Heart Disease News and Research

Latest Heart Disease News and Research

Geographic data on health inequities

Life expectancy in the United States shows some remarkable variations - from place to place, and between races.

12 Sep 2006

GRK2 protein -a potential biomarket for heart failure

A team of cardiology researchers at Thomas Jefferson University has determined that GRK2, a protein that plays an important regulatory role in heart failure, is elevated in patients with failing hearts when compared to patients with normal heart function.

12 Sep 2006

Inhaled corticosteroids reduce COPD mortality risk

Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) who use inhaled corticosteroids may have a significantly decreased mortality risk, according to a new study published in the September issue of CHEST, the peer-reviewed journal of the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP).

12 Sep 2006

TV advertising of prescription drugs may increase visits to doctor not actual sales

TV advertising of prescription drugs may be prompting more people to visit their doctors rather than substantially increasing sales of advertised drugs, according to research led by the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC).

12 Sep 2006

Drug ads and their influence on patients and doctors

Television ads for prescription drugs are everywhere, enticing people to ask their doctors for this drug or that one, but the effect this type of ad has on American healthcare may be more complicated than simply inducing patients to choose one brand or the other, according to a team of researchers.

12 Sep 2006

New wireless internet technologies could reduce physician visits for patients with chronic diseases

The New York Times on Saturday examined new technologies that will allow tens of millions of U.S. residents with chronic diseases such as heart failure, diabetes and mental illnesses to have their conditions "constantly monitored, remotely and virtually, as they go about their daily lives."

11 Sep 2006

Western nations have not adequately addressed Africa's HIV/AIDS epidemic because of 'subterranean racism'

Western nations have not taken sufficient action to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa because of "some kind of subterranean racism," U.N. Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa Stephen Lewis said in Ottawa on Wednesday, the Ottawa Citizen reports.

11 Sep 2006

Brain scans show unconscious woman played tennis in her head

Neuroscientists at Britain's Cambridge University say functional magnetic resonance imaging or fMRI brain scans appear to show that a woman in a vegetative state seemed to play tennis in her head despite the fact that she had been unconscious for five months after a motor vehicle accident.

11 Sep 2006

New device may reduce complications during heart surgery

Recycling of fat-contaminated blood from the wound during heart surgery, is suspected to contribute to enhance the risk of post-surgical brain damage.

11 Sep 2006

Drug can quickly mobilize angiogenic cells to repair injury

To speed healing at sites of injury - such as heart muscle after a heart attack or brain tissue after a stroke - doctors would like to be able to hasten the formation of new blood vessels.

7 Sep 2006

Ageism is endemic in health services

In England, decades of health service underfunding have provided an environment in which ageism has flourished, writes Professor John Young in an editorial.

7 Sep 2006

NIH launches "Knockout Mouse Project"

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) today awarded a set of cooperative agreements, totaling up to $52 million over five years, to launch the Knockout Mouse Project.

7 Sep 2006

Diabetes risk down three times with newer hypertension drugs

According to researchers patients given a mix of modern blood pressure drugs are one-third less likely to develop diabetes than those on older pills.

7 Sep 2006

Blindness added to the risk list of obesity

A report from the Royal National Institute of the Blind (RNIB) in the UK, says obese adults and children have twice the risk of losing their sight from a range of degenerative eye conditions.

7 Sep 2006

Closing in on lethal arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia in young athletes

Johns Hopkins experts on the genetics of a potentially lethal heart rhythm defect that runs in families and targets young athletes report they have greatly narrowed the hunt for the specific genetic mutations that contribute to the problem.

7 Sep 2006

UIC receives $20 million NCI grant to research blood disorders

A $19.6 million National Cancer Institute grant has been awarded to the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine to advance basic and clinical research for incurable blood disorders.

6 Sep 2006

Tenecteplase study halted

World Congress of Cardiology 2006 - Thrombolytic Therapy, given during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in out-ofhospital cardiac arrests, may be no better than placebo.

6 Sep 2006

Ultrasound targets angioplasty

World Congress of Cardiology 2006 - A simple technique - combining cardiac ultrasound with a heart muscle-stimulating drug - can identify the MI patients who would benefit most from angioplasty after thrombolysis, reports a study in Hot Line session II.

6 Sep 2006

First drug-eluting stent approved in Europe for most severe form of arterial disease in the leg

Cordis Endovascular, a division of Cordis Corporation, announced today that the Cypher Select Sirolimus-eluting stent received CE (Communite European) Mark in Europe for use in the treatment of severe claudication and critical limb ischemia (CLI) of infrapopliteal lesions, which is the most severe form of arterial disease in the leg.

6 Sep 2006