Heart Disease News and Research

Latest Heart Disease News and Research

Asians and Pacific Islanders have the highest levels of iron in their blood

UAB and international scientists studying iron-overload disorders have made the unexpected discovery that Asians and Pacific Islanders have the highest levels of iron in their blood of all racial/ethnic groups who were screened.

27 Apr 2005

Update for WIC food program

In an effort to encourage mothers and their children to adopt a healthier lifestyle a new report from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies plans some changes to its WIC (Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children), which was launched in 1974 as a nutrition program for low-income women, infants, and children.

27 Apr 2005

Risk scores identify young people with hardened arteries

Armed with more knowledge about what cardiovascular disease looks like in people ages 15 to 34, co-authors from the University of Texas Health Science Center, the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research and institutions in Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania and Louisiana will report...

27 Apr 2005

Scientists add an important piece to the intricate puzzle of type-1 diabetes

For some time, scientists have known that a regenerative or repair process -- involving the development of specialized structures called tubular complexes -- is switched on during physical and chemical trauma to the pancreas (the gland that manufactures and secretes crucial insulin in the body).

27 Apr 2005

Antibiotics do not prevent heart attacks

Clinicians and researchers have found that more than three quarters of heart attack patients have been infected with chlamydia pneumoniae - a bacteria found in arteries of heart attack patients - and multiple studies have found this can double the risk of developing subsequent heart attacks.

27 Apr 2005

Patients' lives at risk from substandard drugs say heart specialists

Global action is needed to counter the dangers of substandard life-saving drugs that are putting patients' lives and health at risk, according to heart specialists writing in the new (19 April) issue of Europe's leading cardiology journal, the European Heart Journal.

27 Apr 2005

Increased risk associated with combining carotid artery, coronary artery surgeries

Among patients undergoing evaluation for coronary artery bypass surgery, stroke neurologists are frequently consulted when the patient also has severe carotid artery stenosis (blockage of an artery that supplies blood to the brain).

27 Apr 2005

Angiogenesis : Blocking tumor growth and treating infarction - a new target

Our tissues are able to form new blood vessels throughout life. This mechanism, which is called angiogenesis, is essential notably in the case of myocardial infarction, stroke and limb ischemia. The very same mechanism, however, keeps tumors supplied with nutrients and oxygen thus enabling them to continue growing.

27 Apr 2005

Report reveals urgent need to improve physical health of people with Schizophrenia

People with schizophrenia often die prematurely. However researchers from the University of Glasgow and NHS Greater Glasgow assert that much of the excess mortality of schizophrenia is preventable through lifestyle changes and the treatment of common diseases.

27 Apr 2005

Isotopes for society

The nucleus of an atom contains protons and neutrons. However, some atoms of the same chemical element can have varying numbers of neutrons, giving so-called isotopes of that element.

27 Apr 2005

Quintuplets born to surrogate mother

In what is believed to be a world first, a surrogate mother has given birth to quintuplets.

26 Apr 2005

Search for new multiple sclerosis drug

UT Southwestern Medical Center is the lead research site testing a new treatment for a rare form of multiple sclerosis. Called "primary progressive," this type of MS affects about 15 percent of patients with the neurodegenerative disease.

26 Apr 2005

Color doppler sonography speeds detection of necrotizing enterocolitis in premature infants

Measuring blood flow to a newborn's intestines using a special form of ultrasound can help radiologists identify a life-threatening complication in a serious bowel disease, according to a study in the May issue of the journal Radiology.

26 Apr 2005

Use of positron emission tomography may eliminate more strenuous drug development trials with animals

A number of articles explore the use of positron emission tomography (PET) and small animal imaging—nonsurgical techniques that open the door to understanding and treating human diseases—in the April issue of the Society of Nuclear Medicine’s Journal of Nuclear Medicine.

26 Apr 2005

Genetic screening for iron blood disorder feasible in the workplace

Screening for a condition called haemochromatosis, where iron to builds up in the body, could help prevent organ damage and disease, suggests a study published online today by The Lancet.

26 Apr 2005

Fickle enzyme helps protect, but also can promote heart failure

Enzymes that make the gas nitric oxide (NO) not only protect the heart from damage due to high blood pressure or a heart attack, but also promote heart failure through overgrowth and enlargement of the muscle tissue, say animal researchers at Johns Hopkins.

26 Apr 2005

Despite knowledge, very few follow a healthy lifestyle

New research has shown that despite access to advice on healthy lifestyles and government campaigns to encourage people to adopt a healthier way of life, very few Americans are applying that knowledge to themselves.

25 Apr 2005

New statin study shows arrested progression of atherosclerosis

The first study to use cutting edge magnetic resonance imaging to examine the effect of a statin - rosuvastatin (Crestor) - on the fatty plaques in arteries, was presented yesterday at the 75th European Atherosclerosis Society Congress. ORION revealed that rosuvastatin has a beneficial effect on the size and composition of fatty plaques in arteries (specifically the carotid artery in the neck). Fatty plaques that are vulnerable to sudden rupture can cause heart attacks and strokes without warning.

25 Apr 2005

New drug combo helps prevent strokes

A British research team at St. George's Hospital Medical School in London, have found that the addition of the anti-clotting drug Plavix to daily doses of aspirin helps prevent the risk of later strokes better than using aspirin alone.

25 Apr 2005