Feature Channels: Cardiovascular Health

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Federal policymakers five years ago introduced the Hospital Readmission Reduction Program to spur hospitals to reduce Medicare readmission rates by penalizing them if they didn’t. A new analysis led by researchers at UCLA and Harvard University, however, finds that the program may be so focused on keeping some patients out of the hospital that related death rates are increasing.

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Contrary to popular practice, a measure of the heart’s pumping function known as “left ventricular ejection fraction” is not associated with the long-term outcomes of hospitalized heart failure patients, a UCLA-led study of Medicare patients has found. Hospitalized heart failure patients in all age groups within the study and with all levels of ejection fraction had significantly lower rates of survival after five years and a higher risk of re-hospitalization than people in the United States without heart failure. Better treatments for heart failure and new ways of predicting patient outcomes are needed, researchers concluded.

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Worried whether your heart health is strong enough for sex? A new study may lay your fears to rest: The risk that sex would trigger a sudden cardiac arrest is exceedingly small.

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When it comes to your likelihood of receiving bystander CPR if you experience a Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) in public, it turns out your gender may play a lifesaving role. According to a new study from researchers in the Center for Resuscitation Science at Penn Medicine, which is being presented at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2017, men are more likely to receive bystander CPR in public than women.

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Heart failure (HF) affects approximately 5.7 million adults in the United States according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If not properly managed, HF can lead to frequent hospitalizations. A heart failure hospitalization should be viewed as a sentinel event. Five year survival after a heart failure hospitalization is only 20 percent, a prognosis that is worse than most cancer diagnoses. Importantly, if HF is properly managed by team of skilled heart failure clinicians, prognosis and quality of life can improve.

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A textbook guiding cardiologists on the latest treatments in cardiovascular medicine was recently published by two faculty members at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso (TTUHSC El Paso).

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Former NFL players were more likely to have enlarged aortas, but further study is needed to determine whether that puts them at greater risk for life-threatening aneurysms, researchers found.

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Older people whose hearts pump less blood may have reduced blood flow in the memory-processing areas of the brain, according to a study published in the November 8, 2017, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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Research by a team of Vanderbilt University Medical Center scientists suggests that older people whose hearts pump less blood have blood flow reductions in the temporal lobe regions of the brain, where Alzheimer’s pathology first begins.

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All babies across Europe should be routinely screened for critical congenital heart defects (CCHD) within 24 hours of their birth, say a group of experts led by a University of Birmingham Professor and Honorary Consultant Neonatologist at Birmingham Women's Hospital.

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Rural counties continue to rank lowest among counties across the U.S., in terms of health outcomes. A group of national organizations including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the National 4-H Council are leading the way to close the rural health gap.

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HIV patients and their doctors are urged to be more aware of the additional health risks associated with treated HIV infection. This follows new research that shows HIV patients at high risk for a heart attack or stroke are also at substantially greater risk for chronic kidney disease and vice versa.

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Scientists are finding more evidence that commonly prescribed antidepressants aren’t effective in people battling both depression and a chronic medical disease, raising a critical question of whether doctors should enact widespread changes in how they treat millions of depressed Americans.

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A study led by Kevin King, a bioengineer and physician at the University of California San Diego, has found that the immune system plays a surprising role in the aftermath of heart attacks. The research could lead to new therapeutic strategies for heart disease. Researchers present their findings in the Nov. 6 issue of Nature Medicine.

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NIH Data Commons Pilot Phase to seek best practices for storing, accessing, sharing and computing on biomedical data

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A new study led by Johns Hopkins researchers found that measures of connectivity within specific cerebral networks were strongly linked to long-term functional outcomes in patients who had suffered severe brain injury following a cardiac arrest.

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The Heart Center at Nationwide Children’s Hospital has recently received external validation as a national leader in cardiology care with several accreditations for outstanding quality, care and outcomes.

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Can environmental toxins disrupt circadian rhythms – the biological “clock” whose disturbance is linked to chronic inflammation and a host of human disorders? Research showing a link between circadian disruption and plankton that have adapted to road salt pollution puts the question squarely on the table.

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Mindfulness may offer an active coping mechanism for mothers faced with the stress of having a newborn diagnosed with congenital heart disease (CHD). Mindfulness, which aims to increase a person’s awareness and acceptance of daily experiences, is currently used in a variety of healthcare settings as a potentially effective skill for stress reduction, emotion, affect and attention regulation.