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) to examine bleeding inside the hearts of 15 individuals who had recently suffered a heart attack. (They could spot areas of bleeding due to the magnetic effects of iron, which is present in the blood.)

Thanks to the study our health care providers will have more insight as to the damage caused by heart attacks, and the best treatments for individual patients.

Lead study author Declan O’Regan, of Imperial College’s MRC Clinical Sciences Center.

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MRI Gives New Hope

…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 Propranolol HCI, Carvedilol, Losartan, Nicardipine HCI, Amiloride HCI and Hydralazine HCI.

At this stage in the game this research is highly experimental but could help in the recent push into Alzheimer’s awareness and research. If you have an interest in Alzheimer’s disease please go see Mary Emma at our own Alzheimers Notes. To read more about this research..

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Anti hypertensives help in Alzheimer’s disease

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 clinical trials and practices. The number of chest compressions has increased as of late. Are you prepared?

via KTEN.com

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Are you prepared to administer CPR?

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 pain patients home faster, potentially reducing emergency room crowding — study patients who received immediate CTA were discharged after an average of 8 hours, compared to more than 24 hours for those who received stress tests or were admitted for telemetry monitoring.

I think that this will soon be a readily available and popular procedure among chest pain management areas in your local ER’s.

via Science Daily 

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New CT technology will aid in chest pain management among ER’s

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 is we need to carefully monitor children with devices and have more frequent equipment checks. Though an inappropriate shock would be uncomfortable, like a kick in the chest, the benefits out way the risks. ICD’s fire more often inappropriately in children due to the large fluctuations in heart rate compared with adults.

I think that this is a very important subgroup to examine, don’t you?

via Science Daily

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Benefits of ICD’s in children studied at length

“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 their displeasure with sex will not lead to a heart attack. But they will also have to get to the root of their issue, which is sometimes very frustrating.

via SD 

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decreased sexual satisfaction in women is not clearly associated with cardiovascular disease

“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 blood vessels prepared with smooth muscle progenitor cells from the hair follicles were capable of dilating and constricting which is essential for re-generated cardiac tissue.

Oh I get so excited at this type of research.

via University at Buffalo

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Stem cells from hair follicles could produce new blood vessels

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 of the heart, and action of the sympathetic nervous system all increased. At the same time, the ability of the blood vessels to expand in response to an increase in blood flow diminished. This counteracted the beneficial effect of one drink of red wine or alcohol.

This has been studied for years and in many different avenues and they have come to the above conclusions several times. Reasons seem to point toward the fact that the second drink stresses your body and activates the fight or flight mechanism. Makes sense…

via University Health Network

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One Drink Is Okay, Two Drinks Are Harmful

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Treatment Plan And Plavix

1. Is the accumulation of work stress associated with higher risks of incident CHD and risk factors?
2. Is this association stronger among working-age populations?
3. 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 of Cardiology

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Is Your Heart Stressed At Work?