Common Cause of Dizziness May Spell Heart Trouble

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Blood Pressure That Falls When You Stand May Be a Clue to Coming Heart Failure

By Brenda Goodman, MA
WebMD Health News

Reviewed by Laura J. Martin, MD

March 19, 2012 -- Blood pressure that drops when a person stands up may signal a higher risk for heart failure, a new study shows.

If further research supports the study's findings, a simple test that measures blood pressure change as a person gets to their feet may one day help doctors spot heart failure early, when it is most manageable.

The study followed more than 12,000 middle-aged adults for nearly two decades.

At the start of the study, researchers measured blood pressure while people were lying down and then several times over a two-minute period after they stood.

"If the top number, the systolic number, fell by 20 or more points, or the bottom number, the diastolic blood pressure, fell by 10 or more points, then it was defined as orthostatic hypotension," says Christine D. Jones, MD, an internist and resident in preventive medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

In orthostatic hypotension, the blood pressure drops when the body is in an upright standing position, as compared to a reclining position. Sometimes the sudden dip causes a brief dizzy spell or head rush. In severe cases it may cause a person to faint.

"Sometimes people can have it and not feel a thing," Jones says.

About 600 people had the telltale blood pressure shift at the start of the study.

Researchers found that those with orthostatic hypotension were about 50% more likely than those who didn't experience the changes to go on to develop heart failure.

Some of that extra risk appeared to be explained by high blood pressure.

People with orthostatic hypotension were also more likely to have high blood pressure, which is known to contribute to heart failure.

But when researchers excluded people with high blood pressure from their analysis, those whose blood pressure dropped when they stood were still 34% more likely to develop heart failure.

In heart failure, the heart loses its ability to pump blood effectively to the rest of the body. Medications and lifestyle changes can help control the condition if it's spotted early.

The risk appeared to be highest for younger adults. Those who were younger than 55 when they were diagnosed with the positional change in blood pressure were nearly twice as likely as those with steady blood pressure to go on to develop heart failure.

Researchers caution that their study can only show associations. It doesn't prove that falling blood pressures cause heart failure or even explain how the two problems may be linked.

What's most likely, they think, is that a common disease process, like atherosclerosis, which causes arteries to become hard and stiff, may be behind both.

When arteries harden, they can't contract as easily to raise blood pressure. Stiff arteries around the heart muscle can weaken its ability to pump.

"Maybe this is an [indicator] of early atherosclerotic disease," Jones says.

The study is published in the journal Hypertension.

Experts who were not involved in the research say the findings were interesting but preliminary.

"I don't think that everybody who gets lightheaded or dizzy occasionally in their life should be concerned that they are going to get heart failure," says David Frid, MD, a cardiologist at Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.

Rather, he says people who feel dizzy frequently or nearly every time they stand might want to mention the problem to their doctors.

"Maybe if they have a lot of risk factors for [heart] disease, but haven't shown any true disease, maybe this is a sign that we need to evaluate it further and be more aggressive in managing their risk factors," Frid says.

Those risk factors might include high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, or a family history of heart disease.

SOURCES: Jones, C. Hypertension, March 19, 2012.News release, American Heart Association. Christine D. Jones, MD, internist and resident in preventive medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. David Frid, MD, staff cardiologist, Cleveland Clinic, Ohio.

©2012 WebMD, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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For Multiple Heart Blockages, Bypass Surgery or Stents?

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Study Compares Pain, Quality of Life After Drug-Coated Stents or Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery

By Brenda Goodman
WebMD Health News

Reviewed by Elizabeth Klodas, MD, FACC

March 16, 2011 -- For patients who have several blocked arteries around their heart, the gold standard treatment has long been coronary artery bypass surgery.

Now a large clinical trial suggests that drug-coated stents, springy lattice tubes used to prop open clogged arteries, may also work well in patients with multiple blockages. And in some patients, the stents produce equally good results with faster recovery times.

The caveats, experts say, are that people with daily or weekly chest pain from advanced coronary artery disease will probably experience slightly better relief from bypass surgery compared to stenting; but they can also count on waiting to get the full benefit of that procedure weeks to months longer than people who get stents.

Experts say the study, which is published in The New England Journal of Medicine, brings to light important trade-offs that people with complex coronary artery disease need to weigh before making a decision between the two procedures.

"I think the message here, therefore, is not a simple one -- that there's a clear winner -- but that patients will need to choose based on their own priorities and values," says study researcher David J. Cohen, MD, a cardiologist at St. Luke's Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Mo.

Independent experts agree.

"If you take the 50,000-mile view, it looks like these procedures got about the same results," says A. Marc Gillinov, MD, cardiac surgeon at the Sydell and Arnold Miller Family Heart & Vascular Institute at Cleveland Clinic, in Ohio. "But if you really dig down and look at the clinical circumstances going in, you'll see there are important differences. So the real value in this study is that it can help patients and doctors make informed decisions on an individual basis."

For the study, researchers at 85 medical centers around the world randomly assigned 1,800 patients with at least three clogged arteries around their hearts, or alternatively, a clogged left main coronary artery -- the vessel that carries the lion's share of blood to the heart's primary pumping chamber -- to one of two treatments: coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery or percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI).

In CABG, surgeons typically saw through the breast bone and open the rib cage, a procedure that, in and of itself, requires significant downtime for recovery. Doctors usually also need to make incisions in other parts of the body, often the legs, to harvest healthy vessels that can be used to bypass blockages.

In PCI, a catheter is threaded through an artery in the groin up to the heart, where a doctor uses a video monitor and radioactive dye to locate the blockages within arteries. The doctor then inflates a balloon to compress the buildup against the artery walls and places a stent to hold the spot open.

The stents in this trial were coated with the drug paclitaxel, which is thought to help prevent the formation of scar tissue around the site of stent implantation, a problem called restenosis.

Before any procedure was performed, an interventional cardiologist and a cardiac surgeon consulted together on each case. If there was mutual agreement that the blocked vessels might be effectively opened using either procedure, the patient was cleared to enter the study.

Before patients were assigned to one procedure or the other, doctors asked patients questions about how often and how strongly they'd been feeling angina, or chest pain, their physical limitations and general quality of life. Based upon the answers, patients were scored on a scale of 1 to 100, with higher scores indicating fewer symptoms and better health status.

Those questions were asked again one month, six months, and 12 months after their procedures.

A disease severity score was also determined at study entry for each patient. This score is dependent upon the degree and extent of blockages as demonstrated on the initial angiogram, with higher scores indicating more complex disease. For subsequent analysis purposes, the patients in the study were divided into three subgroups depending upon their disease severity scores (0 to 22, 23 to 32, and 33 to 83).

In all, 903 patients received stents, while 897 had bypass surgery. In both cases, doctors tried to open all the arteries that were at least 50% blocked.

In the first phase of the study, which was published in 2009, researchers looked primarily at the risk of having a major event, like a heart attack, stroke, or having to reopen an artery that had clogged a second time. After one year, there were about 5% fewer total events in the bypass group compared to the stent group, 12.4% compared to 17.8% respectively.

More patients needed to have clogged arteries reopened in the PCI group than in the CABG group, 13.9% vs. 5.9%, respectively.

After one year, the rate of heart attack or death was similar between the two groups, while stroke was more likely to occur in the bypass group (2.2%) compared to the stent group (0.6%).

When researchers looked at angina and quality of life in study participants, overall, both groups fared well. In fact, slightly more than half of people in both groups reported substantial improvement in angina as early as one month after their procedures.

But when investigators looked at those measures across various time points, and in people with more and less severe disease, differences emerged.

As was expected, people who got stents generally felt better faster, compared to the group that had bypass surgery, probably because there was less healing time required after the less invasive procedure.

But by six and 12 months after their procedures, both groups reported nearly equal improvements in physical functioning, pain, vitality, and social and mental health.

And after six months, researchers say people that went into the study with daily or weekly chest pain experienced greater relief after CABG than did those who got PCI.

"Angina relief at six months and a year was better with bypass surgery, though the difference was small," says Cohen. "But there were clear differences in the early quality of life on a wide range of dimensions that clearly favored PCI, but those benefits were transient," he says.

The study was sponsored by Boston Scientific, which produces paclitaxel-coated stents.

SOURCES: Cohen, D. The New England Journal of Medicine, March 17, 2011.Serruys, P. The New England Journal of Medicine, March 5, 2009.Lee, T. New England Journal of Medicine, Feb. 19, 2009.David J. Cohen, MD, St. Luke's Mid America Heart Institute, Kansas City, Mo.Marc Gillinov, MD, Sydell and Arnold Miller Family Heart & Vascular Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Ohio.

©2011 WebMD, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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More bad results for heart attack link adrenalin treatment

Clickbank Products More bad results for heart attack link adrenalin treatment



By Randy Dotinga
Per-minute reporter

Tuesday, March 20, 2009 (per-minute news)-epinephrine-adrenal-treating heart failure patients in the long term a decades-old practice may do more harm than good, according to a new analysis of hundreds of thousands of cases.

Japan researchers given epinephrine treatment compared to those who did not get a heart attack patients survive more likely a month. But investigation so they won't be thrown off by a variety of factors statistically adjusted their persona when epinephrine has been nearly a month the patient actually survive.

And among those who give epinephrine survived, had only one-quarter of them in good shape after one month, the study authors in neuroscience.

On the other hand, patients who received a United States Medical Association Journal of medicine on March 21, according to a report released in the hospital before restoring their pulses were more likely to have.

Dr. Clifton Callaway, wrote an editorial Executive, accompanied by the journal of emergency medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, said Deputy Chairman of the drug discovery questions for daily use.

"Why do we need to identify those patients who are not doing well," Callaway said. "It's going to get us back in a heartbeat, but it looks like we might have to pay the price."

Heart failure occurs when the heart fails to beat properly. It's not a heart attack, such as a heart attack, though a heart attack can lead to.

Doctors and paramedics are often used in conjunction with epinephrine-electrical cardioversion in patients with heart failure cardiac shock heart-normal rhythm.

In the heart of the drug was given once, even if more than that through a long needle directly, Callaway said. The new research was used as intravenous treatment.

Research in 2005 and 2008, of a heart attack that occurred in Japan between adults if you saw almost 420,000. Patients treated by emergency personnel and all were taken to the hospital.

During the period of receiving epinephrine for the patient was not very common. For some time, you will not be able to contact a doctor, no emergency medical care in Japan legally.

Epinephrine was given to patients, the unadjusted result 5.4% still alive after a month, compared to 4.7% of people did not get processed. This is not a little survival, heart failure patients.

Who received epinephrine survived his only 25% were neurologically fine. Another study in patients who did not receive a significantly lower than, the researchers wrote.

"This means not only finding the heart brain epinephrine Administration can be saved," study author Dr. Akihito Hagihara, medical services, administrative lead, and Kyushu University Graduate School of medicine, Fukuoka, and colleagues wrote that policy.

Previous studies on the function of an irregular heartbeat, heart failure, epinephrine and interfere with blood circulation in the brain, noted Hagihara. "Due to the negative," he said.

You need to check out the study still Hagihara proposal because epinephrine is not the time to give up.

Research heart failure and poor survival in and sets off the nerve and cause-effect relationships while discovering did not prove.

Copyright © 2012 per minute. All rights reserved. Source: Clifton W. Callaway, MD, Executive Vice Chair, emergency medicine, University of Pittsburgh; Department, Professor, Department of health, the Hagihara Akihito, service, management and policy, school of the Faculty of medicine, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan; 3-21, 2012 United States Medical Association's journal

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Test May Spot Heart Attacks Before They Happen

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Blood Test Looks for Type of Cell That Breaks Away From Artery Walls

By Brenda Goodman, MA
WebMD Health News

Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

March 21, 2012 -- A new blood test could one day give doctors a critical head start on heart attacks, a small new study suggests.

The test looks for cells that normally line the insides of blood vessels. When those cells, called endothelial cells, start to build up in the blood, researchers say they may be an early indicator of trouble.

"When they start to leak and slough off into the blood, that's a really bad sign. They do that over the course of a few days to a couple of weeks before a heart attack occurs," says researcher Eric J. Topol, MD, a professor of genomics and director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute in La Jolla, Calif.

"As they continue to slough off, they basically create a crack [in an artery wall]. A blood clot forms to seal the crack. That's what causes a heart attack," Topol says.

In recent years, doctors have developed a new understanding of heart attacks.

They once thought that arteries clog for the same reason that drain pipes do. Gunk like cholesterol that flows through them gradually sticks to the inside walls, hardening over time and narrowing the artery opening. That's a process called stenosis, and that kind of buildup sometimes does lead to chest pain and heart attacks.

But more often, scientists believe heart attacks happen for a different reason: soft plaques.

Soft plaques are collections of liquid fats and debris that build up hidden away inside artery walls, almost like pimples.

When the layer of cells containing the plaque starts to thin, the plaque can break open. A blood clot forms in response to the plaque rupture. The clot is often what blocks the artery, causing a heart attack.

The problem with soft plaques is that they are hard to detect and may not cause any symptoms.

Indeed, 50% of men and 64% of women who die suddenly of heart attacks have had no previous symptoms of heart disease, according to the American Heart Association.

"Clearly the ability to predict plaque rupture and [heart attack] is one of the most difficult situations that we have in heart disease," says Barry Kaplan, MD, vice chairman of cardiology at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y. and Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, N.Y.

Kaplan reviewed the study for WebMD but was not involved in the research.

The new test uses tiny, protein-coated magnets to pull circulating endothelial cells (CECs), which are normally rare, out of a blood sample.

Similar technology is used in a test for cancer patients. That test identifies circulating tumor cells, which are also rare. In cancer, the test is meant to help doctors and patients determine how aggressive a tumor may be or whether it is responding to treatment.

Study researcher Mark C. Connelly, PhD, director of cellular research at Veridex, the company that makes the test, declined to speculate on how much the experimental blood test might cost if it's used for heart attacks.

Researchers gave the test to 50 patients who were having major heart attacks that could be confirmed by changes to their heart's electrical rhythms and to key levels of enzymes that are indicators of heart damage.

They also gave the test to 44 blood donors who reported being free of any chronic disease.

Heart attack patients had levels of CECs that were more than four times higher than the levels seen in healthy blood donors.

There were other important differences, too. Under a microscope, the CECs seen in heart attack patients were larger and appeared to be stuck together in clusters, whereas the CECs in healthy people were smaller and appeared more often as single cells.

The study is published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Experts who were not involved in the study say the results are intriguing, but note that much more work is needed before such a test could be used to predict heart attacks.

"This is an interesting observation, but it fails to demonstrate that finding these cellular patterns in blood during stable, asymptomatic phases of [heart] disease actually will predict the future risk of a heart attack," says Prediman K. Shah, MD, director of the division of cardiology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Shah also directs atherosclerosis research at Cedars-Sinai.

"That's a fundamental flaw of the study. Maybe that will be their next study, but that's going to be a hard study to do," says Shah, noting that such a study would require following thousands of patients at risk for heart attack, rather than testing people who've already had one.

Other experts agree that the test has potential but needs more research.

"I think the key word is potential," says Suzanne Steinbaum, MD, a preventive cardiologist who directs the division of women and heart disease at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. "We're really looking at people who've already had heart attacks. Their theory is that if we can see these cells in people before they have a heart attack, can we really diagnose those that are at risk?"

If the test checks out in future studies, Steinbaum says it could have a major impact. "I think it would change the face of how we manage heart disease, in general. It's exciting to think about."

Until researchers get more answers, Kaplan says there are important things patients can do to reduce their risk of a plaque rupture.

"Number one is not smoking. The second is to keep cholesterol levels very low, particularly in patients who we know have coronary disease," he says.

"We know from studies that keeping cholesterol very low with diet and with statins decreases the risk of plaque rupture," Kaplan says.

The study was co-authored by doctors and scientists from Scripps Health; STSI; TSRI; Veridex, LLC (a Johnson & Johnson company), the manufacturer of the test used in the study; Palomar Health; and Sharp HealthCare. Funding came from a $2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.

SOURCES: Damani, S. Science Translational Medicine, March 21, 2012. Eric J. Topol, MD, professor of genomics; director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute, La Jolla, Calif. Barry Kaplan, MD, vice chairman of cardiology North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset and Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, N.Y. Mark C. Connelly, PhD, director of cellular research and development, Veridex, Raritan, N.J. Prediman K. Shah, MD, director, Division of Cardiology, director, Atherosclerosis Research, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, Calif. Suzanne Steinbaum, MD, director, Women and Heart Disease, Lenox Hill Hospital, New York, N.Y.

©2012 WebMD, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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Too few heart maintain a healthy lifestyle

Clickbank Products Too few heart maintain a healthy lifestyle

7 recommended heart health goals with less than 2% of Americans to meet the

By Jennifer Warner
Web health news

Reviewed by Laura J. Martin, MD

2012 March 16, less than 2% of Americans, according to a new study that will dramatically reduce the risk of heart disease and heart health goals with seven recommendations.

Like all 7 heart healthy habits, according to the study, eating a healthy diet, being physically active and normal pressure recommended by the Heart Association United States to those who have actually dropped in recent years.

The researchers followed in 1994, fell by 2 percent in 1988-1.2% 2005-2010 health behavior found that the ratio of all Americans.

7 behaviors are shown below.

Not smokingBeing actually activeHaving normal blood pressure (below 120/80) healthy fasting blood sugar levels (100)-a healthy diet healthy total cholesterol below weightEating 200Maintaining

6 7 goals at the heart of those who meet the 76% of deaths related to a lower risk compared to people I met one or less, which causes of death from 51% lower risk.

A study published online in the journal of the United States Medical Association, researcher in public health nutrition research since 1988, 2010 everyone who participated in the survey, approximately 45,000 adult groups followed.

Not surprisingly, the results seemed more healthy heart goals met, lower the risk of heart disease and death to people. A high number of heart health goals, the meeting also was associated with lower risk of cancer.

Researchers are young people, women, people with higher education levels than whites, and heart-healthy goals tend to be found to fit.

However, increasing public awareness of the risk factors for heart disease, even though researchers have discovered some unhealthy trends.

For example, the number of people who are eating a healthy diet, fasting blood glucose levels increase with obesity and abnormal diffusion of and refused during the study period.

In addition, adult health care blood pressure and total cholesterol ratio remained unchanged from 1988 to 2010.

On the positive side the current rate of 28 percent in 1988-1994 to smokers in 2005-2010, 23% from 35% to 45% in the same period, an increase in physical activity levels of the ideal of the people I met and fell from a number of heart health.

But at the same time, the proportion of people who are categorized as inactive, 32% 16% at 2 x when it comes to physical activity.

Experts say the findings suggest new public health policy extends to the risk of heart disease with the help of ordinary people and more heart-healthy habits necessary to encourage them on.

"[The heart disease and stroke] and most of the same disease, the following events occur in less than average, or only mild elevations appear, along with a high level of risk factors, a large percentage of the population," Donald M. Lloyd-Jones, MD, Northwestern University Feinberg School of medicine, along with the ScM, the study of the editorial.

"Advocacy needs new public health and social policy is more for intermediate level is ideal for individuals or in the [heart] good health so it is ideal for healthy choices, tilt the playing field toward the" Lloyd-Jones says.

Source: Yang, Q. Journal United States Medical Association's published online March 16, 2012. Press releases, is a United States Medical Association.

© 2012 WebMD, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Vitamin E failed to prevent a heart attack

Clickbank Products Vitamin E failed to prevent a heart attack

Vitamin E heart attack does not affect a woman's risk of.

By Jennifer Warner
Web health news

Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

2012: March 20 – taking vitamin E supplements may not help when it comes to the prevention of heart attack for women.

New study vitamin E supplements development of heart failure does not affect a woman's risk shows that.

It is the effect of vitamin E in preventing heart attacks in the first large study.

Vitamin E protects the body from oxidative damage in cells of nutrients is known as an antioxidant to the idea of having one of the groups.

However, vitamin E and heart failure for some earlier studies of antioxidants actually can increase the risk of heart attack and other studies suggested the conflict.

Heart attacks are more than one million people in the United States with 5. It is a chronic, progressive State of mind is no longer sufficient to meet the needs of your body, and you will not be able to pump blood.

In the study, researchers followed over 45 women's health study, a group of about 10 years, the average approx. 40,000 women.

Women vitamin E 600 international units (IU) or placebo every day.

Study on the diagnosis of a heart attack during the episode 220. Results women's risk of a heart attack, had no effect on vitamin E supplements you are taking.

Researchers help or hurt the development results of vitamin E, which is in danger of a heart attack in women are not displayed.

"These results, blood pressure and car [heart] disease prevention for effective control, including reducing the risk of future [heart attack], other basic prevention measures have been proven, focuses on the importance of underlining" researcher Claudia Chae, MD, MPH, Massachusetts General Hospital, and colleagues write: heart failure of the circulation.

Source: C. circulation: heart failure, online publishing, March 20, 2012. Press release, the United States is the Heart Association.

© 2012 WebMD, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Stem-Cell Trial Failed to Treat Heart Failure

Clickbank Products Stem-Cell Trial Failed to Treat Heart Failure



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By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

SATURDAY, March 24 (HealthDay News) -- An innovative approach using patients' own bone marrow cells to treat chronic heart failure came up short in terms of effectiveness, researchers report.

Use of stem cell therapy to repair the slow, steady damage done to heart muscle and improve heart function is safe, but has not been shown to improve most measures of heart function, the study authors said.

"For the measures we paid most attention to, we saw no effect, there is no question about that," said researcher Dr. Lemuel Moye, a professor of biostatistics at the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston.

"Ultimately, this is going to pay off handsomely for individuals and for public health in general, but it's going to take years of work," Moye said. "We are the vanguard looking for new promising lines of research."

While the hoped-for results didn't materialize, there appeared to be a small improvement in some patients, he said. "When we looked at another commonly used measure of heart function called ejection fraction, or the strength of the heart's pumping, that's where all the action was," Moye noted.

It's hard to know which measures of heart function to look at, Moye explained. "We have had some difficulty with that," he said.

Future research will look at other measures of heart function, pay more attention to the characteristics of the cells that are injected and determine which cells are best, he added.

Cardiac cells and other types of specially prepared cells are available now that were not accessible when this study started in 2009, Moye pointed out.

The results of the trial, which was sponsored by the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, were to be presented Saturday at the American College of Cardiology's annual meeting in Chicago. The report was also published online March 24 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

For the study, Moye and colleagues worked with 92 patients, average age 63 and mostly male, who had heart failure with and without chest pain. They were randomly assigned to receive either an injection of 100 million bone marrow cells from their own bone marrow, or an inactive placebo. Patients in both groups also received aggressive medical therapy.

During the trial, the researchers looked for improvements in blood volume in the heart, oxygen use by the heart and blood flow through the heart.

After six months, the researchers said they saw no difference between the groups in these measures. Nor was any difference seen in the extent of heart damage, heart movement during contractions or overall condition.

Moye's team did find a slight improvement in the heart's ability to pump blood among patients 62 and younger. The improvement was small, only 3.1 percent, but patients in the placebo group declined 1.6 percent in this measure, they said.

It's possible that cells of younger people are more potent, and that's borne out by improvement in heart function seen in younger patients who did not get bone marrow cells, Moye said.

"We have demonstrated that the characteristics of the cells are correlated with heart function, so that the better the cells, the better the response -- so even in patients who did not get stem cells, those younger patients did better," he said.

Commenting on the study, Dr. Gregg Fonarow, director of the Ahmanson-University of California, Los Angeles, Cardiomyopathy Center, said there has been "tremendous interest in cell-based therapies" to treat acute and chronic heart disease and chronic heart failure.

Most studies trying delivery of different types of cells have been small and not adequately powered to demonstrate improvement in cardiac function or clinical outcomes, and results have been mixed, Fonarow said.

"While this study failed to meet any of its primary or secondary endpoints, the insights provided will be helpful in designing future trials," Fonarow added. "However, whether cell-based therapies will be of therapeutic value to patients with heart disease and heart failure remains to be seen."

Copyright © 2012 HealthDay. All rights reserved. SOURCES: Lemuel A. Moye, M.D., Ph.D., professor, biostatistics, University of Texas School of Public Health, Houston; Gregg C. Fonarow, M.D., director, Ahmanson-University of California, Los Angeles, Cardiomyopathy Center, co-director, UCLA Preventative Cardiology Program; March 24, 2012, Journal of the American Medical Association, online; presentation, American College of Cardiology, annual meeting, March 24, 2012, Chicago

StemCell,Trial,Failed,Treat,Heart,Failure

Low-Dose Daily Aspirin Enough to Help Heart Attack Patients: Study

Clickbank Products Low-Dose Daily Aspirin Enough to Help Heart Attack Patients: Study



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SATURDAY, March 24 (HealthDay News) -- Heart attack patients who take either a high or low dose of aspirin daily have the same level of protection against another heart attack or other cardiovascular events such as stroke, according to a new study.

Along with anti-clotting drugs, a daily aspirin is recommended for nearly all of the more than one million Americans who suffer a heart attack each year, but the most effective dose hasn't been determined.

Higher doses of aspirin typically come with higher bleeding risks, so determining whether a high dose is needed or not has patient safety implications.

To clarify the issue, researchers analyzed data from more than 11,000 heart attack patients around the world who were prescribed either a low daily dose (150 milligrams or less) or a high daily dose (more than 150 milligrams) of aspirin along with anti-clotting medications.

The findings were to be presented Saturday at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology in Chicago.

"We observed no difference between patients taking a high dose versus a low dose of aspirin as it relates to cardiovascular death, heart attack, stroke or stent thrombosis [clot]," lead author Dr. Payal Kohli, a cardiology fellow at Brigham and Women's Hospital, said in a hospital news release.

"Interestingly, we did find a dramatic difference in practice patterns of physicians in North America compared to those in the rest of the world," Kohli added. "North American physicians prescribed a high dose of aspirin for two-thirds of all their patients, while the exact reverse was true of the rest of the world. International physicians prescribed a low dose of aspirin to more than two-thirds of their patients."

Patients who received high doses of aspirin were more likely to have cardiac risk factors and higher cholesterol levels, while those who received low doses were more likely to be white and have no prior history of high blood pressure.

One expert said the study confirms there is "no role for high-dose aspirin" in this type of scenario. Dr. Jenifer Yu, a cardiologist and research fellow at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City, said she and her colleagues published similar findings at the American Heart Association annual meeting in 2011.

In that study, "after adjusting for baseline differences in the two groups, we found that the use of high-dose aspirin (greater than 200 milligrams) afforded no additional protection with respect to ischemic events [such as heart attack or stroke] in comparison to low-dose aspirin (less than 200 milligrams)," Yu noted. "However, patients on high-dose aspirin experienced more major bleeding," she added.

The newer study from Brigham & Women's also found that the anti-clotting drug prasugrel (brand name Effient) was more effective at preventing major cardiovascular events than the anti-clotting drug clopidogrel (brand name Plavix), regardless of whether patients took low- or high-dose aspirin.

Findings presented at medical meetings are typically considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

-- Robert Preidt Copyright © 2012 HealthDay. All rights reserved. SOURCES: Jenifer Yu, M.B.B.S., F.R.A.C.P., cardiologist and research fellow at Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York City; Brigham & Women's Hospital, news release, March 24, 2012

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Both Too Little and Too Much Sleep Bad for the Heart: Study

Clickbank Products Both Too Little and Too Much Sleep Bad for the Heart: Study



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SUNDAY, March 25 (HealthDay News) -- When it comes to what's best for their hearts, people walk a fine line between getting too much and too little sleep, a new study suggests.

Adults who get fewer than six hours or more than eight hours of sleep a night are at greater risk for a variety of heart conditions, according to research led by Dr. Rohit Arora, chairman of cardiology at the Chicago Medical School.

Sleeping too little puts people at significantly higher risk of stroke, heart attack and congestive heart failure, the researchers found. On the other hand, people who sleep too much have a higher prevalence of chest pain (angina) and coronary artery disease, a narrowing of the blood vessels that supply the heart with blood and oxygen.

The findings are scheduled for presentation Sunday at the American College of Cardiology annual meeting in Chicago.

The researchers analyzed data from more than 3,000 patients over age 45 who participated in the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, making theirs the first nationally representative sample to show the association between sleep duration and heart health.

The study showed that people who got too little sleep were twice as likely to have a stroke or heart attack and 1.6 times more likely to have congestive heart failure. People who slept more than eight hours a night were twice as likely to have angina and 1.1 times more likely to have coronary artery disease.

The findings remained significant even after the researchers accounted for heart risk factors such as age, blood cholesterol levels, smoking and obesity, as well as for sleep apnea and other sleep problems.

Previous studies have shown that insufficient sleep is linked to a hyperactive nervous system, glucose intolerance, diabetes, inflammation and a rise in stress hormones, blood pressure and resting heart rate, the researchers noted.

The reasons too much sleep can lead to heart problems are unclear, however, and further research will be needed.

For now, Arora said, health-care providers need to talk about sleep with their patients.

"Clinicians need to start asking patients about sleep, especially those who are already at greater risk of heart disease," he said. "It's really a simple thing to assess as part of a physical exam; it doesn't cost anything and it may help patients to adopt better sleep habits."

Although the new study uncovered an association between sleep issues and heart trouble, it did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

Research presented at medical meetings should be viewed as preliminary until it is published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.

-- Lisa Esposito Copyright © 2012 HealthDay. All rights reserved. SOURCE: American College of Cardiology, news release, March 25, 2012

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Bacteria From Mouth Can Lead to Heart Inflammation: Study

Clickbank Products Bacteria From Mouth Can Lead to Heart Inflammation: Study



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AppId is over the quota

MONDAY, March 26 (HealthDay News) -- A type of bacteria from the mouth can cause blood clots and lead to serious heart problems if it enters the bloodstream, a new study indicates.

The bacteria, called Streptococcus gordonii, contributes to plaque that forms on the surface of teeth. If the bacteria enters the bloodstream through bleeding gums, it can cause problems by masquerading as human proteins, the researchers found.

The study authors, from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, discovered that S. gordonii can produce a molecule on its surface that enables it to mimic the human protein fibrinogen, which is a blood-clotting factor.

This activates platelets (cells that are found in blood and involved in clotting) and causes them to clump inside blood vessels. The resulting blood clots encase the bacteria, protecting the invader from the immune system and from antibiotics used to treat infection.

Platelet clumping can result in growths on the heart valves (endocarditis) or blood vessel inflammation that can block blood supply to the heart or brain.

The findings, to be presented at a Society for General Microbiology meeting in Dublin this week, could help lead to new treatments for infective endocarditis, said study author Dr. Helen Petersen.

"In the development of infective endocarditis, a crucial step is the bacteria sticking to the heart valve and then activating platelets to form a clot," Petersen said in a society news release. "We are now looking at the mechanism behind this sequence of events in the hope that we can develop new drugs which are needed to prevent blood clots and also infective endocarditis."

The researchers stressed that it's important to keep the gums healthy and get regular dental care.

"We are also trying to determine how widespread this phenomenon is by studying other bacteria related to S. gordonii," Petersen said. "What our work clearly shows is how important it is to keep your mouth healthy through regular brushing and flossing, to keep these bacteria in check."

Because this study was presented at a medical meeting, the data and conclusions should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

-- Robert Preidt Copyright © 2012 HealthDay. All rights reserved. SOURCE: Society for General Microbiology, news release, March 25, 2012

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