Researchers have discovered a key protein that controls how stem cells “choose” to become either skeletal muscle cells that move limbs, or smooth muscle cells that support blood vessels, according to a study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
People who experience chronic job strain after a first heart attack double their risk of suffering from a second one, reports a research team from Université Laval’s Faculty of Medicine in the October 10 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Almost immediately after it is donated, human blood begins to lose a key gas that opens up blood vessels to facilitate the transfer of oxygen from red blood cells to oxygen-starved tissues.
Although medication can help extend the lives of men with chronic heart failure, several factors associated with this disease can interfere with a person’s ability to engage in and enjoy sexual activities. Fatigue, depression, medication side effects and the fear of damaging the heart can cause people with chronic heart failure to lose interest in sex or wonder whether this activity is safe for them.
Much controversy has developed over the past year about the safety and potential complications of drug-eluting heart stents, increasing the risk of possible fatal blood clots, even years after an angioplasty procedure.
German researchers have found that heart disease of the left main coronary artery is often an inherited condition that clusters in families. Moreover, they discovered that initially healthy siblings of a person with the condition were 2.5 times more likely to go on to develop some form of heart disease than were siblings of a patient with heart disease that did not relate to the left main coronary artery.
Coronary artery disease may take a different course in men and women, which may explain why the rate of death for women has declined more slowly than for men, according to the October issue of Mayo Clinic Health Letter.
Among Medicare patients, men are about 2-3 times more likely than women to receive an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator for the prevention of sudden cardiac death, according to a study in the October 3 issue of JAMA.
Older women who experience at least one full-blown panic attack may have an increased risk of having a heart attack or stroke and an increased risk of death in the next five years, according to a report in the October issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Bristol researchers have identified a heart protection mechanism in mice that surgeons and cardiologists may be able to exploit to improve treatments for patients in future.