Heart
UK docs urged to fight heart disease aggressively
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Britain’s generalist doctors (GPs) on Wednesday were given tougher targets to help prevent the nation’s biggest killer—heart disease—including prescribing more drugs for at-risk groups as well as some seemingly healthy people.
Issuing new guidelines, the Joint British Societies - a group of six medical bodies, said: “For all high risk people a number of drugs from different classes will reduce the risk of recurrent disease and increase life expectancy.”
Cocaine’s heart-damaging effects likely immediate
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California researchers have found no link between cocaine use and hardening of the arteries in a study of more than 3,000 adults. The findings suggest that the drug’s heart-damaging effects likely occur immediately after use, and do not result from any long-term effects, Dr. Mark Pletcher of the University of California at San Francisco, the study’s lead author, told Reuters Health.
Cocaine use is known to boost heart rate and blood pressure, and has been firmly linked to heart attacks and sudden death, Pletcher and his colleagues write in the American Heart Journal.
Short-term use of painkiller drugs does not increase the risk of heart attack
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Short-term use of painkiller drugs in the same family as ibuprofen does not increase the risk of having a heart attack.
The results of a large study, published in the open access journal BMC Medicine, confirm that taking traditional non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) in the recommended dose for less than a year does not increase the risk of having a heart attack. When taken regularly for more than one year, however, some traditional NSAIDs can slightly increase the risk of non-fatal heart attack. This does not apply to ibuprofen or naproxen, two of the most widely-used NSAIDs.
Heparin Antibodies May Pose Risk in Heart Surgery Patients
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New research suggests that patients who develop antibodies to the anti-clotting drug heparin nearly double their risk of death or serious complication after heart surgery.
“Complications after heart surgery are typically attributed to the surgery alone,” said Thomas Slaughter, M.D., co-principal investigator on the project and a professor of anesthesiology at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. “Our study examined whether development of heparin antibodies before surgery poses an independent risk.”
Blunt trauma raises heart attack risk
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New research supports the idea that that blunt trauma can lead to a heart attack.
“A direct trauma to the heart, namely blunt cardiac injury, created the greatest risk for heart attack, while abdominal or pelvic trauma seems to be important in persons 46 years or older,” said Dr. Rovshan M. Ismailov from the University of Pittsburgh, Philadelphia.
Large-scale international study confirms value of blood test to diagnose heart failure
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A large-scale international study has demonstrated the usefulness of a blood test to confirm or exclude the diagnosis of acute heart failure in emergency room patients and shows that the test also can identify patients at a higher risk for death.
The report from investigators in the U.S., the Netherlands, Spain and New Zealand also clarifies the importance of age-specific levels of a protein called NT-proBNP that definitively diagnose heart failure. The report will appear in the European Heart Journal and is receiving early online release.
Osteoporosis linked to heart disease
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People with the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis are at increased risk for having coronary artery disease (CAD), in which plaque build-up starves the heart of its blood supply, investigators in Michigan report. In fact, osteoporosis is a stronger factor than some traditional risk markers for CAD.
“A previous study showed that women with osteoporosis have more strokes and cardiovascular events, such as congestive heart failure and chest pain,” said lead author Dr. Pamela A. Marcovitz. “Also, a radiologist had published a study showing they have higher coronary calcium scores, implying that they have more coronary disease as well.”
Two Anticoagulant Therapies for Treating Acute Coronary Syndromes
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High-risk patients with acute coronary syndromes (ACS) treated with an early revascularization strategy and enoxaparin or unfractionated heparin at the time of hospitalization for ACS had similar outcomes at one year, including remaining at substantial risk for adverse cardiovascular events, according to a study in the November 23/30 issue of JAMA.
Patients with non–ST-segment elevation (NSTE - a certain pattern on an electrocardiogram) acute coronary syndromes (ACS) comprise a spectrum of risk for adverse cardiac events, according to background information in the article. In the Superior Yield of the New Strategy of Enoxaparin, Revascularization, and Glycoprotein IIb/IIIa Inhibitors (SYNERGY) trial, patients at high risk for recurrent ischemic cardiac events were randomly assigned to receive the anticoagulants low-molecular-weight heparin (enoxaparin) or unfractionated heparin.
Heart patients, do you tell your doctor you’re using alternative medicines?
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Doctors, do you ask your patients if they’re using alternative medicines?
According to the Medical Dictionary Online, alternative therapies are practices which are not currently considered an integral part of conventional medical practice and are used instead of conventional treatment.
Exercise capacity is a powerful predictor of death in patients with coronary artery disease
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Exercise capacity, as measured in terms of VO2max, is a powerful predictor of death in patients with coronary artery disease, not just patients with heart failure. That is the finding of a Mayo Clinic study presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2005 in Dallas.
VO2max is the maximum amount of oxygen a person can take in during exercise. In a VO2max study, a patient walks on a treadmill for about 5 to 15 minutes and breathes through a valve; the oxygen and carbon dioxide in the expired air are measured. Results are given in milliliters of oxygen per kilogram of body weight per minute (ml/kg/min).
Exposure to High Levels of Noise Increases Blood Pressure
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A new study by University of Michigan researchers suggests working in loud places can raise blood pressure levels.
Sally Lusk, professor emerita of the University of Michigan School of Nursing who has studied noise’s effects on hearing loss for years, said her latest project gives one more reason for concern.
Thyroid Dysfunction Linked to Heart Failure in New Research Study
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A new study in rats is giving researchers hope that more aggressive treatment of hypothyroidism and borderline hypothyroidism will result in a reduction of heart disease in human beings. Because roughly 10 percent of the U.S. population suffers from hypothyroidism or borderline hypothyroidism, the insufficient production of thyroid hormones, the team’s discovery could potentially lead to improvement in patients with heart disease.
While further research is needed, results from a recent study entitled, “Low Thyroid Function Leads to Cardiac Atrophy with Chamber Dilation, Impaired Myocardial Blood Flow, Loss of Arterioles, and Severe Systolic Dysfunction,” suggest that low thyroid function has the potential to cause heart failure. The study was conducted by the Cardiovascular Research Institute-South Dakota Health Research Foundation, Sioux Valley Health System and The University of South Dakota School of Medicine.
Carvedilol may improve heart failure and help prevent sudden death
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Research shows that Carvedilol, a cardiovascular drug, could be useful in reducing cardiac death in high risk patients with prior myocardial infarction and/or heart failure and also in reducing the incidence and/or preventing the occurrence of atrial fibrillation in a number of clinical situations.
A review of this research is published in the journal Pacing and Clinical Electrophysiology.
Six gene variants predict heart muscle damage after cardiac surgery
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Duke University Medical Center researchers have found that patients with six specific variants of genes involved in the body’s immune response are significantly more likely to suffer damage of heart tissue after cardiac surgery.
These findings are important because current analytical methods cannot reliably predict who will be likely to suffer from myocardial infarction (MI), or heart tissue death after cardiac surgery. It is estimated that between 7 and 15 percent of patients undergoing coronary bypass surgery will suffer from a subsequent MI, the researchers said.
Actos lowers heart attack recurrence in diabetics
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The diabetes drug pioglitazone (Actos; Takeda) significantly reduces the risk of heart attack in type 2 diabetics who have already had a heart attack, according to the results of a new study presented here Wednesday.
At the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2005, Dr. Erland Erdmann of the University of Koln, Germany, announced the findings of the PROactive study of the effects of pioglitazone on recurrent heart attack. The study involved 2,445 type 2 diabetics who had experienced a heart attack at least 6 months prior to enrollment.
