Feature Channels: Cardiovascular Health

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The Canadian Cardiovascular Society (CCS) has published an important update to its guidelines for the management of dyslipidemia - lipid metabolism disorders – that can cause cardiovascular disease. The guidelines update evidence-based guidance for cardiologists and other clinicians regarding which patients will benefit from statin therapy. There is also new information on the use of health behavior modifications and non-statin medications to help doctors make the difficult decisions about when to use drugs to treat cholesterol and when other approaches are possible.

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Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center and the Data Science Institute at Columbia University have uncovered a potentially dangerous drug interaction using data science.

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Wolters Kluwer, a leading global provider of information and point-of-care solutions for the healthcare industry, announced today that “A Practical Guide to Fetal Echocardiography: Normal and Abnormal Hearts 3rd Edition” by Alfred Abuhamad and Rabih Chaouj was named the British Medical Association (BMA) Book of the Year for 2016. Four other Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW) titles also were highly commended in their categories.

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A new systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials has concluded that eating oat fibre not only reduces LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol), but non-HDL cholesterol and apolipoprotein B as well.

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A new systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials has concluded that eating oat fibre can reduce all three markers.

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Berkeley Lab researchers have compiled a comprehensive genome-wide map of more than 80,000 enhancers considered relevant to human heart development and function. They went on to test two of the enhancers in mice, showing that when the enhancers were missing, the heart worked abnormally.

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Jeffrey L. Carson, MD, a Rutgers physician who has championed the movement to use less blood in transfusions has been awarded more than $16.1 million by the National Institutes of Health National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) to lead a nation-wide clinical trial aiming to establish evidence that can be used to set transfusion standards for patients who have had a heart attack, to improve their survival rates and reduce the risk of recurrence.

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In a study appearing in the October 4 issue of JAMA, Paul S. Chan, M.D., of Saint Luke's Mid America Heart Institute, Kansas City, and colleagues evaluated the association of hypothermia treatment with survival to hospital discharge and with favorable neurological survival at hospital discharge among patients with in-hospital cardiac arrest.

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Mount Sinai physicians have become the first in the country to perform cardiac ablation procedures using a new, state-of-the-art catheter.

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AMGA today submitted comments on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) proposed Cardiac Rehabilitation and Incentive Payment Model rule. Given the mandatory nature of the program, AMGA is interested in its success and offered comments on calculating discounted target prices, measuring quality performance, risk adjustment, and evaluating the demonstration.

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Cardiovascular disease has become the leading cause of death for those living with HIV, as the infection has moved from a terminal disease to a chronic illness. An article in Critical Care Nurse provides an overview of risk factors, pathophysiology and unique treatment options related to cardiovascular disease in persons living with HIV.

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Taylor and his team used an electron microscope to capture the first three-dimensional image of a tiny filament, or strand, of an essential muscle that the palm-sized water bug Lethocerus indicus uses to fly. . This image shows for the first time the individual molecules in the filament in a relaxed state, which is necessary to re-extend muscles.

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Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, Director, Mount Sinai Heart, and Physician-in-Chief of The Mount Sinai Hospital, has been appointed Co-Chair of the newly established Consensus Committee on Global Health and the Future of the United States.

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The research identifies 17 rare human genetic variations associated with risk factors for diseases.

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Older adults can develop cardiovascular risk factors later in life, according to a study from UAB.

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Although rare, sudden cardiac death in young athletes raises serious concerns, especially because most victims report no warning symptoms. Pre-participation screening aims to identify children, adolescents, and young adults at risk, but there is not yet consensus regarding the best way to accomplish this. A new report in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology sheds light on this controversial topic by describing a new screening protocol that offers advantages over American Heart Association (AHA) recommendations and shows that the electrocardiogram (ECG) is the best single screening method.

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In a recent study, a Yale Cancer Center team determined that men who received hormonal therapy for prostate cancer had a net harm if they had a prior history of a heart attack.

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A Northwestern Medicine cardiac surgeon was the first in Illinois and second in the United States to implant a sutureless aortic valve in a patient with coronary artery disease through a newly U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved, minimally invasive delivery system.

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Penn Medicine Researchers completed a pilot analysis of archived tweets on cardiovascular disease. In a study published today in JAMA Cardiology, researchers sifted through a sample of approximately ten billion tweets posted between 2009 and 2015, and found more than 500,000 English-language, U.S.-originating tweets that related to cardiovascular disease.

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Time is of the essence when getting people stricken with acute ischemic strokes to treatment. And the use of stent retrievers — devices that remove the blood clot like pulling a cork out of a wine bottle Current professional guidelines recommend that stent retrievers be used to remove blood clots from stroke patients within six hours for people to benefit. But new research finds that the procedure has benefits for people up to 7.3 hours following the onset of a stroke.

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Building on the results of a recent Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute study published just six months ago, the Department of Defense has awarded a $10 million grant to fund a cardiac cell therapy trial for patients diagnosed with a common but difficult-to-treat form of heart failure.

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Heart disease patients enrolled in a clinical trial - designed to test whether a stronger dose of the influenza vaccine can prevent death or hospitalization due to a heart attack, heart failure, stroke or pneumonia - have begun receiving their first flu shots in Toronto and Boston.

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Researchers have found that interval exercise training (resistance-based and cardiovascular) improves endothelial function in older adults. Resistance interval training in particular could help reduce the risk of heart disease in adults with type 2 diabetes. The study is published ahead of print in the American Journal of Physiology—Heart and Circulatory Physiology.

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In a study appearing in the September 27 issue of JAMA, Marc S. Sabatine, M.D., M.P.H., of Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, and colleagues evaluated the association between lowering low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and relative cardiovascular risk reduction across different statin and nonstatin therapies.

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The Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF) has announced the press conference schedule for late-breaking trials and first report investigations that will be presented at the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) 2016 scientific symposium. TCT, the world’s premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine, will take place October 29 – November 2 in Washington, DC.

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Removing plaque from clogged arteries is a common procedure that can save and improve lives. This treatment approach was recently made even safer and more effective with a new, high-tech catheter that allows cardiologists to see inside the arteries for the first time, cutting out only the diseased tissue. Interventional cardiologists at Sulpizio Cardiovascular Center at UC San Diego Health are the first in the region to use this technology.

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It has become commonly accepted that women do worse than men following a heart attack or other coronary event. Earlier studies have documented that young women are more likely to die from cardiac-related events compared to men in the twelve months after hospital discharge. A new study published in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology, drawing on contemporary data from 26 hospitals, reports that young patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) have good one-year prognosis and that both men and women now do equally well.

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The Center for Acute Respiratory Failure and Cardiac ECMO Program at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center and the Pediatric ECMO Program at NewYork-Presbyterian/Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital have been designated a Platinum Level Center of Excellence for the Excellence in Life Support Award from the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO, an international non-profit consortium dedicated to the development of novel therapies for people with organ failure).

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Health and wellness tips about diabetes during pregnancy, kids nutrition, and colon cancer.

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The prescription of testosterone supplementation for cardiovascular health, sexual function, physical function, mood, or cognitive function in men with “low T” is not supported by clinical trials data, conclude researchers who describe a review of more than 200 clinical trials published Sept. 21 in PLOS One.

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To prevent heart failure and restore heart function, researchers will work to create a bioengineered, human heart-tissue patch that is large, standardized and highly functional. This preclinical work will be supported by a seven-year grant just awarded by the NHLBI.

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The promise of stem cells to treat cardiovascular disease may soon be a step closer to clinical application as scientists from three institutions seek to perfect and test three-dimensional “heart patches” in a large animal model — the last big hurdle before trials in human patients.

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In 2012, UNC Hospitals launched an initiative aimed at reducing the time it takes hospital staff to recognize when a patient is having a STEMI (ST elevation myocardial infarction) heart attack – the sudden and complete blockage of a heart artery – and to begin appropriate treatment. Now, encouraging results from that effort have been published as a research letter in JAMA Cardiology.

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Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Ashish Shah, M.D., used a computerized algorithm to highlight the value of high-volume transplant centers with corresponding improved outcomes. The study, published in The American Journal of Transplantation, is the first to look at the positive relationship between high operative volume and improved patient outcomes.

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Genes play a role in how people with type 2 diabetes at high risk of cardiovascular disease risk respond to intensive glycemic control as an intervention to prevent the disease.

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Out of the blue, Tina Wilkins suffered a dissection of her thoracic aorta. From first symptoms to emergency surgery, here is her story, as well as news on the latest UTHealth genetic discoveries related to the disease.

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The size of a grain of rice, the carotid body, located between two major arteries that feed the brain with blood, has been found to control your blood pressure.

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Verghese Mathew, MD, FACC, FSCAI, a nationally known interventional cardiologist, has been named director of clinical operations for Loyola Medicine’s division of cardiology.

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Nearly 15 million times a year, heart patients climb onto a treadmill to take a stress test that can reveal blockages in their heart’s blood vessels. But a looming shortage of a crucial short-lived radioactive element means many heart patients could end up getting less-precise stress tests, or more invasive, riskier heart imaging procedures.

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University of California, Irvine and SUNY Downstate Medical Center researchers have created a model illustrating how economic globalization may create stressful employment factors in high-income countries contributing to the worldwide epidemic of cardiovascular disease.

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Patients, physicians and attendees will throw their lines in for an important catch today at the Caledon Mountain Trout Club during the first ‘Cast & Blast’ event to support research into the often fatal heart disorder called arrythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC). Spearheaded by Heather Cartweight, an ARVC patient, and her family, the event directly supports the Heather Cartwright Inherited Cardiomyopathy and Arrythmia Project at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre (PMCC), University Health Network (UHN).

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HeartSmarts, a faith-based community education and outreach program, is an effective method for teaching underserved communities about heart health in New York City, according to a study published in the Journal of Religion and Health.

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A consortium of institutions led by TRIUMF, Canada’s national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics and accelerator-based science, is granting sole rights for its proprietary technetium-99m (Tc-99m) production technology to ARTMS™ Products, Inc (ARTMS). Technetium-99m is used in over 80% of all nuclear medicine imaging procedures and is vital to patient care in areas such as cardiology, oncology, and neurology.

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Using the results from a computerized mathematical model, Johns Hopkins researchers investigated whether they could improve heart and lung transplantation procedures by transferring patients from low-volume to high-volume transplant centers.

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The Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF) has announced the 11 late-breaking trials and 16 first report investigations that will be presented at the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) 2016 scientific symposium. TCT, the world’s premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine, will take place October 29 – November 2, 2016 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC.

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Among patients undergoing transcatheter aortic valve replacement, younger age, male sex, history of diabetes mellitus, and moderate to severe residual aortic regurgitation were significantly associated with an increased risk of infective endocarditis, and patients who developed endocarditis had high rates of in-hospital mortality and 2-year mortality, according to a study appearing in the September 13 issue of JAMA.

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Researchers at the University of Adelaide say they may have discovered a new target in the fight against depression: a faulty gene that is linked to cardiovascular and metabolic conditions.

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Despite the significant challenges associated with a career in cardiothoracic surgery, heart and lung surgeons report a very high level of job satisfaction, according to a survey published in The Annals of Thoracic Surgery.

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The University of Chicago Medicine has opened a facility for patients with life-threatening heart rhythm irregularities. The Arrhythmia Technology Suite combines advanced treatment tools, such as magnetic navigation, with clinicians dedicated to the care of patients with abnormal heart rhythms.