Heart Disease News and Research

Latest Heart Disease News and Research

Surviving pneumonia may only provide a short-term lease on a future healthy life

Researchers have shown that the subsequent 2 to 3 years after discharge from the hospital following treatment for pneumonia may provide only a short-term lease on a future healthy life if the patient has certain significant and independent predictors of mortality.

20 Apr 2004

Cardiac Science receives warning from FDA

Cardiac Science, Inc., a leading manufacturer of life-saving automated public-access defibrillators (AED) and provider of comprehensive AED/CPR training services, said today that it received a Warning Letter following a routine inspection of its manufacturing facility in Minneapolis conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration

20 Apr 2004

Dieting greatly reduces risk of heart attack, stroke and diabetes

People who severely restrict their caloric intake drastically reduce their risk of developing diabetes or clogged arteries, the precursor to a heart attack or stroke. In fact, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, some risk factors were so low they were comparable to those of people decades younger.

20 Apr 2004

Can public health promotion beat disease?

Huge efforts are under way to address health problems such as SARS, HIV, diabetes and many other illnesses by developing vaccines or therapeutic drugs.

20 Apr 2004

New device gives surgeons precision and control during heart bypass surgery

CardioVations, a division of Ethicon, Inc., a Johnson & Johnson company, announced today the latest advancement to its line of heart stabilization systems.

20 Apr 2004

Hospitals Reclassified Under Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) today announced that 121 hospitals in 25 states will begin receiving higher payments for patients who are discharged on or after April 1, 2004. The increases are due to the geographic reclassification of these hospitals under a special one-time-only provision in the recent Medicare modernization law. The new payments will be retroactive to April 1.

20 Apr 2004

Link between iron regulation and the immune system

Patients with chronic inflammatory disorders, including infections, inflammatory bowel disease, arthritis and cancer, commonly become anemic. The anemia can make them sicker, is sometimes severe enough to require a blood transfusion, and responds only partially to current treatments.

20 Apr 2004

Test results from 1970s linked to rates of erectile problems 25 years later

Age, obesity, high cholesterol, and high triglyceride measurements in midlife predict not only heart disease risks, but also the likelihood of erectile dysfunction decades later, according to a new study in the April 21, 2004 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

20 Apr 2004

Study is first to see such changes in women without high blood pressure or other diseases

Young obese women who are otherwise healthy have hearts that exhibit changes in structure and function similar to those of hypertensive patients, which may help explain links between obesity and heart failure risk, according to a new study in the April 21, 2004 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

20 Apr 2004

Metabolic syndrome may make arteries thicker and stiffer

A cluster of cardiovascular disease risk factors, known as the metabolic syndrome, may “age” arteries, according to a new study in the April 21, 2004 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

20 Apr 2004

Functional genomics provide improved drug discovery

Functional genomics and proteomics have been quite successful in identifying functions of potential therapeutic targets such as encoded proteins.

20 Apr 2004

Obesity common factor for poor health among men

Obesity among men appears to be a common factor responsible for much of the burden of poor health, according to a leading edge study undertaken by the University of Adelaide's Department of Medicine.

19 Apr 2004

Strict dieting can dramatically reduce the risk of heart disease

19 Apr 2004

New ways to fight type 2 diabetes

Adults with type 2 diabetes who have just one additional risk factor for heart disease should be taking medication to lower cholesterol levels, according to new guidelines from the American College of Physicians (ACP).

19 Apr 2004

Poultry litter harbors agents that generate antibiotic multi-resistance

They found that poultry litter – a ubiquitous part of large broiler operations – harbors a vastly larger number of microbial agents that collect and express resistance genes than was previously known.

19 Apr 2004

Black women with high blood pressure during pregnancy have higher homocysteine levels

Black women with pregnancy-induced high blood pressure have more homocysteine (an amino acid linked with atherosclerosis) and less folic acid in their blood than white women.

19 Apr 2004

Repeated pregnancies may increase cardiovascular disease

The study was designed to measure the blood pressure responses to phenylephrine and to acute stress in conscious age-matched repeatedly breed (RB) and virgin rats.

19 Apr 2004

Wine, beer and tea have contributed to a significant decrease in breast cancer

Numerous studies have been published showing that consuming alcohol increases the risk for breast cancer. That’s what makes a new research finding from Portugal so intriguing. The study has determined that certain compounds found in wine, beer (and tea) have contributed to a significant decrease in breast cancer cell proliferation.

19 Apr 2004

Researchers find drug that may suppress genetic mutation using a novel screening approach

Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital have developed a way of identifying promising new drugs that may get around a major challenge in drug discovery.

18 Apr 2004

New method that will revolutionize the search for genes

Medical researchers know that most common human diseases, such as hypertension and diabetes, have a large genetic component. Many genes, interacting with the environment, contribute to these diseases. For researchers, a major challenge is finding all the genes involved with a particular disease.

18 Apr 2004