Archive - Sep 2008

Individuals with Medicaid insurance and those who live in neighborhoods with lower household incomes appear less likely than others to reach the hospital within two hours of having a heart attack, according to a report in the September 22 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Patients tend to have better outcomes after an acute myocardial infarction (heart attack) if they receive medical treatment in a timely manner, according to background information in the article.

New research out of Wake Forest University School of Medicine shows that use of the most commonly prescribed once-a-day treatment for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) for longer than one month increases the risk of cardiovascular death, heart attack or stroke by more than 50 percent.

Researchers Sonal Singh, M.D., M.P.H., and Curt Furberg, M.D., Ph.D., of Wake Forest, along with Yoon K. Loke, at the University of East Anglia, UK, conducted a meta-analysis of 17 double-blind, randomized trials involving a total of 14,783 patients with COPD.

Men who believe they are at low risk of a heart attack may in fact live longer than those with a more pessimistic outlook, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that of more than 2,800 adults followed for 15 years, men who thought they were at lower-than-average risk of a heart attack were 70 percent less likely than other men to die of heart disease or stroke—even with their objective risks taken into account.

Men who believe they are at low risk of a heart attack may in fact live longer than those with a more pessimistic outlook, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that of more than 2,800 adults followed for 15 years, men who thought they were at lower-than-average risk of a heart attack were 70 percent less likely than other men to die of heart disease or stroke—even with their objective risks taken into account.

Infectious heart disease is still a major killer in spite of improvements in health care, but the way the disease develops has changed so much since its discovery that nineteenth century doctors would not recognise it, scientists heard today (Thursday 11 September 2008) at the Society for General Microbiology’s Autumn meeting being held this week at Trinity College, Dublin.

Infective endocarditis is a devastating, progressive and frequently fatal heart disease usually caused by bacterial pathogens.

Mayo Clinic investigators have demonstrated that stem cells can be used to regenerate heart tissue to treat dilated cardiomyopathy, a congenital defect.

A newly discovered chemical pathway that helps protect heart tissue can be stimulated by two of 20 common beta-blockers, drugs that are prescribed to millions of patients who have experienced heart failure.

Researchers from Duke University Medical Center tested 20 beta blockers and found that two of them—alprenolol and carvedilol—could stimulate a pathway recently found to protect heart tissue.

This finding could guide future drug development and in particular help heart failure patients, says Howard Rockman, M.D., senior author of the study and chief of the Duke Cardiology Division. 

Patient history and physical examination, traditionally the cornerstone diagnostic tool for medical care, may still be among the most accurate and cost-efficient methods to assess patients with congestive heart failure, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have found.

Such time-honored techniques have diminished in importance in recent years as doctors have come to rely on high-tech diagnostic approaches, such as imaging and measuring biomarkers.

In today’s issue of Circulation: Heart Failure, however, UT Southwestern and other researchers have found that the history and physical exa

Thousands of patients with high blood pressure could benefit from changing their drug treatment regimen to reduce their risk of cardiac death.

The current U.S. hypertension treatment guidelines recommend using a thiazide diuretic – a drug that increases the volume of urine – alone as the initial drug therapy for high blood pressure.

Researchers have identified specific damages to the brain that may occur when heart attack victims are socially isolated from others.

The study in mice found that those animals that lived alone before undergoing a heart attack showed five to eight times more damage to neurons in one part of the brain than did similar animals that lived with others.

While studies in humans have shown that socially isolated heart attack victims have a lower survival rate than others, this study may help reveal the mechanisms behind that result, said Zachary Weil, co-author of the study and former doctoral st