Feature Channels: Cardiovascular Health

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Researchers regenerate and heal mouse hearts by using the molecular machinery the animals had all along.

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For years, a multidisciplinary team of Johns Hopkins researchers has tracked an elusive creature, a complex of proteins thought to be at fault in some cases of sudden cardiac death. As they report Nov. 5 in the online edition of Nature Communications, they have finally captured images of the complex. Those images reveal the connection between some genetic mutations and electrical abnormalities of the heart and provide a starting point for designing therapies.

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Sargent College of Boston University researchers look for the root cause of age-related aortic stiffness—an early sign cardiovascular disease—and uncover a potential therapeutic target for reducing or preventing its development. The article is published in AJP-Heart and Circulatory Physiology and is highlighted as part of the APSselect program.

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The heart holds its own pool of immune cells capable of helping it heal after injury, according to new research in mice at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

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Myasthenia gravis is a disorder than can be associated with abnormal function outside of skeletal muscle. Two studies presented at the annual meeting of the American Association of Neuromuscular & Electrodiagnostic Medicine (AANEM) demonstrate that there is a significant proportion of myasthenia patients with arrhythmias and co-morbid inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

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In an analysis that included approximately 35,000 participants, genetic predisposition to elevated low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) was associated with aortic valve calcium and narrowing of the aortic valve, findings that support a causal association between LDL-C and aortic valve disease, according to a study appearing in JAMA. The study is being released to coincide with its presentation at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress.

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Researchers find the nitrate in beetroot targets fast-twitch muscles, increasing the blood flow to muscles that receive less oxygen. This can increase high-intensity athletic performance and improve quality of life of heart failure patients.

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Future prevention and treatment strategies for vascular diseases may lie in the evaluation of early brain imaging tests long before heart attacks or strokes occur, according to a systematic review conducted by a team of cardiologists, neuroscientists, and psychiatrists from Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and published in the October issue of JACC Cardiovascular Imaging.

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Binge drinking in early adulthood is associated with an increased likelihood of high blood pressure in males.

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Heart attacks are not as connected to family history and genetics as may have been previously believed, according to a new study by researchers at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute in Salt Lake City.

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UCLA stem cell researcher Dr. Arjun Deb has discovered that some scar-forming cells in the heart, known as fibroblasts, have the ability to become endothelial cells (the cells that form blood vessels), and this study can point the way toward a new strategy for treating patients after a heart attack.

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Study finds the role of Tbx5 is essential in regulating development of cells in the heart.

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Researchers have known for decades that stress contributes to heart disease. But a new analysis by researchers at Duke Medicine shows mental stress may tax women’s hearts more than men’s. The research appears online Oct. 13, 2014, in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

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This new implant gives patients the opportunity to send daily updates about their heart condition to physicians.

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Heart attack survivors often experience dangerous heart rhythm disturbances during treatment designed to restore blood flow to the injured heart muscle, a common and confounding complication of an otherwise lifesaving intervention. Now a duo of Johns Hopkins researchers working with rat heart cells have shown that such post-heart attack arrhythmias are likely triggered by something akin to a power grid failure inside the injured cardiac cells.

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In a new study recently published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center concluded that overuse of cardiac stress testing with imaging has led to rising healthcare costs and unnecessary radiation exposure to patients.

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Rates of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest are elevated after days with high levels of air pollutants, reports a Japanese study in the October Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, official publication of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM).

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A new, implantable device to control heart failure is showing promising results in the first trial to determine safety and effectiveness in patients, according to lead researcher Dr. William Abraham of The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.

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The disease, which has been named "Chronic Atrial Intestinal Dysrhythmia syndrome" (CAID), is a serious condition caused by a rare genetic mutation. This finding demonstrates that heart and guts rhythmic contractions are closely linked by a single gene in the human body, as shown in a study published on October 5, 2014 in Nature Genetics.

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New research by scientists at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UM SOM) and the Ottawa Heart Institute has uncovered a new pathway by which the brain uses an unusual steroid to control blood pressure.