A new study in which researchers are using MRI to spot bleeding in the heart after stent surgery is giving new hope to heart attack patients.
When the artery feeding blood to the heart is blocked a heart attack occurs. The blockage not only stops the flow of blood to the heart muscle, it also stops the hearts oxygen.
In most cases when a blockage is found a metal stent is placed in the artery.
Until recently researchers were unable to tell if the patients were bleeding into the heart after the stent surgery.
In the new study, researchers used (magnetic resonance imaging) …read more

And yet another link to Alzheimer’s disease from another chronic disease process… It seems that anti-hypertensives have proven to benefit in the prevention and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. Such implications could aid in the ultimate cure and care of this dreadful mind altering disease. Just what anti-hypertensives made the list?
…significantly benefit from the treatment with the anti-hypertensive agent Valsartan, found to pharmacologically prevent beta-amyloid production in the brain even when delivered to Alzheimer’s disease mice at doses 3-4 fold lower than the minimal equivalent dose prescribed for the treatment of hypertension in humans. Other anti-hypertension drugs with beneficial results included …read more

A little late but better then never! Last week was National CPR and Automatic External Defibrillator Awareness Week.
With that being said, are you prepared to administer CPR at home if need be?
According to the American Heart Association 80% of all out-of-hospital cardiac arrests happen at home so being trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation can mean the difference between life and death for a loved one.    
This is very important as it is pool and water season among the Northern hemisphere.  It is important to stay current with CPR as well- as it changes every so often based on research and …read more

New CT technology is offering a quicker and more cost effective way to manage chest pain complaints in the ER. CAT (Computed tomography angiography) aids in identifying patients at low-risk of cardiac problems like the blocked arteries that lead to heart attacks. The center for Medicare and Medicaid services have yet to decide on whether to pay for the service in the ER.
What are the benefits of CAT?
Costs for patients who received immediate CTA in the emergency department averaged about $1,240, while costs of stress testing and telemetry monitoring topped $4,000 for each patient. CTA also helped get low-risk chest …read more

More and more children with congenital heart disease are receiving implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) to maintain proper heart rhythm. ICDs were first introduced for adults in the 1980s, but little is known about how well they work in children, who account for less than 1 percent of recipients. A report in the April 29 Journal of the American College of Cardiology summarizes the largest pediatric experience to date. It finds the devices to be life-saving, but also suggests that they tend to deliver more inappropriate shocks to children than to adults, making it important to watch children with ICDs closely.
Bottom line …read more

We know that erectile dysfunction is a manifestation of cardiovascular disease and can predict events such as heart attacks and stroke. Well, researchers decided to take a peek at post menopausal women and the correlation of heart disease and sexual dissatisfaction.
“Our study of sexually active postmenopausal women found dissatisfaction with sexual activity was not predictive of incident cardiovascular disease which may be due to physiological differences in sexual functioning between men and women, or to difficulty measuring sexual dysfunction in women,” added McCall-Hosenfeld.
This is a good thing I suppose. At least the women will feel safe in knowing that …read more

“Engineering blood vessels for bypass surgery, promoting the formation of new blood vessels or regenerating new skin tissue using stem cells obtained from the most accessible source — hair follicles — is a real possibility,” said Stelios T. Andreadis, Ph.D., co-author of the paper in Cardiovascular Research and associate professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering in the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
Researchers in the past have shown that there are stem cells in hair follicles but the newest study shows that the hair contains the smooth muscle that can regrow vasculature. Better yet, the engineered …read more

Can you eat just one chip? (By the way my hubby says he can but he is lying!) Can you drink just one? That seems to be the more important question when it comes to beneficial alcohol and heart disease.
The first glass of red wine or a stiff drink does slightly benefit the heart and vessels but the positive effects end there.
After one drink of either red wine or alcohol, blood vessels were more “relaxed” or dilated, which reduced the amount of work the heart had to do. But, after two drinks, the heart rate, amount of blood pumped out …read more

There are so many new studies each and every day and at times it seems that the second totally discredits the first. So that is why I am posing this question to you…
{democracy:13}

Is the accumulation of work stress associated with higher risks of incident CHD and risk factors?
Is this association stronger among working-age populations?
Does work stress affect CHD directly through neuroendocrine mechanisms, or indirectly through behavioral risk factors for CHD, or both?

A few questions for you above. And I know you know the answers! Yes, yes and yes!!! We all know that stress increases ones risk for heart disease and work is no different. What is interesting about the research is that they concluded that stress at work leads to CAD through direct activation of ones neuroendocrine stress pathway.
via European Society …read more