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Showing posts from September, 2017

Stopping drug abuse can reverse associated coronary heart harm

Quitting methamphetamine use can reverse the harm the drug causes to the center and enhance coronary heart perform in abusers when mixed with applicable medical remedy, doubtlessly stopping future drug-related circumstances of coronary heart failure or different worse outcomes, in response to a examine revealed at the moment in  JACC: Coronary heart Failure . "The work offered at the moment emphasizes the truth that the rising drug epidemic can have long run cardiovascular penalties along with the identified quick time period tragic occasions ," stated Editor-in-Chief of  JACC: Coronary heart Failure  Christopher O'Connor, MD, FACC. Methamphetamines are one of the incessantly used medication worldwide, and former research have proven that heart-related points are generally a think about loss of life from methamphetamine use. Whereas medical therapies can be found for these coronary heart situations, there's little details about if coronary heart harm will...

Some coronary heart assault sufferers might not profit from beta blockers

New analysis challenges established medical observe that every one coronary heart assault sufferers ought to be on beta blockers. The examine -- by a analysis staff on the College of Leeds -- checked out sufferers who had a coronary heart assault however didn't endure coronary heart failure -- a complication of a coronary heart assault the place the center muscle is broken and ceases to operate correctly. It discovered that coronary heart assault sufferers who didn't have coronary heart failure didn't dwell any longer after being given beta blockers -- but round 95% of sufferers who fall into this class find yourself on the treatment. Beta blockers are a robust group of medicines which lower the exercise of the center and decrease blood strain. They're generally prescribed after a coronary heart assault, however they will have undesirable side-effects for some sufferers corresponding to dizziness and tiredness. Not all individuals who have their first cor...

Childhood weight problems causes lasting injury to the physique

Weight problems in childhood has long run well being implications stretching into maturity, a brand new examine within the journal  Weight problems Critiques  reveals. Inspecting knowledge collected from over 300,000 individuals throughout 18 research, researchers from the College of Surrey recognized elevated arterial injury and enhanced probability of pre diabetes in individuals who have been overweight in childhood. The injury , an elevated thickness of those very important arteries, heightens the probability of a person affected by a cardiovascular ailment, resembling coronary heart illness, in later life. Physique mass index (BMI), waist circumference and pores and skin fold thickness measurements of over 300,000 youngsters (common age of 10) have been assessed and in contrast with outcomes gathered from the identical individuals on common 25 years later. Researchers found that overweight youngsters have been pre disposed to 'pre-diabetes' (an lack of abilit...

Stem cells yield nature's blueprint for body's vasculature

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Shut-up View depicting tubular construction shaped by cells intently related to mural cells, cells that underpin human vasculature. A group from the College of Wisconsin Faculty of Medication and public Well being and the Wisconsin Nationwide Primate Analysis Heart have coaxed stem cells to turn out to be the cells that make up human veins, arteries and capillaries. Credit score: Akhilesh Kumar, Wisconsin Nationwide Primate Analysis Heart Within the common grownup human, there are an estimated 100,000 miles of capillaries, veins and arteries -- the plumbing that carries life-sustaining blood to each a part of the physique, together with important organs similar to the guts and the mind. When issues go mistaken with vasculature , the end result generally is a coronary heart assault, stroke or different life-threatening or persistent situation. An estimated eight.5 million folks in america alone have diseased arteries, and ailments of the blood vessels kill extra f...

Wearing a 'heart' on your sleeve can reduce stress

Researchers from the Department of Psychology at Royal Holloway, University of London assessed the calming effects of a new wearable device called doppel -- a wristband designed to actively reduce stress by using the intuitive responses that we all have to rhythm, and especially to heartbeats. Inate rhythm Humans naturally respond to rhythm. For example, the tempo of a song can naturally alter our breathing and heart rates. Slower tempos result in lower arousal and positive or calm emotional states, while we associate fast rhythms with arousing emotional states such as joy, excitement, surprise, fear or anger. Beyond music, several studies report similar effects in responses to biological rhythms, and the heartbeat is perhaps the most ubiquitous biological rhythm in nature. "High arousal is correlated with increased heart rate, whereas calmness is physiologically correlated with lower heart rate," said Professor Manos Tsakiris from the Department of Psychology. ...

Small molecule prevents blood clots without increasing bleeding risk

The new research out of University Hospitals (UH) Cleveland Medical Center, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and the Cleveland Clinic reveals a previously unknown cell receptor interaction that, when manipulated with therapeutic molecules, safely prevents blood clots. Approximately 100,000 Americans die annually from blood clots, or thrombosis , according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "We have found a new thrombosis target that does not increase bleeding risk," said senior author Daniel I. Simon, MD, President, UH Cleveland Medical Center, Herman K. Hellerstein Chair of Cardiovascular Research, and Professor of Medicine at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine. "Our discovery indicates that you can identify a new pathway and target that mediates blood clotting, but does not affect our body's natural processes to stop bleeding, called hemostasis." The new pathway centers around a pair of protein receptors that help ...

Heart rate linked to gender gap in criminal offending

Olivia Choy, who graduated this month with a Ph.D. from Penn's Department of Criminology in the School of Arts & Sciences and is joining Nanyang Technological University as an assistant professor in July, conducted the research in Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor Adrian Raine's lab. The study, "Explaining the Gender Gap in Crime: The Role of Heart Rate," complements traditional theoretical accounts of the gender gap and has implications for the advancement of integrative criminological theory in public health and law enforcement. Researchers examined data from a longitudinal study that measured the heart rate of participants at age 11 and found that heart rate partly explains gender differences in both violent and nonviolent crime assessed at age 23. Prior studies have shown that people with low resting heart rates seek stimulation to raise their level of arousal to a more optimal one. This stimulation-seeking theory converges with a fearlessness theory...

All heart patients have some liver disease after fontan surgery

The Fontan operation is a series of three staged reconstructive surgeries in children born with single-ventricle disease, a life-threatening condition characterized by a severely underdeveloped ventricle, one of the heart's two pumping chambers. The palliative surgeries re-route blood to the lungs, but result in an abnormal physiology that puts many organ systems at risk. One such organ is the liver, in which fibrosis develops in response to elevated pressure within the veins. Over time this can lead to liver cirrhosis, a condition of significant liver impairment. "We have known for some time that liver fibrosis is a complication of Fontan surgery, but this was an important study that demonstrated that the length of time after the Fontan operation is a significant contributor to the degree of fibrosis," said study leader David J. Goldberg, MD, a pediatric cardiologist at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). Goldberg and colleagues published their study on...

Lower targets for systolic blood pressure suggested by study

he results of the latest study are published in  JAMA Cardiology. Hypertension is the leading preventable risk factor for cardiovascular disease and death. Current guidelines call for adults with hypertension to lower their systolic blood pressure to less than 140 mm Hg. Researchers from Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and Tulane School of Medicine analyzed 42 clinical trials involving more than 144,000 patients. They found significant linear associations between systolic blood pressure and risk of cardiovascular disease and mortality, with the lowest risk at a systolic blood pressure of 120 to 124 mm Hg. "These findings support more intensive systolic blood pressure control among adults with hypertension," says Jiang He, Joseph S. Copes chair and professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. "They suggest the need for revising the current clinical guidelines for man...

Imaging technique for treating heart condition should be more widely used to minimize radiation exposure

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a condition that affects as many as 6.1 million Americans and is characterized by an irregular, often rapid heart rate caused by a misfiring of electrical impulses. Physicians commonly treat the condition using a minimally invasive procedure called catheter ablation, in which doctors insert thin, flexible wires into veins, snaking them up into the heart. Once there, physicians apply radiofrequency energy or freezing temperatures to eliminate the abnormal electrical pathways, restoring the heart's regular rhythm. To guide this procedure, many cardiologists rely on an imaging technique called fluoroscopy that uses a continuous X-ray beam to visualize the heart. While effective, the technique exposes both the care team and patient to high doses of radiation. "The amount of fluoroscopy received by a patient during a routine AF ablation procedure is estimated to be the equivalent of the dose of radiation a patient would receive with 830 X-rays,...