Heart News and Research

RSS

Tobacco companies used psychological means to deliberately target women

Health researchers have revealed this week that tobacco companies specifically designed cigarettes to appeal to women's desires to be thin and healthy in ways that went "far beyond marketing and advertising".

31 May 2005

Ibuprofen use is associated with an increased risk of breast cancer

Ibuprofen use is associated with an increased risk of breast cancer, and long-term daily use of aspirin is associated with an increased risk of estrogen receptor/progesterone receptor (ER/PR)-negative breast cancer, according to a new study in the June 1 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

30 May 2005

Steroid treatment for prematurity put to the test

Babies whose mothers received steroid injections before giving birth have no higher risk of heart disease at age 30 than those whose mothers received a placebo treatment.

30 May 2005

Survey shows sexual health important component of overall well being for midlife and beyond

Sexual health is an essential element of the quality of life of adults 45+. AARP's recent study, Sexuality at Midlife and Beyond, updates an AARP survey from 1999, and confirms that relationships and sexuality remain at least as important, if not more so, than almost six years ago.

30 May 2005

Breastfeeding is as good for children's blood pressure as exercise and dietary salt restriction

Breastfeeding is as good for children's blood pressure as exercise and dietary salt restriction, according to research from Bristol University published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood. The longer the period of breastfeeding, the lower the blood pressure reading, the research found.

30 May 2005

Flavonols in food, key to healthy eating?

University of Melbourne scientists may have found the secret of the fresh fruit and vegetables centred ‘Mediterranean diet’.

29 May 2005

A sudden increase in the number of British cases of Lyme disease

Lyme disease, an infection carried by ticks causes a rash and stiffness in the joints and, if left unchecked, it can affect the central nervous system, causing tingling in hands and feet, or facial palsy. In the worst cases the disease can also affect the heart, liver and spleen and even lead to encephalitis, which can kill.

29 May 2005

Technology for analyzing gene expression must be standardized

Technology for analyzing gene expression must be standardized among laboratories and across platforms around the world to support this age of human genome exploration, an Oregon Health & Science University researcher says.

29 May 2005

Fluorescence device to diagnose atherosclerosis and tumors

In a presentation at the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO), researchers from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center's Biophotonics Research and Technology Development Laboratory described recent progress on a device that stimulates, collects and measures light emissions from body tissues to diagnose critical atherosclerotic plaques (vulnerable plaques) and aggressive brain tumors.

29 May 2005

Call for better monitoring of new devices after sudden death of college student

Thousands of people with diseased hearts who have undergone surgical implantation of a cardiac defibrillator, a mechanical device inserted under the skin that shocks a heart when it beats improperly, will be concerned after the death recently of a 21-year-old college student with a genetic heart abnormality who died of cardiac arrest while on a bicycle trip.

29 May 2005

One in five patients hospitalized for heart attack experiences a major depression

According to the Hopkins cardiologists who conducted the study, these depressed patients are 50 percent more likely than other heart attack patients to need hospital care for a heart problem again within a year and three times as likely to die from a future attack or other heart-related conditions.

26 May 2005

Disturbingly high rate of home care patients are being admitted to hospital suffering from pneumonia

A two-year study showed home-care patients suffering from Community-Acquired Pneumonia (CAP is acquired outside of hospitals) account for 25 of every 1,000 people who visited emergency rooms suffering pneumonia.

26 May 2005

Much more needs to be done to tackle heart disease in South Asians in the United Kingdom

Health inequality between ethnic groups in the United Kingdom is widening. Death rates from coronary heart disease in South Asians (immigrants from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka) have declined at a slower rate than in the indigenous population, while evidence shows that second and third generation South Asians seem to be displaying many of the same risk characteristics that make them prone to coronary heart disease as their parents and grandparents.

26 May 2005

Competition from specialty hospitals promotes high-quality patient care

Specialty hospitals provide quality care to patients by offering new choices, and this hospital competition should not be stifled, the American Medical Association (AMA) testified to a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs this week.

26 May 2005

New study shows that bypass surgery is more successful than stents in heart surgery

A study of nearly 60,000 patients has found that people with several clogged heart arteries did better if they had bypass surgery rather than a less-drastic procedure in which the blood vessels are propped open with tiny mesh cylinders called stents.

26 May 2005

'Bad' metabolism cloggs up arteries

Scientists are now saying that a 'bad' metabolism may explain why some people who have never smoked and do not have high cholesterol levels suffer from a potentially lethal build-up of plaque in the arteries.

26 May 2005

New type of inhalation chemotherapy

Pediatric cancer specialists at The Children's Hospital at Montefiore (CHAM) are investigating a new type of inhalation chemotherapy with the potential to treat children with a deadly bone cancer that has spread to their lungs.

26 May 2005

Direct link between inefficient metabolism and atherosclerosis

An experiment that turned out very differently than expected led scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis to the first direct link between inefficient metabolism and atherosclerosis.

26 May 2005

Stimulating innate immunity helps ease Crohn's disease symptoms

Like throwing oil on a fire or prescribing a high cholesterol diet for heart patients, gastroenterologists traditionally have believed that it would not be a good idea to stoke up the body's immune system to treat Crohn's disease.

26 May 2005

Increase in heart surgery mortality from SSRIs or depression?

Duke University Medical Center researchers have found that patients who were using a class of anti-depression drugs known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) prior to undergoing coronary artery bypass surgery have significantly higher death and rehospitalization rates up to five years after the procedure than patients who were not on SSRIs.

26 May 2005