.S. women are not aware that heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women.

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Results from four recent randomized clinical trials suggest that using medications that offer glucose control while reducing the risk for cardiovascular disease could improve patient outcomes.

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In a Canadian first, a medical team has implanted a wireless device inside a heart failure patient, permitting clinicians to monitor the patient’s cardiovascular status – virtually and in real-time – and proactively adjust treatment to prevent costly, potentially unnecessary hospitalization.

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In a new video posted today, Cedars-Sinai heart expert Evan Zahn, MD, explains a new treatment for babies born with patent ductus arteriosus, a “hole in the heart,” the most common structural heart defect in newborns. The video is available for streaming and downloading.

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Heart health in children will be the focus of three closely synergistic research projects and an integrated multidisciplinary training program, that are newly funded by a $3.7 million four-year grant led by Bradley S. Marino, MD, MPP, MSCE, a pediatric cardiologist from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Professor of Pediatrics and Medical Social Sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. As one of only four centers selected to participate in the American Heart Association’s Strategically Focused Children’s Research Network, research by Marino and colleagues will provide evidence for innovative policies, programs and practices to preserve cardiovascular health in childhood and beyond.

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Doctors at The Ohio State University are testing a high-tech vest which measures fluid inside the lungs from outside a person’s clothing. It could be a new way to prevent repeated trips to the hospital for the nearly six million Americans living with heart failure.

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Patients who are at risk for malnutrition when undergoing heart surgery now can be more quickly and easily identified, leading to intervention and potentially better surgical outcomes, according to a study published online today in The Annals of Thoracic Surgery.

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In a new study, UCLA researchers hypothesized that simple biomarkers — urinary stress hormones dopamine, epinephrine and norepinephrine, and cortisol — would be associated with more calcium buildup in the coronary arteries, which indicates the presence of coronary heart disease, and that this effect would be stronger in women than in men. However, the researchers found that this relationship was actually similar in women and men: Although women had higher average levels of urine stress hormones than men, the association between stress and having asymptomatic coronary heart disease as measured by coronary calcium was similar in both genders. In particular, urinary cortisol was a strong independent predictor of asymptomatic coronary heart disease.

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Congressman Ami Bera, MD (D-CA) was given the Legislator of the Year Award by The Society of Thoracic Surgeons Monday evening in recognition of his strong legislative record on issues that help cardiothoracic surgeons provide the best possible care to their patients.