Feature Channels: Cardiovascular Health

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While patients who are discharged from the hospital after treatment for heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, or peripheral artery disease, should be on statin medications to reduce their risk of reoccurrence, very few of them remain on the drugs long-term — and many never even receive a statin prescription, according to a new study.

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In experiments with mice that have a rodent form of Marfan syndrome, Johns Hopkins researchers report that even modestly increasing stress on the animals’ hearts — at levels well-tolerated in normal mice — can initiate heart failure. The findings, described August 4 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation Insight, revealed a novel cellular pathway in heart tissue that leads to heart failure and may serve as a model for a new standard of treatment for children with this aggressive form of Marfan syndrome.

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Extreme ups and downs in systolic blood pressure may be just as deadly as having consistently high blood pressure, according to a new study from the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute in Salt Lake City.

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In a large population study that was the first of its kind, researchers found that a simple tool not requiring laboratory tests, the Fuster-BEWAT score, is as effective as the American Heart Association-recommended ICHS (Ideal Cardiovascular Health Index), which includes blood analysis of cholesterol and glucose.

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Researchers have found a link between dysregulated tryptophan metabolism and abdominal aortic aneurysm, a life-threatening vascular disease, according to a new study led by Georgia State University.

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A novel computational method allows researchers to parse how multiple organs contribute to a disease over time, giving a more holistic view of disease and potentially revealing new avenues for intervention.

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Heart failure patients discharged from the hospital with a reduced level of a common hormone produced by the heart had significantly lower rates of readmission and lower death rates.

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If you have a heart attack or stroke, it’s important to get your “bad” cholesterol measured by your doctor on a follow up visit. Researchers have found that one step is significantly associated with a reduced risk of suffering another serious cardiovascular episode.

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Patients with a prior history of heart attacks or stroke have better outcomes when cholesterol-lowering medications are used after they’re discharged from the hospital, according to a new study from the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute in Salt Lake City.

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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.

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Results from the prospective, multicenter, randomized investigator-initiated REDUCE trial were reported today at the 29th annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium. Sponsored by the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF), TCT is the world’s premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine.

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The first trial to evaluate the safety of dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) for less than 12 months in ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) found six months of DAPT was non-inferior to 12 months of DAPT among patients treated with second-generation drug-eluting stents (DES).

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Elderly patients undergoing PCI often receive bare-metal stents (BMS) instead of drug-eluting stents (DES) to shorten the duration of dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) and reduce bleeding risk. However, results from the SENIOR trial found that compared with BMS, shorter DAPT combined with the Synergy bioabsorbable polymer DES leads to less adverse events without increasing bleeding risk.

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Hunters with risk factors for heart disease might worry more about having a heart attack while enjoying their sport than being hit by a stray bullet.

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A new study finds that the Harpoon Mitral Valve Repair System, an image-guided device based on technology developed at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, is safe and effective.

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Could short-term exposure to the average American diet increase one’s risk for developing diabetes and cardiovascular disease? According to a recent study funded by the American Heart Association (AHA), researchers from New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine (NYITCOM) provide compelling evidence to support this hypothesis.

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Thirty-day results from ABSORB IV, the largest randomized everolimus-eluting bioresorbable vascular scaffold (BVS) trial to date, found BVS to be noninferior to a cobalt-chromium everolimus-eluting stent (CoCr-EES) for target lesion failure (TLF).

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Analysis of the PARTNER 2A trial and the SAPIEN-3 Intermediate Risk registry found transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) to be highly cost-effective compared with surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR) in intermediate surgical risk patients with aortic stenosis.

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Sbarro Health Research Organization President Antonio Giordano introduces program at National Italian American Foundation 42nd Anniversary Gala Weekend In Washington D.C.

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A large-scale randomized trial examining the double kissing (DK) crush two-stent technique compared with provisional stenting (PS) in the treatment of true distal bifurcation lesions of the left main artery, found that the DK crush technique was associated with a lower rate of target lesion failure at one year.

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Results from the prospective, randomized, multicenter CULPRIT-SHOCK trial found that an initial strategy of culprit lesion only percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) reduces the composite of 30-day mortality and/or severe renal failure in patients with multivessel disease and cardiogenic shock complicating acute myocardial infarction.

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New study results from the EXCEL trial comparing the quality of life (QoL) of patients with left main coronary artery disease (LMCAD) receiving percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) versus coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) found significant and similar QoL improvement at three years, although a greater benefit was observed with PCI at one month.

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Congenital heart valve defects are the most common type of birth defect, the majority of which have no clear genetic cause, suggesting that epigenetic factors play an important role. Now, researchers have found that the shear force of blood flow against the cells lining the early heart valve sends signals for heart “cushion” cells to become fully formed valves.

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With the advancement of surgical and radiation therapy strategies for stage 1 non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), more patients are being treated, resulting in higher survival rates.

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UNC researchers use their new research platform to discover new cell subpopulations and crucial cellular players in the process of turning damaged heart tissue back into healthy heart muscle. The research platform could be used to study other biological processes and create tailored therapies.

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The MyGeneRank app allows individuals with genetic data from 23andMe to obtain an estimated genetic risk score for coronary artery disease.

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A new study from UT Southwestern suggests that more people with Duchenne muscular dystrophy could live longer by identifying and more aggressively treating patients with certain risk factors.

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Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is associated with significantly higher risk of subsequent cardiovascular events in women, but not in men, according to research presented this week at The Liver Meeting® — held by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases.