Feature Channels: Heart Disease

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Screening to identify Type 2 diabetes followed by early treatment could result in substantial health benefits, according to new research that combined large scale clinical observations and innovative computer modelling.

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Trending news releases with the most views in a single day. Topics include: nutrition, fibromyalgia, e-cigarettes, cystic fibrosis, asthma, and gluten

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Heart disease has topped mortality charts as the No. 1 killer of men and women for many decades, but a novel analysis of American literary fiction by two physicians finds the disorder’s presence in great novels has remained relatively modest.

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Children who undergo heart surgery are better off receiving fresh whole blood transfusions from a single donor, rather than receiving component blood from multiple donors. Limiting donor exposures reduces the patients' risk of complications.

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The Duke Clinical Research Institute is launching an ambitious new project that is intended to answer a question of considerable clinical importance, while also changing the way pragmatic clinical trials are conducted. The Aspirin Dosing: A Patient-Centric Trial Assessing Benefits and Long-term Effectiveness (ADAPTABLE) study will assess whether low- or standard-dose aspirin is better for preventing heart attacks and stroke in patients with coronary artery disease.

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Frailty among older people with cardiovascular disease appears to be more predictive than age for gauging their risk of heart attack, stroke and death, according to an international study that included researchers at Duke Medicine.

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In the midst of the growing and often conflicting data around the benefits of statins, researchers are developing gene-based resources to help improve statin efficacy and cost-effectiveness and to reduce the incidence of adverse effects – some of which can be fatal.

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Over the last 15 years, survival of children with congenital heart disease (CHD) has greatly improved, so that currently there are more adults than children living with CHD. Consequently, people with CHD of all ages are undergoing pulmonary valve replacement (PVR) with bioprosthetic valves. In this retrospective review of all patients with CHD who underwent bioprosthetic PVR over an 18-year period at Boston Children’s Hospital, investigators found that young age and small body weight predisposed patients toward re-intervention, as did the type of valve used.

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Trending news releases with the most views in a single day. Topics include: exercise and obesity, Focused Ultrasound to treat uterine fibroids, neurology, diet supplements and cancer (day 4 in top 10), genetics, geology, skin cancer, sleep and Alzheimer's, and water conservation.

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Every year, more than 120 million prescriptions are written worldwide for thiazide drugs, a group of salt-lowering medicines used to treat high blood pressure. These drugs are often very effective. But in some patients, they don't work. The reasons for this have remained a mystery. Now, a new study by researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UM SOM) has revealed a key mechanism for this failure.

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In a major symposium at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2015, University of Colorado Cancer Center investigator Tim Byers, MD, MPH, examines research demonstrating the link between cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

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Among dialysis patients, genetically related family members have about a 70% increased risk of cardiac arrest compared with unrelated dialysis patients. Spouses on dialysis do not have an increased risk.

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Cardiovascular diseases are a major cause of death worldwide, in part because heart cells don’t renew – except during a very small window early in life. In a breakthrough, a team of researchers that included the Weizmann Institute, Chaim Sheba Medical Center, and the University of South Wales gets mouse heart cells to take a step backwards… and be renewed.

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Among patients with atrial fibrillation who filled prescriptions for the anticoagulant dabigatran at Veterans Health Administration sites, there was variability in patient medication adherence across sites, with appropriate patient selection and pharmacist-led monitoring associated with greater adherence to the medication, according to a study in the April 14 issue of JAMA.

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In a comparison of mechanical prosthetic vs bioprosthetic mitral valves among patients 50 to 69 years of age undergoing mitral valve replacement, there was no significant difference in survival at 15 years, although there were differences in risk of reoperation, bleeding and stroke, according to a study in the April 14 issue of JAMA.

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Trending news releases with the most views in a single day. Topics include: Astronomy, Cardiology, Nephrology, Neurology, Neutrinos, oil spills, Toxicology, Cancer, and Nutrition

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Damage to heart muscle from insufficient blood supply during cardiac arrest and reperfusion injury after blood flow is restored can be reduced by nearly 90 percent if selenide, a form of the essential nutrient selenium, is administered intravenously in the wake of the attack, according to a new preclinical study by Mark Roth, Ph.D., and colleagues at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

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Pesticide exposure, not obesity alone, can contribute to increased cardiovascular disease risk and inflammation in premenopausal women, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

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Cholesterol-lowering statins have transformed the treatment of heart disease. But while the decision to use the drugs in patients with a history of heart attacks and strokes is mostly clear-cut, that choice can be a far trickier proposition for the tens of millions of Americans with high cholesterol but no overt disease.

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Researchers have developed the first global model for predicting cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. The model—developed by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Imperial College London, and colleagues—will be of particular help to public health professionals, clinicians, and patients in developing countries for prevention of CVD.

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New heart imaging technology to diagnose coronary heart disease and other heart disorders is significantly more accurate, less expensive and safer than traditional methods, according to a new study by researchers from the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute in Salt Lake City.

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A simple and inexpensive screening test can show which diabetic patients face an increased risk of heart disease, which can help them get the care they need, faster — and proactively reduce their risk of heart disease, according to a new study by researchers at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute in Salt Lake City.

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A new type of CT scan initially costs slightly less than the traditional stress test to diagnose blocked coronary arteries in patients with chest pain, but its lower cost did not translate into medical care savings over time, according to an analysis by Duke Medicine researchers.

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• High phosphate levels cause a stress signal inside the cells that line blood vessels, leading to the release of microparticles that promote the formation of blood clots.

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A new study by researchers at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute has found that screening for and treating depression could help to reduce the risk of heart disease in patients with moderate to severe depression.

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A new sequencing technique may provide a clearer picture of how genes in mitochondria, the “powerhouses” that turn sugar into energy in human cells.

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Nearly all women and people over 65 in the U.S. with atrial fibrillation are advised to take blood thinners under new guidelines based on an analysis from the Duke Clinical Research Institute.

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Researchers at Vanderbilt University and the Shanghai Cancer Institute examined the association of nut consumption with mortality among low-income and racially diverse populations and found that intake of peanuts was associated with fewer deaths, especially from heart disease.

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Cells control the adhesion protein desmoplakin by modifying the tail end of the protein, and this process goes awry in some patients with arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy, according to a new study.

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Nanometer-sized “drones” that deliver a special type of healing molecule to fat deposits in arteries could become a new way to prevent heart attacks caused by atherosclerosis.

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Most “risk calculators” used by clinicians to gauge a patient’s chances of suffering a heart attack and guide treatment decisions appear to significantly overestimate the likelihood of a heart attack, according to results of a study by investigators at Johns Hopkins and other institutions.

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Low levels of 25-OH vitamin D in childhood were associated with subclinical atherosclerosis over 25 years later in adulthood, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

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Medical management and surgical options for people with heart disease improve each year. But coronary disease remains the leading cause of death in the United States.

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Heart disease is often thought of as a health problem for men, but more and more women die of heart disease each year than men, and from any other disease including breast cancer. One challenge is that some heart disease symptoms in women may be different from those in men.

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February is American Heart Month, the perfect time to be reminded to take care of your heart. Heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women. The good news: heart disease is largely preventable and controllable.

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When a person’s heart stops beating, every second counts. However, bystanders often fear giving cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) to a victim. Dr. Ruchika Husa, a cardiologist at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, studies resuscitation science and also teaches CPR.

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February is American Heart Month. UCLA cardiologists from the UCLA Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Health Program offer heart healthy tips.

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• People who develop recurrent kidney stones have more calcification in their arteries, which could explain their increased risk for heart disease. • Kidney stone formers also have less dense bones, increasing their risk for osteoporosis.

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During Heart Month, the Cardiovascular Institute of New Jersey at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School is promoting the importance of controlling high blood pressure, also called hypertension, in order to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease and other related chronic disorders in adults.

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Full implementation of new hypertension guidelines could prevent 56,000 cardiovascular disease events (mostly heart attacks and strokes) and 13,000 deaths each year, without increasing overall health care costs, an analysis conducted by researchers at Columbia University Medical Center found. The paper was published today in the online edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.

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Richard Kim, MD, a cardiac surgeon at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, recently used a 3D printed heart as a model to plan a life-saving procedure for his young patient, Esther Perez.

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Patients who receive red blood cell transfusions during coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) surgery are at an increased risk of developing pneumonia

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Most young adults might assume they have years before needing to worry about their cholesterol. But new findings from researchers at the Duke Clinical Research Institute suggest that even slightly high cholesterol levels in otherwise healthy adults between the ages of 35 and 55 can have long-term impacts on their heart health, with every decade of high cholesterol increasing their chances of heart disease by 39 percent.

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Just one cup of blueberries per day could be the key to reducing blood pressure and arterial stiffness, both of which are associated with cardiovascular disease.

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For the first time, researchers have found that, in addition to gene mutations, environmental stress plays a key role in the development of the heart disease hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

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In a study at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, researchers found that a subset of obese people do not have common metabolic abnormalities associated with obesity, such as insulin resistance, abnormal blood lipids (high triglycerides and low HDL cholesterol), high blood pressure and excess liver fat. In addition, obese people who didn’t have these metabolic problems when the study began did not develop them even after they gained more weight.