Heart Disease News and Research

Latest Heart Disease News and Research

CWRU receives NHLBI grant to study sleep apnea as possible cause of AF

Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine has received a $3.8 million grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) to study sleep apnea as a possible cause of atrial fibrillation (AF), the most commonly diagnosed type of arrhythmia, or irregular heart rhythm.

22 Nov 2011

Merck agrees to pay $950 million in Vioxx safety probe

Merck & Co. will pay $950 million and one of its units will plead guilty to a criminal charge to resolve a U.S. probe of its illegal marketing of the painkiller Vioxx.

22 Nov 2011

Post-surgery death risk high among thinner people: Study

A new study has found that thinner people are at a higher risk of dying within 30 days of an operation than heavier people. The cause behind this trend is not clear.

22 Nov 2011

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease does not appear to affect survival

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a common condition associated with obesity and heart disease long thought to undermine health and longevity. But a new study by Johns Hopkins researchers suggests the condition does not affect survival.

22 Nov 2011

Tips to reduce calorie intake during holiday season

This holiday season, most families will have the traditional turkey, cranberry sauce and a pumpkin pie, without which it wouldn't qualify as a holiday meal. The one thing that usually falls off the list of must-haves is sensibility, says one University of Alabama at Birmingham expert.

22 Nov 2011

U-M ranks sixth among all medical schools in NIH funding

Research at the University of Michigan Medical School brought hundreds of millions of dollars into the state of Michigan in the last year - and could have a total economic impact of nearly $1.2 billion, new data show.

22 Nov 2011

WSU receives NHLBI grant to develop new CF treatments

A Wayne State University research team led by Fei Sun, Ph.D., assistant professor of physiology in the School of Medicine, recently received a grant with an anticipated amount of nearly $1.9 million from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health to better understand how this defective protein in cystic fibrosis patients is prematurely digested.

22 Nov 2011

Decanoic acid can modulate glucose control

A Van Andel Research Institute (VARI) study published recently in the Journal of Biological Chemistry reveals that a natural fatty acid can serve as a regulator of blood sugar levels, which may have important applications in designing better and safer drugs for diabetes treatment.

22 Nov 2011

MedImmune, U-M to work toward new biologic options for cancer and other diseases

Leaders from the University of Michigan Medical School and MedImmune, the global biologics arm of AstraZeneca, have signed a new agreement to work together on a broad range of projects.

22 Nov 2011

MIT, Pfizer announce new location for CVMED and Neuroscience research units

Pfizer Inc. and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) today held the official groundbreaking of the new location of Pfizer's Cardiovascular, Metabolic and Endocrine Diseases (CVMED) and Neuroscience research units at 610 Main Street, Cambridge, MA.

22 Nov 2011

Infarct size associated with time of day onset of ischemia

The size of a heart attack and subsequent left-ventricular function are significantly different based on the time of day onset of ischemia, according to a first of its kind study in humans, published online Nov. 17 in Circulation Research.

22 Nov 2011

CUMC presents 2011 Naomi Berrie Award to UMDNJ researcher

Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) presented the 2011 Naomi Berrie Award to Barry E. Levin, MD, a University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey researcher whose work focuses on the mechanisms by which specialized metabolic-sensing neurons regulate glucose and energy homeostasis. Junior investigator Kazuhisa Watanabe, at Columbia University Medical Center, received a Berrie Fellow award.

22 Nov 2011

CRF to sponsor Women's Heart Health Summit

The Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF) will sponsor the Women's Heart Health Summit: "In Pursuit of Excellence: Improving Cardiovascular Outcomes in Women." The goal of the meeting is to examine current prevention, treatment, and key research issues to collectively identify opportunities and recommendations that will lead to improved cardiovascular outcomes in women.

22 Nov 2011

CardioComm demonstrates HeartCheck ECG monitor at Medica 2011

At the world's largest medical trade fair, Medica 2011 held in Düsseldorf last week, CardioComm Solutions, Inc. demonstrated their newly developed remote patient ECG monitoring service, called HeartCheck Smart Monitoring

22 Nov 2011

South Asian patients with CAD more likely to need repeat PCI procedures

South Asian patients with coronary artery disease were almost three times as likely to be readmitted to hospital for further interventional treatment to arterial plaque than their White European counterparts, according to research in the December issue of IJCP, the International Journal of Clinical Practice. They were also more likely to present as an emergency and require urgent treatment.

22 Nov 2011

FDA allows marketing of Aptus EndoStapling System to treat AAA

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today allowed marketing of the first system that can repair a failed or problematic aortic endograft, a fabric tube used to repair a dangerously large aortic aneurysm, a bulge in the large blood vessel that carries blood away from the heart.

22 Nov 2011

Hypertension on the rise in Canada

Hypertension in Canada is increasing, and it is projected that more than one-quarter of Canadian adults will be diagnosed with hypertension by 2012/13, according to a study in CMAJ.

22 Nov 2011

Scientists discover second faulty gene linked to ALS

Following a major Northwestern Medicine breakthrough that identified a common converging point for all forms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS and Lou Gehrig's disease), a new finding from the same scientists further broadens the understanding of why cells in the brain and spinal cord degenerate in the fatal disease.

21 Nov 2011

FDA clears Aptus EndoStapling System to treat AAA

Aptus Endosystems, Inc., a medical device company developing advanced technology for endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR), announced today that it received 510(k) clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the Aptus EndoStapling System, which will now be known as the HeliFX™ Aortic Securement System.

21 Nov 2011