Feature Channels: Cardiovascular Health

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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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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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A new surgical training model that simulates patient bleeding is providing cardiothoracic surgery residents with “real-life” experience without compromising patient safety

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Fears of a link between testosterone replacement therapy and cardiovascular risk are misplaced, according to a review published in this month’s Mayo Clinic Proceedings. The therapy has come under widespread scrutiny in recent months, including by a federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) panel convened last fall.

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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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Leaks are not just problems for plumbers and politicians; researchers reveal how leaky transmembrane channels could cause disruptions in normal heart function. The study suggests that ion leaks in mutant sodium channels might contribute to an unusual set of cardiac arrhythmias.

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Researchers have shown that neonatal mouse hearts have varying regenerative capacities depending upon the severity of injury. Approaches to extend this regenerative capacity in a mammalian model, from the neonatal period to the juvenile or adult period, could help identify new treatment options for humans.

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Prolonged use of a left ventricular assist device (LVAD) by patients with heart failure may induce regeneration of heart muscle by preventing oxidative damage to a cell-regulator mechanism, UTSW study finds.

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An animal study led by Johns Hopkins investigators has uncovered what controls the ability of healthy hearts to speed up in response to circumstances ranging from fear to a jog around the block.

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Substantial improvements were seen in control of hypertension and cholesterol, and smoking cessation, according to a study in the January 13 issue of JAMA.

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Robert Cerfolio, M.D., chief of Thoracic Surgery, to launch program at Sidney Lanier to introduce students to the broad field of medicine.

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A Roman philosopher was the first to note the relationship between a sound mind and a sound body. Now the findings of a new Johns Hopkins study reveal a possible biochemical explanation behind this ancient observation.

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Transcatheter aortic valve replacement, or TAVR, has been called one of the biggest advances in cardiac surgery in recent years. The procedure delivers a new, collapsible aortic valve through a catheter to the valve site within the heart - a repair that otherwise requires open heart surgery. While a boon for many patients who would not have been a candidate for conventional surgery, Penn Medicine researchers have discovered that marketing for TAVR does not accurately portray the risks associated with undergoing the procedure. Their analysis is available in the January 12 issue of JAMA Internal Medicine.

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Wearable technology allows 24-year-old with a total artificial heart to wait at home for a heart transplant. It's the latest milestone in efforts to replace the failing heart.

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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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Was Beethoven's music influenced by a cardiac arrhythmia?

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A simple technique may be most effective in preventing heart disease after radiation therapy for breast cancer.

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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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A team of biomedical engineers at Washington University in St. Louis has discovered that for one important channel in the heart, the membrane voltage not only causes the channel to open, but also determines the properties of the electrical signals.

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It’s a sound that saves. A “real-time” radiation monitor that alerts by beeping in response to radiation exposure during cardiac-catheterization procedures significantly reduces the amount of exposure that medical workers receive, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers found.

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Researchers from NYU Langone Medical Center have developed the first animal model with inherited cardiac arrhythmia -- an advance that could lead to better understanding of the biological mechanisms of normal heart conduction and rhythm.

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A faster, coordinated emergency response in collaboration with hospital cardiac catheterization laboratories in each U.S. region, including New York City, is associated with improving patient survival from a heart attack caused by a sudden, completely blocked artery called an ST-elevated myocardial infarction (STEMI), according to a study presented at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2014.

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More than 2,000 experts in the field of cardiovascular medicine will attend the annual American College of Cardiology 47th New York Cardiovascular Symposium December 12-14 at the New York Hilton-Midtown, which will highlight “The Next Big Things” in cardiovascular medicine.

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Patients suffering from the world's most common heart rhythm disorder can have their long-term outcomes significantly improved with an aggressive management of their underlying cardiac risk factors, according to University of Adelaide researchers.

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Recent findings have punctured some long-held beliefs about hypertension, its triggers and effects, and the best ways to treat it.

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NIH-funded study demonstrates thyroid hormone replacement therapy reduced atrial fibrillation in rats. The study follows previously published research from NYIT scientists on connections between thyroid hormones and cardiac health.

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Researchers at the Cardiovascular Institute of New Jersey at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School have found evidence that Hurricane Sandy, commonly referred to as a superstorm, had a significant effect on cardiovascular events, including myocardial infarction (heart attack) and stroke, in the high-impact areas of New Jersey two weeks following the 2012 storm.

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Promoting healthy gut microbiota, the bacteria that live in the intestine, can help treat or prevent metabolic syndrome, a combination of risk factors that increases a person’s risk for heart disease, diabetes and stroke, according to researchers at Georgia State University and Cornell University. Their findings are published in the journal Gastroenterology.

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Using an ultrasensitive blood test to detect the presence of a protein that heralds heart muscle injury, researchers from Johns Hopkins and elsewhere have found that obese people without overt heart disease experience silent cardiac damage that fuels their risk for heart failure down the road.

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Delivering stem cell factor directly into damaged heart muscle after a heart attack may help repair and regenerate injured tissue.

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Researchers from CHOP presented findings on pediatric heart disease: 3-D prototype printing of heart anatomy, the use of AEDs in infants, long-term cardiac risk in Fontan survivors, and whether cardiac cath volumes correlate with better outcomes.

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Women who take a common type of medication to control their blood pressure are not at increased risk of developing breast cancer due to the drug, according to new study by researchers at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute in Murray, Utah.

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Women who take a common type of medication to control their blood pressure are not at increased risk of developing breast cancer due to the drug, according to new study by researchers at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute in Murray, Utah.

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University of Michigan research presented at American Heart Association meeting

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A national effort to shave minutes off emergency heart attack treatment time has increased the chance that each patient will survive. But yet the survival rate for all patients put together hasn’t budged. It seems like a paradox. But the paradox vanishes with more detailed analysis of exactly who has been getting this treatment.

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The investigational drug Losartan, which worked better in an animal model, was equally effective to a high dose of the beta blocker, atenolol in treating Marfan syndrome, a rare genetic disease.

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The addition of mitral valve (MV) repair (a valve of the heart) to coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), a type of open-heart surgery, did not result in significant benefit to the patient and was associated with increased risk of neurological events. Therefore, the routine addition of MV repair to CABG in patients with moderate IMR did not demonstrate a clinically meaningful advantage.

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An investigational treatment for Marfan syndrome is as effective as the standard therapy at slowing enlargement of the aorta, the large artery of the heart that delivers blood to the body, new research shows. The findings indicate a second treatment option for Marfan patients, who are at high risk of sudden death from tears in the aorta.

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In October, ProMedica Toledo Hospital performed the nation’s first patient implant in the Medtronic, Inc. PERIGON (PERIcardial SurGical AOrtic Valve ReplacemeNt) Pivotal Trial. This global, prospective clinical trial evaluates an investigational surgical aortic heart valve made from bovine pericardial (cow heart) tissue that is intended to replace a diseased, damaged or malfunctioning native or prosthetic aortic valve.

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An important new study of men who have undergone testosterone replacement therapy has found that taking supplemental testosterone does not increase their risk of experiencing a major adverse cardiac event, such as a heart attack or stroke.

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Groundbreaking research from UT Southwestern Medical Center shows that cholesterol efflux capacity (cholesterol efflux) appears to be a superior indicator of cardiovascular risk and a better target for therapeutic treatments than standard measurements of

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Researchers at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute have found that injections of cardiac stem cells might help reverse heart damage caused by Duchenne muscular dystrophy, potentially resulting in a longer life expectancy for patients with the chronic muscle-wasting disease.

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Results of a new study challenge the current consensus in cardiology that peak myocardial edema, or heart muscle swelling, only occurs just after a myocardial infarction, or heart attack.

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The layer of fat that surrounds the heart may be a better predictor of atrial fibrillation than body mass index, the most common measure of obesity, a study has found.