heart disease
The widely reported health benefits of drinking a moderate amount of alcohol do not extend to African-Americans, according to a new study. These findings follow a widely reported Jan. 9 New England Journal of Medicine article saying that moderate daily or near-daily alcohol consumption could decrease a man's risk of heart disease. The researchers in the new study, published in the January issue of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, suggest that the difference in protective benefits of alcohol for black men could also be a result of not how much people drink but how they do it.
Older persons are significantly underrepresented in clinical trials even though this population represents the majority of those who receive drugs and treatments for medical conditions, according to a recently released issue brief by the International Longevity Center ? USA. "People aged 65 and over are woefully underrepresented or even excluded from clinical trails, which evaluate the safety and efficacy of drugs and treatments." Dr. Robert N. Butler, president and CEO of the ILC-USA and co-author notes in the preface. "This can result in adverse reactions, inappropriate dosages or treatments, and the misperception that older people cannot tolerate or benefit from new drugs and procedures."
A UCLA research team has discovered that a popular health supplement and antioxidant vitamins may help prevent atherosclerosis, or blockage of the blood vessels. The findings are reported in the Jan. 13 online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "Our findings suggest that people who take dietary supplements of L-arginine, an amino acid, and antioxidants, such as vitamins C and E, might be at a lower risk for atherosclerosis and heart disease," said Dr. Louis J. Ignarro, a 1998 Nobel laureate in medicine and UCLA professor of molecular and medical pharmacology. "This is significant because cardiovascular disease is still the No. 1 cause of death in the United States."
A young MIT professor's basic research on complex sugars has led to a cascade of potential medical applications that could, for example, significantly improve outcomes for patients undergoing major operations such as heart bypass surgery and impact a multi-billion dollar drug industry. In the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences for the week of January 13, a team led by the professor, Ram Sasisekharan, reports the creation of designer drugs for preventing the blood clots that can cause strokes and heart disease during surgery. The resulting drugs have major advantages over the conventional form they are based on, which has an annual market of $2-3 billion. Further, an additional drug based on Sasisekharan's work is presently in Phase III clinical trials for heart bypass patients.
Anti-inflammatory drugs used to treat arthritis may also benefit people with heart disease by improving blood vessel flexibility and reducing inflammation, according to a small study in today's rapid track report from Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. "Increasing evidence indicates that atherosclerosis is an inflammatory disease," says senior author Frank Ruschitzka, M.D., of the department of cardiology at University Hospital in Z?rich, Switzerland. "Thus, anti-inflammatory agents used to treat arthritis, such as COX-2 inhibitors, may not only reduce inflammation in the joints, but could possibly have that same anti-inflammatory benefit in the vessel wall. This study is the first to show that relationship."
A team of California researchers has imaged the blood flow inside the heart of a growing embryonic zebrafish. The results demonstrate for the first time that the very action of high-velocity blood flowing over cardiac tissue is an important factor in the proper development of the heart--a result that could have profound implications for future surgical techniques and even for genetic engineering.
Past studies have shown that various medications including beta blockers and aspirin can help manage heart disease. Yet a new study from Stanford University Medical Center indicates physicians continue to underprescribe these key treatments. The study appears in the Jan. 1 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. It focuses on the outpatient use of the drug warfarin for atrial fibrillation (or irregular heartbeat), beta blockers and aspirin for coronary artery disease, and ACE inhibitors for congestive heart failure - all medications that have been shown to benefit patients in past clinical trials and population studies.
A beer a day may help keep heart attacks away, according to a group of Israeli researchers. In preliminary clinical studies of a group of men with coronary artery disease, the researchers showed that drinking one beer (12 ounces) a day for a month produced changes in blood chemistry that are associated with a reduced risk of heart attack.
Their study adds to growing evidence that moderate alcohol consumption may reduce the risk of heart disease, the number one killer in the United States.
Two people eat the same egg, cheese and ham muffin for breakfast, yet one absorbs significantly more cholesterol into his or her blood than the other. Why? The answer, and all of its implications for combating heart disease, remains stubbornly hidden within our DNA. In recent genetic studies with lab mice, however, researchers at The Rockefeller University have begun to close in on the culprit genes. "By determining the genetic basis behind the observation that some people absorb 25 percent of cholesterol from their diet, while others absorb up to 75 percent, we hope to develop new treatments to protect this latter group," says senior co-author Jan. L. Breslow, M.D., head of The Rockefeller University's Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism and former national president of the American Heart Association.
The same antioxidant compounds in dark grape juice that are noted for their health benefits in fighting heart disease may have a downside, according to new research in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. In cell studies, scientists with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Cornell University found that polyphenols in purple (also called red) grape juice can inhibit the uptake of iron, which could increase the risk of iron-deficiency anemia.
Loneliness, lack of emotional support and lack of companionship or social support can leave elderly men and women vulnerable to heart problems. Dara Sorkin of the University of California, Irvine, and colleagues found that for every unit increase in loneliness as measured among older adults in their study, there was a threefold increase in the odds of being diagnosed with a heart condition.
A new implantable device has been found to reduce the risk of death from congestive heart failure by 40 percent, triggering the early halt of a national trial of the device. "This trial was the largest one in history to test an implanted pacemaker or defibrillator, and it represents a landmark study for the treatment of congestive heart failure," says Mitchell N. Faddis, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. "I think this is one of the most important therapies developed in the last decade for treatment of severe heart disease."
While type 1 Neurofibromatosis (NF1) is primarily known to cause tumors of the nervous system, scientists were puzzled as to why patients with NF1 are also prone to cardiovascular problems such as hypertension and congenital heart disease. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have solved this particular part of the puzzle by showing how the Nf1 gene - which is mutated in those suffering from Neurofibromatosis - is also essential in endothelial cells, the cells that make up blood vessels.
Being inactive is more life-threatening than being overweight or obese, results of one of the first studies to consider body weight and physical activity simultaneously and assess their independent effects on mortality has found. For the determinedly sedentary, that's the bad news. The good news is that participants didn't need to be marathon runners to decrease their mortality risk.
Heart disease is the most frequent, costly and severe complication of diabetes, affecting more than 70 percent of diabetic patients. There are geographic and ethnic differences in the risk of diabetic heart disease that cannot be fully explained by differences in conventional heart disease risk factors. Using a simple blood test, researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have identified a gene that determines which diabetes patients are at greater risk for developing heart disease. Unlike other recent breakthroughs, such as the test for C-reactive protein, the test for this gene needs to be administered only once in a patient's lifetime.
