Feature Channels: Heart Disease

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An international team of researchers found minor dehydration might promote cardiac disease and arterial hardening in young, healthy men.

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With apps and activity trackers measuring every step people take, morsel they eat, and each symptom or pain, patients commonly arrive at doctor's offices armed with self-tracked data. Yet health care providers lack the capacity or tools to review five years of Fitbit logs or instantaneously interpret the deluge of data patients have been collecting about themselves, according to new University of Washington research.

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Andrew DeFilippis, M.D., M.Sc., will study archived blood samples from thousands of patients to determine whether the presence of certain lipids in a person’s bloodstream can be used to pinpoint women at risk for having a heart attack.

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UAB cardiovascular disease researchers are improving our understanding of the disease and finding new ways to provide medical care to patients.

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At 31, Somerset resident Shawn Fohs was the picture of good health: fit, with no chronic health conditions, and a reputation of never getting sick. But on Aug. 2, an undiagnosed heart condition nearly cost Fohs his life. Using cardiac ablation, a Rutgers cardiac electrophysiologist helped resolve the underlying problem and save his life.

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Fetal interventionists and pediatric cardiologists perform an “in utero atrial septal stent procedure” to open the atrium, allowing blood trapped in the lungs and left upper heart chamber of a HLHS fetus to flow back to the right side of the heart. The successful procedure was a first for the CHLA-USC Institute for Maternal-Fetal Health and a first for a Southern California hospital.

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A 59-year-old heart patient with dangerously high levels of cholesterol that could not be adequately reduced by statin drugs now has near-normal cholesterol levels, thanks to a new class of drugs that grew out of work done by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers.

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Despite chronic inflammation and an elevated risk of heart disease, patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are not at increased risk for cardiovascular complications or death after surgery, compared to patients with similar characteristics without RA, reports a study in Anesthesia & Analgesia.

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The protective effect of heme oxygenase-1 and its mechanism are described. Overexpression of this enzyme could protect the heart from life-threatening damage after cancer chemotherapy, and it also may be a way to increase the therapeutic window of such drugs.

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For the first time in the U.S., a clinical trial is underway that’s evaluating a device designed to treat diastolic heart failure. The first patient enrolled in the randomized, blinded study is being treated at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.

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Dr. Steven Bolling, a heart surgeon at the University of Michigan Frankel Cardiovascular Center, has run to work daily for 30 years.

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For the first time, scientists at The Ohio State University have engineered new calcium receptors for the heart to tune the strength of the heartbeat in an animal model.

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Those who struggle with obesity, take heart. Losing as little as 5% of your body weight is enough to reap significant health benefits, according to a study published February 22 in Cell Metabolism. The randomized controlled trial of 40 obese men and women compared, for the first time, the health outcomes of 5%, 10%, and 15% weight loss. While additional weight loss further improved metabolic health, 5% weight loss was sufficient to reduce multiple risk factors for type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease.

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Get the latest news on heart disease, the leading cause of death for people of most ethnicities in the U.S., in the Newswise Heart Disease news source.

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Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that in patients with obesity, the greatest improvements to health come from losing just 5 percent of their body weight. That relatively small weight loss lowered patients’ risk for diabetes and cardiovascular disease and improved metabolic function in liver, fat and muscle tissue.

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• More than one-quarter of patients with chronic kidney disease may have masked hypertension, meaning that their blood pressure is normal in the clinic but elevated outside the clinic. • Masked hypertension in patients with chronic kidney disease is linked with an increased risk of kidney, heart, and vascular damage.

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Research from SBP Medical Discovery Institute suggests a new approach to treating metabolic disorders, including type 2 diabetes-- targeting the pathway that controls the concentration of certain heart hormones in the blood.

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It can be stressful when your doctor sends you for further evaluation after an office visit. Fears may be heightened when it's a heart stress test.

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Standard autopsies of people who suffer sudden death do not always reveal inherited cardiac anomalies, so it can be difficult to determine whether the culprit was inherited heart disease or something else. To help improve the likelihood of detecting inherited cardiac anomalies in families and to avert further tragedy, Gregory Webster, MD, MPH, a cardiologist at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital has teamed up with colleagues from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine to trace the footprints of genetic heart disease in young people who died suddenly and whose cause of death has not been determined through traditional autopsy.

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Even people with the best intentions to get heart-healthy in the new year become discouraged. By now more than a third of us have abandoned our resolutions. Dr. Gretchen Wells says we don't need strenuous exercise to see results.

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Gut bacteria inhibitor may prevent diet-induced atherosclerosis.

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While February is associated with red-ruffled hearts and chocolate candy for Valentine’s Day, it’s also “American Heart Month, and “There’s no better time to focus on heart disease and kick-start your New Year’s resolution to lose weight, eat better and start exercising,” says Dr. Ravi Dave, director of the Cardiac Catheterization Lab at UCLA Medical Center, Santa Monica. Dr. Dave offers 7 simple steps to better heart-health.

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Daniel J. Conklin of the University of Louisville will share new data showing that e-cigarettes have been shown to speed up atherosclerosis – the plaque-causing disease that leads to heart attack, stroke and peripheral arterial disease.

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By genetically reprogramming the most common type of cell in mammalian connective tissue, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have generated master heart cells — primitive progenitors that form the developing heart. If replicated in human cells, the feat could one day fuel drug discovery, powerful new models for heart disease and the raw material for treating diseased hearts.

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Scientists at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center have found that a daily dose of beetroot juice significantly improved exercise endurance and blood pressure in elderly patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFPEF).

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There are many things you can do to lower your heart disease risks. This article from cardiologist Dr. Mauro Moscucci of LifeBridge Health looks at the seven modifiable risk factors (according the the American Heart Association) and the one most of us struggle with.

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When having a heart attack, most people will experience some kind of chest pain or pressure that worsens. But it's the uncommon symptoms that confuse people and often lead to delayed treatment and increased injury -- especially in women.

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NIBIB-funded researchers used ultrasound-activated microbubbles to improve preservation of heart muscle and function in a pig heart attack model. The method is now in phase I human clinical trials. The promising treatment could be administered to heart attack patients arriving at the emergency room (or even while in the ambulance), and could preserve heart muscle before patients receive invasive interventions to open blocked arteries.

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Just two years old at the time, Zoey Jones was told she would need a heart and lung transplant for her failing organs, a complication due to the single ventricle heart defect she was born with. She was referred to Nationwide Children’s Hospital where they began to prepare for a transplant, when a second look in the catheterization laboratory (cath lab) led doctors to believe her heart and lungs were strong enough to avoid transplant altogether.

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With fewer than 3,500 episodes a year, cardiac arrest in children is decidedly rare, but it could be a dramatic signal that the victim’s family members may be at a heightened risk for sudden cardiac death. This is why, in the aftermath of such a traumatic event, clinical evaluation of the child’s parents and siblings could lead to lifesaving diagnoses and therapies, averting further tragedy, say cardiologists at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago

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In a finding that could lead to new drugs to treat heart failure, researchers have uncovered the molecular mechanism that regulates how the heart pumps blood. The finding is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The key molecular player in this mechanism is a giant protein called titin, according to a study led by senior author Pieter de Tombe, PhD of Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. The study was published Feb. 8, 2016 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Mutations in the gene TBX5 have been shown to cause both rare and more prevalent forms of congenital heart disease, yet the underlying mechanisms have remained unclear. A team led by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has now found evidence pointing to a culprit.

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Stem cell-derived heart muscle cells may fail to effectively replace damaged cardiac tissue because they don’t contract strongly enough, according to a study in The Journal of Cell Biology. The study, “Coupling Primary and Stem Cell-Derived Cardiomyocytes in an In Vitro Model of Cardiac Cell Therapy,” by Yvonne Aratyn-Schaus and Francesco Pasqualini and colleagues, may help explain why stem cell-based therapies have so far shown limited benefits for heart attack patients in clinical trials.

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Award demonstrates commitment to quality care for stroke patients.

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In celebration of February American Heart Month, Meridian CardioVascular Network is kicking off a series of fun and fabulous community events providing expert advice, heart healthy tips, and the latest information about prevention and treatments. The events will take place at Meridian Health locations throughout Monmouth and Ocean counties, and embrace American Heart Month’s signature red symbols.

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MedStar Heart & Vascular Institute at MedStar Washington Hospital Center has partnered with the American College of Cardiology’s Find Your Heart a Home™ pilot program, to help patients make informed choices about where to receive their cardiac care. It is one of only two hospitals in the nation selected to participate in the program.

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Men who as children experienced a family member’s incarceration are approximately twice as likely to have a heart attack in later adulthood in comparison with men who were not exposed to such a childhood trauma, according to a study in the March Journal of Criminal Justice.

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African-American patients with connective tissue diseases such as lupus or rheumatoid arthritis are twice as likely as white patients to suffer from atherosclerotic blood vessels, which increase the risk of a heart attack, stroke or death.

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Scientists from The Scripps Research Institute Florida campus have been awarded nearly $1.2 million from the National Institutes of Health to create a series of drug candidates that advance treatments for such conditions as obesity, type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and muscle atrophy.

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James Galas, M.D., a pediatric cardiologist on staff at the Children’s Hospital of Michigan, part of the Detroit Medical Center, has an interest in providing public awareness programs to the community. “Studies suggest that in the majority of cases of sudden cardiac death, the athlete does not recognize symptoms until the actual cardiac arrest,” Dr. Galas says.

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Yoga practitioners have been touting yoga’s psychological and physical benefits for more than 5,000 years. Increasingly, yoga is being recommended for some patients with heart disease.

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Many believe that heart health involves strenuous tasks and countless hours at the gym. But just 30 minutes of exercise five out of seven days a week can reduce heart attack risk by up to 50 percent.

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Leading Female Cardiovascular Experts from Mount Sinai Heart Share Advice in Celebration of February’s American Heart Month and National Go Red Day Friday, February 5

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Researchers at Johns Hopkins and the Henry Ford Health System report evidence that higher levels of physical fitness may not only reduce risk of heart attacks and death from all causes, but also possibly improve the chances of survival after a first attack.

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People who are fit are more likely to survive their first heart attack, according to a study of nearly 70,000 patients of Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. The results of the study by Henry Ford and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine will be published online February 1 in Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

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Latest Research Highlights from ACSM