Cardiovascular Disease News and Research

Latest Cardiovascular Disease News and Research

Consuming a little less salt could mean fewer deaths

For every gram of salt that Americans reduce in their diets daily, a quarter of a million fewer new heart disease cases and over 200,000 fewer deaths would occur over a decade, researchers said at the American Heart Association's 49th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention.

11 Mar 2009

Teenage stress carries forward to adulthood

Most of us remember our teenage years with a mix of fondness and relief. Fondness for the good memories, and relief that all that teenage stress, angst and drama - first love, gossip, SATs, fights with parents - is behind us.

11 Mar 2009

Simple test helps predict heart attack risk

The use of common and readily available screening tests - like the ankle brachial index (ABI) - along with traditional risk scoring systems - such as the Framingham Risk Score - has the potential to prevent devastating heart attacks in thousands of individuals who are not originally thought to be at high risk (according to Framingham alone), say researchers at the Society of Interventional Radiology's 34th Annual Scientific Meeting.

11 Mar 2009

Identifying and treating depression plus exercise in African-Americans may reduce heart disease

Identifying and treating depression, including increasing physical activity, may improve quality of life and reduce cardiovascular disease and death in African Americans, according to reports presented at the American Heart Association's 2009 Conference on Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism.

11 Mar 2009

BDNF gene shows promise as target for treating obesity

With obesity reaching epidemic levels, researchers at the Ohio State University Medical Center are studying a potentially long-term treatment that involves injecting a gene directly into one of the critical feeding and weight control centers of the brain.

10 Mar 2009

Relationship between depressive symptoms and cardiac events

New data published in the March 17, 2009, issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology suggest that relatively healthy women with severe depression are at increased risk of cardiac events, including sudden cardiac death (SCD) and fatal coronary heart disease (CHD).

10 Mar 2009

Abdominal obesity puts the squeeze on lungs

There's more bad news for people who carry excess weight around their waists: Not only is abdominal obesity associated with diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and a host of other health problems collectively known as "metabolic syndrome," a new study has found that a high waist circumference is strongly associated with decreased lung function-independent of smoking history, sex, body mass index (BMI) and other complicating factors.

8 Mar 2009

Dermatologists caution that severe cases of psoriasis can be associated with other serious medical conditions

On the surface, the thick, red, scaly, itchy plaques of psoriasis - which have been shown to have a significant negative impact on a person's overall quality of life - may not appear to pose a serious health risk for patients. However, a growing body of research suggests that psoriasis patients are at an increased risk of developing serious medical conditions, including cardiovascular disease and diabetes, particularly when their psoriasis is severe.

5 Mar 2009

Birth control shot causes significant weight gain

Women using depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA), commonly known as the birth control shot, gained an average of 11 pounds and increased their body fat by 3.4 percent over three years, according to researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB).

4 Mar 2009

Naked mole rats may hold clues to successful aging

Naked mole rats resemble pink, wrinkly, saber-toothed sausages and would never win a beauty contest, even among other rodents.

4 Mar 2009

Kidney disease increases risk of stroke in patients with atrial fibrillation

Chronic kidney disease increases the risk of stroke in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF), the most common type of heart arrhythmia, according to a new study by Kaiser Permanente researchers in the current online issue of Circulation.

4 Mar 2009

Folic acid, B vitamins in Animi-3 may prevent vision loss

A new study by researchers at Harvard Medical School has found that combining essential B vitamins, including B6, B12, and folic acid, lower risk of developing age-related macular degeneration (AMD), one of the leading causes of vision loss among older Americans.

4 Mar 2009

'Pre-diabetics' face heightened risk of heart disease

The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism , was led by Jill P. Crandall, M.D., associate professor of clinical medicine and director of the Diabetes Clinical Trials Unit at Einstein.

3 Mar 2009

Boomers exercise more than gen Y

Generation Y are exercising less and becoming overweight earlier than the Baby Boomers were at the same age, a new study by the University of Sydney has shown.

2 Mar 2009

Revealing statistics about childhood diabetes reported

The incidence rate of type 1 diabetes among non-Hispanic white youth in the United States is one of the highest in the world, according to a major national study coordinated by researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.

1 Mar 2009

Heart-healthy diets that reduce calorie intake promote long-term weight loss

Heart-healthy diets that reduce calorie intake - regardless of differing proportions of fat, protein, or carbohydrate - can help overweight and obese adults achieve and maintain weight loss, according to a study funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health, and published Feb. 26, 2009, in the New England Journal of Medicine.

26 Feb 2009

Experimental animal vaccine may protect humans from Ebola

Protection against Ebola, one of the world's deadliest viruses, can be achieved by a vaccine produced in insect cells, raising prospects for developing an effective vaccine for humans, say scientists at the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research (SFBR) in San Antonio.

26 Feb 2009

VIA Pharmaceuticals awarded new patent on lead compound VIA-2291

VIA Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has announced the issuance of United States Patent No. 7,495,024 entitled "Phenylalkyl N-Hydroxyureas for Combating Atherosclerotic Plaque", covering the use of VIA's lead compound, VIA-2291, for the treatment of atherosclerosis.

25 Feb 2009