Feature Channels: Heart Disease

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Dr. Karla Kurrelmeyer, a female cardiologist who focuses on women with heart disease, reveals tips and advice that she shares with her patients year round.

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The risk for heart-related death is increasing in young adults ages 35 to 54, and the numbers are even more alarming for younger women. It is the number-one cause of death for both men and women in the United States, yet every year since 1984 more women have died of cardiovascular health problems than men, according to the American Heart Association.

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Treating a common heart rhythm disorder by burning heart tissue with a catheter works dramatically better than drug treatments, according to a landmark study published in the Jan. 27 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

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Use of catheter ablation, in which radiofrequency energy is emitted from a catheter to eliminate the source of an irregular heartbeat, resulted in significantly better outcomes in patients with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (intermittent cardiac rhythm disturbance) who had not responded previously to antiarrhythmic drug therapy, according to a study in the January 27 issue of JAMA.

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The same evolutionary genetic advantages that have helped increase human lifespans also make us uniquely susceptible to diseases of aging such as cancer, heart disease and dementia, reveals a study to be published in a special PNAS collection on "Evolution in Health and Medicine."

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Virginia Tech researcher Pavlos Vlachos and his students in the College of Engineering have a tall order to tackle: Stem the grim progression of heart disease. Projects include better understanding the flow of blood in and out of the heart; improving artery stents; and creating a system that can mimic the sounds of a diseased heart in order to develop sensors that can form a diagnosis.

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World-leading cardiovascular specialists, researchers, family physicians and the public will learn what’s new in cardiovascular treatment, patient care and research at the second annual Peter Munk Cardiovascular Symposium, Partnerships in Integrative Patient Care, on January 29 and 30 at the Toronto Metropolitan Hotel.

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I am 52 years old with no history of heart disease. I survived a heart attack and had six stents placed in my heart at Sinai Hospital of Baltimore. People would say, myself included, that this couldn't be true because I was active, fit and tried to set a good example for those around me.

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Chronic stress following Hurricane Katrina contributed to a three-fold increase in heart attacks in New Orleans more than two years after levee breaches flooded most of the city, according to researchers at Tulane University School of Medicine.

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Heart disease can affect almost every aspect of life- from a change in sleeping habits to the fight against diabetes to many things in between. The following is a tip sheet from the experts at LifeBridge Health in Baltimore, Maryland to start discussions about heart health.

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Coronary heart disease costs the health care system more than $475 billion annually. Cardiac rehabilitation programs, which teach heart attack and bypass patients how to make lifestyle changes including exercise and diet, yield measurable outcomes at a low cost, but lack appeal of flashy stents.

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Cardiologists at the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago are leading the Midwest in offering improved treatment options to patients, from the most advanced techniques in angioplasty, to lowering the amount of radiation exposure during heart scans, to opening an innovative clinic that treats heart disease and depression together.

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How do you change health habits among a population with some of the highest heart disease rates in the world? Tackling heart disease in Kentucky – an epicenter of heart health problems – the University of Kentucky Gill Heart Institute Cardiac Rehabilitation Program is helping high-risk patients make radical, lasting changes to improve their heart health.

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A new NEJM study from Columbia University Medical Center researchers, has found that the heart's ability to pump effectively is diminished among people with a common lung disease, even in people with no or mild symptoms. The research is the first to show a strong link between heart function and mild COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease).

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Patients with coronary heart disease who had higher omega-3 fatty acid blood levels had an associated lower rate of shortening of telomere length, a chromosome marker of biological aging, raising the possibility that these fatty acids may protect against cellular aging, according to a study in the January 20 issue of JAMA.

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A University of Michigan Medical School and Veterans Affairs Health study suggests that more lives would be saved if doctors prescribed cholesterol-lowering statin drugs according to a patient's heart attack risk, rather than trying to reach a certain cholesterol target. Current guidelines often lead to treating the wrong people, authors conclude.

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The tragic news of Chicago Bears defensive end Gaines Adams, 26, and Southern Indiana center Jeron Lewis, 21, whose sudden deaths are both suspected to be from Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM), are vital reminders that this deadly disease often goes undetected. Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM), a genetic disease which results in a thickening of the heart muscle, is the leading cause of sudden death in children and young adults. It accounts for 40 percent of all deaths on athletic playing fields across the country.

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Patients who ordered their medications by mail were more likely to take them as prescribed by their physicians than patients who obtained medications from a local pharmacy.

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Latinos are not all the same when it comes to risk of heart disease, and a new study by a Columbia University researcher shows key differences among Hispanic populations that doctors should take into account in trying to stem the risk of cardiovascular disease in this large and growing subset of the U.S. population.

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Exercise is key to preventing heart disease, but many people think they don't have time for it. For American Heart Month, two UNC Health Care experts explain why exercise matters and share creative tips for working it into tight schedules.

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The cardiovascular risk that is associated with proteinuria, or high levels of protein in the urine, a common test used by doctors as an indicator of increased risk for progressive kidney disease, heart attack and stroke, has race-dependent effects, according to a new study by researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

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It’s impossible to know, unless you’re Urban Meyer or one of his doctors, what exactly caused the two-time college football championship winner to see-saw decisions about his prestigious professional career and his family life. But the scenario is all too common among Americans of all walks of life, says Dr. Cam Patterson, chief of cardiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine.

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Including fish in a balanced diet has long been associated with the prevention of heart disease, and scientists now believe that it can help preserve heart function in patients who have experienced heart failure. A new study in the Journal of Food Science reports that moderate fish consumption can help reduce the risk of left ventricular systolic dysfunction (LVSD) in post acute coronary syndrome (ACS) patients.

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Millions of Americans take Celebrex for arthritis or other pain. Many also take a low-dose aspirin daily to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke. Yet they may be getting little protection, because Celebrex keeps the aspirin from doing its job, a new study suggests.

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Although seen as a potential heart disease therapy, raising high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol levels by inhibiting activity of a transfer protein may not be effective, a new study suggests. Scientists at Tufts University and Boston University School of Medicine found an association between low plasma cholesterol ester transfer protein (CETP) activity and increased risk of heart disease in the Framingham Heart Study population.

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Women with suspected coronary artery disease (CAD) who report taking antidepressant and anti-anxiety medications have an increased risk of cardiovascular events, including heart attacks and strokes, and death compared to women not taking these medications.

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New research shows a long-term benefit in screening people for CRP, a marker for inflammation, even if they have normal levels of bad cholesterol, because of increased long-term risk for heart attack, stroke and death.

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Sleep apnea is common in individuals who receive a kidney transplant and is associated with increased risk of high blood pressure, heart disease or stroke, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society Nephrology (CJASN). Researchers found that kidney transplant patients are just as likely to have this sleep disorder as dialyzed kidney disease patients who are on the transplant waiting list. Therefore, both types of patients who have sleep apnea should be considered at high risk for developing serious heart-related complications.

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A bronze sculpture of Michigan football coach Bo Schembechler will be unveiled Nov. 19 at the U-M Cardiovascular Center. Long after Schembechler led the U-M football team to prominence, he was working tirelessly to do the same for heart health.

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Researchers from the Center for Translational Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University have found that the overexpression of a sodium/calcium exchanger, without changes in other ion transport pathways commonly observed in heart failure, does not by itself lead to contraction abnormalities in the heart. They presented the data from the study at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions in Orlando, Fla.

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A new study finds that atherosclerosis, hardening of the arteries, was common in ancient Egyptians, challenging a belief that vascular disease is a modern affliction caused by current-day risk factors such as stress and sedentary lifestyles.

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New findings from the Oregon Sudden Unexpected Death Study show women don’t exhibit signs that would make them eligible for current treatments to prevent fatal cardiac arrest.

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Results of first-ever study to be presented at annual meeting of the American Heart Association in Orlando, Nov. 16.

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A large new study confirms that people with severe mental disorders are 25 percent to 40 percent more prone to die from heart disease than people without mental illness are.

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Higher levels of phosphorus in the blood are linked to increased calcification of the coronary arteries— a key marker of heart disease risk, according to a study in an upcoming issue of Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN). "This may help to explain why even early-stage chronic kidney disease (CKD) is associated with increased cardiovascular risk that is not otherwise explained by traditional risk factors," comments Katherine R. Tuttle, MD (Providence Medical Research Center, Spokane, WA).

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A new study indicates dentists can play a potentially life-saving role in health care by identifying patients at risk of fatal heart attacks and referring them to physicians for further evaluation.

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Bone strength and heart health are two of the most important health issues for women. One out of every two women will have an osteoporosis-related fracture in her lifetime and more than 50 million women have blood cholesterol levels high enough to pose a risk for heart disease. Now there is a new product available to help address both of these issues at the same time.

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Searching for a needle in a haystack may seem futile, but it's worth it if the needle is a hard-to-detect protein that may identify a person at high risk of a heart attack. NIST researchers have taken the first steps toward standardizing the measurement of a blood protein whose presence in higher-than-normal levels may predict an elevated risk for cardiovascular disease.

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Cardiologists at the University of Illinois Medical Center are using a new heart pump that can be inserted without the need for surgery and allows them to treat high-risk patients with a procedure to unblock their heart arteries.

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Charcoal may provide a new approach to managing the high rate of heart disease in patients with advanced kidney disease, according to preliminary research being presented at the American Society of Nephrology's 42nd Annual Meeting and Scientific Exposition in San Diego, CA.

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Two medications commonly used to treat high blood pressure appear to be effective in treating a common type of heart disease known as stable ischemic heart disease.

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Heart attacks appear to have become more common in middle-aged women over the past two decades, but all women and especially those younger than 55 have recently experienced a greater increase than men in their chances of survival following such a heart event, according to two reports in the October 26 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

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The Medical College of Wisconsin has been awarded a five-year, $8 million, multi-investigator Program Project Grant (PPG) from the National Institutes of Health to understand how human pluripotent stem cells, defined as cells which if left to their own designs can develop into any of the more than 200 cell types in the human body, can be channeled to exclusively become heart muscle cells.

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Contrary to the findings of some studies, new research indicates that augmenting antidepressant therapy with an omega-3 fatty acid supplement does not result in improvement in levels of depression in patients with coronary heart disease, according to a study in the October 21 issue of JAMA.

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A study conducted at St. Michael’s Hospital, Toronto, the University of Toronto, and Imperial College London, Toronto, shows that a link between a breast cancer gene mutation and heart disease could be a key in the creation of new heart disease treatments and in the treatment of patients currently undergoing treatment for cancer.

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People exposed to a H1NI strain of influenza A while in utero were significantly more likely to have cardiovascular disease later in life, reveals a new study to be published in Journal of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease on Oct. 1.

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Former professional football players with large bodies don’t appear to have the same risk factors for heart disease as their non-athletic counterparts, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have found in studying a group of National Football League (NFL) alumni.

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A simple, non-invasive test appears to be an effective screening tool for identifying patients with silent heart disease who are at risk for a heart attack or sudden death. Coronary artery calcium scans can be done without triggering excessive additional testing and costs, according to the multi-center EISNER study, led by investigators at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute.

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Cardiac experts at Rush University Medical Center are studying a new, minimally invasive procedure to treat leaky heart valves. Instead of open heart surgery, patients will undergo a less complex catheter-based procedure to treat mitral regurgitation, a serious heart disorder where blood leaks backwards toward the lungs with each heart beat.

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Compounds related to Viagra, which is already in clinical trials to prevent heart failure, may also counter the disease in a different way, according to a study published online today in the journal Circulation Research. The results hold promise for the design of a new drug class and for its potential use in combination with Viagra or beta blockers.