Heart Failure News and Research

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Heart failure (HF) is a condition in which a problem with the structure or function of the heart impairs its ability to supply sufficient blood flow to meet the body's needs. It should not be confused with cardiac arrest or myocardial infarction.

"Designer" rats help show how declining estrogen after menopause can affect hypertension

Scientists at Wake Forest University School of Medicine have created a better research rat – the first to enable them to study how declining estrogen after menopause can affect hypertension, heart failure and kidney damage.

26 Sep 2005

Heart disease patients face greater risk of PTSD

Heart attack patients, and most likely those with other forms of heart disease, run an increased risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder, says a new research review done in Denmark and the Netherlands.

22 Sep 2005

Scintigraphy scan may help clinicians properly diagnose and then treat two forms of cardiac amyloidosis

"Clinically, this finding helps differential diagnosis and reduces the risk of misdiagnosis between two conditions with very different therapeutic options," said Claudio Rapezzi, M.D. from the University of Bologna and S. Orsola-Malpighi Hospital in Bologna, Italy.

21 Sep 2005

Important new lessons learned from aspirin

No other medicine is as common, inexpensive, and yet powerful in so many ways as aspirin; yet despite a century of experience with the drug, researchers are still learning important new lessons, while raising new questions, according to seven special articles in the Sept. 20, 2005, issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

20 Sep 2005

Women with atrial fibrillation face a higher risk of ischemic stroke than men

Women with atrial fibrillation who are not on anticoagulant therapy have a higher rate of ischemic stroke and face a higher absolute risk for stroke than do men with the condition, according to a joint study

19 Sep 2005

Depression may hasten the progression of heart disease

In a study of 32 people with heart failure, the 14 patients who felt the most depressed had nearly twice the levels of this protein in their blood.

7 Sep 2005

When it comes to heart disease women get worse treatment than men

According to a new study, women in Europe who visit their doctor with the symptoms of possible heart disease are not taken as seriously as men.

6 Sep 2005

Human tissue grown from stem cells, available for transplant in the next four years

A team of researchers from the University of Liverpool in the UK have embarked on an ambitious project which could see human tissue grown from stem cells, available for transplant in the next four years.

5 Sep 2005

Phase II clinical study of ularitide

The European Society of Cardiology (ESC) today highlighted results of a Phase II clinical study of ularitide, a synthetic form of a natriuretic peptide synthesized in the kidney for patients with acute decompensated congestive heart failure (ADHF).

5 Sep 2005

Metabolic Syndrome, a map of the cardiovascular damage

The metabolic syndrome (MS) is a cluster of metabolic abnormalities with abdominal obesity (increased waist circumference) at its centre. Although all forms of obesity have a negative impact on human health, metabolic syndrome describes a set of particularly adverse biochemical changes accompanying (abdominal) obesity.

5 Sep 2005

Benefits of starting CHF treatment with beta-blocker, bisoprolol

Initiating treatment with the selective beta-blocker, bisoprolol, is as effective and well tolerated as beginning treatment with an ACE inhibitor. However, starting treatment with bisoprolol may reduce the risk of death especially in the first year of treatment.

5 Sep 2005

Results of cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT)

During the last decade, cardiac resynchronization, as adjunctive therapy for patients with severe chronic heart failure has been the subject of many clinical trials.

5 Sep 2005

Telemonitoring of multiple vital parameters of patients with chronic heart disease is feasible

Chronic heart failure (CHF) is a frequent syndrome with an increasing prevalence. It is a frequent cause of impeding symptoms, has a negative prognosis and absorbs about two percent of the budgets of health-care systems in the industrialized nations.

5 Sep 2005

Chronic heart failure (CHF) is common, deadly, disabling, costly but fortunately - treatable

During the last ten to 15 years, treatment of CHF has been dramatically improved by pharmacological therapy and devices. Treatment also has become more complicated.

5 Sep 2005

Heart failure patients are "a country" in Europe, there are so many

The number of hospitalizations for heart failure is about the same as for acute myocardial infarction. Our knowledge over acute heart failure patients treated at hospitals for heart failure is based on surveys. In Europe the information is still scarce but emerging especially through the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Euroheart survey program.

5 Sep 2005

International SHAPE project reveals massive public lack of awareness on heart failure

An international survey of the public's awareness of heart failure has revealed a woeful and worrying level of ignorance, according to the lead author of the research, which is published (Wednesday 31 August) in Europe's leading cardiology journal European Heart Journal.

31 Aug 2005

When it comes to heart bypass surgery, women twice as likely to die

According to a new study when it comes to heart bypass surgery, women are nearly twice as likely as men to die from complications.

30 Aug 2005

Viagra fights heart and lung diseases

German researchers have reported on the impact of Viagra on pulmonary hypertension at the Frontiers of Vascular Medicine Conference at Monash University this week.

30 Aug 2005

Blood flow into the brain may play a larger role in the development of dementia than previously believed

Researchers from Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to examine the brains of elderly patients with and without dementia related to Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease.

30 Aug 2005

Inexpensive method to assess the stability and quality of sleep

Using information hidden in the beat-to-beat changes of the heart's electrical signals, researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) have developed an inexpensive method to assess the stability and quality of sleep, which could be used to help understand the mechanisms of sleep control and diagnose sleep disorders, as well as to test the efficacy of sleep aids and other medications.

29 Aug 2005